No Average Mom

In general I would not describe myself as tacky. I have to admit that I recently did something tacky. Our front porch is a very large enclosed area. Basically it is a 3 season room that is primarily windows. I love this room but sitting out there makes me feel like a zoo display. In an effort to give our family and guests a bit of privacy when we are on the porch I ordered some discounted curtains to cover the lower half of the windows. I thought given that the lower half was the only area covered and that the curtains were sheers it would be a tasteful way to accomplish my goal. When the curtains arrived they were not the color described by any stretch of the imagination. When I went to check about returning them I found this particular curtains was no longer in stock and that returning them would cost almost as much as the curtains. Being my frugal self I decided to keep them and my husband begrudgingly hung them up. The upside to the curtains is that when I give directions to people to find our house all I have to say is look for the brown and yellow house with the horrid pink curtains on the porch. Discount Blinds would be a wonderful alternative but I never looked into them prior to ordering the curtains. I keep hoping the sun will somehow fade them but I doubt that is going to happen any time soon. On a positive note no one to date has had any trouble finding our house!

Most frugal types say to shop less often, but I stop in my grocery store every few days. I buy most staples in bulk including meat and dairy, so I mainly shop for produce. I go often and get whatever has been marked down and build my meals or fill in with whatever I find. I’m so picky about food ingredients, that impulse buying isn’t an issue for me. I check out the organic section often, too. Sometimes things are discontinued and I’ll stock up if it’s something we use. My grocery is right near our house so it’s easy for me to stop in often.
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Recently it became clear to my family that my father is starting to slip a bit mentally. It took a bit of a crisis to realize that there are certain plans we need to make as a family to make sure my parents are taken care of in the future. The problem is that whenever we try to discuss things like senior life insurance or living trusts my parents both fail to react. Essentially they sit an listen to everything we have to say and then do absolutely nothing about it. They agree they need to make certain plans but we just seem to talk about it year after year and never get anywhere. It breaks my heart to think of what might happen to one of them in a health crisis all because they don’t want to face their own mortality.

Now, with all the global economics and the downturn, it got me to wondering. Maybe, this is the wakeup call we all need. Let me explain. How crazy is it that 7 yo’s now have cell phones, how many people are obsessed with labels, how many kids bedrooms are bustling with toys, and the best of everything. My theory is that, in the great depression, families learned to live much more simply. Kids ate what was given to them, they never got toys/clothes unless it was for a special occasion, not just because they wanted them. The centre of the family was the family and the relationships themselves. Maybe it is our wakeup call that the important thing in life is the family itself, and this is what has to be cherished. Maybe as a society, we are not living the way God wants us to, and this is His way of making us see this. I think as a society we will go back to the old fashioned values of our grandparents, as we can’t exist as a society as a whole, with the way we have lived in the recent past. I’m thinking a much simpler existence will have to be the answer. By simpler, I mean getting back to the basics again of what is important.

Since beginning to work from home I haven’t spent very much money on clothing for myself. I really don’t see a need for having a ton of things sitting in my closet that will only get worn a few times. I was looking at my shoes this week and realized they are in a sad state of affairs. I need to spend some time looking to see what is out there. I require comfortable footwear and love the look of UGG Australia but can never seem to find them in my local stores. I am hoping this weekend I will get a bit of time to spend looking online to find something because my poor old shoes need to go out with trash as soon as possible. I thought about it and remembered buying them when our older son was born and he is now 9 years old. I do believe I have gotten my money’s worth out of them.

We have just started this. I got the Total Money Makeover audio book so i can listen to it while I am commuting. We have our emergency fund and we are starting to work on getting the debts together and starting the Snowball. I am so excited to get out of debt, even though we don’t have that much to begin with. I just don’t want our kids watching us struggle like we watched our sets of parents do over the years.

Not having been around many children I don’t really know what is normal development for a child. I always take this into consideration when it comes to my own children and try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Our older son understand how to tell time on any type of clock from a digital timer to a Chanel watch. The problem is that he has no idea how to gauge time. For example he thinks it is perfectly acceptable to stand in the shower for a half hour or sit in the tub for 2 hours and then take an hour dressing himself. I know there must be a point where children really begin to grasp that a great deal of time has passed. I just hope it comes soon for him because we are never going to get anything done at this rate.

So how do you determine how much to tip at a restaurant? Do you tip the 18-20% regardless? Or does it all depend on your server? I had a friend that used to double the tax as her tip, but then I read an article saying that you shouldn’t do that. I think there was only one time where I actually didn’t tip anything because the server was just sooooooooooooooooooooo horrible and rude! I felt bad because maybe she was having a bad day or something, but it was just ridiculous.