Going from Career Women to Full Time House Wife…..

Good morning friends. I haven’t written in a few days due to having the stomach flu.  I’m back among the living finally.

Since I’ve left work and now stay home I am finding it hard to fall asleep and stay asleep.  No, I don’t lay in bed and stress about things, I’ve finally come to a happy place about staying at home. So what can it be?  Come back to me my happy sleep friend.  Ugh!    Hopefully, as time goes by I will get back into a rhythm or I’ll become a walking Zombie.  Hey, maybe I’ll send in a pic and bio to Walking Dead…minimal wages and no need for make-up artist.

 

Ok, enough about my happy place “SLEEP”.  So, I decided that I would work this whole full time house wife thing just as I would any other job…ok, the work part not the loving of my family part, so don’t confuse the two ok? I love my family, my home, my dogs, and my life, but I have 10 hours a day where I am home all by my self.  Holy crap what in the heck does one do 5 days a week 10 hours a day? Well, for my own personal mental health I’ve come up with a schedule.  Why you ask? Well plain and simple I’m lazy. Yep, I said it.  If I don’t have a plan and a schedule I will sit on the couch and do absolutely nothing…..hmmmmm wonder if that has anything to do with the sleeping thing?

Every Morning I wake up at 5:30 am

• Drink coffee  1 hour
• Yoga or work out (depends on the day)
• Take shower get ready for my day 45 minutes (hey, I’m old I need lots of TLC)
• Read Emails and do any paper work required…IE pay bills, banking etc.
• Pick a room to tear apart and clean 4 to 6 hours (Like I said I’ve spring cleaned my house….NEVER.
• Eat Lunch–I hour lunch just as if I was working
• Errands….check mail, grocery shop or whatever is needed for the day
• Start Dinner
• The rest of the evening is spend enjoying time with my husband and puppies.

 

So you see I have to have a schedule to survive my new career or as my husband calls it my new adventure. So eventually my house will be clean and up to public re-entrance, at that time my schedule will change….hello front yard, porch, and back yard. In the mix of things I will be showing you how to make laundry soap, bath and body soap, etc….We will compare prices etc.  Stay tuned.

Enjoy your day my friends…..I will be back tomorrow with whatever curve ball life throws at me.

God bless you, your family, and your fur-babies.

Day Two of “Life and Times of a Full Time House Wife”.

Good morning friends.

Why is it when your completely broke every part of your body, mind and soul screams “buy something; anything”?  I don’t need anything or really want anything but I’m itching to break out that credit card and swipe it.  Oh! the rush of walking up to a sales counter and swiping that credit card and putting something I don’t need in my hot little hands. I’d feel good for about 20 minutes and then I’d need another fix.  OMG I’m an addict.  I need an intervention, I need Rehab……help meeee.  This is only day two.  OH BOY!

Ok, sorry got of track there for a few minutes.  So today is day two.  Yesterday I shared my budget and the day before that I found a Pin on Pintrest that states I can buy groceries for two for 120.00 a month.  Holy Moses, I’m going to give it a try.  So yesterday I sat down and wrote out my grocery list and my menu for the month.  Lets just see how true that is….I have my doubts but I’ll give it a try using their menu and Ibotta.  As I said I wrote down my grocery list and will head to Walmart today to go grocery shopping, I will share the results tomorrow, will I be a success or failure? I guess we will see.

Here’s the menu:

1. Barley Soap
2. Leftovers
3. Chili
4. Chicken Breasts, Asparagus.
5. Salad
6. Chicken Noodle Soap
7. Leftovers
8. Brown Rice and Teriyaki Chicken
9. Homemade Pizza
10. Tacos
11. Baked Potatoes, Cheese Sauce, Bacon, and Broccoli
12. Salad
13. Spaghetti (make doule sauce and freeze)
14. Leftovers
15. Chicken Enchilada
16. Hawaiian Chicken and Rice
17. Steak and Baked Potates
18. Salad
19. Leftovers
20. Curry Chicken and Rice
21. Vegetable soap
22. Stroganoff
23. BB Chicken, Corn and mashed potatoes
24. Speghetti
25. Leftovers
26. Chicken Salad
27. Chicken, Broccoli Alfredo
28. Meat Loaf, Mashed Potatoes, Corn
29. Chicken Stir Fry
30. Leftovers
31. Tacos

 

Ok, so that’s my menu for the next 30 days, lets see if I can pull off the 120.00 grocery bill?! HMMMMM

Well off to take a shower and get ready for my day.  I will see you back here tomorrow to go over my grocery bill,  Ibotta, and my grocery list.

May God Bless you and your family today.

Join me again tomorrow for grocery bill review, grocery list, and my new “Full Time House Wife Daily Schedule”.  See you then.

Day One of My Journey From Career Women to Full Time House Wife. MY New Budget!

Good Morning fellow bloggers.  Well today is day one of my new full-time job…….house wife!

Weird, no alarm this morning, no rushing to get ready and  trying to get out the door before 6 am.  No, I wake up when I want to sit on the couch drink my coffee and enjoy the morning….Yeah right.  Sounds great huh?  Not so much.

The hardest part of this morning is fighting the depression.  All I want to do is sit on my couch watch Hart to Hart, look at Facebook, and cry in my coffee.  I don’t want to take a shower, I don’t feel like doing my make-up, or my hair.  Why should I?  I don’t have anyone to impress but myself.  OK! OK! First things first……stop feeling sorry for yourself and depression is not an option.  How do I do that? Well, STOP SITTING ON THE COUCH LOOKING AT FACEBOOK FOR ONE.

I need a plan……so from this moment on I will make myself a schedule just as I would for work.  Wake up, have coffee, TAKE A SHOWER, and get ready for the day, etc.  Then I will pick a room a day to clean.  I image each room the first month will take me a lot longer to clean since I haven’t done top to bottom cleaning in……I don’t know…..EVER.

But today I need to sit down and make a budget.  Ok, first of all let me tell you something….I have never ever done a budget before and I’ve never balanced my check book.  This is going to be interesting.  REMEMBER THIS BUDGET IS FOR MY SELF AND MY HUSBAND.  ALL OUR CHILDREN ARE GROWN  AND MARRIED.

Old KINDA OF A BUDGET

House payment   705.00

Second                   350.00

Car Payment        350.00

Car Payment        361.00

Car Ins.                  217.00

Student Loan       100.00

Electric                 105.00

Dish                      120.00

Phone                  100.00

Trash                    32.00

Propane             120.00

Gym                     20.00

Wifi                     56.00

House Ins.         98.00

Sirius                  50.00

Credit Cards      417.00

Gas                     300.00

Groc                   650.00

Savings              0.00

I spent a ton of money not in the budget on clothing, shoes, high-end make up, designer purses, Starbucks, eating out…etc…  BIG MONEY!

TOTAL DUE:   $4151.00

Income: 9251.00

NEW:

House payment   705.00

Second                   350.00

Car Payment        350.00

Car Payment        361.00

Car Ins.                  217.00

Student Loan       100.00

Electric                 105.00

Dish                        67.00   Do I need this no, but I’m home all day.   I will keep for now.

Phone                  100.00

Trash                    32.00

Propane             120.00

House Ins.         98.00

WiFi                    56.00

Credit Cards      417.00   Start paying off Credit Cards…..High interest first.  One each month if possible.

Gas                     150.00  I do not work so only need to go groc shopping.  My husband drives a company truck….so no gas there.

Groc                   400.00-  This is 100 dollars a week.  In the next few days I will be blogging on how to cut my groc bill down even more.  I will post my menu, recipes, and how much I spent for each meal.  Remember, this also has to include things like shampoo, soap, dish soap, laundry soap etc…..OH BOY!  Can I do it?  Will I have enough money each week? I guess I will see.  My new best friend will be the dollar general for a lot of these things.

Savings              200.00

Emerg. Fund:   200.00 (I need to have this at 1000.00 as soon as possible and never use unless absolute emergency.)

TOTAL DUE:   $4028.00 

Income:  4250.00

So, I only have a 123.00 dollar savings, but I am putting away 200.00 in savings, putting away 200.00 for emergency fund and I will start paying off credit cards and getting rid of them.  Also, no buying purses, make up etc….good-bye my friend; Starbucks, good bye gym, good bye Sirius radio.  I think the hardest part of all of this is saying NO.  Saying no to coffee with friends, going out to dinner, shopping with the girls:(  This is not forever, at some point I hope to have all my credit cards paid off, my cars paid off, and a little in savings.  Then, I can occasionally meet my girlfriends for coffee, have dinner with friends, buy a new pillow for the couch, etc…. until then sticking to my budget.

As you can see I  lowered my grocery bill.  First thing I did was download the App ibotta. A free app for your phone.  You buy groc. or clothing, pick what you bought take a picture of your receipt and you receive a certain dollar amount back for each item. Score money coming back in for groceries.  Awesome app. go check it out. As I start using this app more and more I will post pictures of my receipts and checks from Ibotta so that you and I both can see how much money I save.

Alright…..day one on its way.  See you tomorrow for another day of “the life and times of a full-time house wife”. God bless.

Going to Give This a Try This Month.

Going From A Full Time Career Women to Full Time House Wife Starts Tomorrow.

Good evening friends.  Well it’s Sunday.  My first week day starting as a full-time house wife starts tomorrow.  Ugh!  Feeling a little overwhelmed, nervous, depressed, and excited.  So many emotions.

Tomorrow I will share my old budget and my new budget.  Each day share menus, recipes, how to coupon shop, how to make my own laundry soap, bath soap, etc.   I will share my recipes and how much its cost to make each one and then compare the price to store-bought.  Is it cheaper to make it from scratch or is it cheaper to buy from store?  How long will it last?  Is Dollar Tree cheaper than Walmart or grocery store?  As we go along we will see. Pintrest will be my new best friend.

Good bye my friend Starbucks, Ulta, TJMAXX, Ross, etc…..hello Goodwill.   That’s right I will be shopping at Goodwill, you can find great deals at the Goodwill.  Especially on Thursday……$1.00 day.  I will be posting pictures of my awesome finds and prices.  Wash, iron and poof looks brand new.

 

Schedule:  Do I need a daily schedule to keep my mind busy? Oh yes I will.  I’m going to treat this job just like I would any other job.  Clean my house from top to bottom will be on my schedule…..I will pick one room a day.  FUN:(  I will post my new schedule as soon as I’m finished with it.

Do I get ready for the day just as I would if I was working outside the home?  Again yes!  I always feel better after a shower.  Will this help with depression? Yes, along with staying off the couch, eating Bon Bons, watching TV and staring at Facebook all day.

My days will be filled with trying to find ways to save money, getting my emergency fund of $1000.00 dollars put away, start a savings account, and paying off all credit cards….starting with the highest interest first.

This is a new adventure for me.  I’m not used to having a budget or balance my check book.  I’m used to  going out to eat whenever I want, buying high-end purses, make-up etc.  Time to buckle down and tackle this new adventure just as I would if I was working outside the home.  This is going to be my new baby and I will succeed.

Follow along to see if I make it or break it.

Have a wonderful evening and may God bless you and your family.

 

 

New Start

Good afternoon fellow bloggers.

 

Well today starts a series of blogging for me and you on how to survive on just my husband working.   Why? I’ll explain later on in the blog.  I am going to walk you through day by day how my husband and I went from a 2 person income to a one person income.  Can we survive without losing everything we worked all our lives for?  I don’t know and I’m a little scared to tell you the truth.  We have a mortgage, two car payments, and all our other bills, not to mention we have no health or dental insurance.   I’ve been doing a lot of research on how a family can survive and thrive with just one spouse working.  Well, we are about to find out.

 

So, about a year ago the company I worked for went under.  I was their Office Manager for 17 years.  Very sad day for me.  I then went to work for a doctor and that was nothing but a complete disaster.  I hated every minute of it.  I ended up leaving after a year on very unpleasant terms.  Well needless to say I can’t use him for a reference and the one time I did he  gave me a horrible reference and I ended up not getting the job.  In other words he’s pretty much black balled me in the medical field leaving me jobless.  I’m 49 years old and having a really hard time trying to figure out how to change careers this late in life.  As of today no luck.

I finally just gave up and decided to figure out how I can stay home, take care of the house, dogs etc and still hang onto everything my husband and I have worked so hard for.

 

In years past I’ve made a lot of money.  I never sat down and figured out a budget, we ate out when we wanted, I bought high end purses, make up cloths as I wanted, we took nice vacations, and never really had to think about money.  Well that all changed this year and we are about to embark on unknown territory.

 

As the days, weeks, and months go by I will be blogging on how  I cut down on my bills, how to cut down my grocery budget,  spending money, savings etc.  Yes, my husband does pretty well financially and could probably carry us for at least 6-8 months, but I need to and I will be figuring out how to turn this bad into a good situation.  I hope you will follow along and see if and how we do it.

 

Well, enough for today.  Tomorrow I will show you my budget while working and my budget now and how I managed to save quite a bit of money this month alone.

 

Stay tuned.

Fellow Dog Lovers

 

Good afternoon fellow dog lovers. It’s a lazy day at our house today. All three of my four-legged munchkins are lazy and sleepy, probably because it’s so fricken hot out today. Its September and it’s still 90 degrees outside. My husband says global warming, I say its Arizona warming. What do you think?

VENT FOR The Day:

Today I would like to vent about my little Rachael.  She is my fur baby I rescued from the Pet Store.  Yes, I paid for her.  She was born and kept at this pet store until she was 12 months old.  I bought her because she looked sick.  It was in the middle of summer when I bought her, it was hot in the store, she was covered in fleas, she had an upper respiratory infection, and a pulled muscle in her rear leg.  I felt the minute I walked into that store she needed me.  Lucky for me she was on clearance.  What? Yep that’s right she was on clearance……

I’ve had Rachael for about a year, about 3 weeks ago I woke up to her having a seizure, I took her into the vet who ended up telling me to have Rachael fixed it was probably just a hormone thing.  Well, ok I get that but RACHEAL IS FIXED.  GRRRR.  The vet tells me to just watch her.  OK fine.  Then last week Rachael out of the blue starts pacing and whining; not like her at all. It’s 7 pm when all of this happens so I rush her to the ER vet.  Here I am thinking maybe she has an infected anal gland, nope, the vet tells me her sugar level is 69 and she needs to stay overnight or she will die. I start bawling my eyes out.  What do I do?  I call my husband who says no she’s not spending the night, she needs to come home so that I can keep a close eye on her and take her to our own vet first thing in the morning.  I go out to check her out and my bill is 914.00 dollars. HOLY Crap. The vet tech tells me to give her Karo Syrup every 2 hours along with boiled chicken and rice.  I take her home and stay up the entire night doing that.  I was afraid to go to sleep incase she died.  The next morning I call my vet, they ask me if I gave her too much insulin.  WHAT? THEY NEVER GAVE ME INSULIN!  I tell them that, they then tell me they will have to call me back.  Ok, now remember in my mind Rachael is going to die according to the ER Vet.  I wait around all day. Getting more and more angry as they day goes by.  I finally call back and the clinic is closed.  Now I panic…..

It’s now 7 pm and my phone rings……it’s the vet. Phew.  She tells me the vet tech was looking at the wrong chart and that the just reviewed all the labs from the ER. OK? She proceeds to tell me that a normal sugar level is 74 and there is absolutely no reason to give Racheal anymore Karo Syrup.  According to my vet there was absolutely no reason to panic and keep Racheal overnight and no reason for the Karo syrup every 2 hours. Yes,  its strange her sugar level dropped but she probably ate a bug, or a bug bit her, or she picked up something off the floor and ate it.  She says to stop the Karo Syrup, feed her chicken and brown rice every 4 hours and she would bet by morning Racheal is back to normal and that she will call me in the morning.  Well, she was right; Racheal was back to her normal pain in the butt self and as promised she called.

So, I guess my problem with all of this is…….I paid 914.00 dollars for nothing really, just a really good scare and a loss of one nights sleep. I would have had to pay 2000.00 if Racheal would have stayed overnight.  My vet says there was absolutely no reason to keep her overnight.  I’m scared of the ER vets now.  What do we believe?  My dogs are like my children I’m going to do whatever they tell me and pay what I need to keep my fur babies healthy.  Are the ER vet or vets in general aware of that? Do they see people like me coming and figure they will make a good buck off us?  Or was it an honest opinion?  Grrr I don’t know.  This whole experience has made me very nervous, so I went out last week and bought health insurance for all of my dogs.  Good idea or not?  I don’t know I guess I will see.

What’s your thoughts on all of this?  I will say this; my vet is an amazing animal loving vet, I trust her, but I think she’s a little too busy.

First blog post

Good afternoon,

This site is designed for anyone who has something to say without the fear of backlash. I am a God fearing, dog loving, grandma. I have lots of opinions but no material to back it up, so this is a place for me to vent. I hope you will join me with your opinions and vent, vent, vent.