The Frugal Life

Well ... the world came crashing in a little earlier this week. Wednesday my husband informed me he quit his job. And it was the kind of quit where he decided they didn't deserve two weeks notice. He notified HR and then left. Now ... how do you react to this? If I weren't mid-way through my pregnancy, I probably would have yelled, screamed and shouted at the top of my lungs. But knowing that wasn't the healthy option, I stayed calm. We had to talk this through. Was it the smartest option ... no ... is our family growing in January ... yes. Of course, we had already talked about D staying home once baby number two arrived due to the fact that his paycheck would have just been covering the cost of daycare (yes, daycare is the equivalent of our mortgage payment) but I was not planning on a six-month acceleration of the plan.

We had things to do in these next six months where his income would have been nice. Like first, getting used to the fact that we now actually have to live by budget, no more random, not feeling like cooking and just ordering takeout, no more $100 poker nights with the boys, no more spending money without having to really think about can we pay all our bills this month. We've just lowered our household income by a 1/3.

Of course, this means we are now taking a hard look at what we spend. And it had me using my Saturday morning planning out our meals for the week as smartly as possible, looking at the SuperTarget ad to see what was on sale and downloading coupons. We did spend less than $70 at the grocery store this week, which I have to say is probably the least we've ever spent. So, we'll see how well we can stick to this and what other frugal choices we'll be making to see if we can sustain a one-working parent household.

If anyone has some great money saving advice, please share it with me!