We Were So Poor...

When Jason and I were first married, we were poor. At least, we thought we were poor. Now that we have one income instead of two and two extra mouths to feed, I've realized that "poor" is a relative concept.

I had graduated from BYU and thus lost my student job, and Jason was working at the MTC while going to school full time. In addition to my student job, a few months before we got married I took a job as a housekeeper for a mother of 4 young children in Provo. Once she realized what a poor cleaner I was, but that I was great at playing with her kids, she hired someone else to clean her house and I played with the kids and did light housework- laundry, dishes, and the awful task of cleaning out their minivan. They even gave me a raise after I graduated because they though having a Bachelor's degree in Sociology makes you worth an extra buck an hour.

(Hermano Morales heading into the MTC)

Her husband was a lawyer, and they were so impressed with my child care and cleaning skills that they offered me a job in his office as a legal assistant. Makes sense to me even as I type it out...(?) But they wanted me to work at home and at the office, so after our wedding, I split my days between caring for the kids, answering phones and typing memos in the legal office, and driving to Mapleton (20 minutes or so south of the office) to care for the files of the older, senior law partner. Maybe that sounds like a good set up, but it wasn't. It was an embarrassing use of my college degree, and I quit after a week of juggling the three jobs. I didn't have another job lined up but I had to quit that job. I quit on a Friday, the next Monday I had an interview with W.W. Clyde, and I started what would be my 2 and a half year job as an administrative assistant with them the next week (the bulk of my married life BC).

(Making the big bucks at WWC)

We were so blessed, and definitely not poor after that... although I'm sure we still lamented over not having all the money to do everything we wanted to do... funny how your perspective can change so much once you're 3 years into graduate school!

But! In that first week or so of marriage, when we were combining our finances- debts and assets- with no real steady source of income from my part, the numbers were adding up quite meagerly.In fact, we were so poor that....

*We had to count up all of our change to go buy a half gallon of milk from the grocery store. I'm guessing that it was only because we chose not to use our debit card, but doesn't that just sound poor?

*You already read about our bed (which we bought with a credit card), but we put our kitchen table and chairs on LAYAWAY because we couldn't afford to buy them out right and didn't want to charge something so frivolous and unnecessary. I don't think stores even offer layaway anymore.

*When we did finally get the table and chairs, I can remember sitting down and having a decision-making conversation about tithing. We decided at that table that we would pay our tithing no matter what. And we always have. And we've always been blessed. Since we made that decision, I've never really felt "poor" again.

And we had so much fun as poor starving college students! But more on that later...