We just finished a revised personal budget for 2007. Wow. It meant taking into account how much we made last year and how we spent it. There is nothing like an honest accounting of how we spend our dollars and time to put this idealist up against a wall. Mark says, "This is where we really live."
"How we spend our (dollars and) days is indeed how we spend our lives." - Annie D (and me)
We discussed our proposed budgets as a community, and man, it was a heavy night...really thick. Money is something seldom discussed on a real personal level. It's far too risky really. But when has that stopped us before?
For all the ways I rage against the philosophy of the American Dream, I sure seemed to profit from it this last year. As it stands now, we bring in the bulk of our income indirectly from Rupert Murdoch (that's right, the FOX News guy...or the OJ Simpson book-show guy). And we speak of divestment.
This last year has been hugely enlightening to us, but most changes we all know that we should make are hard to do...I know this. Still, the Master calls us to embody another way...and he reminds us that it will come at the very cost of our lives.
I have budgeted this next year for us to get out of all consumer debt (save student loans of which we owe $60-100k depending on lenght of time we repay) this year. It is going to be tight, but we're going to try it. It may seem like a "no, duh" to a great many of you, but a budget is a fairly new idea to me...not that it's never been suggested to us, but that we've never done one for real.
I am tempted to post our proposed budget here to the blog for transparency's sake, but I think the info might be best exchanged person to person. If for some reason you want to see it, let me know.
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