As I've gotten deeper and deeper into the blogging community, I've found so many incredible people who write amazing words, are funny, inspirational and have great hair. I've filled my newsfeed with their updates, photos and posts. This was all super inspirational for about three weeks...and then I started having some serious self doubt.
Last week was rough. There were two consecutive days of leaving before Finn (or the sun) was up and getting home long after the house the was quiet. By Tuesday night I was emotionally wrecked. So much so, that I cancelled the usual Wednesday morning sitter because I couldn't fathom not taking the first opportunity possible to see Finn. I couldn't fathom it to the point that my heart was racing and I could feel the tears starting to form.
Me: What did you do today?
Zac: Played.
Me: What else?
Zac: (Blank stare)
I'm not saying be a minimalist, but seriously, we had so much stuff.
This past summer we decided to do a major de-cluttering of our house, and I was astonished at how much crap we had stored in places we forgot existed. I had an entire Rubbermaid bin full of purses stashed in the far corner of the crawl space. Upon opening this bin I was immediately reminded that I absolutely cannot live without these purses! (Even though I had been for two whole years... amazing how that happens.)
Today I "worked from home," which is not an accurate statement at all. I love my work from home days, but I was spending 16 hours trying to get 5 hours worth of work done. The solution? I've been working 12-hour days at the office on Monday and Tuesday and we've hired a sitter to come to the house from 6am-10am on Wednesdays. That way, in the not-so-rare instance that nothing more happens in terms of actual work after 10am, it's not the end of the world. I finish out the week working 8am-4:30pm on Thursdays and working from home on Fridays, meaning I monitor emails as I am able while Finn is awake and I work while he is asleep.
There always seems to be one expense that doesn't fit in any of our envelopes. At first we decided if it didn't fit in one of the envelope categories (Home, Auto, Entertainment, Personal Upkeep, Mika or Gifts) then it wasn't something we should be spending money on. That lasted about three days. There will always be expenses that don't fit in those categories, you just can't let them deter you from the ultimate goal of being debt free.
One year ago today, Finn slowly crashed his way into our world. It's a good thing I didn't have a birth plan, because he wasn't going to follow it anyway. This isn't a popular thing to say about your child, but Finn broke me. Both physically and emotionally, he has brought me to my knees. This child was God's way of forcing me to trust and surrender everything to Him, because for all the control freaks out there, you know what I mean when I say there is no controlling a newborn. The uncertainty of every single moment is enough to make your head swim. It doesn't matter how many ways you played the scenario out in your head, a newborn will find the one scenario you didn't prepare for (I never would have imagined needing 6 outfits in a diaper bag!).
Less than 24 hours after I posted Using a Budget: Cutting Costs a suspiciously important looking envelope showed up in our mailbox. A recent article stated it will cost upwards of $400,000 to raise a child (before college!) and I had wondered how that was possible. Sure we have to buy diapers, bottles, baby food and some other items, but all in all we've only added about $200 per month to the budget since Finn arrived, which equals $43,200 over the course of 18 years. I knew that would increase as he started school, sports, and other activities, but how could it possibly creep up to $400,000?!