November 19, 2018
Last summer, I talked about how we made it work around here and I think it’s worth revisiting a year, and a lot more stressors, later.
We’ve been settled into the new home for a year now – thank everything for being done with the massive renovations. We’ve been ignoring all the other projects around the house that need doing for a while just to recoup our savings and sanity.
We still manage with just the two of us: working, parenting, maintaining a semblance of a personal life. I continue to blog, albeit a bit less with my job problems, and added a monthly massage to help alleviate my pain. He has picked up a hobby again and we try to ensure he gets out at least once a weekend for exercise, during which time JB and I spend quality time together. Mostly we spend that time cleaning and puttering around the house but once in a while we can have a friend visit. We are adding some visits of our own to PiC’s friends we don’t see nearly often enough.
Childcare
Daycare: JuggerBaby is in daycare five days a week, now enrolled in their preschool program (for all 3 year olds and up). We’ve been on the waitlist for the local preschool since 2015 but no dice so daycare and $$$ bills it is. They’re in a new facility now, still open from 6:30 to 6:30 which is still really important for us and spoils us. I know we’re going to face an uphill battle once ze is enrolled in public school – apparently the school system still works on the assumption that at least one parent will be home and ready to accommodate all sorts of weird scheduling.
Last year, we added one chauffeur day to my schedule but PiC needed some more him-time so I now have two designated drop off days.
Babysitting: We tend to avoid babysitting because at $25/hour, it REALLY has to be worth it but we’ve been terrible about hiring the sitter for anything. Maybe we should have tried for our anniversary? It’s felt desperately needed and yet we don’t really have any space for it to happen. (more…)
August 1, 2018
I’m an introvert, through and through. I’ve preferred to work from my home office, sofa, bed, a dark corner, over going into the office since 2006 and pretty much nothing has shaken my core love of being alone for 8-10 hours a day to work my work thing, dog at my feet.
On the other hand, I adore my little family so I always look forward to seeing them at the end of each work day. In those hours that I’d normally keep working or cut bait and relax … well, no, bury myself in a book because I don’t relax well, my evenings have been wholly subsumed with family time and I’ve been happy with that.
It’s limiting, of course. There’s no such thing as a late night date, or even an early night date, when you’ve got a ravenous wee beastie to feed before meltdown. Spending time with friends is almost entirely relegated to the weekends, as well, though I can’t in good conscience pretend that I was ever a fan of meeting up socially on a school night.
I’m a creature of habit, so all in all, it’s been a good balance of alone time to family and friends time.
Of course, whenever I settle happily into my routine, something comes along to shake it up. Like, for example, PiC deciding to take JB on a trip without me earlier this year.
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July 9, 2018
FIREcracker says don’t give your kids money and let them fail if you want them to succeed.
That’s similar to my core parenting tenets.
I will save JB’s life when ze is choking or about to pelt over the edge of a cliff.
I don’t spare zir the bumps, bruises, scrapes and scratches that happen when you run pell mell through life without your feet under you. Ze takes after me so won’t ever be graceful but eventually ze will learn to stop falling so much. BY FALLING SO MUCH.
I just stopped being the biggest klutz in town at age 35 so I could send zir to gymnastics lessons for fun and an attempt to learn some physical balance, but my guess? Ze will just be pretty good at the sport and STILL go through life collecting bruises like Mario Coins. Fine. Bruises won’t kill you.
Back to the point – there’s more nuance to this whole parenting thing. We are saving a bundle for zir college education even while I’m hesitant to commit to paying for all of it because I think ze needs skin in the game. At the same time, I know what life was like when I had to work all through college – I barely remember anything I learned.
The reality is, if we’re doing our jobs right, ze will very likely have some resources inherited from us or from one of many grandparents. We must teach zir to fend for zirself, making a living wage, saving, investing, and making good decisions. In short, have the skills to survive without money coming from anyone else. But I also want zir to have the skills and discipline when resources are plentiful and not live in short-termism.
Some people are naturally frugal, some people learn it. If JB is the latter, the lessons should come from us – we have the knowledge. It would be a massive failure on our part not to try to pass along the lessons and philosophies that create the life that ze lives now.
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June 11, 2018
Thanks to being featured by the lovely ladies at Women Who Money, I realized that I should update our money process because it’s evolved since the last time we talked about it.
Ours to have and hold
Budgeting the money
Pretax contributions come out of his paycheck first: taxes, retirement contributions, health, dental and vision coverage, pre-tax FSA, his disability and life insurance. His benefits are way better than my employer’s.
After that haircut, our paychecks hit the joint checking accounts. 30% of our total take-home pay is immediately transferred to our joint savings account for long term savings or investing, another 10% is sent to a savings account, held against the large bills coming up in the course of the year: life, car, home, and earthquake insurance, property taxes (A DOOZY), income taxes if we unexpectedly made more and deducted less over the year. That will need to increase to 15% in 2019.
The remaining 60% covers all living expenses: mortgage, utilities, daycare, credit cards (gas, groceries, discretionary spending, dog supplies and medications).
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April 11, 2018
We want to make the most of our time together this year but still get things done around the house. There’s a ton of work still left to us, we only paid for work we absolutely needed completed before we moved in.
Despite (or because of) the massive derailment that was last year, we’re taking a more structured approach to planning our year. Admittedly, it’s a bit late in the day to be planning for the whole year, this is the kind of thing I would normally have done in October of last year. Holy dang it’s April already!
What we planned
- Take one at-home home maintenance weekend per month.
- Take Seamus to Fort Funston at least once a month so he can romp and meet other dogs. We’d love to do Point Isobel but crossing the bridge on the weekend is definitely a no go.
- JB gets one or two playdates a month (includes birthday parties).
- Host a dinner with friends once a month.
- PiC and I loosely agreed to using the library’s Discover and Go venues at least 4 times this year. I was all kinds of enthused about this, applying for new library cards for both of us. Ours have been expired since JB’s arrival. Disappointingly, it turns out that almost all of the family friendly locations suck in some way: they require 1.5 hour drive one way, the discount is only for the child and parents have to pay for parking and $30 admission, or it’s in SF proper which means traffic, terrible and $$$ parking and walking miles just to get to the venue thereby burning up my valuable energy before we even make it in the door. This may have to be two weekend trips this year instead.
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April 9, 2018
We recently took on a young lady rescue, to Seamus’s mild chagrin, and my heart’s delight. I’m pretty sure we needed a second dog but the first few months will be tough because no one gets Seamus AND an easy new dog in the same lifetime.
Even Seamus’s first months with us were hard. He was learning the ropes of our household and I was battling his allergies: hives, broken skin, rashes, bathing three times a week, steroids which means 6 walks a day, and one (terribly embarrassing for him) accident in the house because he couldn’t wake me for a walk in time. Those demanding weeks and all his maintenance since then has been totally worth because he’s a lovebug, has perfect manners, coparents JB, and protects zir from all comers. He was and still is a big help to me during my tough days, helping me get up and around during pregnancy and during flare ups, and supporting me through the days when people aren’t around. I don’t expect quite the same from her but it would be a good idea to train her like a helper dog as much as I’m able.
Suffice it to say, new pup has a tough act to follow. But we have lots of training planned, plus lots of patience and persistence. For my own sanity, I have told myself to give her two months to start showing real improvement and the ability to fit in. That’s about how long I can maintain all training all the time mode, and I need the reminder that a perfect dog isn’t achieved in 3 days.
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March 19, 2018
“…education is the silver bullet. Education is everything.” Sam Seaborn, The West Wing
Is it better to be the comparatively poor kid in a wealthy school district or a relatively rich kid in a poor school district?
I asked this question on Twitter and the responses initially leaned hard toward the second choice, which would be good confirmation bias, except I’m actively second-guessing our decision. Then a lot of responses flooded in pointing out that the first choice is better for the poor kid to have access to connections and better resources.
That brought on a facepalm because I hadn’t thought about it that way and that’s stupid because ….
I lived the first scenario. As a poor kid in a modestly wealthy school district, I got a good education and the relative wealth of my peers wasn’t obvious. Kids weren’t obsessed with designer brand names back then, wealth wasn’t the ostentatious thing that it’s become today between Instagram and new iPhones for ten year olds.
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