Tightwad August Frugal Chatter 2014

[Angela273]

^ Angela, make sure you phone her mom and tell her.

Hope everyone had a great day! Ours is ho-hum... but okay.

Unfortunately I only have her Facebook contact information. It might sound somewhat odd, but we originally found her on the local Facebook babysitters page. It has been somewhat hit and miss. A girl who is heading to university this fall babysat for us last time. She ended up putting LO to bed for the night with a poopy diaper.

[Natalka]

Well you know her surname, look it up. Didn't you or your husband pick her up before babysitting, so you know where she lives?

[lilo0003]

A good sitter is hard to find. Thankfully the boys are about to turn 11 and 14 so we don't face this anymore.
Busy weekend. Summer lacrosse is over so we have abreak until fall, really just a month but I'll take it. I am off this week. Nothing planned yet but I am sure we will fill our time. Logan has a friend over so DH decided to take them to the drive in. Yes we are one of the lucky ones, we live in a city of almost 150000 and we still have a drive in less than 10 minutes away. The friend has been here since yesterday, he's like my third son. But such a good kid and his mom is a dear friend, so doesn't mind if we keep him and the boys have been besties since they were 3, as she was once our sitter. I am going out for a walk now as I am tryin to do 10000 steps a day.

[SassyAshley]

Angela that is horrible. A good babysitter is hard to find a girl I work with is devastated her night time sister is working for my family's company this summer and will be leaving for university in a few weeks. Do you have any friends with older children? That is what our family our babysitter was my bro's friend's older sister until I was old enough to left home alone with the kids.

Today was a good day, I got some stuff done, not as much as I would like but I always want a lot. I managed to get a section of the laundry room cleaned up so that will give us room to stack boxes well we sort. As well all laundry is done, sorted some discount berries I got and froze them. Cleaned up my stockpile room with the exception of the flour which I need Mom's help to bag. I brought the dehydrator up and will make bagel chips tomorrow. As well cleaned out our pantry and got rid of some expired foods.

Trying to clean up here and there. Kind of feels like I am fighting a losing battle seems like every time I get one thing cleaned up something else gets dumped in it's place. I am trying really hard to stay calm and not get in fights with mom but it is getting hard as she does not seem to want to hear anything I have to say. I suggested downsizing out craft supplies and well than the fight started and she walked away. I really truly have no idea how we will ever make all of this fit in this house and if we ever do move we will be downsizing as mom needs to be in a bungalow and we are in a 2 story with a basement. Sorry for my rant just a little frustrated, she is so frustrated with the house and is constantly snapping at me over it but I do not know what to do because whenever I try to do something she gets mad at me telling me I am doing it wrong or not the way she wants it done. And now instead of working on this house she just keeps going out to be out of the house so she does not have to look at the mess, I really do not know what to do.

Hope everyone has a great night, I am off to try to tidy up a but more.

[Retiree]

SassyAshley, it sounds to me as if you work very hard both at work and at home. At the risk of sounding insensitive, because I don't really know your Mom's situation, have you considered getting your own place where you can have some control over how tidy or messy it is kept. It just seems to me that you would have more peace. (Please know that this is not meant to be a criticism but perhaps just a practical solution.)

[SassyAshley]

Retiree no offence taken many have suggested it, my issue at this point is even since I was a teenager before I was even out of school I have been paying anywhere from a portion to all of the bills. For about probably a 1.5 to 2 years I paid all of the bills on our house which left me living paycheck to paycheck so a lot of people think I am sitting on a ridiculous amount of savings which I am not. Me and my mom have a roll reversal going in many ways and I do tend to at times forget she is my mother and I do at times act like the parent which is when we fight.

I am kind of stuck in a situation I created, I have always been fortunate to have the money to help my mom when she needed and tend to just do it even as a teenager when I was still in school when she couldn't pay something I would. I have always been someone who cannot stand it when someone is mad at me or upset in general so I have always stepped in and tried to fix everything and we are at a point I can no longer do this. Weather it was money related or getting something done I would find a way to get it done and now we have gotten into a situation I cannot fix which bugs me more than anyone knows.

I think ultimately our issue right now is I have found my voice, my mom has not changed but I have. Over the past couple of years I feel I have dealt with a lot and kind of gotten to the point where I call it I have nothing to lose and just speak my mind. So I think our real issue is lately instead of just doing something taking care of it, I scream and yell and get pissed which she does not like.

we discussed a few things but I think there is another big conversation in our future and I guess that will tell me what my next step is. For now I am just going to focus on other things, things I can control.

Sorry for the long post, kind of said a lot of the things I never say out load. I am very much the girl who does no want to rock the boat is always worried about saying the wrong thing so instead I say nothing and just get pissed off instead.

[Frugalbigmama]

That's why we have this post Sassy. Post away. It is hard living with parent as an independent adult. I love my mom but don't want to live with her lol. But would if I had too.

[MrsSunshine]

((hugs)) to all, sounds like many of you are having some rough days.
been trying to keep busy. i was told i get free reign over the living room. well...i was hoping to have it completely repainted and decorated this week.
my neighbor is getting rid of her old leather couch set. i'd like it but not sure if it needs repair.
plus i've been trying to get some funky new stuff to redecorate with. however i've set a budget and don't want to go over. though that may mean spending some time travelling around picking up stuff.
anyway. also been working on a project due for October. once august hit seems like its only weeks away.

[Angela273]

Unfortunately we are the only ones out of our friends that have kids. There are definitely no older kids (of our friends) that we could get to babysit LO for us.

edit: Just thought of one of my teacher friends who has kids my age. They might occasionally babysit LO for me. But I also have 2 other reliable teenagers in mind.

[Crochetlady]

Ashley, I was the peace keeper in our family for years. I finally saw a counselor, worked through some issues I had and feel better than I ever have. She made me see that although I am the youngest of 6, I was put in the position of acting as the oldest.
I realize it`s more difficult when it`s your mom you`re dealing with but sometimes an objective outsider can help.

[lilo0003]

What a lazy day, my only accomplishment so far was making the bed and coffee of course. I need to plan out them month for savings. We have been helping my brother out and that is money on the LOC. which I hate. So I am going to try and trim our budget but we have an expensive month coming up as both the boys and DH celebrate their b-days. We only do parties every other year and this is the year, DS1 will most likely opt for dinner and a movie with a few friend. DS2 wants paintball, I will start watching groupon for deals.
They stayed at the drive in for all 4 movies last night.the boys were 2.00 each and DH was 15.00. Pretty good deal.

[Angela273]

We had an interesting start to the day. LO got up at 6am and insisted that he needed both dh and I for the first hour. Dh had LO from 7-9, so that I could get some much needed rest. Dh went back to bed and I had LO until 11am. A person dropped off two boxes of books for the garage sale fundraiser. I was outside working in the garden with LO from 11-noon. I got Dh to come out and help me steak up the tomatoes with the new supports we bought this weekend. Most of the tomato plants look quite healthy. I am happy about that because a lot of my other plants aren't doing very good. I do not have a single zucchini growing, even though other years we are already harvesting lots by this time.

Not really sure about the rest of the day. Might swing out to NF or WM by myself, I'm pretty sure they are still open today. Need to do some laundry. Fold and put away LO's clothes that I washed yesterday. Need to wash my own clothes, etc. Did some of the household cleaning yesterday, so not too much left that is urgent.

[lilo0003]

The boys cleaned my vehicle after last nights adventure. DS 1 is off to the movies and DS2 still has his bestie over. So far I have done all the laundry and put away two boxes from the reno, that finished 2 months ago. I may just hang out at Target while the number 1 child is at the movies as it is only a 90 minute movie. I found a $50. Visa GC I had forgotten about, so that will help with the back to school budget. The GC was never lost it was just forgotten. A few yrs ago I misplaced a 200.00 GC. I found it almost a year later but ever since then all GC have a special box. So unless it is one I plan on using or have used part of it it stays in the safe place.
I also spent an hour sorting the stockpile. Other than meat and produce I think we can live from the stockpile. Hoping for some good back to school food though as I have only one box of granola bars.

[Granger]

Subscribed. Now that we are all healthy we have been out enjoying the weather and friends. Check in soon.

[saundyl]

My Goal for this week is to find some items, price and take them to a "Junk in the Trunk Sale" that the Catholic Women's League is hosting. It kind of goes along with a couple other goals for the month


Goals for August and September

1) Organize some of the items we have that we never use & dispose of in a fashion that will allow someone else to obtain it and use it.

2) "Find" Make or Save an extra hundred to put back into my Emergency fund thats been depleted fixing our bathtub.

3) Find Fabric to finalize my boarder and backing for two quilts i'm making. Major goal is to have these done for the end of they year (not as gifts though)

4) Convince BF to help me paint the living room. I finally got him to look at colors.

5) Start looking for a different job. Changes at work have definitely lowered the benefits that encouraged me to take the job 2 years ago in the first place.

6) We dont have the boys basically all month so I'd like to get their rooms cleaned under the beds and clothing that is not worn/too small removed from the drawers and closets.