Hi guys. You know I've had lots of work-life conflicts recently and it's taken a lot of hard decisions and serious thinking about what life should be to muster any sort of conclusion.
I'm finally reaping the fruits of my labors. The decision to let go of some stressful, low-paying regular projects has been great in many ways. I don't regret it.
I'm settling into the new routine. I just got my oldest in kindergarten last week. (it's only 3 hours a day. Seriously?). My youngest is in preschool, and he's actually in school longer than DS1. Unfortunately, it's not the same three hours. DH1 starts an hour earlier, so once they are all dropped off, I have a little less than two hours each day to do what I need to do.
I have determined that my ideal daily routine includes
1. exercise/ physical labor
2. paid work
3. creative and creation work (things like gardening, canning, sewing, creative writing)
I am trying to squeeze much of that into the time kids are in school. DH has helped me "extend" the two hour window.
I walked the oldest to kindergarten, then I take a walk/run for about an hour. DH takes the youngest to preschool during this time. It's added another hour to my day, and helped me knock No.1 on the list.
When I get home, I do my paid work first.
I have done some "creation" work. Lately it's consisted mostly of canning items from the garden for winter. I've made lots of tomato sauce and lots of peach jam, and next week I'm going to try my hand at canning pears and apple juice/sauce. It's a nice work flow.
The boys did go to their grandparent's for a week last month, and during that time I got to work non-stop on the final draft of my novel. it went great-- finished 45 percent of it, edited and ready to go. (It's written, it just needs serious editing and checks for continuity).
Unfortunately, now that the boys are back, I haven't had the time or energy to work on it any more. I have to figure out a way to make it happen.
The great news is that my horrible summer project is filed and finished, and I got paid for it yesterday, so I sent all of it --$2500-- to the mortgage principal. It should take a chunk out of it. I'm hoping enough to get us close to under $60,000. I'm waiting for it to post just to be sure.
So the life change has all been positive.
The only downside is I'm used to always having those freelance checks coming in, and now that they aren't the money in the checking account is more worrisome and challenging.
We haven't quite adjusted our spending to reflect my reduced income. I'm hoping I can spend some time in fall managing that part of our lives.
Settling in to the new routine
August 30th, 2013 at 02:44 pm
August 30th, 2013 at 03:17 pm 1377875863
August 30th, 2013 at 04:00 pm 1377878433
Some of us have found managing finances became easier by designating a 'Desk Day' to review/pay bills, track investments, plan major purchases, categories/estimated budget etc. It takes a bit of time at first but after repetitive weeks it takes under 20 minutes since you need only look at the stacks once. ...jtust a thought
August 30th, 2013 at 04:07 pm 1377878838
August 30th, 2013 at 04:23 pm 1377879785
August 30th, 2013 at 06:58 pm 1377889123
August 31st, 2013 at 03:51 am 1377921092
Before leaving the desk, it's a good idea to file bills now paid, rough balance figures and note any critical deadlines on preferred calendar system. Retained receipts are stuffed into an empty Kleenex box here for one place to search for needed slips, discard as much as possible; retain only those with potential problems.
I've an outline of 'Sales' as we often co ordinate plans to buy high ticket items with expected sales.
...just a thought