What is my calling?

As the title of this blog states, I am a stay at home mom. Or am I?

I work part time at USPS and have been doing so for a year and a half. That means I work every saturday and when they call me  in to work. So I'm mostly a stay at home mom. Typically that can mean once a week or once every two weeks. It can also mean none. With our new budget in place I've decided I want to get us out of debt faster, afterall, it is mostly my fault. I'd never take out student loans again if I could.

I'd really love to find another part time, very flexible, position to help my family get out of debt. This has proven both difficult and frustrating. I'm sure there are others out there who can relate. Finding a job is both difficult and depressing for me. I hate it, and maybe that's why I'm still a mostly stay at home mom. As USPS decided to cut their saturday mail delivery starting in August of this year, we've decided it would be less stressful if I wait until then to really worry about finding another job. Our budget will not be in the red every month until that day in which we have savings to cover it for a while.

Our budget, oh a thing of wonders. It has become my passion every day. Have any of you ever seen an actual budget? One where every scenario is covered? One that includes Christmas! (who would have thought?!) One that has every daily need for the next twelve months accounted for in some way? Chances are that you have not. I dare you to go and make one. You'd be surprised with how much gets spent on what and what you could save by keeping track of your expenses. I know too many people who either think they have a budget, or don't care and have "too many days left when the money is gone".

I believe that because of this budget, it has made it so much easier to stay at home with my child and not worry so much. We don't spend what is not in the budget and can live more comfortably knowing that we are prepared for most anything. If you're thinking about leaving the workforce, this may be a great first step for you to take.

I'll give a link for those who may be looking for a true budget. Perhaps this may inspire others to join the budget bandwagon!

http://www.daveramsey.com/tools/budget-forms/

So it's been a while...

On the encouragement of my husband I have decided to write another post. It's been 10 months and I haven't thought about posting again. In those 10 months not much has really happened, believe it or not. The biggest change is that we now have a 19 month old on our hands who likes to be active and get into everything.

I still coupon, and save money like crazy. I'm still trying to be money savvy. Another change of life we have had is that we now follow Dave Ramsey and his Total Money Makeover. After becoming great with couponing I decided to move on to budgeting. When you're saving hundred's of dollars every month at the grocery store and you don't see where that extra money is going, it really makes you wonder!

We now have a full, working budget in our house. We set limits on what we spend, and we try and stay within them till the following payday. That means we spend less overall. There is no more 'grabbing that candy bar that's tempting you at the end of the cash register', or 'man, we really don't need this, but it would be nice!'. We live within our means, that is a new concept for us, and probably for most of America. I love it, and it gives me something to do instead of twiddling my fingers. We now have a plan of how to pay our debts of years earlier and how to plan for retirement and our children's college. Having a plan is great!

There are a lot of great tools for budgeting out there, I will post a few here for those that are interested. Most important for our journey is having people around us who support our decision and don't think it's 'weird' like some do to be debt free. I can't wait to make a final payment on my student loans in a few years, or pay for a car in cash. I hope you find it as fascinating as I have.

www.whatsthecost.com
www.daveramsey.com
www.mint.com
www.ynab.com

Nine Month Changes

I have grown to love being a stay at home mom. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love sharing my day with my daughter. She puts a smile on my face all the time. We have so much fun together. More fun than I've had in a long time. I don't know what I'd do without her, and I don't want to find out.

I just want to thank my husband for working so hard to make this happen for us. He deserves the recognition. He promised to work as much overtime that he could so I could stay at home. Sometimes he may get jealous of me, but he would rather me stay at home with her than have our daughter be taken care of by someone we don't really know. I would rather have it this way as well.

Now that Shaley is 9 months old we're getting to the point where we need to save more money and I need to begin to look for another job. We need to buy a house for our growing family, and his income is just enough to pay our bills. Even though I save us a lot of money by couponing and doing online tasks, it just isn't enough for us to sit comfortably. I hate the thought of leaving my daughter to return to work, but I've been more fortunate than others and can't complain. My goal is to find a job where I can work from home either full time or part time, and still get to see my daughter. I watch a child a couple days a week, and I am looking for another to watch, but that has not been fruitful.

Wish me luck, on this new adventure! I hope it takes me where I want to go. I see a new chapter in our lives beginning as I look for work and as Shaley's first birthday comes around. Life truly is amazing.

Life Changes

In the last few weeks since I've been able to post our family has had many changes. Most notable of which is that my brother had an accident and is now paralyzed. I don't care to go into too many details on here, but it is important for me to mention. Due to the accident we took a trip up north. The car ride was 6.5 hrs one way. We did divide the trip into two days on the way there, but it turned into an 8 hr car ride on the way home. This was hard on my little girl, who is now 6 months old. Every moment was worth it to see my brother though.

As I mentioned earlier, Shaley is now 6 months as of February 2nd! She is becoming more of a handful everyday. I can't hold her without her squirming everywhere. she has not learned to crawl quite yet but I'm sure she will be there in no time. She has also cut one tooth! She's getting cuter by the minute. She is also sitting up unsupported for increasing amounts of time. At her 6 month check up she was 15.4 lbs and 25 3/4 inches long.

We have now started her on solids, which is a whole new adventure. We have tried carrots, rice cereal, peas, banana, and pears. The carrots have been the most notable as they changed her stool to more of a solid consistency. That may be too much information but it piques my curiosity. This change also reminds me to buy a diaper sprayer!

I can't wait for my new BumGenius Freetime to come in the mail. I have lots of Flips but no BumGenius. I will be sure and write a review when it arrives!

The Art of Sleeping

I just helped my little girl learn how to get back to sleep after a sleep cycle. She would, as she previously had, wake up any where from 12 midnight to 2 am for a feeding and then be back down till around 5 am. This was perfect for us and I got much needed sleep! But now, as happens with young babies, it has regressed yet again. Only this time it was for something much more obvious as parents to see why. Shaley just broke through her first tooth yesterday! It's definitely there and through the gums. But it may also still be moving and what's causing her to still wake frequently at night. Even sleeping next to me she will let out a few whimpers in her sleep. Perhaps tonight I will give her a dose of Tylenol to help her sleep better.

As she still goes down to sleep okay, I'm not too worried about the work I've done in that area. But getting her to stay asleep is another issue. She loves my breast more than anything in the world. And she will wake for it even when she doesn't need to eat, she just wants to be near it. Co-sleeping while feeding her is not very comfortable for me physically and mentally. Sometimes we do it just so I can get some shut-eye too. When you're sleep deprived, other ways of getting sleep (even possibly unsafe) may look appealing.

Since her father works early mornings it's difficult to listen to her and decide if she's trying to get back to sleep, or if she's in need of something more. She's pretty loud. Some days it'll be a few moans and others it will be a sharp cry and then back to sleep. After last night with him getting good sleep I'm wondering if this is really a problem after all.

So after this tooth comes through I hope she'll sleep better and we can go back to the good sleep for the third time in her short life. I truly am beginning to find out that "If it isn't one thing, it's another"! They grow so fast that everything changes before you get used to the way they were. You can't predict anything because they'll just throw you something new!

I love that little girl.

And so the adventure continues...

I've now decided to take on more responsibilities as I decide to stay home longer. Since I found a very part time job that pays extremely well, I will need another source of income that can be very flexible. I have decided to watch another child while they go to work every day. I figure this will still give me the time to spend with my daughter and yet help pay the bills. Have any of you ever decided to make a living doing this? I figure it won't hurt to try!

Watching a child for even minimum pay will pay for our weekly groceries. Since I only budget about $20-30 each week for them, this should be fine. If you're wondering how a family of 4 can get by on that amount of money for groceries please feel free to read my post on couponing. I am now keeping track of how much I save every week via my Facebook account. I saved $50 the first week of the year and $115 last week. I'm now starting to get together my couponing trip for this week saturday with the help of www.pocketyourdollars.com . It is shaping up to be a nice, bountiful trip.

I'm also in the middle of trying to purchase baby proofing supplies! It's that exciting time in Shaley's life where she has started to roll over and acts like she wants to crawl! She rolled over 3 days before she turned 5 months old. It was exciting to see. My husband was busy at the time and missed it, but she decided to do it again so he could see. We now need to purchase a baby gate so she does not fall down our stairs. This is a must because we live on the top floor and have our own entry way. I do not want her falling down those stairs! Next will come plugin caps and I'm praying for a play yard! Hopefully the money saved from coupinging will help me reach my goals!

Sweetpea Diaper Review

I just received a new diaper cover in the mail a couple days ago and I was so excited to try it out yesterday! It's a Sweetpea One Size cover and I already love the color! A quick heads up about the color though is that the color I have (Celery) is much darker in the picture on www.mombecks.com than what I received in the mail! It's still gorgeous though.

I was pleasantly surprised at the construction of this cover! It had great reviews and was at a very reasonable price point for my budget so I thought I'd give it a try. It seems like it will stand up to the day to day beatings of my now 5 month old quite well. It has double leg gussets, which are my favorite feature. I'm used to using Flips, but this cover is much better in my opinion. And the price is better too!

As for the fit of this diaper, it seems like it would fit well for a larger baby. Although it does have generous crossover tabs, my little one at the middle rise setting needs all the hip snaps available. I almost tried for the crossover tabs! I have no doubt this diaper will be around till potty training.  I believe this diaper only comes in snaps, and they hold quite well.

Overall, the Sweetpea one size diaper cover is a cover I will love having in my stash for quite a while. I do plan on purchasing more in the future. My only wish I have is that they would come in more prints! I am also interested in the Sweetpea AI3 that I plan on getting in the future as well.