Money, Money, Money MOOOOONey, MONEY!

Got to love Money, right?  WRONG!

I hate how money runs our lives.  But it's still there and we still have to make it work every month.

My husband works.  Alot.  And makes good money for us.  I'm always so thankful when he gets paid.  Not because I know our bills our paid but because I know he is supporting our family.  I make a point of saying thank you to  him every 2 weeks when we get his pay cheque. 

The government gives us money for the boys.  We have money from Q, for being under 6 years old.  We get $100.00 a month from them for child care costs and then a bit more for having kids under 18. 

I make money as well.  I provide daycare for a few children.  Currently it's one child.  I have a little boy who comes on random days.  His mom is a nurse so I don't have him 5 days a week.  For example, this week I had him 2 days. 

My family has been working on budgets for a while.  This is the year of the budgeting in our extended family.  We need to budget and make it work for our own families.

Well this month I took a hard look at our budget and I took out any income I had.  The little boy I have for daycare, his mom is having another baby in January.  I will lose my income in December, or maybe before.  I am bringing in a new little girl for after and before school care but nothing compared to what I was bringing in before.  But with my income being so random we have taken it out of the budget and will be using it for certain repayment sections.

We may not be able to save as much for things that we wanted to before but we have a very realistic view of where our money is going.  For example, we have to get our Christmas/Birthday budget back up.  After the boys birthdays in April we somehow manage to "forget" to take that money out, or spend it elsewhere.  This year we need to keep it going.  SO now our budget that would have been spread over 11 months is being crammed into 3 months.  Since our budget couldn't possibly make that work normally we will be using some of our budget money and some of my income to make it topped up.  Say hello to the mason jar with Christmas ribbon on it!  That's how we are saving this time around.

Every 2 years we have a big "vacation" in our family.  Last year, Arnold and Kyler went to Alberta for a week.  They got to visit family out there and really have a great time.  It was Kylers graduation gift from going from SK to Grade 1.  And Kyler got to remember being on an airplane.

Next summer (2013) Quinton and Arnold will be going.  You never realize how much tickets cost until you are buying them yourself!  So our budget is $2000.00 for the tickets and spending money.  This means we have to save alot and have it saved up in time to get a good deal on tickets.  Quinton is SO excited to go on an airplane and to see his family.  This time around he wants to go and see some dinosaurs.  They are his new love.

So not only do we have Christmas/Birthday budget to fill and our Trip fund to fill but we have our normal expenses.  We have to stay current on all our bill payments and make sure we have everything under control.

This is easier said than done.  I always used to joke that I would love to get all our money for the year at the beginning and let me spend it as I need but I know it would never be able to do it all like that.

So this year (as my life revolves around school years) we are going to be super careful how our budget goes and where our income is placed.  So for now we are under strict budgets.  Hopefully we can make this work :)  As always, only if God allows us to use the money He has given us in the places He wants.

Little Blessings

This week, along with our whole summer, we have learned to watch for little blessings.  They can be anything from Quinton learning to snap his fingers (yeah!!!) or my grandfather coming home from the hospital (double yeah!!)

Sometimes little blessings are hard to find.  Other times they are so easy.  If I looked hard enough I could find a little blessing every day. 

For example, today's little blessing include:

Ian being able to play on his own
Uncle Jack playing with the boys so I could get some things done
Me BBQ'ing and not burning anything (it's a first)
Arnold being able to stay home a bit longer this morning to help me out
Q learning to snap his fingers, and
K learning to whistle more (much to some of our dismays!)

I know this isn't all of them but it's just a "smattering" of them. 

God grants us with little blessings.  It's just a matter of looking for them every day.  I believe I may challenge myself to do that for a while.  Find those little blessing and be grateful for them.

So, for now God, please keep sending them my way.  And please remind me to look for them!

1 more month!

Can you believe it's only one more month until school starts?  The boys keep asking when is school coming, or if tomorrow is a school day.  Every time we try to explain how much longer we have to go but I think at 7 and 5 they don't quite understand.

We made an effort in July to be working on some school work but as things went on it didn't get done.  We did a week or so at my parents house when they both did work but after that things lagged.

I'm going to try and fix that this month.

We have started our "get ready to go back to school" routine already.  Yes I realize this may seem crazy to some people.  I mean really we have 1 whole month before we do go back to school but I need to know things are ready.

Last night we spent about 1 hour going through the boys clothes, the ones in their drawers, the ones in our "too big box" and anything we could find.  We figured out just what the boys need for school and added it to our list of shopping for the new year.  Thankfully it's not that crazy!!

In the next few days we are going to head out for our back to school shopping and get the boys ready for Grade 2 (oh my gosh!) and SK!

I'm going to be heading to the school soon to get some more gardening done there and eventually get my pass for volunteering in the school.  Hopefully we can get it done soon :)