At 1 pm I was having a really good day. Not much since then is cause for joy. There was crankiness, overtiredness, tantrums, yelling, tears, and all that’s just from me. I am tired and burdened with vivid memories of how I failed my children today. They needed me to be more, better, different. I tried, I really did. I worked hard right up until I snapped, then I’d calm down and try again. Repeat cycle.
I need to find my happy thoughts. I’ve forgotten how to fly.
This morning I was so glad to send my kids back to school. After two weeks of vacation where we were all trapped indoors by rain, I was ready for them to go.
Now it is afternoon and they’re back home. Homework time is looming near and I’m suddenly remembering why only two weeks ago I was eagerly anticipating a break from school.
This has been a very rough school year so far. I’m hoping the second half gets easier than the first was.
Homemade yogurt is much yummier than store yogurt. (I googled for a recipe) As an added bonus, it is also cheaper. Blend up drained canned peaches and add them to the yogurt for creamy bliss.
It’s a new year and I’m newly inspired to do housekeeping and penny saving. Sometimes a small behavioral shift can save significant amounts of money over the course of a year. I just did my year end accounting and got to look at all the numbers for 2005. Some of them I’m proud of ($312 to clothe a family of six all year), some I’m not (did we really spend $11,000 on our vehicles?! Yipe!). I look at the numbers, take a big breath, and move on. At least now I know a little better where to focus my efforts to bring our expenses down. And they must come down if I want to make ends meet through the end of the year.
So, I’ve been cleaning house. How does cleaning save me money? If things are organized around here, then I know what my resources are and I can lay my hands on them quickly when I need them. I need to have working systems for laundry, food inventory, kitchen cleaning, and meal preparation. Fortunately I’ve already got each of these about half done, I just need to clean up the spaces and implement the other half. I’ve been practicing on it this weekend and feeling incredibly domestic. If I succeed in these goals I will have turned into a Domestic Goddess who cooks three healthy meals a day, keeps her kitchen spotless, always has her line-dried laundry done, and tracks her food storage religiously. “Domestic Goddess” is not something I ever really wanted to be. It has a negative connotation to it because it seems somehow “holier than thou.” On the other hand, being that person allows our family to run smoothly on a small income, so like it or not, Domestic Goddess here I come. I hope.
I have a book recommendation for anyone who is unsatisfied with their financial situation. All too often people think that making more money is the solution to their financial problems, and sometimes it can be, but another solution is to spend less. Amy Dacyczyn’s The Complete Tightwad Gazette can help people accomplish the second. There are actually 3 Tightwad Gazette books, I mention the complete version because it contains all three books and because a very kind friend gave it to me for Christmas.
I first became aware of these books last year during the financial panic of Howard’s departure from Novell. (We knew it was the right decision, but from no angle did it look like a fiscally intelligent one.) A friend recommended I pick one up, and so I checked it out of the library. The book solidified for me many of the ways that I thought about money and spending. It also gave me many tips on specific things I could do to spend less. I would never have been able to pull off a $100 christmas if I hadn’t read Tightwad Gazette. I don’t follow all the tips that it espouses, and some of them seem a little bit extreme, but that’s alright because the attitude toward money and spending is far more important than any specific tip it gives. As Mrs. Dacyczyn says “The tightwad life is not only about spending less…it’s about spending in a way that reflects your values.” If you love dining out expensively, then this book can help you cut other corners to fund that love. If you crave video game consoles, then it can guide you into spending less on groceries. If you want to own a house, it can help you cut other corners to save for a downpayment. Howard and I are cutting corners and “making do” so that he can stay working at home for as long as possible, hopefully indefinitely.
These books are not just for the financially strapped. I wish I had read one 5 years ago. Had I done so, I would have squirreled money away even more diligently creating a larger nest egg and our current financial state would be much more comfortable. We spent money all the time for things that brought us little satisfaction. We had an income of $100,000 per year and spent most of it. Now we are discovering that we can live happily on $35,000 per year and I find myself wondering where the other $65,000 went. (Well a good chunk of it went into taxes, but you get the idea.)
At this point you’ve figured out that I’m a big fan of these books. You should check one out of your local library or use the amazon.com link on Howard’s site to buy one online. Some of the used copies at amazon are selling for only pennies because other people feel as strongly about these books as I do and they want to pass on the goodness to others who need it.
Yesterday afternoon, just after welcoming my neighbor’s toddler to be babysat for 2 hours, I had the alarming realization that what I thought was mild indigestion was actually something much worse. I was curl-up-on-the-couch sick. Howard had gone out to spend the afternoon at The Keep. I called him there. I wanted him to come home, but I also knew that he was getting work done and work being done is pretty important to our family. Howard’s husbandly senses were in good working order because he quickly determined that he was needed at home even though I tried not to outright say “Come home please.” I’m going to blame my illness for the unnecessary twistiness of that conversation.
Howard came home and sent me to bed. Usually I have a hard time turning off my Mommy Radar if I’m anywhere in the vicinity of my children. I was sick enough that it shut down of it’s own accord. In my lucid moments over the next few hours I listened to Howard manage upsets, fix dinner, hand the borrowed toddler back to his mom, and generally manage the children with no crises whatsoever. At bedtime he only needed minor instructions from me and handled all the rest of it himself. It all made me so happy that I wanted to cry. I was so happy because I was able to curl into a ball and ignore the world for 18 hours and know that my kids were still being well cared for. 14 months ago he could not have done it. Since he’s been working at home, Howard has learned the routines that I run and the kids have come to accept him as a caretaker. The fact that I could listen to minor conflicts without feeling like I needed to jump out of bed and mediate shows how I’ve come to trust him in that role.
But even more than that, what made me happy enough to cry was that the moment I really needed him Howard dropped everything and helped me. He’s done it before and I know he’ll do it again. I spend my days muddling along trying to keep everything running, but I know that when things fall apart Howard is there for me. It is a priceless gift that I can only repay by trying to be there for him in the same way.
The dragons that I made for the kids have been getting lots of use. Link informed me that he has given his dragon his own middle name. Link further informed me that this meant we have 10 family members, 6 humans and 4 dragons. After a moment he adjusted this count up to 11, because he couldn’t leave out Kiki’s lone surviving science project mealworm. Kiki heard this count and declared we must also inculde the pet hamster who escaped about a month ago. Kiki is convinced that this hamster is happily living in our walls and is therefore still a member of our family. So I guess we’ve got 12 “people” living here. I’m just glad that half of them don’t require much in the way of food. My grocery budget would be shot.
This year we provided Christmas for our family for less than $100. It occurs to me that others might need/want to be able to do this as well, so I’m writing this report. …
We spent less than $100 on Christmas this year. I’ve been gleaning things from garage sales and thrift stores and give aways all year so that I could pull that off. My mother also conspired with me to make sure that her gifts were things that the kids would love, but that we couldn’t afford to buy.
Last night I spread everything out and it looked skimpy and shabby to me. I was worried. Or at least part of me was worried, the other part was reassuring me that the kids would be happy. The other part was right. I am once again reminded that kids don’t care about “new” as much as parents might think. They care about fun. I picked things that they will enjoy greatly both today and throughout the next year.
It has been a good day. Now we are all tired out and I’m ready to put all the kids to bed. Sleeeep.
Sadly, I have now run out of Appalachian Rosemary cheese. It came as part of a gift for Howard, but I claimed it once I tasted it. He claimed the Grayson, so we were both happy. Only now I’ve run out. sigh. Expensive cheese is one of the things I miss now that we haven’t money to spare.
Another thing I’ve missed is the Carl’s Junior guacamole burger. I got to have one today because Howard’s sister treated all of us to lunch. It was a fun trip. We all got to eat, the kids got to run like hoodlums through the play structure, and the adults managed to have a conversation over the shrieking of the children. And I got my huge, messy, yummy guacamole burger. I miss guacamole.
I also miss ordering pizza. This lack was ameliorated greatly by the Strohls who gave Howard a pair of gift cards for his birthday, one for Pizza Hut and one for Cinemark. We used them periodically over the course of the year and managed to make them last until September. The cards are all used up now, but I’m still overflowing with gratitude.
Know what I don’t miss? I don’t miss living a life so stressful that we threw money around to try to solve problems that could be managed easily by less stressed people. I don’t miss retail therapy. I don’t miss having kids who are accustomed to having treats bought for them every time they entered a store. I don’t miss having kids who refuse to eat anything but chicken nuggets. I don’t miss sitting amid mountains of Christmas wrappings and boxes with piles of new toys abandoned all over the house and wondering why I spent so much on toys that are already broken. I don’t miss having Howard gone all day and away on trips at least one week per month.
On any kind of scale, the small things I do miss are by far outweighed by the things that I’m glad to have gone. Having less money has caused us to prioritize and focus on what is really important. I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t cheese, guacamole, or pizza.