The Simple Wealth

If you come here for the first time, you can start from post 1 of this series: Darling, can we talk about our past stupid financial mistakes? then post 2: Money issues underneath a seemingly peaceful marriage

As I said in my previous post, I didn’t think the current state of my marriage with money issues will stay unchanged forever, it just changed for the better recently after a heart-to-heart talk. As humans, we tend to think the current state-good, bad or stagnant- will stay as-is forever, the happily-ever-after ending of story books may be a reflection of such tendency in thinking; as someone who has practiced mindfulness for years, I have known that to be an illusion.

I was not really ready to initiate another talk with my husband about our financial disharmony yet, but I somehow did, and this time it was not a short-lived, ended-prematurely conversation that we tend to have. It went deeper and deeper, through a lot of anger and tears, at one point it seemed that it would not end well, that we would go on different paths.

The Turning Point

Yi Hui said:

“I have been trying to tell you why I was not nice to you. I have been trying to tell you that I do not want a stressful financial life. To that, you simply said that of course you want to give me a life I want. I talked about that you spent 8 thousand dollars on appliances despite my objections 3 years ago as a classic example that my voice was not heard, valued and respected. To that, you simply said that I did not remember it right, and that I only expressed my disagreement after we left the store. You do not want to talk about ‘why‘, you want to talk about that ‘I was not nice to you’.”

In that moment he saw my points and burst into a laugh, and replied in a joking way, “Yes, let’s talk about that you were not nice to me.”

About Real Estate Investment

Yi Hui said:

“You said that if we have sold our third house right away after it was renovated we could have made money. Even if we did do that then, we would have bought other houses, and we could have been stuck just the same as we are now.”

He replied:

“Yes, you are right. We could be stuck anywhere down the road.”

It is not wrong to invest in real estate. If we buy a house at a great price, at a price we can easily afford, and fix it up beautifully and cheaply with his artistic talents and handy man’s skills, and we can sell it easily in any market, or rent it out for positive cash flow, under these conditions, it’s great to invest in real estate. If we do not learn our lessons, and keep buying more houses at higher and higher prices, we can loose all we have anywhere down the road, let it be 1 house or 10 houses. I do not want to live a life full of financial stress anymore.

The ripples of my thoughts after the talk

It had been a puzzle to myself why I married him until the moment I saw his longing for my love underneath his anger exploded in the first half of the conversation. I met him at the time when I no longer desired passionate love in which my mood swung constantly from one extreme to another, part of me disappointed from my failed relationships accepted his proposal after being hesitated for some time, and yet another part of me, being a spiritual seeker who did not want love with strong attachment any more, being touched by his deep longing for my love, decided to progress to anther level of love, decided to be a lover. And yet the two parts of me did not meet each other for years.

An insight of how my play is written

I didn’t marry a man I could fall in love and stay in love with easily without much efforts. If nothing else, just how hard for me to communicate with him, you could understand why. Using ‘the appliances store‘ example, he did not listen to me three years ago, and now time passed by, instead of acknowledging that he did not respect my opinion at that time, he insisted that I did not express my objection in the store, he insisted that my memory was wrong. Could there be some truth to his point of view? Was it the way how I said it not clearly? Not yelling enough? Not fighting enough? But he can not take yelling or fighting very well, the reason our marriage has lasted 8 years, because we do not fight, fighting is not in my essence, nor is it to his liking.

He commented in the conversation that I got better at communicating with him. I have to. I had a glimpse of my play how I was meant to learn to excel on my communication skills, to marry a man with whom together we become greater lovers. We are meant to learn from our play, to become a better person, to develop a higher capacity to love.

Sour lemons and sweet lemonade

There has been some talking about lemons and lemonade in the blog sphere, lovely and touching stories have been shared:

•When life hands you lemons at Remodeling This Life

•When life gives you lemons, make lemonade at Beingfrugal.net

•Lemonade meme at Skimbaco

I had been feeling my marriage like a sour lemon, but now I would say it’s like sweet lemonade. The unbearable lightness of life!

Related reading

•Be open about your financial mistakes at Money and Investing

Every Friday afternoon I have a tea party with a few Moms. There are five Moms, 6 toddlers, 4 babies (so far, one more baby on the way, due date this summer). The tea party has been hosted at the house with huge yard, not mine. The host is such a lovely woman, with her southern hospitality, we all enjoy going there, and kids enjoy running around in the yard. But this month she is away, so I get to host the tea party at my house.

We all bring something to share. Home baked goodies, like brownies, flan, cookies, bread. It’s always a table full of yummies. We are intentionally indulging ourselves. Our chemistry matches each other very well. I have been to play groups which were hard to keep going. I’m glad that we like each other a lot and we all love to keep tea party going.

I decided to baked a chocolate tart for the first time for us last Friday. It turned out great. I’m not quite a baker yet, since I have not baked much. But now I have a reason to bake more, and Katrina loves to bake.

The prices of food have been rising. It is very important to be a conscious shopper in order to cut down food and grocery expenses. My husband told me last night about a news he heard that the parents of a family try to eat less so that their kids could have more to eat due to the rising food prices. As I said before, knowing the price plays a key role in controlling your food budget.

I have done my weekly shopping on Tuesday in Foods Co this week. I spent $54.42 and the groceries I bought included a family pack of chicken legs and a pack of pork chops. I always keep my freezer well stocked with meat, fish and shrimps. I didn’t really need to do more shopping this week, but I was browsing the weekly flyers yesterday and saw that Foods Co has mangos 2 for 98¢ and pork spareribs $1.27 per pound on sale while Safeway has mangos 4 for $1, pork spareribs $1.69 per pound. I like to stockpile some ribs for BBQ, and Safeway has pork shoulder country style ribs on sale for 99¢ per pound today, Thursday, one day only. I decided to go to Safeway to stock up on mangos and country style ribs instead of spareribs. Since I had to drop Katrina to her preschool anyway, and Safeway is nearby.

So I was there in Safeway, but could not find pork country style ribs. Then I heard two lady asking the butcher about ribs, the butcher promised to bring out ribs soon. It’s early in the morning, and it’s their special one-day sale item, and yet they didn’t have it ready. So I went to get mangos first, and looked for other good deals. I decided to buy 12 mangos for $3. I can keep some mangos on the counter to ripe, and some in the fridge. Mangos are delicious as fruit, and also as a side dish, such as mango salad, which goes great with BBQ ribs. I did not find other good deals. I came back to the meat isle, and found rib packages. I got 2 packages, about 10 pounds total, the regular price is $2.99 per pound, so I saved about $20. I’m glad that I heard the conversation between the two ladies and the butcher. Next time, I’ll know to ask, instead of just leaving there without getting what I plan to buy. At checkout, I paid $15.69 total.

Next week I will not need to stock up on meat, I will plan on going to the farmer’s market to buy vegetables. I love their vegetables, it’s cheap and fresh, I usually plan on going there once or twice a month. So this week I spent $70.11 total on food and grocery, next week I expect to spend even less.

The Baglady has some good advices on her recent post: Is Inflation Eating Away Your Savings , in which she mentioned her post on Wise Bread: Safeway Savings Rally-How I got 9 bags of groceries for $13. It’s quite a fun read. It’s quite helpful when someone gives you a detailed example of how they shop wisely.

Another post you may be interested in: How we stockpile food on Thriftiness Becomes Us.

Carnival

Canival of Ethics, Values, and Personal Finance-May Edition is live in the air. The posts under the category of ‘conscious consuming’ are saying what I’m saying here: be a conscious shopper. Ug99, the destruction of wheat crops and prices in our local supermarket mentioned the price of Parmesan cheese is up from $3.50 to over $6. I have noticed myself the prices of food on some items have increased steeply, not just 10% or 20%, but well over 50%, isn’t it amazing? Hank wrote a post, My Comcast bill is $160.24 per month; what am I possibly paying for? to ask for better alternative to replace his Comcast service, it is certainly an outrageous bill. If you are looking for budget travel in Europe, check out this post: Barcelona on 10 Euro per day for two people, I like to go there someday. Anyway, check out the Carnival yourself, there are a lot of good posts there. I’m going to read some more myself.