Disorder and debt - how to not be at peace

Today is just a complaining session.  I will get back to updating on the new property and going through everything here on my next post.  It's really a fascinating process to go through boxes of "treasures" and figure out which ones I actually want to bring to the new home.  Of the things that I've collected over the years as a prepper, what is really needed?  Am I overstocked on things of little importance and things that are really necessary I am lacking?  Yes, that's for another day.  Today I really have on my mind how much damage you do to your peace of mind when you live your life in a disarray.  And how thankful I am that I try to keep order in my life because Boy and Girl, especially Girl give me enough stress.  I don't need to be my own cause of stress. 

Army daughter and family moved out today and into an apartment across town.  It's a nice area across the street from a family park.  They should like it.  Littlest granddaughter was in tears when they left.  She has enjoyed being back on the farm and seeing me everyday for the past couple of months.  I will miss her too.  She is a very messy four year old but the only one in the house who continuously offers to help out with farm chores. 

I will not miss their greasy cooking and never having fresh vegetables, nor the mess they would leave in the kitchen, bathroom, and every room they occupied.  I spent this afternoon cleaning and straightening.  Not the little things, the big things.  I cleaned and defrosted the big freezer in the garage and I cleaned the freezer in the house. AD didn't like using any stored food and would spend about triple or quadruple the amount I normally spend on food each month.  Much of it would go to waste, or it would get put into the freezer never to be seen again. I am pretty organized, meat on one shelf, fruits and veggies on another, flour and rice on the next etc.  (I always freeze flour, rice, and cereals when I bring them home from the store.  Even dog and cat food gets frozen.  I do that to kill moths that may be in the food.  After  they are frozen for a week I repackage them and then don't have problems with my stored food.)  The freezer was such a mess that I couldn't find anything.  After I just straightened out the house freezer, without getting rid of anything, somehow the freezer was about half full, yet when everything was shoved in you couldn't get anything else in and things would fall out when you opened the door.  That's not a good home storage method.  

 I didn't get to the refrigerator yet.  It's just as bad.  I can't see anything because it's all jammed in and in such a disarray.  Left overs get put into storage containers but if I don't take it to work for lunch then it gets lost as it's shoved further and further back on a shelf. AD and son-in-law buy lunch out each day so they don't often eat the leftovers unless we eat the same thing for dinner for two or three days in a row.  I have a feeling when I clean it tomorrow the chickens are going to have lots of food to eat.  The way AD and family keep the house and refrigerator and freezer is pretty much the way they keep their lives.  In a constant disarray.  The way I see it, when they live their lives that way it adds a bunch of stress.  They both are stressed and are taking meds to keep themselves "normal".  They don't see the connection between the house and everything else being a mess and their mental stress. 

Another stress they have is debt.  I don't mean house debt, which they do have because they bought their house in Texas, nor do I mean car debt.  They have a lease on their car so when they are done paying for it they will still owe a bunch of money or they will have to turn it in and buy something else.  But that's not the debt that is stressing them.  It's that they are living way beyond their means.  They owe credit card debt on top of credit card debt plus student loans to boot. 

When they sold their house here in the Great Central Valley prior to moving to Texas for six months, they came out with some extra money.  They told me they paid off their debts. Then they said the debts were paid except for the student loans.  OK, when you get to Texas just rent and live within your means!  They lived with son-in-law's family for two months and then rushed out to buy a house.  I advised against it until they had some money saved up and they knew they were going to stay.  Instead they put less than 5% down, including all the closing costs.  Then they decided that their jobs weren't satisfying and they needed to come back to the Great Central Valley.  Fortunately they have a renter in the house because if they sold it, they would have to come up with money out of their pocket to pay the closing costs and realtor fees.  Money they don't have. 

Now, they are making almost double what they made when they left six months ago!  That should be a blessing and they should get their debts paid off.  They aren't going to be able to because their cost of living is so high that they are still broke and still racking up more debt.  They rent movies almost every day.  They have gym memberships.  Dry cleaner bills, manicure bills, new clothes almost each week, and even the four year old gets her hair trimmed every month. They go out to eat one or two meals per day, including weekends, and they buy lots of prepackaged food...yes she still buys egg whites in the quart carton even though we get a dozen eggs a day from the chickens.  AD tells me she likes convenience.  I tell her I like not having debt and being able to sleep at night without the aid of Prozac or sleeping pills.