Appreciate the small things,

This might be a weird post but I wanted to vent and basically just get all of this off my chest, and maybe some other stay at home mommas can relate 💛

Last night I got some money from doing some work for my grandmother, and I wanted it to go straight to my own groceries. (I’ll explain more down below why that’s such a big deal for me)

My boyfriend and I are letting my best friend (his cousin) live with us while we renovate our new house. From the get go we decided that we would cover rent and utilities and she would cover groceries and gas since she doesn’t have a car. Our rent is only $425 a month and our utilities only get up to about $85 since we live in a tiny 1 bedroom and only have to pay for an ac unit. My boyfriend recently lost his good paying job and thankfully within literally three hours got hired onto another, and although hourly it’s paid less, he plans on working overtime so it’ll be even more than the first one. It works out great considering that’s where our roommate works as well. Money is extremely tight right now and we’re living paycheck to paycheck and all his money goes to bills, while our roommates money goes to groceries and her bills, and even some extra money to buy her own wants. We’re so thankful for her. However, because she’s responsible for groceries, that means that we don’t have a lot of say in what she buys. (And with inflation right now there’s not a whole lot coming in) Now I know to a lot of people this sounds terrible, it really isn’t. I’m not really complaining.

Now with all that being said, the reason I don’t work is because our daughter has medical issues that require a lot of attention, and because I’m not working 20 hours a week we don’t qualify for our states benefits regarding free childcare. On top of that, we live in an extremely small town in Kansas and childcare is sooo expensive. We don’t have $200 extra to spend a week for someone to watch her, and we’re also not in a great position regarding our one vehicle. My family won’t watch her, and his family lives two hours away to the closest big city so they aren’t able to watch her either. Our options are limited. (I’ve made a post about this before and yet somehow people didn’t understand, and it hurt…) we’re trying really hard for things to work and THEY ARE!! Just not easily or without stupid complications lol. Anyways, it’s been really rough on me knowing that I don’t have my own money to buy me or my family the things we want or need. Any other mamas know that feeling??

Back to the point of this… I felt an immense amount-of relief when I had my own $130 to spend on my own groceries. I felt like myself finally, as it’s so weird to me not to be working. I took pride in my hard work knowing that I could finally pick out the kind of bread that I like, the candle I’d been wanting to buy, and so on so on. I’m so proud of myself and even had $30 left over so I could buy my daughter some new baby lotion and a few purées that I wanted to her to try. I appreciate the small things so much since I’ve become a mother and it’s been so rewarding… 💛 I gave the last bit of money to my boyfriend so he could buy himself some things that he wanted too, and it made me feel so much better knowing that I finally was able to contribute to our family other than taking care of our sweet girl. (I’m reminded all the time that it’s enough but still) 💛💛

Just wanted to share because I’m proud of myself and I feel really good. ALSO MY FRIDGE AND PANTRY IS FINALLY FULL !! lol 😂