Rolando
Father of twins plus one! I'm back after taking a 5 year break from blogging.

Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees (Restore)

I said before and I’ll say it again, Kids Aren’t Cheap!  In today’s economy we have to watch every penny.  We didn’t do we well in the past, but today is a different story.  We squeeze out as much out of a dollar as we can.

I was never much of a coupon person, but now I keep every piece of junk mail looking for bargans.  If I can’t find a deal through the daily flyers, then I’ll resort to our Entertainment Book.  If I can’t find anything there, then we resort to Google to find anything free.  For example yesterday was Museum Day in Sacramento.  A good handful of local museums including Fairytale Town and the Sacramento Zoo were free!

Me and Justice

Me and Justice

Looking for bargans outside of the home isn’t too bad.  We’ve also resorted to shopping at Costco for bulk items.  In the long run it’s cheaper to shop there even if you have to spend a good chunk full before leaving there.  What’s great about shopping at Costco is that you get to sample many different kinds of snacks and other specialty items for free.

We also try to save money at home by shutting down unused lights and other energy saving ideas.  We try to make our meals last longer.  Instead of having a dinner small enough for two people, we make it so that it could feed more and last at least 2-3 days if we’re lucky.  We try to save every little penny.   Know you know why we get upset when Justice and Jasmine throw their food on the floor.  It’s such a waste of time, energy, and money when they do that.  They just don’t realize the work we have to go through just to put food on the table.

I even try to put less shampoo in their hair at bath time just to make it last longer.  The recommended serving for Justice’s formula is 8 oz.  I normally only fill up his bottle to 7 oz just to make his goat milk last longer too.  It’s not cheap, but it’s definitely better priced than his $9 dollar formula that we was using.

If I could save the dropping off the floor I would lol.  But we are not at that point yet.  I stopped using my truck as a daily driver.  At about 10-13 miles per gallon, it’s not a wise choice.  I use the Bimmer as my daily driver, it’s the lesser of two evils.  We’ve saved enough to feed everyone in the household including Minik and Candy, but it’s still not enough.  I basically make enough to pay the bills and have some pocket money for lunch.

I’ve done some creative financing over the last couple of months and that has helped.  But we still have to limit our spending and not eat out as much and for “Daddy” to not busy anymore gadgets, at least not expensive ones.  It’s still not enough to put them into day care, but at least we know our limits now.  No more long trips and insane spending like before.  We have to tighten our belts and watch spending very carefully as money does not grow on trees (as least not our trees).

We did, however, splurge last night.  We had dinner at the Anatolian Table restaurant in Rocklin.  It’s the only decent Turkish food restaurant in Northern California.  The kids were amused at the belly dancing as you can see from this YouTube video.

With costs at the top of our minds, we did not order any appetizers like we did in previous visits.  Just the main courses and dessert (oh and some Turkish coffee).

 

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nispiros

Just a wanna be blogger. Father of twins +1. Caviar dreams on a McDonald's budget.

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