Monday Medley: Progress & Plans

Maternity leave is definitely not a vacation.  But while caring for a newborn is demanding, you still have a considerable amount of relatively free time at your disposal.  I am choosing to be as productive as possible to take advantage of these few months without the demands of a full-time job.  My main priorities are spending quality time with the family and making progress on paying off debt.  I’m also trying to catch up on all those little tasks that get neglected when work dominates the weekday schedule.

 Money

We’ve been doing really well with being frugal.  I can’t remember the last time that we went out to eat or had to purchase gas for the vehicles.  We’re not buying any miscellaneous stuff, like most of our friends and neighbors.  Our main expense has been groceries, which is higher than normal with needing to prepare weekday lunches for the kids at home with me instead of at daycare.  We eat a good amount of sandwiches on cheap, healthy bread made at home.  We try to do at least a rough meal plan, which is helping, especially with using up leftovers.

Mr. Smith has been getting quite a few ideas for outdoor projects.  I am trying my best to dissuade him from the ones that will cost money.  He has collected a good amount of scrap metal which he will cash in vey soon.

The credit cards are slowly being paid off and I plan on posting a mid-year update in June.  We’re making extra progress right now due to the fact that we’re not paying for daycare, but I’m still receiving paychecks.

My side hustling continues to be successful in making us a little extra cash.  Lately, I have been completing more offers and playing the videos on InstaGC, instead of just clicking on websites.  I easily earn at least one dollar per day with Swagbucks.  I continue to blog, and am planning some steps to increase exposure and bring in more readers.  My tutoring side-job is starting up soon.  I am a bit anxious about a recent change in the pay for this position.  I was hoping to bring in a fairly decent amount of money this year, so I signed up for a few additional students.  Hopefully, this will offset any decrease in my reimbursement.

This past week, I read a great post at Making Sense of Cents with tons of ideas for making extra money.

The bills from the hospital recently arrived.  Fortunately, we have been contributing to a Health Savings Account in anticipation of Trey’s arrival.  The bill is several thousand dollars because we have a high deductible plan, but is covered by the funds in this account.

This week I would like to post some more items on eBay and start organizing items for our garage sale.

Housekeeping

We cleaned up the yard and prepped our garden for planting.  The kids loved “helping” with the dirt.  I love how my little Tornado will play with dump trucks, but insist on wearing her pretty princess shoes to do so.  She can be a sweet a little girl and keep up with big brother at the same time . . . truly my daughter.

I read online that leaving pillows out in the sun will leave them refreshed and restore some fluffiness.  I gave it a try (with some Febreeze).  They seem a little bit thicker, but it could just be my imagination.  Either way, our pillows do smell nice and clean now.

Cooking

I’m always trying to find new recipes that are: easy, cheap, and kid-friendly.  There are quite a few desserts out there that involve angel food cake mix and one or two other ingredients.  This weekend we tried one of these recipes.  It called for one box of the cake mix and one can of crushed pineapple.  You mix the two together, throw it in a greased cake pan, and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.  Then, serve with Cool Whip.  It was so easy and delicious.  The cost was only about five dollars.  And, I learned that this is a Weight Watchers recipe – so it’s healthy too!  You should definitely give it a try this summer.

Family / Homeschool

We had to take a day off from school this past week.  The kids were having one of those silly, crazy, tons-of-energy days when they simply can’t sit still.  I don’t want to force school on my children, or make it a stressful experience, so it made sense to just let them “be kids” that day.  My goal this week is to bring school outside to change things up a bit.  Goofball keeps skipping the number sixteen when counting to twenty.  One exercise that seems to help is writing out the numbers while counting.  We write out one to ten in one line, then write the numbers eleven to twenty underneath them.  This way he can see that four goes with fourteen, five with fifteen, six with sixteen, etc.  After that, we count again by placing items on each of the numbers.  I think we try this outside with chalk and rocks.  Now, if I can only think of some fun learning activities with water.  My kids could play with water all day.  Guess it’s time to head to Pinterest!

Trey is becoming more alert.  He focuses better, including making eye contact, and is using his hands more.  They really start to interact so much at this point and exhibit their personalities.  I feel bad for the many women who return to work at this point, just when their little ones start to become so much fun.  I am not ready to return.  I need more time with all of my babies.  Progress-wise, I can report finding some precious baby-cuddle time this week 🙂  It’s difficult with the other two, but those moments are so amazingly wonderful.

Crafting / DIY

I’m finally allowing myself to experience the joy of using my creativity to make things.  I never allotted time for this unnecessary hobby in my busy schedule, but it’s so enjoyable and rewarding.  Part of this journey is finding ways to live a more personally-fulfilling life, so I want to make time for crafting.  It’s certainly a more-productive use of time than sitting on the couch watching television.  As I recently posted, my newest inspiration is to update my closet by refashioning my clothing. I found a ton of inspiration on Pinterest, including this awesome list of ways to upcycle t-shirts.

Stay tuned this week – my next project is a “sweatskirt.”

People might be surprised to hear that I feel very busy these days.  The thing is, there is a difference between being busy and being stressed out.  I’m so happy right now and making the most of this time.  It’s quite analogous to our goal of early semi-financial independence.  We don’t dream about sitting around, doing nothing.  We want to work on our own terms and have more time to spend together as a family.  Life is awesome right now and, with some extra effort, it’s only going to get better.