It's spring here in Michigan and true to it's unpredictible nature, we have a winter storm warning until tomorrow night. I was sitting at the kitchen table posting comments on my facebook page this afternoon and I looked out front to see rain, and then a few minutes later it was sleet. Then, heavy snow started to fall. Guess Mother Nature can't make up her mind what she wants for West Michigan.
I'm so ready for spring. I have so many plans for the summer, now that I'm a stay at home mom. For the last 6 or 8 months I'd been back and forth about wanting to take the plunge and stay home. It took weekly therapy sessions and a job offer to actually get me to take the step. Then, a meltdown at my Coldwell Banker job led to me being home.
It came about in an odd way, but my kids and my husband are really happy about me being home. For the first time in a very long time, I am caught up with the laundry and my house is clean more than 2 hours out of the week. I make dinner every night and even bake goodies for my kids. They keep telling me how much they like me being home.
When Jason and Jourdan were young, I couldn't stay home. Jason was 3 and Jourdan was only 9 months old when I left Paul and moved into my very first apartment. I had to work full time. Actually, at that time I was working 55 hours a week as a bookkeeper for a sod company. The job was good, but it was tough being gone so much. I didn't see the kids as much as I wanted. They were so young and I missed out on alot. I had to work. It was the only way that I was going to feed my kids and keep a roof over their heads. At the time, Paul paid $40 a week in child support. For two kids. Amazing isn't it?
So, I worked and I had babysitters raising my kids. When I look back on it, wow did it suck. Paul got out of work early so he would get the kids after he was done working so it was a little bit easier on them. They were with a babysitter until 2:30 instead of 5pm.
Anyhow, I always regretted that I wasn't at home with them when they were little. But I did what I had to do to survive. When John was born, we had just sold our store and were trying to sell our house so we could go to Ohio to be with Scott's mom. I was able to be home with him when he was little, and I enjoyed every moment of it.
Life went on and we had alot of changes. We moved to Ohio and then back to Michigan and had Sami. When she was a baby I got my job at Two Men And Truck and stayed there for almost 3 years. I loved working there, it was a great job. But, I was missing out on raising my kids....again. Sami was in daycare all day 3 days a week. I know, that's not full-time, but it was still hard on me. And I think it was hard on her.
Sami started on this kick of whining and crying about everything. She would give me a hard time about going to daycare. I know it wasn't the daycare because she used to cry when she didn't go there. There were lots of kids her age and I know that it wasn't daycare that was bothering her. She just wanted to be home with her mom.
Last week when I told her that I didn't have to go to work, she kept saying, "mommy I so happy".
So what am I really giving up here? We're going to sell our camper. But, Scott is going to buy a boat so I guess that really equals out. What I'm really giving up is a daycare bill, $75 a week in fuel to drive back and forth to work, and eating out all the time. When I was working I would be so tired when I got home....it would be 5 or 6pm and everyone would be ready for dinner and I had no idea what to make at the last minute. So, we ate out alot. We did on the weekends too. Since I've been home we haven't eaten out once.
I went through our checkbook and added up what I was spending on daycare, fuel, and eating out and we were actually behind compared to my income. We just had the idea that since I worked we had extra money and we could eat out anytime we wanted. Stupid! When I really looked at our money, I realized that we were pissing away alot of money.
So, I'm home now and we'll tighten our belt some so we can still be comfortable. One of the things that we wanted was to sell our house. We live in town and have city water and sewer. These two bills alone cost us $200 a month. Well, we sold our house and with the difference in our interest rate we are getting a house that is twice as big, almost twice as expensive and only $100 more a month on the house payment than we have now. And no water/sewer bill. Yay! Plus, our property taxes will be about $1000 less per year.
So now, my mission is to find ways to make a few extra bucks here and there. I've been doing tax returns for people. I also do Chapter 7 bankruptcies. I'm working on one right now. I've been thinking about putting an ad on Craigslist and in our local shoppers guide for preparing Chapter 7 bankruptcies and maybe even offering to type of wills. I have a friend who's an attorney, so that is helpful. I've talked to him to see what I can and cannot do....don't want to get into any trouble.
I made $275 this week on one tax return and a bankruptcy. Not bad for a weeks work huh? I just need to get the word out.....and not give any legal advice.
Not a very exciting post tonight. I had soemthing political in mind....but I think I'll save that for tomorrow. ;) For now, I'm going to try to sleep. I was up way too late last night and the kids are up bright and early for school.
No comments:
Post a Comment