How the Hell did we get here?

We don't smoke, we don't drink...(well, one bottle of wine on the weekend occasionally can be considered money spent on booze, but I classify it as homepathic medicine.)

We don't have luxury anything, no fancy cars, or expensive jewelry, no outlandish hobbies with high priced memberships, forget the magazine subscriptions out the wazoo, or even high end furnishings for our home purchased on credit.

We don't even have a outrageous mortgage. Our house is a fixer upper or what I refer to as our broken dream home purchased for $270 k with a 2% interest rate and spread out over 25 years.

There's no balance on any of our credit cards as we pay it off every month.

We have two borrowing accounts which currently are carrying the balance of a forced roofing job by our insurance company (no roof, no insurance they said) and the extra cost of repairing our home when it was flooded after a big rainstorm during the middle of our roofing job which the insurance company did not cover entirely.

Andrew & I both have decent jobs making a combined income of around $80 K per year with benefit plans and RRSP matching for both of the companies we work for.

My job even helps with the finances in that I am a trained Chef and thus can save us a lot of money by being crafty in the kitchen and by not having to buy processed convenience foods that cost too much for the convenience.

Our three children are not spoiled by us, but rather by their grandparents who supply us with toys, clothes, music lessons which offers us as parents a whole lot of help when it comes to the extras.

So, what the Hell? Why are we struggling from paycheck to paycheck, with anything extra outside of mortgage, insurance, one car payment of $300, water, power, fuel oil, taxes, groceries, childcare, cell phones, basic cable and internet, landing on our borrowing account.

We have one extra as a family and that is our membership which costs us $60 a month for skating, swimming, and gym use. It is the one really important thing that I would love to hold on to, but may need to let go in the months ahead.

I know that we have a lot more than some do, but this blog is not about those in really, really unfortunate financial situations (trust me, I know it could get or be worse), but what I think is the average Canadian family with dual incomes who are working hard everyday and wondering why they have to play the "money game" every month when it comes time to pay the bills.

We can't be the only family wondering why the hell we go to work everyday to pay the bills and yet still can't manage to pay the bills. Hopefully this blog will help me to connect with others who understand our frustration and give me an opportunity to explore ways to pay off our debt, and manage our month to month.