Being a Working Parent is Expensive

Working Mommy Time:
mimosa, coffee, and bacon
$16 after tip

Being a working parent is expensive.  Not even talking about childcare.  We spend too much money on eating out, comfort food, adult beverages, entertainment, and the like.  This because we work so hard, we should treat ourselves.  Or, we're flying by the seat of our pants, even on the weekends, and by the time we get from breakfast to a nap, we realize there is nothing in the house to eat for lunch.  We get lunch, do another nap, and realize there's not a damn thing in the house for dinner.

The routine is highly important.  Without a routine, there is no food to be had, be eaten, or food that isn't spoiled.  Food gets spoiled, because it is bought with good intention, but by the time anyone is home to eat it, it's no good.  And, the two of us parents are on such different schedules, we're never ready to eat the same thing at the same time.  Sean is out of the house by the time we're making breakfast, and he comes home to a wife that ate dinner at work, so that she can put the baby to bed when she walks in the door.  On the weekends, Lily has breakfast, I have breakfast, and by the time it's time for us to eat lunch, Sean is just put together enough to eat breakfast. So, he eats breakfast, and then we get Elevation Burger on the road.

There are a list of things that we purchase just because we think we work hard enough to deserve making something easy on ourselves  The DVR, Showtime, pay-per-view movies, baby toys, dinners out, candy bars, alcohol, etc.  Our budget includes $200 in shopping every week.  There's always something to buy.  Instead of buying the cheapest convertible car seat, I bought the one that was the least pain in the ass.  This because it's a damn avalanche-snowball to just get out of the house and in the car that if the car seat wasn't a pain in the ass, that would be a whole lot less stressful.  If we think that we had X, Y, or Z, and that would make this whole thing a whole lot easier on us, we buy it.

So, we work to make more money, but we spend a lot of money because we work.

In the past two months, I've done a lot to reign it in.  I was spending too much money at Starbucks.  Now, we're brewing organic coffee in my office.  Or trying to, at least.  And, I have been doing better these past six weeks or so about premaking us lunch/dinner.  I even nailed a couple of weekends with the cooking-at-home-thing, but last weekend, we ate out a lot. And last week, I canceled Showtime.  I guess I will watch the end of Dexter some other time.  I'm not nursing/napping endlessly in front of the couch anymore anyway. 

We are just trying to stay on budget, because there is this whole unknown future ahead of us that we have to plan for. We have no idea what this baby is going to need/want or need/want to do.