Financial Security

My (Not-)Spending Strengths

Posted on by noemikjames / 21 Comments

I have a lot of spending weaknesses: books, clothes, toys, eating out. It’s easy to focus on all the ways I’m shit at spending money, and forget that there are lots of ways I’m good at saving. Here are just a few of the things I DON’T have to cut back on, spending wise, because I already don’t spend money in these areas.

– Cosmetics. I don’t wear make-up, except when I go out (very rarely) so the mascara and eye-liner and blush and lip stick I own last a LONG time (like years long, I know, that’s gross). I basically don’t spend money on make-up, ever.

– Hair and skin care. I use baking soda and vinegar to wash my hair. I buy a three-pack of Oil of Olay Shea butter and a two-pack of Cetaphil from Costco one a year to wash my body and face. That’s also where I get my six-pack of Dove deodorant. I buy the same face lotions (one for day with SPF and one for night without) every time, and only when they run out. My friend cuts my hair (and my daughter’s) for free, or I get a $15 cut somewhere when she’s busy. I use the clippers on my husband and my son. My big self-care splurge is a leg wax but I only do that about once a year (usually I use a depilator). I pluck my own eyebrows and I never get manicures or pedicures.

– Jewelry. I don’t buy jewelry anymore. I used to, but it’s been a few years. I wear my wedding ring (which cost less than a grand), a necklace from Tiffany’s, and a watch every day and that is it. I never take them off. I never change them. It may be boring, but it’s cost effective.

Cloth diapers. We cloth diaper our son. I don’t actually think cloth diapers saved me much (any?) money with my first child–they are not cheap!–but already having everything I needed the second time around definitely saved me a significant amount. (Plus I’ll make a little back when I sell my stash.) We were even able to cloth diaper our son at night for 14 months, something I never managed with my daughter. Now we only buy disposable night diapers and everything else is cloth. It creates more laundry for me (and I can’t wait to be done washing diapers) but it saves us money, and it’s good for the earth! Win/win!

– House cleaning. We don’t have someone clean our house. I’d love to, but I’m worried that once I get used to a house cleaner my standards will become higher than I could meet on my own (I’m a HORRIBLE housekeeper, just dreadful).

– Music and movies. I used to spend a ton on music and movies (oh my god, why did I buy so many DVDs?!) but I don’t anymore (it’s been maybe four years since I bought a CD or DVD). I probably see 3-4 movies on the big screen a year. I used to take my daughter to pretty much every new kids’ movie that came out, but we’re realizing she can’t handle the sensory input of a big screen (and big speakers) so we’re imposing a moratorium on that as well. At home we watch what’s on Netflix or Hulu (we don’t have cable) and I find those subscriptions to be very reasonable.

– Vacations. We don’t take vacations, at least not the kind where you pay to stay. We see my extended family every year or two in St. Louis, but my parents help us pay for that airfare (because they know we can’t afford it and wouldn’t go otherwise). I took my daughter to Disneyland for two days (we drove) last year. We head to San Diego every other year (again, driving) and stay with friends for a long weekend. Sometimes (every 2-3 years?) I’ll see a friend who lives far away. That is the extent of our travel.

– One car. We only have one car. It not only saves us money on the actual car, but on the second insurance policy we don’t need, along with all the oil changes, new tires and other maintenance costs we avoid. Having one car saves us a lot of money. We hope to remain a one-car family forever. (Hence my current cargo-bike infatuation… 😉

– Public schools. We’ll be sending our kids to public schools and that is going to save us a pretty penny (that we don’t actually have to send our kids to private school, so the choice was an easy one). I can’t wait until they are both in public schools. Four (maybe three!) years and counting…

– Tenant. We have a tenant whose rent helps us pay our mortgage. We could not have afforded this house without that added income. It’s been a great way for us to afford a house in a very expensive city.

So there are some ways we excel at saving money. It’s not much, but it’s worth mentioning, especially when I’m picking apart every little mistake I make in the spending department. Sometimes it’s nice to shine a light on what we’re doing right.

What are some ways you excel at saving money?

Financial Security

My First Savings Plan

Posted on by noemikjames / 17 Comments

I felt like I had to get this out there before I turned 35 because I’d like to be able to say that I started my first savings plan before 35. Sure it might be a matter of days, but it counts!

So this savings plan doesn’t follow the advice of many financial experts, including Suze Orman and Elizabeth Warren (of All Your Worth) in that I’m not building up a $45,000 six-month emergency fund in a savings account before I contribute more toward my retirement (403b). It will take us a LONG time to get to $45,000 and with my job being as secure as it is (and us having some flexibility in times of crises–we could absolutely live with my parents and rent out our home if it got to that), I’m not going to forgo upping my retirement contribution until we hit the magic six-months must-have number (I believe Suze Ormond’s recommendation is actually eight months–there is no way we’re doing that). If you think this is a terrible idea, please let me know.

My tentative plan has two parts:

Part One is to up my retirement contribution from $300 to $600 a month, which means I’ll be seeing (what I’m guessing will be) a $200 reduction in my paycheck. (I also found out that California is upping the monthly STRS contribution by 1.8% which means I won’t even see my first raise–blerg!)

Part Two is to put all of the $5,000 I get withheld in a tax-sheltered 125 childcare account into a savings account at a credit union so that I won’t see it and it will be a pain to move it over.

I believe this will put my annual savings at 18%, which would be amazing. I’m not sure if I’m doing the math right though, so if you could check it for me I’d really appreciate it.

I currently make $4,500 a month after taxes and everything else is taken out (including $300 toward retirement). I’m estimating that once I ask them to take out $600 a month for my 403b my take home pay will look like $4,300 ($100 of that $300 would have been lost to taxes, right?). Part of what is taken out will be $600 a month toward my 403b (basically a teacher’s 410K). Also part of what will be taken out is $454.54 ($5000/11months) that I then reclaim via paperwork from a 125 childcare account. As a teacher I am paid on an 11 month schedule (we don’t work in July so we don’t get paid in July), but I have them withhold part of each month’s check so that I get a paycheck in July. This is why I multiply my salary by 12 but my retirement contribution and childcare account withholdings by 11. Taking all that into consideration, my yearly (gross) income is $63,200:

($4,300 x 12) + ($600 x 11) + ($454.54 x 11) =

$51,600 + $6,600 + $5000 = $63,200

Since both the $6,600 I’d be putting toward retirement and the $5,000 I’d be putting into savings are considered “savings,” the percentage of my yearly income that would be allocated for savings would be $11,600 of the total $63,200 or 18.35%

$11,600 / $63,200 = .183544 = 18.35%

That would be pretty fucking fantastic.

It also won’t be easy. Our childcare is going up $550 a month next year (the childcare my daughter attended, that my son will soon attend, went up $380 a month and my daughter’s after school program will cost $170 a month), so that will be a significant financial change to absorb, along with the loss of $200 a month that will be going toward my retirement. Plus I’ve only been paying my $115 a month life insurance premium for two months, so I’m not really used to budgeting around that either.

Right now I get reimbursed from my 125 account every two months (by choice, I could send in the paper work every month or wait until the end of the year to get it all at once). Sometimes I use that $909 to cover a large VISA bill, sometimes it pays for the homeowners insurance or the car insurance. Sometimes I use it to cover an unexpected home or car repair. At the end of the year it pays for Christmas presents. It is always around when I need to cover something that we hadn’t really budged for. Which means that if I want to put it into savings and not touch it, I DO need to budget for those things. So not only do I need to get used to spending $865 less a month, but I also need to get used to putting even more away for those big bills that come up once or twice a year. (Some quick math suggestions I need to put $200 a month aside to pay the homeowners and auto insurance). So we’re talking about living on approximately $1100 a month less than I’m used to.

That is a really big difference.

I know I don’t need to jump to 18% so quickly (I was only saving 5% before), but the thing is, I think I can. If I watch my spending closely and stick to a budget (I still need to come up with an actual budget), I think I can put that much away. I’m not paying for childcare this summer and I won’t be paying for my son’s childcare in September or most of October either (my inlaws are covering the time before he turns two for us–yes we are incredibly lucky), which means I’ll be saving a significant chunk of change that I can have as a fall back if I can’t stick to this much stricter budget in the first months. I can also access the money in the savings account, it will just require a couple days for the check to clear.

Once we get $45,000 in savings (more on how I want/expect my husband to participate in all this later) we’ll start putting that $5,000 a year (plus more, hopefully) into more high-yield funds and eventually start putting money into 529’s for our children.

I’m going to do more math looking into what I’ll have left to spend on everything after I pay for childcare, pay my parents, pay life insurance premiums and put money aside for annual and bi-annual expenses. I’ll spend these three months before the huge childcare expense for my son comes due practicing staying within that budget so that hopefully I’ll be living within my new means when I actually have to. (And if I’m not, I’ll refine my savings plan accordingly.)

So that is my tentative first savings plan. What are your thoughts?

Uncategorized

Make It Better

Posted on by noemikjames / 23 Comments

There are different reasons I want to buy things. Some things just Look Cool (mostly clothes) and I want them to make me Look Cool. It’s pretty easy to push these wants out of my mind, though some have staying power (ahem, slip on Vans I’ve been coveting). Other things are functional, and I can give you a hundred and one reasons why it would be a Useful Thing (ahem, fan I’m not buying despite stifling heat when I exercise). These are harder to let go of, but I’m learning to make due with what I’ve got (or just endure a little discomfort, gawd forbid). What I’m finding is really hard to walk away from are the Things I Think Will Make It Better. Those things dance in my dreams at night.

The truth is, I think a lot of things will Make It Better An example: My daughter’s Not Wanting To Wear Shoes Kindof-A-Thing is becoming a The Great Shoe Strike of 2015. She never wants to wear shoes. She wants to be barefoot all the time, including the times when she’s walking in areas where there could be (ie probably is, because this is San Francisco) glass or nails or dog shit or other undesirable surprises. She wants to go barefoot ALL THE FUCKING TIME. It’s a constant negotiation, that eventually becomes an argument that inevitably leads to a meltdown. Every. Single. Time. It’s starting to wear on me. It’s getting to where I don’t want to take her outside anymore (which would suit her just fine, thankyouverymuch).

Her main pair of shoes, The Blue Ones, are almost too small. The Rainbow Dash Ones (which she tends to avoid wearing even though they are super fucking cool) are getting tight and The Tevas are still wearable despite being the size she’s growing out of (thank you open toes!). She just got a pair of awesome Vans with cats on them but they have laces, which she can’t tie yet. She does like them though, and will at least put them on (then ten minutes later will ask to take them off again).

Today at the zoo, after she tromped around for three hours in her socks, I got the brilliant idea that those “barefoot” shoes with the individual toe sleeves would be perfect for my daughter. Sure there was a chance she’d hate them, but if she loved them, they would Make It Better.

I spent a day obsessing over these shoes. My daughter’s size is the smallest carried–it was meant to be!–but no stores carry them anymore (they haven’t been “all the rage” in two years and the site’s store list is badly in need of editing). I called eight places and nobody had them in a 29. I could order them online, but they are expensive and I hate returning shoes that are shipped.

So I slow down and think about what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it. And I recognize that desperate desire for this Challenging Issue to be Fixed, and that I’ve channeled all that desperation into a Thing I think will Fix It. And then I chuckle to myself.

There is no way those ridiculous looking shoes are going to resolve the Great Shoe Strike of 2015. Sure I may get her a pair some day so we can see if she likes them, but I don’t need them Now, to fix This Particular Thing.

As I researched a sensory swing for my daughter I saw tons of other stuff I knew she’d love. Stuff that I was sure would Make It Better. I have a whole list of things I want to get her, but I see now that I want those things because deep down, voices I’m not ready to entertain, would do anything, buy anything, for it all to be easier. I’m looking for the magic bullet–or a cylinder of magic bullets–but it doesn’t exist. No item I can buy is going to make this all go away. It’s hard for me to remember that.

I’ve been buying shit to Make It Better for a loooooong time. A really long time. It’s a hard habit to break. But this summer I’m breaking it, one day at a time. Some days are harder than others, but this spending freeze is forcing me to take the time to be honest with myself about why I want things, how I think they’ll Make It Better. It turns out that time is usually all I need to stop myself from spiraling into the abyss.

When my daughter really doesn’t have anything to put on her feet, I might try those ridiculous shoes. In the meantime, I’ll remind myself even that even the Great Shoe Strike of 2015 will eventually come to an end, even without magic footwear.

Do you buy things to Make it Better? What other reasons compel you to spend?

Financial Security

Summer Budget Week 4

Posted on by noemikjames / 15 Comments

Are you starting to find these posts tiresome? I am. They are definitely making me hyperaware of how quickly the summer is passing. How am I already posting for week four!

The assessment was obviously a huge expense. I decided to get a private assessment done because I know SFUSD’s threshhold for OT-required sensory differences is much lower than those of a private occupational therapist. I’ve also heard it takes a while to actually get an assessment administered through the district. Having the information before school starts allows me to start advocating for my daughter earlier. Also, a formal diagnoses might help me get coverage from Kaiser for our PCIT sessions. Mostly I just wanted the report done quickly and easily so that I could take my time figuring out how to move forward with the information. Our therapist hasn’t wanted to work much with my daughter until she knows if/what underlying sensory differences are/maybe contributing to her emotional outbursts and aggression. I guess the good news is we haven’t been paying for PCIT for three weeks, and that is the cost of the assessment, so that massive expense was actually in my budget for this summer. I guess that’s a win?

I got art supplies this week. Does that break the ban? They are consumable, but not necessary. I was torn about it. In the end I got them and we’ve used them but I’ve been feeling kind of shitty about it. Also in that purchase was kinesthetic sand, which our PCIT therapist recommended (so not feeling shitty about it). It has been a huge hit and it’s a special thing our daughter gets to use when she makes good choices throughout the day. She clearly loves the way it feels. Heck, I love the way it feels. I would play with it all day if I could.

I did make one purchase that absolutely breaks the ban. I bought a book-on-tape for my daughter ($5.95), which is totally a no-no. I know I shouldn’t have (and yet I did it again today–so there will be that same purchase on next week’s spending report! Fuck!). I can give my weak-ass excuse (see below) but it’s just that, a weak-ass excuse. This is me sneaking the candy bar and gleefully licking each and every finger. This is me straight out cheating. But it’s kind of good that I cheated because I was reminded that I need to cancel my Audible monthly subscription, but I can’t do that until I use up the three credits I have left (the kids books costs less than half of what I spend on a credit so I’m not going to use a credit to get one of those books). Now I need to do some research on the books I want to “read” and what the library does or doesn’t have (and how many holds are on the ones they do have), get my three books and then cancel the subscription so I stop getting charged $14.95 a month for a credit.

{WEAK-ASS EXCUSE: My daughter has been listening to Ivy and Bean book-on-tapes CONSTANTLY this summer–sometimes 4-5 hours a day!–and we only had three books and I just couldn’t listen to any of them one. more. time. Audible awarded me a repeated listeners badge for repeating Ivy and Bean Make the Rules 15 times! I didn’t even know the Audible app has badges! So I got a new book because I just couldn’t. And I got one again this week (week 5) because I just couldn’t again. But I told her no more this summer. We’ll see what the library has by way of kids book-on-tapes that don’t have months worth of holds on them (like the Ivy and Bean books).}

The Paperless Post charge was also lame. It wasn’t until I’d spent 30 minutes putting together my birthday invitation that I realized the one I picked wasn’t free and it was past midnight and I just couldn’t bring myself to start over again so a $6 charge it was.

Oh, there was one more purchase I didn’t record because I used Amazon Reward points to get it (should I have recorded that even though I’m not actually paying for it? Should I record the three Audible books I get to use up my credits even though those charges were actually mad made in past months?). I got a basket for the back of the bike ($22) because when I wear my backpack my daughter’s face hits up against it and she hates that and I can’t go anywhere without at least a backpack because water and diapers and wipes and extra clothes and snacks and all. the. things. So yeah, chalk another $20 up to bike. I still haven’t caved and gotten a bike pump so at least that’s something. (Oh, and I had to get zipties to McGuyver that sucker on so make that $26 more dollars on the bike.)

But there are things I did this week to save money. I loaded up three very heavy bags and one very heavy box of small rocks from my parents’ backyard and hauled them to my house for part of my backyard project (I’ll need to make 5+ more trips to fill the space). I also went to my work and brought the remaining plants from the vertical planter I created last year to plant in the new section with the rocks. The rocks alone are saving my hundreds of dollars, and my parents are stoked to get rid of them because they are redoing their side yard and don’t want them anymore. The plants from work aren’t in great shape but they’ll do, and I’m saving about $60-$100 not buying new plants.

I have been much better about packing food when my kids and I go out and I don’t stress as much when my son isn’t eating what I packed. All I can say is thank god for bananas. I’m definitely spending less on out-and-about food than I would sans ban (and no, I don’t feel bad about the pretzel at the zoo, even this girl’s gotta get her zoo pretzel on).

Also BlogHer is this weekend. I would have loved to go, and visited a friend in NYC while I went, but I shelved it for another year. That saved me a pretty penny and I feel it’s worth mentioning, because I considered it for a month or so before I faced the reality that I couldn’t justify such a massive expense on something I wanted to do just for me.

I think I have a savings plan for the 2015-16 school year. I will share it shortly. In the meantime, my week 4 spending log:

WEEK 4
7/2/2015 Toothbrushes for kids (realized I forgot this last week) $8.34
7/4/2015 Kaiser (Son’s Rx + Benedryl + 30SPF daily face lotion) $32.45
7/4/2015 Michaels (paint supplies + face paint + kinestic sand set) $58.77
7/4/2015 Pretzel at zoo $3.95
7/5/2015 Late fee at library $1.50
7/5/2015 Paperless Post (35th birthday invitations) $6.00
7/7/2015 Brunch with Friend $22.00
7/7/2015 Book-on-tape for daughter $5.56
7/7/2015 Sensory Assessment $450.00
7/8/2015 Plumber (fix leak in tub) $126.74
7/8/2015 Safeway (groceries) $40.56
7/9/2015 Gas $46.17
7/10/2015 Zip ties for bike basket $6.52
$808.56
Financial Security/Minimalism

Frustrations about the Spending Freeze

Posted on by noemikjames / 22 Comments

Wow. Such an interesting dialogue about how people arrange who does what in a relationship to make it work. I’ve found all of it very enlightening and I know I, and we, have a lot of work to do on all of this. I promise I’ll keep you updated as we hopefully move forward making positive changes in our dynamic so both of us are happier.

And now, a little rant at the end of the fourth week of my non-consumables ban. (Sorry it got so long, when I get mad I ramble…)

So there was a little fudging this week, which I’ll talk more about in my official budget post. This week, and especially the past two days, I’ve been dealing with some frustration and anger surrounding this ban I’ve imposed on myself. I suppose it was to be expected, but I didn’t expect it to be so intense.

But first, a little backstory.

So there is something I haven’t mentioned before here. I didn’t technically have to mention it because my ban started on the first day of summer and I never agreed to give any information on what spending occurred before that date. I announced my ban at least a week before it started, and then didn’t say a word about what happened in the days leading up to my spending freeze.

I’m someone who loves to start a new “regimen” at the beginning of something. A week is good. A month is even better. These random days marking arbitrary units of time feel like blank slates to me. And it’s so much easier to go back and appreciate how long you’ve stuck to a new habit when you have easy to name units of time at your disposal.

Back in my “consistently starting a new diet” days I ALWAYS waited until Monday to start my next food restriction of some kind. And there were always a few days in between the decision to start the diet and the Monday when the diet would actually begin. And I ALWAYS spent those days binge eating all the shit I would not be allowed to eat as soon as the restriction started.

Am I the only one who did this?

I can’t be.

{Raise your hand if you can tell where this is going?}

In that week between when I decided to freeze my spending over the summer and the actual beginning of summer I went on a bit of a spending binge. I don’t think I was consciously buying everything I might have wanted over the summer so that there wouldn’t be anything to tempt me during those nine weeks, but that is basically what I was doing. I bought a lot of shit. I did not keep track of my spending. I hoped like hell I hadn’t blown through a huge chunk of my tax refund, but I didn’t log into my credit card account to find out. And I didn’t say a word about it.

In the end I didn’t do nearly as much damage as I had expected. It seems that all these years of trying to be more mindful about my spending have tamed my shopping splurges considerably. I don’t think I touched my tax refund at all, actually.

But I did buy a bunch of stuff, a bunch of stuff that would absolutely NOT be allowed during the spending freeze. I kind of expected to feel some buyers remorse after the initial high, but that never happened. I did take back many of the items of clothing I bought because I’m still good at only keeping what brings me joy, but I never wished I could take back any of the other stuff.

In fact, I’ve REALLY been enjoying most of it.

One thing I got was a sensory table for our dining room. I filled it with rice and the kids play in it throughout the day. It probably gets an thirty minutes to an hour of use daily and is especially popular when I’m making meals. It does have its drawbacks–my son occasionally throws rice with wild abandon–but the positives outweigh them. I appreciate that my kids have something to do that inspires their curiosity and lets them explore their world and I love that it’s right next to the kitchen so I can keep an eye on them while they do it.

I bought my daughter a set of play silks for her birthday, along with some sets of clothing pins, and I adore watching her create “fashions” or transform her stuffed animals or construct forts under her loft bed. Those play silks have been front and center all summer long–her playtime is much richer for having them.

The sandbox and wading pool in the backyard have been equally well used. We spend part of most days in our backyard and I love having that space as an option when we need a way to kill a morning or a couple of hours before diner. I’ve always wanted to utilize our backyard more and because of those purchases we do.

The literal day before the spending freeze I bought (used) a small play structure for my son’s room. It has a basketball hoop and a climbing arch and a slide and it fits nicely in the space that used to be occupied by the elliptical. We play with that thing every single day. It’s the focal point of most of our afternoons and it helps us pass the seemingly endless hours between when my son wakes up and when it’s time for dinner. My son slides down it, my daughter slides down it, I slide down it, we all slide down it and collapse into a heap on the floor. We slide into each other, we race to the top against each other… it allows us to be physical and move our bodies in a small space. Most days it means the difference between bad moods and good ones.

You all know how I debated whether or not to get the seats for the bike, but I couldn’t be more pleased that I committed to that project. I’m finally feeling really comfortable on it and I use it a lot. I want to write a whole post about why I love it, but I felt I needed to mention it here because it was a significant expense that I think was totally worth while.

I kind of expected that I’d feel worse and worse about what I bought before the spending freeze, but instead I’m feeling more and more thankful that I got these things. Why is this happening? Have I already failed in some way?

The point of the spending ban was to help me break a habit and to give me some perspective on how much I spend on things we don’t actually need. I’m sure it will achieve both of those outcomes. I’m just not sure that at the end of this I’m going to believe that not buying stuff should be the goal.

I read so many blogs now where that is the message–you don’t need the stuff and it won’t make you happy, so don’t buy it (and you will be happy?–this seems to be implied more than said outright). But what if the stuff does make us happy? I look around this summer and see all these things that I bought right before the spending freeze and they are making us happy. I think our summer would be less than if we didn’t have them.

And there are things I want to buy now that I think it’s dumb not to buy just because I created this arbitrary spending ban. I’m currently questioning my reasons for not getting them.

One thing I want is a simple fan for my bedroom. The days have been kind of muggy and it sucks to workout on the elliptical when there isn’t a shred of breeze. Sure I don’t need one, but a fan would make working out a WAY more pleasant experience. The idea of enduring six more weeks of stifling exercise because I told myself I couldn’t buy anything is frustrating at best, infuriating at worst (like when I’m on the actual elliptical machine, drenched in sweat).

The second thing is a lot more complicated because it’s for my daughter. I want to write a separate post about her sensory assessment, but I’m waiting until we get the actual report to do so. While I’m not sure exactly what the OT is going to say officially, at the end of the assessment she mentioned that my daughter would benefit from OT, specifically this special swing that is basically a stretchy hammock she crawls into so they can spin her around until the fabric is really tight and she feels pressure from all sides. One of these swings (and the hardware to mount it) costs less than one session of Occupational Therapy. If that is really the biggest reason for her to go, why shouldn’t I just get one and save myself the money on future OT visits? Again, I could wait until the spending ban is over, but providing the sensory stimulation for my daughter could make these long weeks so much more bearable.

So that is where I am right now, unsure of how I feel about my spending ban and worrying that I may not be learning the right lessons from all of this. Is this my materialistic side trying to assert itself in a power play for dominance? Am I feeling this way because there is a part of me that is threatened by doing things differently? I don’t think so, but I’ve never been in this position before so I can’t really know. All I do know is that I want a fucking fan and I want to get my daughter the swing and I don’t really understand the value in NOT getting them. There have been things I have seen the value in not getting, but I just can’t with this stuff.

Do you believe we’d all be better off if we didn’t buy anything, or only bought what we absolutely need? How would you proceed with these things if you had imposed a only-consumables spending restriction for the summer?

Marriage/Parenting & Family

Digging Deeper

Posted on by noemikjames / 29 Comments

I appreciated Polly’s comment on my last post. It got me thinking: Where were these feelings coming from? Why was I jealous of my own husband?

In my response I said that it wasn’t what my husband did or didn’t do, but instead his attitude that bothered me. But as the hours marched on and I thought I about it more, I realized my husband’s attitude has been changing. He isn’t so negative these days. He recognizes and validates my efforts more than ever before. I returned to that knee-jerk response because it was true for a long time, but I don’t think it is anymore.

So I dug a little deeper.

It turns out my response to Polly’s comment is not accurate at all. The real reason I envy my husband is that I feel totally and completely overwhelmed in this role. Motherhood doesn’t play to any of my strengths. I feel like everything I’m forced to do as a mother goes against who I am. It’s exhausting, and I never feel like I’m doing a good job.

I’m not particularly patient. I’m not a good listener. I’m not good at staying present. I am not good at being, really being with my children day in and day out.

I’m scatter brained and distracted. Making–and keeping–appointments is hard for me. That is probably why I spend so much time thinking about them–I’m terrified I’m missing one at any given moment. I forget about an appointment and make other plans and then have to cancel something. On Wednesday morning I woke up to a reminder from Kaiser about my pap smear Thursday, at exactly the same time I had plans to visit the Discovery Museum with new friend. (Obviously my pap smear is going to wait.)

I hate food. I hate having to plan to make food, I hate preparing food. I hate bringing food with me and remembering to feed it to my kids. I hate trying to get my kids to eat food and I hate cleaning up after them when they don’t really eat it. Basically I hate food, and I hate that now I not only have to worry about what I eat every day, but what two other humans eat too. (Especially when there is so much out there about how what we feed our kids is the pinnacle of importance in parenting and I’m constantly being berated by messages about how I should only be offering organic, free-range, locally grown, fresh fruit and veg and protein and also dairy is the devil and gluten will f*ck your kids’ fragile gut and you are seriously ruining them if you feed them proceeded shit from a store, which is exactly what I feed them for every single meal because it’s all they’ll eat.)

It’s so much pressure. And I feel like I’m shouldering it all.

I want to feel like I have a partner in all of this. I want to feel like it’s not all falling on me. I don’t want to feel like I’m failing. At the very least I want to feel like we are failing, instead of just me.

Because he doesn’t have to feel like a failure for yelling at the kids; he’s not usually with them at the hardest time of their days (and he’s not the one telling them they can’t have gummy bunnies because they screamed through the shower). He doesn’t have to feel like an asshat for showing up at the birthday party without a gift when everyone else brought one (he wouldn’t even be at the birthday party to see he’d forgotten the gift). He doesn’t have to worry about missing the appointment because he didn’t make it and won’t be bringing the kids to it anyway.

All those things, they chip away at me, they are tiny weights that eventually bow me at my very core. I wish I could share that burden with someone else, with my husband, so that it didn’t feel so oppressive.

But there’s more. The real reason I wrote that post yesterday and not months ago, is that right now things are especially intense. I’m home all day with my kids, which I’m not used to. We are all on the cusp of major family transitions with Kindergarten starting for our daughter and daycare/preschool coming up for our son. I’m seeking professional help to better meet my daughter’s needs, sitting across from someone and assimilating words like “atypical” and “concerning.” And I’m sitting there alone, trying to keep it all straight so that later I can relate it all to my partner, even though I’m not entirely sure of any of it myself. I’m deciding if we should move forward with the sensory assessment and then if we should move forward with Occupational Therapy (or just stick with PCIT). These are big decisions, associated with significant dollar amounts, not to mention my daughter’s future contentment and well being. I don’t know what the answers are, and it feels like it’s all on me to figure it out.

It’s not that my husband isn’t there to talk about these things. He is. Kind of. But he’s removed enough that it doesn’t seem to touch him like it touches me. And it’s his habit (our habit) to default to me on this stuff because I’m the one who’s read the books and been to the appointments and talked to the therapists and witnessed my daughter’s behaviors in these myriad environments.

I can’t even get into how much of myself I see in my daughter and how that can be a gift because it helps me empathize with and understand her better but the guilt of knowing I gave all this to her is its own massive burden.

When my husband is with our kids he is 100% with them. He doesn’t do anything else, he follows their leads and plays their games and immerses himself in their very being. He is way better at being with them than I could ever be. (I like to tell myself it’s because he isn’t with them as much, but I know my distractible ADD-ridden self could never just be with them the way he is.) He is so much more attuned to their subtle cues; he can tell they are getting tired or over-stimulated way before I do. He is an amazing father, and when I think of what a great team we could make it tears at my heart.

But we’re not that team. Not yet. Maybe some day we will be, but I’m not sure how we’ll get there. Right now my husband seems to overwhelmed by the enormity of our children’s needs. He’s too tired at the end of the day to talk about simple things, let alone tackle sensitive, complicated topics. He says that these years are just going to be hard, and there is nothing we can do to make them better; we just have to wait it out and reconvene on the other side. While I agree with him that these years bring with them a certain level of unavoidable stress and exhaustion, I think a shift in our perspective could make the whole thing seem a lot more manageable. So I take on more in an attempt to alleviate his burden and then the weight of it all becomes too much and I get envious and resentful and write posts like yesterday’s.

We have our weekend together without the kids soon. I want to bring all this up, but I know I’ll botch it somehow. (I so wish I owned a copy of Crucial Conversations so I could review–there are downsides to only borrowing books from the library.) I’ll still try, and I’ll still hope for the best, even if what I’m expecting is less optimistic.

Home/Marriage/Parenting & Family

Sometimes I wish I weren’t the default…

Posted on by noemikjames / 68 Comments

{I had no idea I had gotten so behind on responding to comments. I think I’m all caught up if you want to go back and check out the last few posts. It’s not like I wrote anything mind-blowing, but there are responses there now.}

It took me less than four weeks to start envying my husband as he walked out the door every morning. I envy the fact that he had a life away from our house and our kids. I envied his ability to walk away and leave it all behind for 8 hours. Seriously, when he’s at work he doesn’t have to think about anything family related at all. I can’t even fathom that.

The reality is I NEVER get to walk away and not look back, not even for an hour. Even when I do go to work every day I carry my family life with me. I’m always thinking about the doctor’s appointment I have to make, or the ones I’ve already made that I don’t want to forget. I’m always considering the cost of therapy for my daughter and wondering if it will even help or listening to a book-on-tape that will give me skills to better navigate my kids’ challenging sibling interactions. I’m always orchestrating the elaborate pick-up and drop-off schedule, mentally checking off that everyone is where they need to be and making sure they’ll get retrieved from those places later.

I am the one who has to get it all done. It ALL falls on me. The most my husband takes with him is whether or not we need milk before bedtime. That’s really it. And most of the time he texts me to see if I can pick it up.

Sometimes I’m really jealous of my husband, jealous that he gets to be the dad, that parenthood didn’t seep into every crevice of his brain, that it didn’t harden in every nook and cranny of his life. I’m envious that there is a part of his previous life out there, still in tact. That part is probably smaller than I imagine it is, but it’s there. I don’t have that remnant of my former self. Every single aspect of every single day has been changed, altered, warped, stained. Motherhood has touched everything. It is a program that always runs in the background, triggering pop-up windows and forcing other programs to run slowly or crash altogether. No, motherhood isn’t just a program, it’s the operating system on my computer that I didn’t update for so long that now I can’t–it bogs down everything else I try to run and I’m constantly having to force quite the applications I need the most. Sometimes I can’t run a program at all because my motherhood operating system is too clunky to support it. Motherhood is me having to shut everything down periodically so I can restart the whole machine, which always happens at the most inopportune time.

Fatherhood is my husband’s totally updated operating system that manages all the programs he wants to run without anything stalling or crashing or needing to be force quit. Fatherhood is his computer running perfectly. He logs out when he’s not using it and logs back in when he has something to do. It’s always there when he needs it and it’s always working.

Oh my god I love this metaphor!

There are so many things about my husband’s life that I’m envious of. Here are just a few.

I’m jealous that:

– He’s never even set foot in the space occupied by our laundry machines, let alone put clothes in them or turned them on.

– He doesn’t have to check his phone when he’s out to see if I’ve called asking him where something is or how to manage someone who’s upset or what to do about so-and-so problem.

– When he’s out of town he doesn’t have to worry that the kids are okay or if I’m managing fine without them.

– He doesn’t have to wonder if I will be home on a certain night when he is making plans–it always falls to me to get coverage if we both want to do something. (To be fair he will help me get coverage, but it ultimately falls on me.)

– He doesn’t have to keep track of appointments, school conferences, drop off or pick up times, what to bring to the class party, whose birthday party is this weekend and whether a present is required, if we’ve contributed to the teacher appreciation envelope, the names of our daughter’s classmates and their parents, the final deadline for Kindergarten registration, the final deadline for the after school program’s registration, etc.)

– He doesn’t have to get up when the kids cry in the night (when he does they just get more upset and scream for me).

– He doesn’t have to endure the banshee screaming of my daughter when she gets her hair washed. In fact he has never bathed either of his children, not in five years.

– He doesn’t have to think about when or how he’s going to pick up all the shit on the floor, or get the beds changed, or scour the shower, or wipe down the bathroom sink, or pick up the kids’ rooms or vacuum the floors, or sweep the entry way, or wipe down the play mats, or well, you get the picture.

– He isn’t the person our kids rile against when they need someone to help them unload their emotional backpacks.

– He hasn’t spent countless hours reading books and articles on how to manage tantrums or help picky eaters try different foods, or which formula is best, or how to help siblings navigate conflicts, or how to have more sex and a happier marriage.

– He doesn’t even think about all those things I’ve been reading books and articles about it.

Sure, being a parent is important to him. Sure it is a HUGE part of his life. I’m sure he would say it is his whole life. But it’s not. At least it’s not his whole life in the same way it’s my whole life. He can walk away for a few hours every day. He can take a break.

Yesterday I called my husband to see if he could take our daughter to camp so I could meet a friend early in the morning. He was clearly busy and annoyed that I was interrupting his day. It’s in those moments that I see the space he has, the bubble that protects him from the onslaught of us. I see it because he gets prickly when I invade that space, when I force my way into his bubble with a phone call or a text, when I remind him we’re still here even if he’s not.

I know I created this dynamic, or at the very least enabled it. I made conscious choices to take on all of this because the alternative was worse. I couldn’t handle the sighing and the woe-is-me attitude. I couldn’t stomach the defeatism. So I took it all on, or most of it. And while it’s better now, it’s not where I want it to be. And even if it were, it would still, ultimately, fall on me. Because I’m the mom, and the mom is usually the default parent who does all the invisible work.

Are you the “default” half of your relationship? Do you ever wish you weren’t?

Life

Goings On

Posted on by noemikjames / 20 Comments

It’s the fourth week of summer (how is that possible!?) and we’re finally falling into a routine. The days still feel long but I don’t feel totally ineffectual. I’m actually enjoying myself some days. Other days I feel like I might totally lose my shit. In a single hour I can oscillate between wishing I were really a SAHM who never had to go back to work to counting the weeks until our first day back.

I’m trying to stick to what I was doing while my husband was away so I can continue feeling on top of the house stuff. I thought long and hard about just offering to do the dishes during the summer but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just knew I’d feel too much resentment if I took on more, when he NEVER offers to do the same for me. (Is this my whole problem? Is this why our marriage always feels strained? Because I can’t bring myself to offer him that without feeling resentment?) Luckily, I thought of an alternative that I think we both appreciate: I will do the dishes in return for help with bedtime when he’s around to contribute. This is a win/win because by the end of the night I’m very grateful for a break from the kids and I can stay on top of the dishes throughout the day. I think we’re both happy with the agreement.

It’s interesting because my husband seems to respect my contribution a lot more now that I’m home all day with the kids. He tries to give me more breaks and when I offer to give him breaks he at first declines, saying I never get them anymore. I think it’s just easier for my husband to understand how long the days are with both kids because he gets a taste for it on the weekends. On the one had I appreciate that he recognizes how exhausting they both are, but on the other hand I’m frustrated that he can’t respect how depleted I am after a day of teaching AND mothering. But don’t worry, I’m mostly just appreciative that he is validating the intense effort that navigating the days with these two entails. It’s a welcome change in our dynamic.

My birthday is a week from Friday. I’m turning 35. A while back, when I thought my parents wouldn’t be around to take the kids, I decided I was going to try to do something with my friends this year. I actually have a few friends to do something with and that is novel and exciting. Later my mom’s plans changed and they offered to take the kids for our “birthday weekend” (my husband’s birthday is four days after mine and we love when our birthdays straddle a weekend like they do this year) so we took them up on it. Knowing I could fall back on dinner with my husband, I started to get cold feet about doing something with friends. I do have ten or so women to invite, but few of them know each other. Maybe it would be weird? Maybe no one would come? I couldn’t commit on what I wanted to do and I didn’t send out invites. I was about to just bail on the whole thing.

Finally last night I bit the bullet and sent out the invites. I invited ten women (and their significant others if they want to come). I’d be surprised if half make it. We’re just doing drinks and apps at our place. My husband will be mixing some mean cocktails and we’ll be (hopefully) enjoying our friends’ company. I’m proud of myself for trying to do something with my friends. It feels right to celebrate with other women during this year–establishing meaningful friendships has been so important to me. I just hope some people come and I have a good time.

The rest of the weekend my husband and I will be enjoying each other’s company in the city. We intended to go away but some unexpected financial obligations earlier this year made that impossible. We’re both okay with it. We’ve done all the weekend getaways we want to do (that don’t require plane tickets) and we so rarely get to enjoy this city without our kids. I think we’re both kind of looking forward to the staycation. My husband already has multiple reservations made. It should be a fun three day weekend (he’s taking Monday off).

Hosting people at my house on my birthday has lit a fire under my ass about getting rid of some of the junk I culled ages ago. I never ended up having that garage sale so I have a ton of kids’ books, toys and DVDs to get rid of, along with our cat tree and my daughter’s book shelf. I’ve already sold my husband’s stereo cabinet and an expandable gate we used in my son’s room when the elliptical was in there. Having people over will also force my husband to deal with the enormous CD collection that he pulled out of garage storage to go through but ended up leaving scattered in boxes across three rooms. It will also provide the impetus needed to actually clean the place. It’s almost always picked up these days (at least most of it is) but it hasn’t been properly scoured in a loooooong time. That will need to happen in the coming weeks.

My son’s eczema flared recently and then he scratched it and broke the skin. The results were ugly and on Friday before July 4th we realized the welts might be infected as we saw crusted yellow scabs. The poor boy is on his first round of oral antibiotics and finally after three days the inflammation is going down. I can’t tell you how much I hate eczema and how powerless I feel against it. It’s always there; we can never make it go away completely and it makes my poor boy miserable with the itching. Our pediatrician assures us he’ll grow out of it eventually but I won’t believe that until I see it.

Filling my son’s prescription at the after hours pharmacy was pretty much the only thing we did on July 4th. We’re never invited anywhere and we never make plans for ourselves; the holiday always passes without even the slightest hint of acknowledgment on our part. Scrolling FB this weekend I felt like the only person in America who wasn’t holidaying (or at least picnicking) with friends and family. I wish we had people to spend those kinds of days with. I don’t know why we don’t have families to do that kind of stuff with. All the people I would turn to turn to someone else. It’s odd to feel like an outsider in a city you’ve lived in for over a decade. I wish we were better at making and keeping family friends.

And now it’s late and I’m tired and I really need to get to bed. Sorry for the long, rambling post that probably could have used bullet points. I’m sure appreciate being brought up to speed.

So many topics tackled above. Feel free to tackle one in the comments!

Financial Security

Summer Budget Project Week 3

Posted on by noemikjames / 10 Comments

This week was my best yet, which is good because next week there will be two big expenses, a plumbing bill (we have to get our leaky bathroom faucet fixed) and my daughter’s sensory assessment (more on this next week). At least I’ll have one decent week in my first month.

And while it was a good week, there were expenditures that were unnecessary. I took my son to a tot time at a local trampoline park. He loved it. We both had an awesome time. Was the experience worth $20? Before I would have said, unequivocally, yes. Now I’m not so sure. I suppose once I have a set budget, I’ll be forced to determine if those kinds of frivolously fun things with the kids are possible. I hope they are. We had a really good time.

I also ate out with a friend who is notorious for choosing expensive places. The plan was to get there for happy hour but my husband got home later than I asked him to and it took her longer to bike than she expected so we both showed up literally the minute happy hour ended (and our pleas to get at least a drink at the lower price were denied). I did try to make responsible decisions: we each got one (on-the-cheaper-side) appetizer and we split the cheapest pizza. But of course we got drinks. It had been a LONG, challenging day at home (more on this later) and I really just wanted to enjoy a few drinks. Obviously these luxuries will also have to be well planned once we’re putting away a certain amount into savings.

The good news is my husband is all about merging our finances (he is SUPER annoyed with his bank right now) so I’m hoping I can get coverage for my son one morning this week and meet him at a bank before an early lunch. I still want to open a savings account (also in both our names) at a credit union, but I think we’ll keep our checking at a big bank for the convenience of mobile services. I’m looking forward to taking this step and I hope it will help me keep track of what we’re spending on eating out, once I can track what my husband spends as well.

So here is week three:

WEEK 3
6/27/2015 Rockin Jump (Tots rock) $19.36
6/28/2015 Carousel (rides for two kids) $6.00
6/29/2015 Gas $47.71
6/30/2015 Mission Beach Cafe (brunch with friend) $20.00
6/30/2015 Whole Foods (bananas + hypoallergenic bubble bath) $13.74
6/30/2015 In-n-Out (dinner with friends) $16.34
7/2/2015 Safeway (groceries) $34.62
7/2/2015 Dinner with friend $48.00
7/3/2015 TJs (groceries) $164.51
 TOTAL $370.28
Marriage

Solo Routine

Posted on by noemikjames / 12 Comments

My husband was gone for five days and I settled into a nice routine. After the kids were in bed I did all the dishes, ran the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen. I got the rest of the house to a level of neatness that wouldn’t stress me out in the morning and after a couple hours of down time I went to bed (way too late I might add).

In the morning I emptied the dishwasher so that I could be loading it throughout the day. I tried to pick things up as I wandered around the house. At the very least I piled the breakfast and lunch dishes into the sink after each meal and tried to rinse and load the plates and cups during my son’s nap time. In this way I kept the house neat enough that I never felt overwhelmed and stayed on top of the stuff that had to get done.

My husband is home now and while I’m grateful for his presence in the house and our lives, I’m not looking forward to handing over the kitchen duties to him to do when he finds the time. I know he’s going to skip doing the dishes some nights and the mess in the kitchen is going to cause me stress. I can’t decide if I want to take over his kitchen duties while I’m home; if I let him do them on his own schedule (which I think is only fair if he’s the one doing them) I’ll resent the kitchen being a mess some days and if I do them myself I’ll resent that I’m doing EVERYTHING around the house now that I’m not working during the summer.

When we both work we have a division of labor that works well for us. It’s not equal and it’s not perfect but we both feel good about it. Now that I’m home I feel more strongly about the state of the house. It’s hard to relinquish control of vital areas that I have to be in multiple times a day to someone who is not home for so much of it. It’s hard to renegotiate things for only two months. What if we can’t fall back into a routine that works for us once I’m back at work? What if I feel angry that he doesn’t have to do much while I carry a heavier and heavier load.

Gah. This marriage thing is hard. My weird “working full time except during summer when I’m essentially at SAHM” schedule is hard. Our particular dynamic is hard.

I suppose we need to have a “talk” about this but I’m not even sure what I want to say. And I’m pretty sure he is not going to want to listen. Sometimes I feel like I’m constantly bringing this kind of stuff up, like I’m constantly trying to make him have “a talk,”, like I’m a nag or a bore or an emotionally crazed wife. Sometimes I wonder why I can’t just let things slide like he does, just take it as it comes, just live and let live.

I guess it’s harder for me to be like him because I do so much more than he does for our family. If I could just leave everything up to someone else, and know it’d get done, I’d be pretty willing to just let things happen to.

But things happen because I make them happen. That is how our marriage works. And if I want us to make a deliberate decision about how we’re going to manage the household while I’m home I’m going to have to initiate “the conversation.”

Blerg. Sometimes it sucks to be the woman in a relationship.

Do you have a “division of labor” that works in your relationship? Did you sit down and hash it out deliberately, or did it happen more organically?