The Modern but Old Style Homemakers Club

juliapenguin

This thread keeps disappearing! I can only find it sometimes by going to 'subscribed threads' - weird. Maybe Squeaky keeps hiding it from us because we've been naughty.... :rotfl:

janeym8

well listed all foods in fridge/freezer/cupboards yesterday and this morning did meal planner for next two weeks.
as an add on to this i started making a shopping list for when i do my big monthly shop later this week

also made a "to do this week"list

by 10 am had 4 loads of washing hanging out,had cleaned and bleached all the bathroom including the floor and did a huge pile of ironing
I felt sooooooooooo pleased with myself

managed to get a huge amount of furniture for step daughters new flat on freecycle this afternoon plus visited hubby in hospital twice

now the downside of all this----am exhausted,legs so so so sore
i need to get this (self) energy conservation better planned
pleased got my planners done though

janey xxx

gien

Can I join you here please? I'm at home, DH works and all three kuds are now in school. I've struggled a lot over the years coming to terms with being a Homemaker, for a long time I just thought I was wasting my education and being useless. I've stayed at home mainly because we live abroad and have moved around so you really need someone to steady the decks in that situation. Now we are settled here and I have my house and garden. We renovating the house at the moment so I will very soon have a LOT of DIY and homestyling to do. Even after 15 years at home I'm still rubbish at things like meal planning/getting into a routine, though I do keep trying!

squeaky

juliapenguin wrote: »

This thread keeps disappearing! I can only find it sometimes by going to 'subscribed threads' - weird. Maybe Squeaky keeps hiding it from us because we've been naughty.... :rotfl:

Nope

I can't think of a reason why you shouldn't be able to find it either, sorry.

squeaky

juliapenguin wrote: »

DH is starting to feel the benefit of me being at home more - we've been sitting reading all evening and watching the sunset. Normally we'd be doing chores and I'd be frantically doing lesson preparation and marking.

So on the plus side - more quality time together evenings and weekends.

But on the minus side - less money coming in.

This isn't a one sided thing when it comes to money though.

Yes, you have less coming in - but you also very probably have less going out...

No travel costs going to and from work.

No "workplace wardrobe" to buy and keep up. (Dry cleaning as well?)

No nursery or childcare fees for those with children?

No lunchtime meal bills for those who buy out rather than take sandwiches...

And then you can put your own value on things like not having to dash into shops in the lunch hour or on the way home and rush around the place to catch up. Quality time. Savings made by having time to home cook/bake instead of buying ready made "stab-stab-ping" meals to cover for when you are too tired/busy...

I'm sure there are more

frugaliciousness

squeaky wrote: »

This isn't a one sided thing when it comes to money though.

Yes, you have less coming in - but you also very probably have less going out...

No travel costs going to and from work.

No "workplace wardrobe" to buy and keep up. (Dry cleaning as well?)

No nursery or childcare fees for those with children?

No lunchtime meal bills for those who buy out rather than take sandwiches...

And then you can put your own value on things like not having to dash into shops in the lunch hour or on the way home and rush around the place to catch up. Quality time. Savings made by having time to home cook/bake instead of buying ready made "stab-stab-ping" meals to cover for when you are too tired/busy...

I'm sure there are more

super

Loads more:

no need for a second car (in my case) no repayments, insurance, road tax, repairs, mot's and petrol and parking charges to budget for.

If you have business car insurance, that can be taken off.

A cup of coffee at home costs next to zero compared to Starbucks.

No 'whip round' collections that become ever increasingly frequent.

You can volunteer at school events rather than spending at the fundraising events

Time to shop around thoroughly for good utility deals.

Less money spent on paracetamol and flu remedies as you won't be constantly round people that are germ ridden, maybe even a perscription charge or two?

You have time to make a shopping list and stick to it when you shop, no more impulse, wandering around or 'special deals' when shopping.

You can shop around online for the best deals of things you need and not worry about being in for the delivery.


There's one major expense though and it drives me mad..... heating in the winter. I plan to do my studying at the library a couple of days a week come the winter as that will save a little bit.

Chipps

Another one that's just occurred to me (doesn't make any difference to money though) is that you will know what the weather is doing!

On the days when I'm in the office I have no idea what's going on outside! I come home to comments about what a scorcher the day was, and I have spent the whole day shivering in the air con. Or in the winter, arriving in the dark & returning in the dark so not seeing too much of a day. It's partly my own fault, as I prefer if possible to only take 30 mins lunch & leave earlier. However, being at home I really appreciate the differences in the weather etc, which just doesn't get noticed in the office with heating/air con and constant artificial light. At least in the office I work in now there is a window, there wasn't when I was in a different office in the same building.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

juliapenguin wrote: »

DH is starting to feel the benefit of me being at home more - we've been sitting reading all evening and watching the sunset. Normally we'd be doing chores and I'd be frantically doing lesson preparation and marking.

So on the plus side - more quality time together evenings and weekends.

But on the minus side - less money coming in.

We were the opposite of most people,forty years ago I came straight out of school and married I was 16,my husband 21.
My husband made it plain he did'nt want me to work and I never have.
A year after we married I gave birth to my first child and by the time I was twenty we had completed our family of three daughters.
We had it tough money wise as we survived on my husbands wage and family allowance for the second two (you never got any for the first back then) however we were rich beyond all our dreams in other ways.
We had so much time to do whatever we wanted and I'm so glad we did things the way we did when I look back.
I learned to budget and manage on very little back then something I have kept up over the years.
Even now although I can afford to buy whatever I want it's nice to know I could manage if I had too.
I look back very fondly on those "frugal" days,
They were good training in life.

juliapenguin

Squeaky and others are right about the moneysaving which being at home can bring - I've experienced this before.

I think it would be a no-brainer if I still had kids at home - I'm just having some trouble getting my head round it.

The problem is that I have this little routine which goes on and on:
- at work, with my mental/physical health spiralling downwards
- leave job because of breakdown
- feel so much better being at home
- feel that I am completely well so get another job
- cycle repeats.

The obvious answer is to wait until I can find a job with few enough hours so that I have the balance between meaningful work and the peaceful, stress-free time at home which I need. The key is to be prepared to hang on in there until the right job appears, and that's the hard bit for me. Tomorrow I'm going to see another school which has offered me a job, to try to negotiate a light timetable there, but I'll have to be firm or the cycle will repeat itself again.

Today I've not managed to get up and dressed yet - I've got some exam marking to do at home and for once I've got the car, so it would be nice to do something I can't normally do. I'm doing speaking exams at a school tomorrow and Thursday, plus exam marking at the school on Friday, so maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself today. Speaking exams are hard work - you have to listen really carefully to what the student says, but at the same time be trying to score various aspects of their English. They are devastated if they get a bad mark, so I feel a lot of pressure to be scrupulously fair.

I know I'm rambling a bit here, but basically I'm saying that this last week of my supply contract is quite busy so maybe I don't need to stress out too much about getting a homemaker routine going on until next week, when I probably won't have any work.

frugaliciousness

It's finding a 'worthwhile' job that suits you isn't it.

My dear friend has ME, she believes it was the stresses of her managerial post within the NHS that has contributed to her ill health. She is now a homemaker as her daughter is at school.

She often talks about not wanting any pressure or stress ever again and is really not bothered about her career (her husband works to support them) She talks about a little par time job in a cafe or in the local store but realistically she knows that even then her health and the routine she needs to have in place to get through the day won't allow her to do this. Sometimes I feel she's putting on a front about getting a job because she worries people don't understand her illness and thinks she's lazy. I don't know, but she does struggle with Mum's and their 'raising eyebrows' in the school yard.

She's suffers from panic attacks and anxiety, depression at times and low mood a lot of the time... all of which I do without the pain or chronic fatigue - I don't know how she copes at all.

Being a homemaker is tough you've defined yourself by the work that you do and others defined you as ***** the ****************. Thing that we have to get our heads round is that nobody actually cares whether you work or not. It's us in our heads that thinks people have an opinion, they probably do for a split second but then move on to something more pressing We do it to ourselves. Posititive mental attitude all the way! Easy to say

They're so many tasks a home maker/housewife/mum does and i'll be honest....... when I put my whole motivation, ability and work hard at my housey job I'm fine, proud and feel good about myself about my home and my mumminess :|D but on down days or periods when I don't do stuff, mope around and let things spiral into dirtiness and messiness I feel like being a homemaker is the worst job in the world and i'm a worthless being.

Again, positive mental attitude and 'doing it to ourselves'.

I can crochet and quite good at it. I'm seriously thinking about setting myself up in business making and selling children's hats. I've done the stay at home mum thing but my children are only 3 and 6. I need and want to be home when they go to school and when they come in from school so I perceive i'll be a homemaker for a long while yet but feel I want to contribute to my families finances and I want to be a work at home mum... a mumpreneur

I guess I'm not totally happy being a full-time homemaker and need that something else to work on but I do think I am very lucky (if that is the right word to use) to be in the position where I can be at home. My life is far less stressful and what ever low feelings I have about it at times I'll cope with because it's a damn sight better than coping with other people induced stress, hurt and b*tchiness that being in the workplace can sometimes cause