The kiddo was home sick again at the start of the week, so I stayed and worked from home on Monday. He was feeling bad enough that he just laid in bed watching shows all day, so I actually got quite a bit of work done. While I hate seeing him sick, I sure do appreciate a flexible workplace that allows me to adjust when need be.
He still had a fever and a cough on Tuesday, so it was my husband’s turn to stay home. While I fully believe that both parents should be present and as equally involved with their children, too often it seems like it is the woman who stays at home when the kid is sick or takes off work early to get them to an appointment.
I DO often do more than 50% of these things since I work a reduced schedule and simply have more hours, especially in the early afternoons, my husband picks up the slack and fills in whenever he can, and I so appreciate that. Attempting to continue my career without that partnership, and without the support of our families on the non-daycare days would feel near on impossible some days (they watch him when he’s sick too because they’re amazing).
I certainly see why so many mothers in particular completely drop out of the workforce when their children are young because few have the support we do.
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Friday’s Frugal Five
1. My grandmother gave both of us Subway gift cards for Christmas, so we took advantage and went out for a mid-week lunch date. The gift cards more than covered the cost of our meals so we managed to log another no spend day as well.
My husband and I don’t often find ourselves with time just for the two of us, so even a quick meal together during the work day feels like a treat, and one we could really use more frequently.
2. I deposited my giant Amazon affiliate income of $13.10 thanks to this blog. It’s funny how such an insignificant amount feels so big when it’s something that’s been earned from something you’ve built entirely yourself.
I may not want to turn this blog into a businessman for a good number of reasons, but I so appreciate the very small bit of income that does happen thanks to some clicks over to Amazon (or occasionally Airbnb). Whoever you are doing so, thank you, I appreciate you. But also remind me again and again why I don’t want to go full out on turning this blog into a side hustle because the money can be tempting sometimes even for me.
3. Speaking of very small amounts that feel like a big deal, I transferred another $5 Amazon gift card to my account thanks to using Bing as my search engine. No referral link here, but I’m all for picking a search engine based on who will pay me a tiny bit to use theirs.
I put the money directly to the payment section of my account and then promptly forget about it so I’m not tempted to buy something extra thanks to the five dollar “discount.” Instead, that gift card is just applied to our next regular purchase and we get five dollars off that purchase, which feels way more exciting than five dollars probably should.
4. We made bibimbap bowls again over the weekend but way over made on the amount of meat and rice, so just like last week with the goulash, we ate it two nights in a row and it was just as tasty the first night. I added some of the picked carrots and cucumbers I made last month and they were an awesome add to the meal and are a super easy way to add some extra vegetables in my life (they’re great on fancy ramen as well).
It ended up that there were still leftovers after the second night, so I stuck them back in the fridge and ate them for lunch on Monday when I was home with the kiddo. We’d gotten out of practice with eating up ALL of our leftovers over the holidays, but I feel like I’m back in the swing of things now.
5. If you follow me on any social media, you know this already since I was VERY excited about it, but my advance copy of Work Optional by Tanja Hester (Our Next Life) arrived, and I’m already a good part of the way through the book.
I will be sharing my full opinions about the book in a separate blog post after I’m through it, but I have to say it has exceeded my expectations for the section I have finished so far. It will be released to the public on February 12th.
Exercise Update
I’m trying to make a habit of getting on the work elliptical for twenty minutes on Fridays any weekend we aren’t traveling, and I made that happen again this past Friday. Saturday we took a long walk to have lunch at a neighborhood restaurant that’s a half hour walk away, and the return trip is all uphill.
The kiddo wasn’t up for walking (looking back he was maybe starting to feel bad then), so I walked all the way home with him in the Ergo on my back. He’s almost four but only weighs thirty five pounds so it’s not unreasonable to carry him on longer trips, and it’s way easier than hauling a stroller around. Plus I get in a good workout.
Tuesday I took advantage of the good weather and went for a run outside in the sunshine and then headed to the gym for a weights workout and stretching. The kiddo was at home taking a long nap with my husband so it was nice to have some time to put in a good long workout. I did some deadlifts for the first time in a while and I definitely felt it the next day.
Wednesday was another twenty minutes on the elliptical. I’m now close to two weeks in to getting back on the wagon of fully tracking my food and exercise via Myfitnesspal, and I’m down 1.4 pounds.
Total January trips to the gym: 2 (plus 3 trips to the work gym)
How has your week gone? Any particular frugal wins you’d like to share? I love to hear them!
Nice work! Our financial win for the week is that we saw our financial planner and all seems to be in order. We’re on a slow path to financial independence, and it’s a huge relief to have a professional look at all of our information and say that we’re doing good and provide some advice for additional improvements. Smaller wins include continued progress on meal planning and remembering to bring reusable bags into stores with me. 🙂
Slow path is a good path in my opinion! And I do really well with remembering reusable bags now, but it was a loooooooong process to finally make it a habit.
Nice on the Amazon earnings. Recently someone bought a $250 drill using one of my links. Not that I linked to a drill, but they clicked my link and then went down a rabbit hole. I got $16 for that one alone!
Wow big money!! And it actually wasn’t my husband on that one hahaha
i bit the bullet and bought clothing. every time i would put on a pair of my favorite new balance socks one would rip open so i took that as a sign. they went way up in price but i got 12 pairs of the exact same ones i’ve been wearing for years. cost me 60 bucks which cheeses me off but they should last 3 years like the last ones.
i made it to the gym for 3 miles every day this week so far. we’ll see if i make it 5 straight this afternoon. we sold a bunch of ebay crap to more than make up for the socks purchase.
Funny how good socks are so awesome and yet it is SO hard to spend money on something that doesn’t seem important. Well done on your gym time!
Poor kiddo! And woooooo, amazon sales. That’s such a great feeling!!
He’s FINALLY feeling mostly better this morning. It was a rough week for the little guy.
Yay! I’m sure. Being sick was the WORST as a kid. Glad he’s finally feeling better. I’m sure it’s nice for you, too.
He actually hated it less than I expected because he got one on one days with mama and daddy (and LOTS of show haha)
That bibimbap bowl looks phenomenal. New recipe on my list!
SOOOOO good. And while it’s a bunch of different pieces, really the only thing that HAS to be cooked up is the meat. We also cheat with bibimbap/ramen these days and go with pickled eggs instead of fried ones to make it even simpler.
Hey those $5 amazon gift cards from those Bing searches can add up without even realizing it. When were starting to buy formula to feed BwC when he was around 6-7 months, we had about 10 of those $5 amazon gift cards saved up from our Bing searches. I didn’t realized we had that much at the time but it surely helped us buy a couple cans for baby formula.
Oh wow yeah $50 definitely starts feeling like a larger amount! Now I’m tempted to wait to cash out the next one until it’s a bigger number.
Ugh, your frugal lunch date sounds better than our un-frugal lunch date this week! Now I remember why we don’t eat at Noodles and Company–sooo overpriced! Oh well, the company was still good ☺.
I should try the Bing search engine to make a few easy bucks, too. Thanks for the reminder!
We definitely have un-Frugal dates as well, and many times they’re worth it, but if it isn’t AWESOME then I kick myself for spending the extra money.
I had a dream I made $3 on my blog, but it was just a dream 🤣 doing lunchtime yoga at work and have recently found YouTube low impact workouts that I love. My husband has the luxury of WFH, so he helps so much with the kids and I love that and am very fortunate. We don’t even have to do before/after care so saves us a ton of money! I’m doing a No Spend year on clothes/accessories and doing great!
Working from home with kiddos home can be SO hard – good for him!! And good luck on your no spend year – it does get easier the longer you go 🙂
Sorry to hear about your little one! You are so lucky you can stay home as an option.
I co-teach with a teacher who has used up all of her family sick leave (she only gets 5 days a year)! Of course, she could lie and say SHE is sick and use her own sick days, but that would seem unethical, so my point is – her husband finally started staying home. This confirms your point about women taking on a lot of the burden at first.
Concerning monetizing your blog, if you ever turn your posts into more link-driven content, I think you can trust yourself to do it tactfully. There’s no harm in making a little money from some of these items you would have been talking about anyway.
For example, we have an Ergo too (and I would click on your link if I needed one), but haven’t used it yet! We got “fast” with one carrier (the Bjorn) and keep defaulting to it. He’s 20 pounds, so maybe I’ll need the Ergo by the time he’s 35lbs!
Yikes – crazy that it took up to that point to have her husband step in. But some of that is just ingrained and we don’t even notice if it isn’t called out – hence why it needs to be called out!
And thanks for the note on affiliate links and the like 🙂
Hope the kiddo is feeling better. I’m glad your support system is there for your family when you need it. Peace of mind is one of those things you can’t put a price on. I’m also looking forward to my copy of Work Optional, though mine won’t be arriving until mid-Feb. with the other pre-orders. Hope you’re enjoying reading it!
He’s finally feeling better, though I expect this cough will probably hang on for a while. And so far I am loving Work Optional!
That bibimbap sounds good! I have been looking for something new to work into our dinner rotation, and that might be the ticket.
I recently got Work Optional in the mail as well and am pretty amped to read through. Just need to find the time! Baby AF has been sick twice already in 2019 (consequently, we have too) and we need a break!
It is sooooo good. And actually not nearly as much work as it seems. This was our kiddo’s second sickness this winter as well – this year seems worse on that front than the last few.
Another steady week of enjoying life is what I see from your update. This is something more people need to see and strive for. Simple goals that aren’t crazy like spending less, eating better, being more active and so on…all little goals that add up to huge results. Then track them and in your case blog(journal) it , that way you see the huge achievements that are accomplished when all the little wins are added up. Thanks for always sharing with us !
Yeah, tracking it, be it in a blog or a journal, really helps give you a better idea of the big picture and how the little things really do matter quite a bit.