This week has been rough and has shown me the true importance of gratitude. That is why I started this, after all. As a gratitude journal so I could find some bright spots during a difficult time. The times have not gotten any easier and if yesterday highlighted anything it was the importance of gratitude.
What I have been doing the past year I view as duty more than anything else so receiving appreciation for it isn’t the goal. The goal is to improve my mother’s financial situation to the point that we are no longer drawing down savings to pay for essential care. The problem is the American Health Care system makes essential care for the elderly out of control.
When you break it down the amount needed just to clear the care and taxes is insane and those are the bills that have to be paid. It is probably a good idea to pay the utilities as well, but after that is where things get tight.
The savings are there to cover it. For around three years. That isn’t it as after that we have a secondary investment account that has a line of credit against it and is growing, but that is break glass in case of emergency fund.
The primary driver should be the business. It should be providing the main source of funds, but when I took over the management of it it was taking a loss of $8000 a year. So far I have turned that into $48,000 in profit and could be about to turn it into $98,000. Which isn’t an easy thing and requires a large percentage of my brain to accomplish.
I was working on this yesterday. Touring a commercial property that I want to keep in our back pocket. The sellers are asking way too much, but if we get close on time we can give an offer at true value and see if anything comes out.
It was while I was doing this that I received a text from my sister. The one that has been harassing me all week with increasingly unhinged texts. In this final one she accused me of stealing from my mother. It was disturbing and set my brain spinning. I lost the ability to talk and reason for a minute.
I don’t know if I even need or want gratitude. I just want space to work and do what is best for this family and that includes my sister. What she wants is for things to go back to how they were before my father passed and she was running up $15,000 to $20,000 AmEx bills monthly. That is what she wants and at that rate of spending on top of what is already being spent is a recipe for disaster.
Keeping doomsday at bay for as long as possible has been my primary goal, but it is hard to prevent disaster when someone that is supposed to be helping prevent it is ushering it in. That is where we are, and just when I thought I had the future in sight the rug is pulled out from under me again.
David Huzzard Writes 