Of dollars and dimes, cleaning ladies and bad rhymes
It's been a while since I posted, but really nothing of note has happened, and my thoughts have been somewhat mundane. "Should I fold the laundry or empty the dishwasher? Why is it so hard to open string cheese? Will my children every eat a protein source other than dairy again?"
No one is even looking at the house, let along buying it, so we've finding that a bit hysteria provoking. I mean, NO ONE has even come through in almost two weeks, except for the nosy neighbors at the open house on Sunday. And no, my house is not being kept nearly as clean as it should. What's the point? Since we put the house on the market, not a single person has come through mid-week. It's still much cleaner than it would be if we weren't trying to sell it, but I'm not vacuuming up the cat hair four times a day anymore.
Given the fact that no one is looking at my house, I've been busy trying to figure out how to save money as clearly we will be carrying both houses for a while. I know this means I need to scale back or get rid of the wondrous woman who cleans our house and babysits once a week. While she may not be God's gift the cleaning ladies, she is by for the best babysitter I have ever had, and the kids would freak. And I might lose my sanity. But really, that is my biggest household expense outside of groceries, and as hard as I try I can't seem to scale back the grocery budget much as my kids eat more than a normal adult in a given day.
In the name of frugality, I have also refrained from enrolling the kids in any summer activities except for a week of day camp around the time that we were originally supposed to be moving. At the time, the ability to hang out all day sounded lovely, now that we are two days from the end of school for the year, I'm getting a bit concerned about our ability to occupy ourselves all day in a house that has to be kept clean. There are only so many hours one can spend at the town pool. Or are there? I guess we will soon find out.
Thankfully it has been so cold that there has been no need to turn on the AC. While I would love to just keep it off this summer, at least during the day, a friend pointed out that I actually can't do that while trying to sell as I want to show off the fact there is AC inn a three hundred+ year old home. I also suppose if I got around to potty training the clearly ready A that would both keep us occupied and save us money in diapers, but the stress of it all seems so overwhelming right now. Perhaps I should start buying lottery tickets instead....
Any other budget cutting ideas from anyone? Outside of cutting back on my wine consumption that is. While the cleaning lady/babysitter may be negotiable, my daily glass of wine is not...but perhaps I could, gulp, give two buck chuck a try again. Or not.
