Moose and I have placed ourselves on what we call an "austerity plan". The plan is simple: drop cable TV and land telephone line, drop cell phone minutes to the bone ( - I'll admit I haven't dropped the minutes yet, because I'm a bit of a coward), ride the bus to work (this is for me, because..yanno... Moose works from home. It would be a bit silly for him to ride the bus) instead of driving and paying for gas and parking, endeavor to healthily feed our family of four on 10 dollars a day, stop going out to eat in any way (this also includes lattes, mochas, teas and treats from the 5 billion bakeries and coffee shops within a two block radius of our house), and the mother of all cuts: drop all childcare and arrange our work schedules to handle the kids ourselves.
Why are we doing this?
Obviously because we have no money, but here's the real skinny on why we have no money: We are still paying on hospital bills from Max's first year of life (just the first year, mind you. We haven't touched years 2, 3 or 4, yet), We are paying an extra 100 dollars a month for Max's medicare coverage (what?? You thought that shit was free? No... no it's not.), Max's immunosuppressants cost us between $300 and $400 a month out-of-pocket, our housing costs increased $600 per month when we moved and finally, Moose's work is currently paying about $15/hour LESS than it was at the end of December.
Yes... I meant what I said. That was not a typo.
$15/per hour less than what he was previously making.
No, he did not get demoted. He's a consultant and the work available is paying at a considerably lower rate than what we are used to for the time being. This should turn around this year, but right now.... it's kicking our behinds and has completely decimated whatever meager savings we'd been able to cobble together due to the aforementioned medical bills.
We've made all the cuts (except for the cell phone). This week is the nanny's last week. Though admittedly, we have gotten a taste for what a nanny-less house is like because she's been sick and in the hospital off and on for several of the last 6 or so weeks. I won't even mention how badly I feel about having to cut her loose when she's been IN THE HOSPITAL, but you can't get blood from a stone, right?
And honestly of all the cuts we've made, the nanny cut is the only one that is going to enable us to hold on here. Everything else helps, but the extra $950 a month is going to REALLY help. Like seriously. Like maybe I'll only be half-a-month behind in bills, instead of 2 months.
Yeah buddy... it's been bad.
Having a plan helps, though. Making the decision to drop the nanny was the pièce de résistance and was brought to us by Moose. Cutting our food budget way down has been challenging, but a task for which I am uniquely qualified. All in all, things are going well for us in this plan.
Moose and I work extremely well together in adversity. Did you suspect anything less, though? Come on. You can't have a child like Max and not only still be together but have had two more children and NOT work well in times of stress.
We buckle down for the ride and get to business.
I'll admit, the hardest thing right now is that I really need a haircut to trim up my sassy semi-new hair and the idea of spending $30 on anything involving me and hair that is just going to continue growing at an alarming, I'm-in-the-throes-of-pregnancy-and-my-hair-is-growing-like-a-weed rate is really difficult to contemplate. I could not cut it, but every day that passes, I feel more and more mousy. I feel overgrown in every aspect, my body... my hair....then add in the back pain that is just beginning to take hold and I start feeling like a frumpy, older-than-the-hills, hobbled, pregnant woman...
And honestly, that's not a place in which anyone wants to find me...
Seriously.
You might just want to run. Like now.
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