Yesterday I spent a lot of time thinking about money. Payday is Friday and we only get paid once a month. So the end of the month always has me thinking about the budget for the next month. I calculated the account balance after we get paid, after all the bills are paid as well as other regular monthly expenses. Now we know what we are working with for our food and project budgets. I am trying to shop smarter and cut our food expenses down. This is getting ridiculous. It can get hard and frustrating because there is never much money left for projects. Some of our projects are geared towards saving money in the long run, like adding more insulation to the attic to cut the electric bill. The insulation we currently have is not adequate. Another project is rewiring the huge walk-in closet in the spare room so we can put in a freezer and fridge. I see these as necessary before we start raising animals. If we are going to butcher our own meat we have to be able to chill it and then freeze it for storage. The freezer on our fridge in the kitchen is barely big enough to hold all the meat we buy to get thru the month. We need to build a rabbit hutch so we can raise rabbits, meat. We need a secure chicken coup to raise chickens, eggs & meat. We need fencing before we can get goats, milk & meat. The tiller is broken and needs a new engine, I tried working the ground by hand last year, I didn't have a garden. All I can do is keep the faith that it will work out. We just have to keep plugging away. It helps to know that our primary vehicle will finally be paid off by the end of this year. That will definitely open up money in the budget. We are in a lot better situation than we were in a few years ago, so I am thankful for that. This can all get done. It just might take a little longer than I would like. I do know it will happen.
Yesterday I worked on some crafty stuff also. :) I worked on the bag I am crocheting out of plastic shopping bags. I have a lot of them since I always forget to take the cloth shopping bags to the store with me. I am making this bag for when we are picking stuff out of the garden. I need to finish it up so I can start more for everyone else too. I also made some more cloth circles for covering my canning jars. I do this now since I learned how useful they are besides just pretty. They keep off dust and help prevent corrosion if I remember correctly.
I also spent time with the kids. We haven't started to actually home school yet, I'm giving them a break. But we do spend time together, talk, read, cook, and play. We are focusing on getting used to us all being together all the time again. This is a big change for my 10 yr old. He started Pre-K disabilities when he was 3. He is also the reason we decided to home school. Since we have moved here he has hated this school. He has always loved school. Mornings got so stressful, we would have to physically force him to go to school most mornings. Once he was at school he wasn't doing his work many days. He is much happier and calmer now. I'm not sure how getting him started on doing school work at home will go, but I won't give up. I will find a way. I know I just have to figure out what works for him. No matter what I'm not giving up on him.
