The Year of Austerity

I have been writing this hideously long post about our dive into real budget tightening, but no one wants to read all that.  Let me start over and just say a couple things about areas we saved money- maybe it can help others.  We have a land line as part of a package deal, so we dropped the cell phone plans to go on a prepaid minutes plan.  We have never had internet on the go and likely will not.  We like maps and stopping at the nearest gas station for directions.  Really, we do.  We were paying around $75 a month for 2 lines and too many minutes.  Now we pay $200 for the whole year for 2 phones with 1,000 minutes each.  Our year just expired and we both had close to 200 minutes left to roll over.  Awesome.
Other money saving steps have included shopping at some interesting locales for the cheapest prices.  I now get almost all my fruits and veggies from a Korean stand in a lower end neighborhood.  Yah, they have a "brewlesque" java joint nearby, no carts or baskets and no room for kids or strollers, but I have come away with 2 bags full for less than $10.  No joke.  They get things leftover from a restaurant supplier in the area and I often am getting organic and high quality stuff for merely a fraction what it would cost.  Case in point:  they were randomly selling pecans for $2.99 a pound bag.  Amazing.  Good pecan halves too.

We make things from scratch we never attempted before.  I used to buy a loaf of Italian or French bread on the days we had pasta, then I bought lots of them from the bakery outlet and froze them, now I have learned to make good Italian bread at home and freeze the extra loaves.  We make pizza, burgers, fries and all Asian and Mexican food we're craving at home instead of going out.  Did you know it takes about 2 1/2 hours to make good french fries at home?  I didn't!  We ate late that night.  Cereal is so expensive, I started making homemade granola from the 25lb bag of oats I got in bulk.  The girls and I often eat an egg and homemade toast and they get cereal once or twice a week is all.  It's saving a bundle.
I started watching a couple of kids from down the street in the mornings before school.  They hang out for about 30 minutes and walk to school with us.  Not hard at all, but the extra cash is a godsend!
Budgeting:  Am I learning my capabilities?  Sure.  Is it fun?  At times.  Do I hate it?  Mostly. But the Year of Austerity marches on!  LOL

Three's company

People always say that having that 3rd kid can be the hardest.  That once you have more kids than hands, it gets really tricky.  I never bought in to the 3 kids, 2 hands thing, but I always concurred that 3 kids was probably very overwhelming. For me, three kids changes the whole ball game.  Instead of feeling like I don't have enough hands, it's more like I need 2 more BODIES for the other 2.  Right when I need to be nursing, one needs help with homework and the other needs a snack, or wiping, or dinner has to be started, or the wash has to be changed before we go out the door, but everyone is already in coats and Franklin is screaming.  Suddenly, I feel like I am being pulled 3 different ways (or more) and I don't remember being so overwhelmed with 2.

The most important change is that 3 kids seems to have finally driven me inside myself and my family.  This is hard to explain.  I so often find myself thinking "I can't, I need to just take care of us right now".  I feel like I can't help or give as much, I can't take care of others, I need to take care of us because somehow the jump from 2 to 3 has made me completely unable to handle more than my little household.  While I realize that most of this is due to the fact that Odessa and Ada were easier babies, that they were close together and all the work kind of heaped into 2 years and then was over for the last 3, and that we will probably "grow out" of this difficult phase, I also wonder if something permanent has occurred.  I admit that sometimes it feels good to say to myself  "I can't, I need to focus on us".  What doesn't feel good is telling Stephen "no, we can't have so-and-so over for dinner" or to the girls "no, I can't help you with that right now".  What a difference three makes to me.  I feel like I have stepped back from being in a position to help and now I look around hoping someone else will fill the gap.

This isn't meant to be a downer or a deterrent to those wanting a big family, I just needed to document how fundamentally 3 kids has changed me and my outlook towards the world.  There are plenty of capable people who have a lot more kids than 3, I am pretty sure I won't be one of them.  Relinquishing control has to play a part in that and I work on that too.  For now, I am ok to turn a little more inward more of the time.