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My sister was in a very bad car accident nearly two years ago. Since that time she has lost much of her former ability. She is no longer able to work, to live on her own or to adequately manage her finances. However, getting her to realize her limitations has been a challenge in itself. She has always been fiercely stubborn and independent. She has been out on her own since she was about 17 and she had learned to be very self-sufficient, so learning to accept help and accepting her limitations has been a very hard lesson for her.

Recently she was admitted to one of the best programs in Canada for brain-damaged and depressed individuals. Being on a ward with people who can barely speak and who have to be reminded of where they are at any given time has been a real eye-opener for her. On the one hand, it’s been a wake-up call to find herself placed on a unit with some severely damaged individuals. She really has to count her blessings. For all she’s lost, she is still worlds beyond the sorry state of many of these people. At the same time she’s come to realize that she really is in rough shape and she has swallowed her pride to a great extent, and is now coming around to accepting and even asking for help when she needs it.

Most recently, she called me from the hospital with a special request. Of course, she had to preface her request with an exclamation of how big a favor she was asking and emphasizing that I did not have to accept her request. When she finally cut to the chase, I realized that she was asking me to create a budget for her to help her control her finances and her out-of-control spending. She said that she has already tried to create a budget on her own but that she found herself cheating whenever the spending mood struck, completely ruining her good intentions. The situation has become quite serious, as her medication must be paid for up front and she’s not often reimbursed before the six week mark. It would be such an urgent situation if her drugs didn’t cost over $1,500 per month. As it is, she often finds herself racking up charges on her credit card just to get by.

It’s really too bad that she didn’t accept help to create a budget earlier on. She confessed to me that she had disability insurance on her credit card prior to the accident. But that when the credit card company offered to issue retroactive payments by means of her insurance policy, she quickly declined because she was determined that she was going back to work right away. It goes to show her state of denial, since her psychiatric assessments indicate that she will likely never be able to return to work. Her poor judgment also goes to show her dire need of help to create a budget, that will be realistic and still leave her room to enjoy life. I hope that the suggestions that I can offer will be useful and that she will cooperate and really allow me to help her out of her financial straits.

I finally bought my dream house. Of course, my dream house isn’t a huge mansion, but it is everything that I have worked towards purchasing. It is absolutely perfect for my family. Once we went to contract and dished out all of the closing costs and expenses, there was barely any money left for furnishings. I was afraid that we’d be sitting on the floor to watch TV for a few years. However, I knew that if we budgeted wisely and shopped around, we’d be able to find some low priced furniture that would make our wonderful new home complete.

With the recommendations of some friends, we headed to some local discount stores that offered some low priced furniture. We walked into the first discount warehouse and spent hours looking around. Nothing seemed to be what we were looking for. The prices were decent but just didn’t have anything that was really our style. We headed for the next discount store. As soon as we walked into the showroom, we knew that we’d be able to find some low priced furniture that would fit our style very easily. It didn’t take us long to pick out a new kitchen table and chairs. We had a bit more of a problem finding some low priced furniture that would accent our new living room at a reasonable price.

Granted, the prices were affordable, but not as low priced as what we’d hoped for. The store manager told us that he would allow us to have one year of no interest if we found something that we did want. That offer was tempting. We must’ve sat on hundreds of sofas and recliners and poured over pages and pages of books in catalogs. Finally, after three hours, we’d settled on living room furniture that we felt was affordable and suitable for us. We definitely took advantage of the no interest financing.

After we’d make all of the payment and delivery arrangements, we decided to go to a furniture store that didn’t specialize in low priced furniture. I wanted to see if we truly had saved some money. Of course, the store that we chose to walk into was gorgeous. All of their furniture was exquisite and perfect, but the price tags were just insulting. Perhaps if I had won the lottery, I would have been able to afford to decorate my new house with elegant furniture. I was definitely satisfied that we had found some low priced furniture for our new house. Once all of our friends and family came to see us settled into our new residence, they would have never guessed that we’d shopped at low priced furniture store. Everything was perfect for us. A dream come true.