“Something’s gotta give,” my exasperated husband sighs as we both gaze desparingly upon our monthly bank statement. “What? What can we give?” We look over every detailed transaction. Gasoline…300 dollars per month. Groceries…1800 dollars per month. Doctor visits and prescriptions…125 dollars per month. The list of costs associated with raising our large family, in this modern day, is seemingly endless and far too overpriced. My new struggle with trying to balance frugality, while shopping for our health, has proven to be an enormously frustrating task. The conundrum of trying to fill my children’s tummies with organic goodness and simultaneuosly avoiding a negative checking account balance is a foe that I am acquainted with, against my will. I keep hoping that my foe will grow tired of the resistance to his efforts to ruin my shaky but stubborn balance and leave me alone, but he is more persistant than I had estimated him to be.

My maternal mission to live on one income has required me to completely forget about designer jeans and MAC counter make up. I’m forced into concerning myself with only the basics, now. I don’t even dare pick up a copy of Vogue, for fear that the reminiscent yearning for the latest fashions might birth feelings of inadequacy. Who the hell needs the stress of feeling fashionably inadequate when trying to put adequate food on the table? Not me. I’m learning to be content with my Target brand jeans and generic make up. There is no room for fashion snobbery in my life anymore. I french kissed it goodbye (hey…we had a torrid love affair for a long time) and will never look back. I simply cannot allow myself the luxury of that kind of fornication with seven kids to put through college, and apparently, even struggle to feed for the next umpteen years.

We have also recently come face to face with the financial demands of raising imperfect children. As imperfect as I know we are, as parents, there are more than just two imperfect humans who live under our crimson tiled roof. One son has an ADHD disorder that we strive to try and naturally cure. This translates into forking out a lot of money on extra vitamins, health supplements, organic foods, holistic health practictioners and literature on behavioral modification approaches. Trust me, medication is the cheaper “solution,” eventhough (for us) it is not the best route to take. We have kids who need medical procedures to put tubes in ears, remove adenoids and correct a serious tongue tie problem. We have hyperactive kids who need weekly athletic involvement in order to stave off wall climbing, which costs money. We have kids who grow at incredible rates. Rates that necessitate a larger sized shoe, only six weeks after purchasing the last new pair. I’m sorry to say, that God actively ignored my prayers for perfect children. This is not what I signed up for. Somehow, I ended up in the group of people that got assigned to be a parent of imperfect humans. Did anyone else, reading this, get put into the same group? Just curious!

So there we were, sitting at the organic apple sauce encrusted kitchen table, pondering ways to increase our cash flow or decrease our expenditures. We sat, two exhausted lumps of flesh and a piece of paper that seemed to scream from the top of its lungs, “What the hell were you two thinking, having all these kids?!” We did the only thing we knew to do… shake our heads and laugh. “Hey,” my husband tried to make light of our stressful moment,” if my parents did it, we can do it.” And he’s absolutely right. If his parents raised thirteen kids up to be happy, healthy adults, then surely we can raise half that amount. We will just cinch up our Target brand belts, make a few adjustments to our habits and keep on truckin’.  I got up from the table and poured each of us a glass of wine, as part of our nightly pre bedtime ritual, when my husband had an idea. ”Maybe we should stop having our nightly glass of wine. It will save a few bucks each week.” I looked over at the man who had just suggested cutting out the one thing that we get to share every night, besides a bed and cooties, as if to say, “Are you effing serious?” He chuckled at my expression of pure disgust and retracted the ridiculous statement by picking up his glass and toasting, “Here’s to our financial struggles, our child induced stress and the wine we get to share together for the rest of our lives. May the first two never interfere with the last!” As long as we can afford our weekly bottle of wine, I consider our lack of wealth a very minor side effect of being blessed with so many imperfect, yet wonderful, children. I’ll let you know if my sentiments change should we ever have to suppress our affinity for wine, due to lack of finances.

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Obviously, I am failing to see the big picture, money wise, and for this (and my being a writer — a career path which ranks slightly lower than illegal alien bus boy in terms of financial success), I’m unlikely to ever be obscenely, or even (let’s face it) G-ratedly, rich.

Certainly, I’ll have my petty financial victories. Re-using a postage stamp that somehow missed the cancellation mark; getting an extra quarter back from an unwitting vending machine; actually remembering to mail in one of those annoying rebate forms and ultimately receiving $5 off my next software purchase (select titles, Spanish versions only).

Yet, the kind of money that allows me to, oh say, leave my house to charity and move to my Italian villa for “the season” is likely to continue to elude me.

This was painfully clear to me when I unwittingly fell into a discussion of plans for the government’s recent “economic stimulus package payment” with an investment savvy friend the other day. As he went over (and over and over and OVER) rates, points, terms, and, I don’t know, some other boring money thing, at some point all I heard was blabbity, blah, blah, blah.

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