Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

You Need a Budget

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Before I announce the winner, I want to let you all know that now through January 31st, Daring Young Mom readers can get a 10% discount on YNAB software by entering the coupon code “daring” on the YNAB.com site. Jesse was impressed with the response you all gave and wanted to help out because there are so many of us who are struggling with finances right now. Yay Jesse!

And the winner of the You Need A Budget software giveaway is Donna, commenter number 29. Please contact me and I’ll get you set up with your prize.

ynab-winner

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

Emotional Outbursts are We

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Emotional Outbursts are We – A Grammatically Correct Place Where a Kid Can Throw a Fit.

Things have been sort of climactic at our house lately. Everything is high drama. Both kids are going through a bit of a manic depressive stage. Either they’re twirling pirouettes joyfully around the house or they’re bawling their brains out. Magoo is especially bad because we’re trying to wean him off naps.

If he gets a nap, then he stays up all night with eyes as big as saucers. Blink. Blink. Grin. Giggle.
baby-buddy-face
If we skip the nap, then he’s an absolute, fall-on-his-face-with-his-open-mouth-wailing, can’t-see-for-the-river-of-tears-blinding-his-eyes, mess. The slightest thing will make him bawl to an extent no one should ever bawl whose life is as charmed as his or whose cheeks are as luscious. If my cheeks were that rosy and edible, I would probably never cry again.

So a couple of nights ago I asked Laylee to set the table. We keep all our kid dishes in low drawers so they can get food and drinks for themselves while Dan and I sip sodas and watch YouTube videos of dancing cats.

Laylee very obediently and somewhat maliciously went about doing this chore as quickly as humanly possible. You see, she knows that Magoo likes to pick his own dishes at meal time, especially at dinner time, a time when he has been awake well past his ticking-time-bomb-of-a-brain’s point of no return. I watched her at work and thought, “NOT THE BLUE WIRE! CLIP THE RED!” Perhaps she was still disappointed that the police broke up our little fireworks soiree on New Year’s Eve and she wanted to see some toddleric pyrotechnics instead. Sadly I doubt she was moving that fast simply to do a good job. You could tell by the look on her face and the way she glanced over at Little Buddy that she was clipping the blue wire on purpose.

And he ERUPTED! “I wanted to pick my own plate. Don’t EVER EVER EVER pick my plate Laylee. EVER!”

“Sorry bud. You’re too late,” she said matter-of-factly.

“BUT I DON’T W-W-W-WANT THAT PLATE. I WANT TO PICK MY OWN PLATE.”

At this point I had already dished up his food and did not relish the thought of dirtying another dish. Magoo sat in front of the drawer sobbing as if his broken heart had fallen in a Humpty-Dumpty-like tragedy and the pieces would never be put together again.

The sobbing and the pleading, the sorrow and the lack of pity went on for quite some time until Dan stepped in with a brilliant idea.

“Here,” Dan said. “You wanna pick your plate? Fine. Pick your plate.”

He then carried the dish full of food over to the drawer, put it inside and closed it.

“Okay Magoo. Pick your plate.” Magoo opened the drawer, lifted the dish full of food, slid another plate from under it, sniffling all the while, and carried it pathetically to the table. His dinner remained shut in the bottom drawer.

Sometimes my greatest parenting triumphs involve not laughing at my children in their darkest hours. In their moments of greatest heartbreak, I often find my most fulfilling parental hilarity. It may be cruel but it’s the Way of Things.

As Magoo went to sit snifflingly up to the table, Dan reminded him to wash his hands and said he’d dish up for him while he was in the bathroom.

While Magoo’s hands were all a-lather, Dan quietly pulled the loaded plate from the drawer and switched it out with the nearly identical plate Magoo had so pathetilovingly chosen for himself.

And he didn’t notice. And I decided that maybe we could do just one or two more naps. Per week. For the next few years.

Yeah-No

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The “yeah-no” has become quite the art form around our house. I give the kids the affirmation they need without actually allowing them to do the bizarre and sometimes impossible things they ask for. The goal is to say “no” with some sort of affirmative statement that lets them walk away with a smidge of dignity intact and smiles on their squishable faces.

[I’ve written up the instructions for the “yeah-no” at parenting.com]

Eggnog and Raisin Day

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Magoo came running up to me today calling, “MOM! MOM! Dad says turn on the TV. It’s Eggnog ‘n Raisin Day. So I did. AHHH! Inauguration day. I knew it was coming. I’ve been watching coverage of President Obama painting homeless shelters and hugging babies across the country on his tour towards the White House. But with all the celebrating and media events, I’d forgotten when it was actually happening.

So we kept Laylee home from school for a good part of the morning to watch the President take the oath of office. She and Magoo both watched with a level of attention I wish they could muster during church. We’ve been talking about this day for a long time and even though his name was harder to remember than McCain’s, I think she’s glad that someone with “darker skin” got elected as president for the first time. That idea thrills her. It thrills me too.

I loved watching him with his daughters, explaining what the boxes were for as he got ready to take the oath. I loved that one of them was taking pictures of him while he gave his speech. I really enjoyed his speech. If every presidency, if any presidency, could be as good as the inauguration speech, wouldn’t that be something? Maybe this one will be.

I loved that the NPR commentator felt the need to point out Oprah and her entourage and narrate her activities and shenanigans. I loved that Obama and Biden both turned in their seats to watch 4 of the world’s most amazing musicians play to them and the entire country out in the freezing cold. I loved that Dan was concerned about how the cold would affect their intonation. I was just worried that their fingers would go numb.

At one point, Obama said, “As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.”

I wondered if he was alluding to the fact that we may not get out of Iraq as soon as everyone hopes we will. He’s president now. It’s official. He can allude to things like that.

I love that with all his calm, poise, confidence and eloquence, his brain was exploding just enough to biff it a couple of times as he was repeating the words of the oath of office. It made me like him more. And Michelle just stood there smiling. My word, she’s an attractive and confident woman.

I enjoyed the prayers. I’m glad we can still have prayers at events like this. I especially enjoyed the imagery of “beating tanks into tractors.” I’d like to watch that happen on some bizarre military/agricultural version of Pimp my Ride.

I’m hopeful. I was not a flag-waving, bumper sticker toting Obama supporter. I’m still not. But I like him and I’m hopeful. Looking at my children, my neighbors and some of my local leaders, I know things can get better and I chose to believe that they will.

You Need a Budget — Giveaway

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Usually I give stuff away on this site because someone sends it to me or asks me to review it. Today I’m reviewing a product because I love it LOVE IT and I’m giving it away because I asked the creator if I could have a copy to give away. So here goes the longest review ever with a little embarrassing personal history thrown in.

Dan and I have never been great at budgeting. I was taught to budget and balance a checkbook when I was really young. My dad’s an accountant for the love of chicken and I vividly remember him sitting at the kitchen table paying bills and balancing the checkbook. He and my mom were always careful with money and they taught me to be as well.

Then college hit and I got a bit lax. I learned to only start thinking about money when it ran out and I was always confused. “Like, how come my check totally bounced?” Now, I’m a smart girl but I guess I just decided that I was too smart to waste time tracking every penny. I always did okay, made my rent and tuition payments on time and graduated college with very little debt. I think I only called my parents for a massive bailout package once or twice.

Then after graduation, Dan and I got married. I was supporting him through school, working full time while he held down a part-time job. Suddenly the expenses were shared and the income was more than I’d had before. We weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination but for college students we were doing fine. We had a TWO bedroom apartment with no holes in the walls and a non-shag carpet. I didn’t think we needed to be strict with money.

I planned on staying home once we had kids but I was nervous about how it would feel to be financially dependent on another person. Somehow I got Dan to agree to let me plan and budget our money. I thought that being “in charge” would help me feel like I had a stake in our finances even though I wasn’t the one bringing home the bacon once I became a mom.

But I never really got a handle on the situation. I tried budgeting software, Excel spreadsheets, using a cash-only budget, where when I ran out of cash I ran out of spending power. I bounced from plan to plan but never found a good fit.

Dan and I have grown to equate money with fear. We don’t know how much we have and we don’t always know how much is coming. To me, unexpected income is “free money” and although we (especially Dan) feel a sense of duty to put it towards upcoming major expenses, we want to spend some for fun too and then end up feeling guilty about it. We don’t really have any debt and we have a good amount of savings but we’re not progressing and it seems like we dip more and more into our emergency reserves because our paycheck didn’t quite cover what we spent the previous month.

We make a good living but feel guilty when we spend money on wants because we don’t know if we should and we’re always worried that we’re not managing things right. Financial lame-ish-ness is one of the major causes of stress in our marriage. I’m in charge so whenever we want to buy something, Dan will ask, “Do we have it in the budget?” and I’ll look down at my shoes and say, “We have it in the bank, I think.” And he’ll decide we probably can’t afford it. But then sometimes I’ll buy it anyway and then we’ll be happy for a minute with a vague feeling of guilt. It’s not okay.

So a couple of months ago my sister called me ranting and raving about the new budgeting software she’s using. It’s called YNAB, which stands for You Need a Budget. I winced at the B-word but decided to hear her out. By the end of our conversation I was convinced that I’d at least give it a try, knowing that they offer a money-back guarantee.

Well, it’s $50 I won’t be getting back because I cannot say enough positive things about this software. It’s easy to use. It lets me feel like I’m controlling my money, not the other way around. It’s intuitive. It’s fast and simple to set up. It’s complex enough to do everything I need it to do without being so confusing I want to beat my head against the keyboard, a problem I’ve had with budgeting software in the past. It’s created for families, not businesses and that’s very apparent, although my sister uses it to track her business expenses as well. It comes with instructional material that focuses on living within your means, building up a buffer so you’re not living paycheck to paycheck and really being accountable to yourself and your spouse.

The company is small and they really want to get it right. They have helpful forums and great response time. When I posted a question, I received a personal email and a fix for my problem within a few short hours, even though it was on a weekend.

I set up all the categories in my budget and then Dan and I have a meeting to go over everything. There has been no tension in our meetings, just sort of a giddy feeling of relief. Relief that we have a plan. Relief that there is enough money to do the things that are really important. Relief that he can finally trust me with our family finances.

We have a category for fun money for each of us and one for clothes. We can’t put a lot of money into these categories each month but the money accrues so next month if I haven’t spent my $10, I’ll have $20 and eventually I’ll be able to buy a whole sweater. In the past if I’d budgeted $10 for clothes, I’d rush to spend it so I wouldn’t lose it. The same thing goes with birthday money. I knew that if I didn’t spend my $20 from Grandma right away, it would be absorbed and end up paying for pull-ups or something so I’d buy a $20 piece of uselessness just so I could spend the money on me.

Now I just add my birthday money to my fun-money budget and watch it grow.

This accumulation feature allows us to do things like set up small budgets for several different projects without needing actual separate accounts. I have an account for haircuts and I budget a third of a hair cut each month so I can go in and have it done every three months with no worry about whether or not we can afford for me to live without split ends.

But if I overspend one of my categories, I’m not penalized for it specifically the next month. If Magoo suddenly outgrows all his clothes and I go $100 over-budget on the kids’ clothing category, $100 is taken from the OVERALL budget the next month. I love this feature because sometimes things come up and I don’t want to feel like if I overspend in an area, I’m toast in that area for months. I like that I can spread out the squeeze.

My favorite thing about it is the honesty. Sometimes in the past, when I’d go shopping, I’d hurry to get everything put away before Dan got home so I wouldn’t have to explain to him what I’d purchased and where the money came from. When he’d ask me a week later if the shirt I was wearing was new, I’d mumble something and he’d wonder if I had some whole new secret wardrobe he’d paid for with our life savings without knowing it.

Now I come home from shopping and show him everything with excitement because I know that he knows that it’s all budgeted and accounted for.

We’re achieving goals. We’re learning to have positive feelings about money. We’re strengthening our relationship. We’re gaining self-control and security about our future.

You should too.

Seriously. Go check out the site. Read what they’re all about. I know I can’t be the only one who finds herself at war with money.

If you’d like to win a free copy of YNAB Pro, and I’d highly recommend ordering Pro, leave a comment on this post and I’ll draw a winner on Saturday night. We saved more than $50 the first week we used it by cutting unnecessary spending and noticing strange charges on various accounts we hadn’t been monitoring closely enough. So even if you don’t win, it’s worth the investment. Good luck!

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

Something Cleverish

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I’m sure many of you have heard about blogger Stephanie Nielson’s plane crash in August. She and her husband were critically injured and she has been undergoing surgeries and procedures for months in order to heal and get back to loving her 4 beautiful children.

Stephanie’s blog was popular for her obvious love of motherhood and the joy she found in the small moments in life. I didn’t personally come across it until after the accident but reading through the archives, it’s easy to see why she’s loved by so many people.

Since the accident, friends and readers have rallied to raise money to help pay for the family’s staggering medical bills. Most recently Sue from Navel Gazing at Its Finest has put together a book of funny posts written by some very talented writers and me.

Please consider supporting Sue and her efforts to help the Nielson family by buying a book or 12. You’ll get an enjoyable read and they’ll get a bit closer to having the financial portion of their troubles taken care of.

When I Think of Magoo

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When I think of Magoo, I hope I always remember him running down the hill to our house, his fluffy hair bouncing, his little McQueen-crocked feet pumping like bolts of red rubber lightning. I violated my rule of not buying “character” clothes when I saw the look on his face at the shoe store.

They were like the air to him.

It was a good decision.

I never had his baby shoes bronzed. Maybe I’ll do these.

mcqueens

Today I Was a Mom

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I was a mom pretty much all day today. Here is my report:

I cruelly forced someone to wear pants outside in 40-degree weather.

I cut peanut-butter sandwiches in the shape of dinosaurs and delivered them to an alfresco restaurant-for-2 at the end of our driveway.

I danced like a lunatic while driving in my car. My passengers said I was good. I chose to believe them.

I changed shirts twice but never showered.

I calmly explained AGAIN why people under the age of 30 should never use permanent markers… ever.

I threw away 3 packs of wipes that had been left open and dried out completely. Yes. I heard the earth and Sheryl Crow scream out in pain and betrayal.

I received a visitor while sitting upon the throne who proceeded to hug and cuddle me tenderly while I peed… just because of love.

When they asked “Why,” I answered. All day long.

I held a large child like a baby while he cried and showed me his bonk. Twice.

I giggled on the escalator while holding hands with a boy and agreed that it was “JUST LIKE A RIDE!”

I tried to play a girly ballad on the car stereo but was told, “That song’s scary!” “No it’s not,” I retorted. He responded, “It’s not scary to YOU, but it’s scary to ME.” I navigated my Zune back to Eye of the Tiger.

I sat out on the front porch to sort the mail so they could keep playing outside until it was All the Way Dark.

When asked to squeeze the ketchup in the shape of a dinosaur, I did my best but was informed that it looked more like an AT-AT.

I purchased the socks with the grey bottoms even though they cost 50 cents more because they help him run so much faster.

After 3 hours of hard work, I unearthed a parking spot in our garage and put my car in it, only to be scared and confused when I went to leave for a meeting and found that the car was “missing” from the driveway.

I sat in a meeting full of other moms, animatedly discussing ways of extorting money from friends and family to support education. An award called a “Golden Acorn,” professional jump-ropers, and nominating people to be on a committee to nominate people were all discussed at the meeting as well.

I picked up two slugs with my bare hands and threw them to freedom so the children’s squealing would stop. One was on a rubber ball. One was on my living room carpet. They felt like congealed slime… because they were.

Upon request I composed two original songs, one called, “Hooky Joojie” and the other called, “Mommy, the Laylee’s Mommy,” sung to the tune of Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer.

I heard two people pray about how much they loved me.

Today I was a mom. It’s not a bad gig.

Don’t Email Me

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Hey. We’re having some technical difficulties over here. If you email me in the next couple of days at my daringyoungmom.com address, your email will be lost in a vortex of time and space where it will party with its friends, never actually making it to an inbox of any kind. Then I will appear to be a jerk for ignoring your oh-so-important communication. I will not be a jerk, but as you know, things are not always as they seem. So if you have an urgent message for me, please leave a comment here and I’ll get back to you from another email account which I choose not to publish on the internet.

Violent Farmers

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Laylee: Mom. Magoo and I are hunting. We’re shooting cows to get milk.

Me: You don’t shoot cows to get milk. You only get milk if they’re still alive.

{PAUSE}

Laylee: What can we get if we shoot them?