Updates From Our Frugal Abode

Good morning!  Long time, no blog – I know.  It’s been a bit of a whirlwind around here for the past several weeks, but I haven’t forgotten my little corner of the internet here.

Our son has been in kindergarten for a month now, and he loves it.  I don’t love the 6:40am wake-up, but I do love hearing all about his day when we go to get him at lunch time.  I’ve always been my most productive in the evenings, but I’m gradually shifting that around to get to bed earlier.  And our younger son is enjoying getting some one-on-one time with me in the mornings while his brother is in school.  It’s just half day kindergarten, so we’re all back together again by 11:30.  I’ve been volunteering in the classroom on Friday mornings, so I’m getting to know the teacher and the other kids in the class.

In addition to adapting to having a set schedule again (after many years of making our own!), I’ve also added a second job.  I’m freelance writing for a large insurance website, which is basically my dream job.  I’ve been writing for our own site since 2006, but this one is much bigger, with a much larger readership.  It’s nice to have my writing and expertise on the subject be recognized by someone other than my husband   The pay is excellent, and the job is very flexible – I can basically write as much or as little as I want.  But they have given me a long list of assignments, so I’m trying to write as often as possible for them (hence the dearth of posts over here…).  I find myself leaving parts of my to-do list undone pretty much every day now.  My house isn’t as clean as I like it, and there are all sorts of small projects that are falling by the wayside.  But all in all, we’re keeping up with most of what we need to do.

Although this second job has significantly increased our income, I’m staying true to my frugal roots.  I did splurge and get myself a few new dresses on eBay recently (used, of course, but they were $90 dresses that I got for about $30 each.  This is far more than the six dollars I would normally pay at Goodwill, so it definitely felt like a splurge).  But other than that, we’re just increasing the amount that we put into our mortgage payoff fund and retirement accounts.  And we were also able to send a good chunk of money to one of my friends in Africa (my bestest buddy from my Peace Corps days) who got accepted to grad school but didn’t have any way to pay the tuition.  I found out about her predicament just a few weeks after I started the writing job, so I figured fate was smiling on us all.

But other than the occasional eBay find, Goodwill is still my go-to shopping spot for pretty much everything we need.  A few months ago, I found lots of school clothes for our son at a couple of really good garage sales.  But now that the weather has started to get a little chilly, I’m noticing that almost all of the shirts I got him have short sleeves.  And although I got plenty of pants, they’re pretty much all jeans and he’s been having a tough time getting the snap fastened when he puts them on.  I know that he’ll get the snap figured out soon enough, but I decided to get him some comfy pull-on pants that he can wear for the time being.  Since Goodwill had a 50% off sale on Saturday, I headed over there to see what I could find in the way of long sleeve shirts and pants with elastic waists.  This is what I got, for a total of $21.50:

There’s one short-sleeve shirt and a pair of shorts, but everything else will be perfect for winter.  Three soft comfy pairs of pull-on pants (he loves them and is wearing one today), and lots of long sleeve shirts, sweaters and sweatshirts.  He’s got more than enough to last the whole school year, and most of these things are size 6, so they will probably fit him for part of next year too.  And nearly everything is from Gymboree, Gap, Children’s Place or OshKosh.  Not bad for less than twenty two dollars.

I hope you’re all having an excellent start to fall (or spring for my southern hemisphere readers!).