Life has been a roller coaster lately, with lots of loops, curves, upside downs, right side ups, small hills and gigantic ones. Andrew and I are struggling to figure out how we can make our income more than our expenses with me quitting one of my jobs. We are also very unsure of what will happen with me working once the baby comes, because even then our income and expenses will be just about equal. It's very hard for me to hear that 1. I may not be staying home with baby even part time, and 2. Not knowing what job I will have and if so how much I will truly enjoy it. I am trying to be as frugal as possible: no eating out, no buying clothes, coupons when grocery shopping (and very much cutting back on how much I spend at the grocery store), making my own cleaning supplies and laundry detergent, turning off lights and taking less showers to lower bills, etc. I honestly don't know what else I can possibly do to help save money and trying to cut things about of our budget seems really difficult right now, mainly because of my student loans. I plan to pay off one of my loans with some bonds and savings I have. That will hopefully lower our monthly payments a little. I am hopefully going to try and have more pampered chef shows and keep my eye out for any small/part time jobs that I could easily do from home. If you have any suggestions please let me know!
On another note, I am 18 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty good. I was having some vomiting issues for a while there when I would randomly get sick when eating so the doctor changed my acid reflux medicine to see if that would help. Baby's heart rate has dropped to the 140's and 150's, but my blood pressure has gone up! I'm trying to eat more protein, drink more water, and I definitely need to exercise more! On June 30th we get to have the ultrasound! Andrew and I have decided that we are going to find out the sex of the baby, however, we plan to wait until baby comes to share the name!!! I am starting to feel the baby move a little bit-no huge kicks or punches yet!
I promise more pictures from vacation will be coming soon-just need to upload them from the camera!
If you ever want to chat about staying at home or not being able to (I will have a year of being a working-outside-the-home-mom under my belt here soon), just give me a call or email or text. I truly understand the difficulty of leaving your precious baby for even one minute and have shed plenty of tears. I also understand the stress it brings to even think about it. I will be praying for you and for Andrew that God would provide a way for you to be able to stay home and provide an amazing part-time job or an at home job for you. And that He would relieve the stress of trying to figure it all out from your shoulders - because He wants us to give it all to Him because He can carry it all.
ReplyDeleteOh, and have you thought about trying to save up for the coming year's bills monthly until the baby is born? Like, setting money aside that is only for paying on your student loans throughout the year? That way, you would have less money that would be taken out of your monthly budget to pay for them?
Andrew and I have some money that we plan to set aside for loans, enough to pay for all of my loans for a few months after the baby comes. We have also come to the conclusion that I will be downsizing to one job before the baby comes, as long as I can get close to full time hours. That means we will have a little budget cut before the baby comes but I will also continue to look for a different full time job in the mean time.
ReplyDeleteWell after the baby comes depending on what our schedules are like, maybe you can leave the baby with me some so you don't have to pay for a sitter. Otherwise after Adam and I move down there you can always go grocery shopping with us at Walmart so you can use Adam's discount. He gets a 10% discount on a lot of items. If there's anything else we can help you with while we are down there let me know. I'm trying to think of things we could share and split the cost of but I'm not sure yet what that could be.
ReplyDeleteActually now that I'm thinking about it, we were thinking about asking you guys if you would be interested in splitting a Sam's Club membership with us. If we split the cost it would be cheaper and we could get groceries for a lot cheaper.
ReplyDeleteWe already have a Sam's Club membership, but I like the idea of splitting some costs. I would definitely like to have you baby sit sometime!
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