I want to talk about how awesome it is to be a stay-at-home mom. I love it. There is no other person I want to be around 24/7. I try to acknowledge all the special moments I get with my little artichoke. Like when we are fort building and she looks at me with amazement at our creation. Or when she runs at me, flapping her arms and screaming "MA MA MA!". Or when she fake laughs after hearing me crack up at Holly licking her face. Those moments I got today :) How could I not feel like the luckiest mommy ever?!
Ok, here comes the but. BUT, there are times when I seriously feel like I am not contributing enough to this household. Why do I feel like that when I am a huge part of keeping the roof on this house? Why do I feel like I need to be bringing in cash? Is it because I spend the money so I feel like I should be replenishing it with liquid money? I don't know. But I have been trying to find more consulting work because I feel like we need more money.
Instead of stressing I want to focus on a couple goals:
1. try to save more $$. I am not sure about making this happen since I am a terrible spender. I have tried to keep a budget, but I really, really bad at it. My first step will be to check out a budgeting website, then go from there. Can't have a budget unless you know where all your money is going, right?....
2. remembering everyday that a stay-at-home mom is a full-time job and then some. remembering that my husband works hard so I can take care of Lily. remembering that money can't buy me moments with my daughter.
P.S. Lily is still AWESOME, growing fast and is 18 months old tomorrow!!!
Lily Cynara Pe McDonald
Our precious little girl...
Lily at the Tiki Room in Disneyland
Halloween 2009
Lily the Bumblebee
Our Family
Beach Day
Lily's first trip to the beach
Daddy with his little girl
Lily was maybe a few weeks old here
Lily
At the hospital
Lily's Feet
This is a pic from the second ultrasound. I hope she has another one of these somewhere in there.
Mountain Meadows Inn
Part of the front yard of the bed and breakfast
Mt. Rainier Trip 2008
2 comments:
don't underestimate how much you contribute - considering the average cost of paid child care being $1,200 per month, and housekeeping at something like $22/hour you're saving your household craploads of money. Not to mention having a personal chef and private educator.
That said, I also get what you're saying. What has helped me & Mike is to set up an account that is separate from our normal accounts. We both deposit about 15% of every check we get into that account and then forget about it. It helps that we have direct deposit set up, but even for other checks that come in we'll deposit all or part of it into our separate account that's not at our normal bank. I don't even know how much $ we use it to pay our property taxes and when we've accrued enough, it becomes our travel fund. :)
I'm with D. Definitely don't underestimate what staying at home means both for your bank account and for Lily. :)
Also, there's a great FREE budgeting website called Mint.com -- they take all your banking accounts, credit cards, etc. and show you where your spending your money. (It's totally secure -- Kenji and I both use it.
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