Pay the Tolls

I have a friend that I wish to keep anonymous. However, her story is one that I think many can relate to. Let's call her Abby. Abby is a single mom with 2 teenage kids that need her a lot. She also has a full-time job that needs her even more it seems. She can't seem to balance it all to get time for herself. Add to this that Abby was in a bad car accident as a young adult and suffered severe back injury. Thankfully, the accident was not her fault and she gets a monthly payout from the law suit for life. Obviously, it's not enough and can never pay for her back. But it helps her get by. The back injury has made sleeping virtually impossibly as she suffers every night with pain and discomfort. Many nights Abby will get to bed around 8:30pm and toss in bed sleepless with pain until 4:00am. When she finally falls asleep, her brain only registers an hour and a half to 2 hours of sleep because Abby has to get out of bed to go to work to pay the bills and take car of her kids. Somehow Abby has been able to function in life with little sleep. She gets her work done. She gets home to get her kids to and from school, feed them, clothe them, help them with their homework, and keep the house. Abby is a hero to those kids. All she wants is some sleep and some time for herself.  So she pays a big cable bill to have her shows to give her some peace before another long night of sleeplessness. Can you relate to this story about Abby at all. Do you know anyone like this? 

In a recent call with Abby, I learned some incredible news. She found a magic pill that one of her doctors wanted her to try. It enabled her to sleep through the night! Abby also noticed that she was more focused after getting good sleep. She could get things done at work faster. She didn't go through the day depressed or anxious. She had more peace, more ability to perform, more patience for others, more of a mom to her kids. This was incredible! I was nearly shouting through the phone! Just two of these pills and she could sleep. Praise God, right? Yes. But... it isn't free or part of a prescription plan. Abby has to pay close to $200 per month of money she doesn't have to afford the magic pills. She wanted help figuring this out. 

Abby has no money left over at the end of the month, so where was she going to find an extra $200? Since I'm a total numbers nerd, we dug into her budget and I saw the problem right away. The answer glared back at me. She was paying $275 per month for her cable bill, which included her internet. She also drove a luxury car which has average maintenance costs at $500 per visit to the shop. Everything else on her budget looked reasonable to me. I looked up her car compared to a similar Toyota model and found it to cost $13,000 more from purchase to maintaining for 5 years. This was an additional $220 per month in luxury car expenses. So I explained to Abby that she is also spending an extra $150 per month minimum for her high-end cable and internet service. Thus, I saw a potential of $370 per month in budget cuts. I compared that to the $200 per month expense that is changing her life with better sleep and productivity. I explained further that since she was asking my advice, that I would say it plainly. 

Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website