Parenting Even When You’re A Mess

Maybe I should be posting this on my old blog. Maybe I should try to combine the two.. I just don’t know.  If you’ve never read my old blog, it started as a way for me to cope with my diagnosis of thyroid cancer. It became just general life stories as my checks became more infrequent and my diagnosis approached the 5 year cancer free mark.  If you want some background, head over to the old blog and read through my 2009 posts. Are you caught up now? Good.

Fast forward to my appointment with a new endocrinologist and he asked the question “Has anyone ever told you that you are cancer free?”

No… they haven’t. I guess I assumed with undetectable TG levels I was clear even without the scans. Sure I’ve had neck ultrasounds with enlarged lymph nodes but no biopsies. It was more of a watch and wait approach. Again, my TG  levels were undetectable so this felt like a reasonable approach.  Sure I had nagging doubts about being told the RAI uptake in my lung was nothing or “took care of anything that could have been there.” I tried not to think about the possibility of recurrence even though recurrence rates are as high as 30%.  I’m fine… right??

Today I get a CT of my chest to follow up on that lung uptake from 5 years ago.  I’m terrified that it’s not fine.  While I’m there, they are also doing a neck ultrasound to follow up on those enlarged lymph nodes.  I’m upset to think that the watch and wait approach might not have been the best thing.  We have no reason to expect the worst at this point. Logically, I know that my TG levels are a pretty good indication that there isn’t anything going on, but I find cancer to be its own beast. Cancer makes its own rules.

Today I’m falling apart. My emotions range from anxiety to anger to admonishing myself for getting so emotional and not resting in the logic. I feel like I need to perform well on these tests but all I can do is lay there under the machines. I can’t just crack open a book and study to increase my chance of a good report. I won’t know my results until the 13th yet my future rests on what happens today….

Will I need more surgery?

Will I need more RAI?

Will I finally be declared cancer free?

I’m trying to stay strong, but sometimes it’s just so damn hard. I’m a weepy mess and my 19 month old daughter doesn’t understand. She looks at me quizzically and then laughs. I pull her close to tell her how much I love her and I take comfort in her cuddles. I need to be strong and be present for her because she needs her mommy. She needs mommy to play and laugh and comfort her through her day. So I’m pulling it together (even if it is just for short bursts of time). I’m taking deep breaths and putting on my mommy hat.

Lord knows the mommy hat is infinitely better than the cancer patient hat any day. 

New Year. New Goals

Happy 2015 y’all!!

Did any of you actually make it to midnight? I was reading (aka falling asleep) in bed when the hubs woke me up to say Happy New Year!  It made me think, “Where was I when 2014 started?”  Nursing baby girl back to sleep I suspect… or changing a diaper. Either way, I was probably too exhausted to really take note.  I feel like I spent 2014 trying to catch up on sleep… still trying to meet that resolution truth be told.  (Mads is a terrible sleeper. There, I’ve said it.)  BUT I finally feel like my brain works again (most days anyway) and I feel like having more direction for the new year is in order!

So what’s in store for 2015?

1. Get Out of Debt – ok so this is slightly cheating because I announced this resolution months ago, but our commitment is still there.  Budgets have been made, an emergency fund is in place, and we are ready to go!  All debts except the student loans will be paid by this time next year!
2. Declutter the House – we moved from a new 2bd townhouse to a 1947 3bd mountain house. Sounds like we sized up, right? Yeah… in 1947 they weren’t so concerned about things like closets. We went from having 3 walk in closets & 3 fairly big regular closets to having 3 of the teensiest, tiniest closets known to man. We have TOO MUCH STUFF!  And sadly, most of that stuff is just stuff to take up space and gather dust.  I’m hoping some of this stuff can be sold and used in pursuit of goal #1.
3. Learn to Knit (& Possibly to Crochet & Sew) – I got knitting lessons from the hubs for Christmas along with a set of wooden knitting needles. One of his most genius gifts ever! I’ve been wanting to learn to knit for a while now and I never seem to find the time to watch YouTube until I pick it up.  I tried teaching myself to crochet from a book and it turned out only half correct. I need time carved out and a more hands on demo.  He solved that with the lessons.  Not sure when I’m starting quite yet, but seriously he arranged for special lessons to be held on Saturdays just for me!  (best.husband.ever)
4. Cook Healthier Food for the Family -  We don’t eat terribly, but we aren’t an all organic/vegan/raw/no hormone/gluten free/no antibiotics/whole foods only family either.  I’d like us to find a happy balance and incorporate more fruits/veggies and less processed junk.  We already try to only buy hormone & antibiotic free meats/poultry and I will be keeping that in the plan.  I got a Kitchen Aid mixer for Christmas from my hubs & In-laws and plan to put that to use in helping with this goal too.  Homemade whole wheat bread anyone?
5. Take More Me Time – I’m bad at this, like really terribly bad.  To illustrate, I haven’t had a professional haircut and/or color since a few months after my daughter was born and she’s going to be 18months this month. I’ve gotten maybe 1-2 massages and had my nails done about that many times too.  Aside from the physical, I rarely set aside time to write here – which is why, as you can see it doesn’t happen. I have a good 5-6 devotional books that have gone unread. Craft projects - or should I say supplies for craft projects -are stuffed in drawers and boxes waiting to be started let alone finished. These are things that make me, me.  They are important and special and deserve attention.  Sometimes I need to realize I am important and special enough to deserve it too.

So there you have it, my 5 goals for the new year!  I feel like they all can tie in to the #1 goal on this list – decluttering can lead to some income, knitting (& crochet & sewing) can cut down on clothing needed and provide a source of gifts, focus on cooking means less eating out and junk food spending, and actually doing a craft project or two might lead to less purchasing of Etsy items I can make myself.  (An organized home with happier, healthier occupants will just be a bonus!)

What are your goals for the new year?

Getting a Handle on Spending

I came clean a few weeks back on our total debt and our deadline to pay it off, but I didn’t really discuss how we plan to pay it off.  Honestly, I really didn’t know how we would.  I figured we would start a snowball type plan to get it done but I didn’t know where we could get any extra money to do this with.  I spent the last 4 weeks focusing on our grocery budget because to me it was the easiest place to cut.  I knew we were overspending in this area and I was right!  The extra $200 a month is a great start but I want to be more aggressive in getting this done.  You Dave Ramsey fans out there might call this getting “gazelle.” 

I’ve read Dave’s books and looked into his methods. I know they work for a lot of people and I know some of it can work for us. The one thing I was struggling with was how to live on a cash only basis.  My credit union that I’ve had an account with for over 30 years has no branches here in the state so cash can’t be taken out to be re-deposited at specific times to pay bill categories.  But I liked the thought of having “envelopes” and having set amounts for those categories.  I needed a way to keep my accounts electronic while still tracking specific category spending.

Enter You Need A Budget – or YNAB.

This is an actual screenshot of my budget in YNAB.  The “budgeted” amount is the total amount I’ve placed in that “envelope” for the month, the “outflows” are what I’ve actually spent from that “envelope” and the “balance” is the amount left to spend in my “envelope.”  This is all separate from my checking account yet helps me track my allocations without the money ever leaving the account.  I can also track the spending just like you would with a check register – remember those?  The best part is you can load the program on as many devices as you like!  I have the free app loaded on my Android phone that let’s me quickly see how much is currently in my envelope AND enter transactions as they happen to immediately update the totals across all devices. 

For example, I’m at grocery store A and I check to see I have $100 left for the week in that category.  I shop and I spend $75.  I enter that amount on my phone before leaving the store and immediately my husband who is at store B can see on his app that we now only have $25 left for groceries and adjusts his spending accordingly.

Since I started using the program about 4 weeks ago, I’ve been much more aware of what I’m spending and where.  I get a paycheck and immediately prioritize where the money gets allocated.   Then I don’t worry about if we have enough to get gas or go out to eat because I can always see exactly what I’ve already earmarked for that purpose.  If “Murphy” happens, and he always does, you can adjust your categories as needed but still know you have enough to cover everything.  I can’t say enough about YNAB it is the easiest and most liveable plan I’ve ever used.   And in the short time I’ve used it we have “found” over $400 to use toward our snowball this month!

YNAB has a FREE trial – and I mean completely FREE for 34 days – so you can see if the program is right for you.  They also have free online classes to help you customize the product for your needs.  I just bought the program before our free trial ended because I love it so much!  It has made budgeting…. FUN! Yes, I actually said that.   So try YNAB by using their free trial, and if you like it, please come back here and click through my link to get yourself a $6 discount on the program. (out of full disclozure - I might also get a $6 bonus if you do!)

Cutting the Grocery Budget–Week 4

This is the last week in my grocery challenge to trim $200 from our grocery bill and I am happy to report – I DID IT!!  The goal was to go from spending roughly $600 per month to just $400 – about a 33% reduction. The total I spent for this month on groceries (including household and baby items) was just….

In my budget, that is a savings of 37% or an actual $222.09!  I will be putting this extra cash to paying down our debts and to hopefully get us to our goal even sooner.  To me that total above is simply amazing.  Amazing because I always thought I was a smart shopper before. Amazing because I didn’t think we had anywhere to scrape extra dollars like that from. Amazing because it was so much easier than I thought it could be! 

I even saved money this week when I was feeling overwhelmed and tired and didn’t really get the greatest of deals.  This way of shopping and the simple act of using coupons is really saving our family money and is sustainable.  That is the important thing to me -  that this will be something I can achieve consistently if I keep at it.

This week I spent $90.13 between 2 stores – under budget by almost $10.  So without further ado… where did I shop and what did I get? 

First we went to Target – now I admit we mostly went here to get a deal on Starbucks coffee and ended up with other things entirely. This is my problem going to “big box” type of stores where they have more than just grocery items – BUT -  they do tend to have better prices on the household and baby items. I guess it’s a tradeoff and I just need to get more willpower not to scour the entire store!  So, back to the shopping… we went to pick up Starbucks beans that were on sale AND had a $5 gift card offer.  Most of the bags were gone, completely cleared out.  The ones that were left were blends Mr. Wee doesn’t like so we didn’t get any coffee.  Bummer!  By the way, did you know there are smartphone apps that will pay you to snap a pic of empty shelves and upload them?  Holy crap I would make so much money around here…. if only the apps were compatible with my phone! (iPhone users – check out gapNsnap if you are interested)  So what did we buy here then?  Baby Wee was out of Hylands Teething Tablets – best invention ever – so we picked those up using a Cartwheel offer.  We also used a Cartwheel and Target coupon to purchase Plum Organic baby food packets.  Finally, they had a sale on a giant jar of Jif for $5 – normally the same jar runs $6.99 at the grocery store.  Total spent: $24.99, total saved: $6.37.

The bulk of our shopping was done at Kroger.  I will admit I had been in a sort of love affair with Kroger the past few weeks after getting some great deals.  This week, I even decided to skip looking at my local Ingles ad because I was certain the better deals would be here – mistake.  Ok, I did still get some good deals here this week but I’ve become slightly disenchanted.  I got caught up in the 10/$10 promotion but found many of the items cleared out from the shelves… other shoppers informed me they had been empty since the day the ad came out.  Maybe they restocked during the promo, maybe they didn’t.  Either way, I was disappointed.  I was able to get greek yogurt, frozen veggies, organic mac n cheese, pasta and condensed soups (yes, I know making them is healthier but time is sometimes a premium!) for $1 or less when combined with coupons. I also stocked up on organic chicken broth for soups for fall!  Overall I spent $65.14 here and saved $33.94 – a 36% savings.  After the last few weeks of saving 40% or more, this felt like a fail.  But I still saved money – that is the most important thing to remember!

Next week I plan to recap some of the biggest things I’ve learned over the last 4 weeks but if you want to start saving now, I really want to encourage you to check out the banner link to my affiliate below:I know I’ve mentioned Grocery University in previous weeks of this challenge, but I cannot stress enough how great this program has been for our family!  I bought the program figuring I would at least recoup the cost of the program with a tip or two, so what was the harm?  The program costs $9.97 and over the last 4 weeks I’ve saved $222.09.  Seriously, how can you not love that?  Some of the tips are common sense or things you might know if you’ve been on a tight budget, but I think there are at least one or two tricks your family might benefit from in there too.  I encourage you to check it out!

What does your grocery budget look like? Could you stand to trim it?

Cutting the Grocery Budget–Week 2

This marks week 2 of my quest to lower our grocery budget by $200 for the month.  (See week 1 here!) I am very happy to report that I came in well under my budget of $100 for the week, paying just $72.81 between two stores!  That puts us at a total of $207.36 for the month – just $7.36 over my goal for this point. I am confident we can make that up over the next 2 weeks.  So where did I shop and what savings did I get?

First up was Kroger.  I spent $17.56 here.  We generally don’t shop here much, but when I was comparing prices at our local stores they had the best prices for meat.  Hubs requested steaks for Sunday night dinner which was NOT in my budget at all.  There were a couple options at Kroger that I thought I could make work but Hubs wasn’t impressed with those and wanted the $20 steaks instead – these came out of ”his” grocery budget.  In our family budget, we include a “his” grocery budget for items I might have him pick up on the way home and that is not figured into the general grocery budget.  What I did get was a pork loin for $1.99/lb that we will turn into a couple meals of pork chops and a pork roast (total $9.07).  I also picked up a head of green leaf lettuce and a tube of Butt Paste for the little. I used our Kroger card and a $2 coupon for the Butt Paste.  The diaper cream probably could have been purchased for slightly less elsewhere, but we weren’t making another trip.  Overall with the card and the coupon, I saved 36% off the total bill.

Then we finished up our trip at Ingles, our local grocery store.  I paid $55.25 for $93.99 worth of groceries – a 41% savings!  I had 3 coupons that doubled (from $0.40 to $0.80), a few higher dollar coupons ($1+), a Catalina for $3 off the total, and used an in store “coupon” for a free gallon of milk (a savings of $3.79).  The rest of the savings came from using our store card for sale prices.  We stocked up on baby water which was on sale for $0.88/gallon – the first time I’ve ever noticed this on sale and we go through about 1 gallon per week.  We also stocked up on taco shells (3/$2.75 after coupon).  I got 9 various Pillsbury cookies, biscuits, and cinnamon rolls – used 3 coupons that were doubled, got $2 off instantly at the register, and got a free gallon of milk! (with the combined savings I paid about $1 per item)  My “big ticket” item was lunch meat for the hubs that cost $5.50/lb.  The store had a BOGO promotion going and then I also used a $0.75 coupon making them about $2.38 each!

I feel like we did pretty well in the savings department this week!  I would love to reach a 50% or more savings on a trip, but overall 40% is still great!  In total we should have spent $120.89 and spent just $72.81. That’s almost $50 back in our pockets… or to paying off debts! I also have rebates coming from a few smartphone apps because of certain grocery purchases we made!

Today the hubs asked me why we haven’t been doing this all along.  I thought I didn’t have the time. I thought we didn’t have access to coupons we would use. I know now I didn’t have the right tips & tricks in my arsenal to make it happen.  With some new tips and perspective,  a few minutes cutting/printing coupons, and a few more minutes organizing my list and matching up menus, deals & coupons getting this savings is easier than I ever thought it would be.  Why haven’t we been doing this all along?

The Ugly Truth

So if I’m going to be talking about paying off debts, I have to come clean about the total of those debts.  In order for me to stay home with our little one, we decided we need to eliminate all but my student loan debt.  The number we are looking at is {deep breath}:

$18,838.39

I hate seeing that number.  It’s much easier to stomach in individual credit line balances than to add it all up into one.  The breakdown is about 50% credit cards/store cards and 50% car loan.  I read somewhere that the average American family has $8,000 in credit card debt so we are apparently decidedly average. I’m so not proud of that fact.

Why aren’t we including my student loans in the total?  Well I’m ashamed to admit, the amount is ridiculously high and it will be a very long time before those are paid off.  Luckily, my interest rates are low.  Once the above debts are taken care of, we will be putting any extras toward tackling this beast.
So what is the goal? 

Pay off $18,838.39 by December 31st, 2015 or about 16 months

With our current budget, if everything goes perfectly, this should be achievable by October 2015.  If something goes wrong, like losing a couple weeks of work, December gives us a little leeway.  I’m hopeful that I will be able to shave $200 off our monthly grocery bill using the Grocery University program (a 33% reduction!) and will then apply that to our debt.  In doing that, these debts will be eliminated by September 2015 or just over a year.  
There you have it in writing.  Here’s to hoping what they say about putting your goals in writing is true!

Do you have any current financial goals? What are your strategies to help you achieve these goals?

Where Do We Start?

My baby girl is one. O-N-E!?  How did that happen?  Where did that first year go? How much of her first year did I miss?  Why are we no closer to me staying at home?

I met my wonderful husband at the young age of 32… quick 3 years ago.  At that point in my life, I had almost given up hope on my dream of having a family.  I knew in my heart that if I was ever blessed with a husband and then baby, that I wanted to be the one who was there to raise him/her.  I didn’t want to miss any precious moments and, honestly, work/career just wasn’t that important to me.  Fast forward three years and we are happily married for almost 2 years and have a 1year old baby girl!  God is so good!

Since it took me longer than some to get here, I spent my pre married years getting my college degree, starting my career, battling thyroid cancer and collecting debts along the way.  Credit cards, student loans, medical bills… they started building while I lived in the now without a thought for the future.  I had debts, but I had a job to support them so it was ok. Right? Wrong.

When we were blessed with the news of our baby girl, we could hardly contain our excitement! We both had hopes of me staying home to raise her but reality set in when we sat down to crunch numbers. Because of past bad/hasty decisions on both our parts and our current debt load, I needed to work.  At the end of my maternity leave, I went back to work part time (30 hours/week) and have spent every spare minute dreaming of ways to make staying home with our daughter work for our family.

We created a budget and a snowball plan to tackle our debts but it seemed that our goals kept getting pushed back.  To be completely honest, we had a budget but it was only on paper. We didn't live it.  We didn't change our spending habits.  We didn't change so our situation didn't change.

This is the start of our journey to make those changes and to make our dream of me being a stay at home mommy a reality.