Starting over beats the alternative

As a newlywed, one of the first things I remember tackling was budgeting. Not sure where to start, I voiced that to our good friend Rhonda.

She and her husband had been married two years by then and she showed me the system their parents had taught them: a ledger book and envelopes. In the book you write your list of monthly expenses, she said. You label the envelopes — electric, phone, rent, etc. Each time you get paid, you put money in the envelopes so that by the end of the month, you have enough for the bills. 

It sounds pretty quaint in today’s world of online bill paying and direct deposit. But it worked for a long time and came to mind in a nostalgic sort of way as I take stock and regroup and move forward with a new reality.

My new reality is the same one a lot of people are facing these days, given the economy and record unemployment. I came to mine by choice, though, having decided to leave my job and start a business that I ended up selling because all around, it wasn’t working for me.

The months since have been all about rebuilding and figuring out what the next step should be, couched in no small amount of self-doubt, confusion about the best choices to make going forward, and plain old worry. Then I saw some new words of wisdom on a business sign that I drive by regularly and that over the years, at times, seemed to speak directly to me. This latest message read, “It’s never too late to start over.”

Now, I should note here that if not for that sign and a few especially timely and meaningful fortune cookies, I may have never decided to take the plunge and start the business in the first place.

That said, I think there is a reason for (almost) everything and am certain this will all make sense in the bigger scheme of things one day.

But that new message stuck with me. The more I thought about it, I came to see a path where before even the normally glass-half-full person I am had seen more roadblocks.

I also felt a new calm and resolve. That’s exactly what you‘re doing, I thought. Starting over. It may not be what you plan or want at this stage in life, but how much of life is, at any time?

No, I haven’t returned to Rhonda’s budgeting system. But if that’s what it takes, I still have the old ledger somewhere, and envelopes are easy to come by.