The Margin and the Manuscript

My partner and I came from households with two contrasting money management strategies: one household who sorted cash from every paycheck into labeled envelopes and still sits down together on Sunday evenings to write everything in a ledger, and one household who had more of a "spend it when you get it so you'll have food to eat when the money runs out" philosophy. As the more financially literate partner, budgeting fell to me when we got married. I initially tried to track everything but found that to be a soul-sucking endeavor that didn't really help me accomplish my goals. I have finally landed on a simplified system where I keep a list of each pay period's major recurring expenses, check them off as they occur, and then divide the remaining balance to produce a "daily spending limit." The bills are paid and I'm not trying to figure out what line item flavored coffee syrup should fall under (groceries? eating out? personal spending?)

I recently realized that this is my approach to a lot of things. In creating our school schedule for this year (which I'll address more in tomorrow's post) I made a framework with plenty of space around it for other activities (the fun and the necessary). I have the capacity (and ability) to create a beautiful metaphorical manuscript - even letters, straight lines, accurate copy - but the thing I really enjoy is decorating the edges. Making the first letter of the sentence the fanciest M you've ever seen (or incorporating fun food stops in with grocery pickups). Adding a battalion of war snails, unrelated to the paragraph they parade beside (or enlisting everyone in the after dinner clean up so we can play board games before bed).

Frolicking eternally through the pages of a wordless picture book is its own kind of exhausting, as is a literary diet of nothing but densely typeset wordy tomes. I thrive best in an in between space - with a margin and a manuscript.

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