We always end up paying for our sins

We’re knee deep into the whole debt reduction plan. Cut back, pinch pennies, say ‘no’ instead of ‘yes’ at the store, buying bulk when cost effective; you get the gist.

Something happened last night and I couldn’t say ‘no’. I’m not sure if it’s due to the redundancy of eating pot roast and barbecue scalloped potatoes every day for lunch and dinner since Sunday or because it’s been so long since we’ve eaten out. But, the words Cheesecake and Factory were put together, by my wife, in a way that left me at her mercy. She could have requested anything else and I would have balked but ‘she had me at hello’.

We arrive at said Cheesecake Factory around 5:45pm. ‘Lobby doesn’t look too bad, we should get right in.’ ‘Why won’t these two girls in front of us give there name to the hostess’. ‘Are you in line? Then mooooove’. I should have known things were off.

Seated a few minutes later in a section with no kids, and off the main floor, proved to be very quiet place. Great now we’ll wait for our drink order, ‘hey that couple that came in after us is already getting their drinks’, ‘where’s our waiter, better yet, who’s our waiter?’

Here he comes, great, I’m ready to get a beverage. Ok, the special is yada, yada; man he sounds like he’s got cigarette smoke for life blood. I can’t even look him in the eye, because of the moley, moley, moley( or is it the feeling he’s going to have a serpentine tongue come lashing out of his mouth at me?). VERY nice though, I know he’s getting a good tip from me. Then I excused myself from the table, telling K that he had spit on my hand while giving us his recommendations for dinner.

We get our tea & water. Place our order after countless changes. You would have thought I had my finger on the red button at the Pentagon to unleash WWIII on the world; it was that kind of decision. I ended up ordering the Crusted Romano Chicken Pasta and was not disappointed. We also brought the 7 yr olds homework so that would not be a struggle to finish later that night. As she worked on that, K and I watched as a waiter, not our waiter, busted his rear to serve 4 tables in our area. From my guestimation, our waiter had three tables. Then I made the fatal mistake, I did not ask for our bill when he came by for drink refills (I should have pushed the red button!). The problem was that our waiter was TOO friendly. As we pondered the universe and our place in it, as well as doing some long division for fun, he was busy yucking it up with another table. By the time we left everyone that came in around the same time as us was GONE. I felt like there was a pause in time and 30 minutes of our meal was just obliterated.

We walked out at 7:40.

Then I had the Chocolate cheesecake with peanut butter cookie dough in the center for take out and I lost track of time again.

So what did we gain by eating out against our better judgment? A belly full of good food and leftovers, but a serious lapse in the time space continuum.

Our Total Money Makeover vs. Valentines

So I did the obligatory flowers for Valentines; not one to go with the pack I went with Gerbera Daisies instead of roses. What I would REALLY like to do is to go out for DINNER. We had an awful lunch today after picking up the 4Runner from the tire store(part of our Total Money Makeover).

It was a recommended Mexican place near the tire place. A dead giveaway should have been that there were no Mexicans working there or eating there. Yes, that is correct. I think my 'combination' burrito was a combination of refried beans and Manwich. Smothered in a scrumptious helping of Ricardo's canned cheese. Or commonly referred to as Ballpark Nacho Cheese. Urp.

Back to the makeover. My wife got on a roll of listening to Dave Ramsey's radio show while at work. And we decided, as a couple, that we would get on the debt reduction bandwagon. After reading Dave's book we were ready to go. It is not an easy task. It takes more discipline than anything else I can imagine, but the results are easy to see. We have not used a credit card in 10 months and we are starting to snowball our debt. But we're still climbing UP the hill and we haven't come close to the peak. Once we itemized EVERY penny that went out of the bank account it became obvious where we could make cuts in spending.

So here I sit with a belly full of cheese, that may or may not come up before the night is through, the wifey happy with a bouquet of flowers for Valentines, and a few more dollars left in our wallets.