Finance Gets Personal

Just when I’ve finally gotten down all the couponing and online deal-finding acronyms (BOGO, YMMV, B&M, etc.), it turns out there’s a whole new set of acronyms to learn when it comes to getting pregnant (officially: Trying to Conceive, or TTC).

Yes, that’s right. My husband and I are trying to make a baby (Ew! - I know).

Well, technically, we’ve been “trying” on and off for a year with no success, but with not much of a methodology either. So this month I’m turning myself into a human science experiment with charting, basal body temperatures, cervical fluid and the like.

Little did a know there would be a special vocabulary for this.

Browse some iVillage and The Bump message boards, and you’ll come across posts like this:

This 2WW is killing me! I think I might cave and POAS in the morning. I know it’s early, but I’m driving myself crazy. Just wanted to share!

Translation: This two week wait between ovulating and finding out if I’m pregnant is killing me! I think I might cave and pee on a stick (take a pregnancy test) in the morning. I know it’s too early, but I’m driving myself crazy. Just wanted to share!

I’ve also learned that AF (Aunt Flo) is commonly referred to as an “old hag,” women with a BFP (big fat positive) pregnancy test will sprinkle those still trying with “baby dust” and there are BD (baby dancing - having sex to try to get pregnant) Olympians (twice a day?). O-kay.

I’m hoping this won’t take too long now that I’m being all scientific about it. I’m giving it four months before I start freaking out that I’m infertile. Sprinkle me with some baby dust or something.

Unfortunately, my 8-Week Home Cure has quickly turned into the 3-Month Basement Cure.

For a while, I was able to work on cleaning and organizing the upstairs while my husband worked on the basement. But now he’s needing my help more and more, and the Cure has fallen to the wayside.

Maybe the reason I haven’t been blogging lately is that I feel like a hypocrite. Every time I set some lofty goal, I end up abandoning it halfway through. I think the only goal that I’m actually making continuous progress on is getting out of debt. But even with that, it’s hard to feel like I’m making a lot of headway…

I guess it’s hard to stay motivated when your only debts are a pair of mortgages. I’m still making my minimum extra debt payment of $1,974 a month. But what ever happened to snowflaking every extra dollar toward debt? Instead, I’ve become sidetracked with home renovations, vacations, weight loss, trying to get pregnant, etc. Which I guess is to be expected. But I’m feeling a bit like a Jesus Freak that’s fallen off the wagon. Am I headed toward the dark side, or just human?

Maybe money became such an obsession that it’s just ingrained in me now. I’ve learned most everything I can learn (roll eyes here), and know what I should be doing. Now it’s just a matter of whether I want to.

If you’re feeling this way too, check out this post from Get Rich Slowly: Should Repaying Debt Be an Obsession?. My answer is, I’m not sure. Am I a J.D. Roth, who paid off $35,000 over the course of three years, or a Money Saving Mom, who is quickly saving up to buy a house outright?

Maybe I’m somewhere in between.

Photo Credit: Thomson’s gazelle by [PS], used under Creative Commons licensing.