My Tips to Save Money as a Stay at Home Mom in Brno / What meant for Me To Return to Work Earlier, at 7 Months Postpartum
Being close to our kids during their early childhood has always been a priority, but due to limited contractual restraints from work, back in 2014 I had to return to work fulltime with our son since he was 7 months old. While that helped us a lot financially and triggered the rapid healing of my postpartum depression, I admit those were the most difficult 2 years in our lives. I had a possibility to work a lot home office, husband the same and my tasks were always fulfilled daily, even if they were during 18.00-23.00 hours or at 08.00-15,30, they had to be covered, there was some sort of flexibility that allowed me to be there present at home and also perform work. Thanks to helping for kids' grandparents, who were basically living with us we managed to keep our kid at home and also work fulltime. However it was demanding because we had to be there for him, I had to also cook and clean, do the usual mommy stuff and also work fulltime. As I had some possibility to work at home office, we had some kind of comfort and better focus on the work tasks at hand, that is sure important. When I went to the office, weekly for two days, I didn't do any work-related tasks, it was for me such a distraction, my focus was bad, everyone was speaking and wanted some sort of social interaction...but it had to be done, so we continued and I had to recover work surplus while on home office. Anyway, those years passed, though it seemed to last like a little eternity...I managed to enjoy and see my baby's first steps, see him grow and most importantly, we didn't put him to daycare until he was 3 years old.
The general practice these days is you go to work sooner, at maybe 1-year postpartum and kid is placed in a fulltime daycare...by fulltime I mean 8-10 hours per day, as long as the parents need to work. While I understand the need and importance of child supervision during work hours, I could not do it to any of our kids, for us earlier than 3 years is simply too soon, so we used the grandparents' help, as hard as it is to live with older people in small small house, cook for more and so on...we did this because we do not agree with the fulltime kindergarten attendance from such an early age, 3-4 years is, in my opinion, optimum time to start kindergarten. Up to that age, they need parents attention, home Universe exploration, special time and one on one interaction. Is it hard to work fulltime, clean and cook for more people and also give one to one special time a toddler? It is, but no one said that all that is good is also easy to achieve. What we learned is that no matter how tired you are at the end of the day, they are the most important and we decided for next kid(s) to manage a prolonged parental leave as a must, an absolutely necessary condition.
Now that we expect child number 3, I try to daily come up with solutions for how to fit our perfectly large family in a very small house and how to manage the finances. This article is about the financial part, here are a few tips that help us during my parental leave:
1. We cook our meals at home, on average every 2 days we have freshly cooked meals. This helps us financially but also for tasty and healthy reasons - we love cooking and eating
2. We make our groceries online - this saves us time and energy that are used in other, more productive ways
3. As much as possible we buy foods and clothing at discounted prices. Especially clothing, at very low rates during 70-80% sales
4. We buy some foods like eggs, meat, honey and vegetables from local farmers or at the local market called Zelny Trh. Eggs from real chicken from small growers cost half the price of the one you get in the supermarket...
5. I plan each meal 2 days in advance - the Internet and especially Youtube is helping me a lot here, all kind of recipes you can find online. We learned how to cook Indian food even, and quite tasty also
6. Snacks, bites and sweet treats we also make at home, either baked or when its too hot outside we just do raw deserts. I was amazed about some raw vegan desserts, they are so tasty and make you full for 2 days
I think there are much more things and tips to be added to my list, so feel free to tell me yours in the comments section below. Take care!
The general practice these days is you go to work sooner, at maybe 1-year postpartum and kid is placed in a fulltime daycare...by fulltime I mean 8-10 hours per day, as long as the parents need to work. While I understand the need and importance of child supervision during work hours, I could not do it to any of our kids, for us earlier than 3 years is simply too soon, so we used the grandparents' help, as hard as it is to live with older people in small small house, cook for more and so on...we did this because we do not agree with the fulltime kindergarten attendance from such an early age, 3-4 years is, in my opinion, optimum time to start kindergarten. Up to that age, they need parents attention, home Universe exploration, special time and one on one interaction. Is it hard to work fulltime, clean and cook for more people and also give one to one special time a toddler? It is, but no one said that all that is good is also easy to achieve. What we learned is that no matter how tired you are at the end of the day, they are the most important and we decided for next kid(s) to manage a prolonged parental leave as a must, an absolutely necessary condition.
Now that we expect child number 3, I try to daily come up with solutions for how to fit our perfectly large family in a very small house and how to manage the finances. This article is about the financial part, here are a few tips that help us during my parental leave:
1. We cook our meals at home, on average every 2 days we have freshly cooked meals. This helps us financially but also for tasty and healthy reasons - we love cooking and eating
2. We make our groceries online - this saves us time and energy that are used in other, more productive ways
3. As much as possible we buy foods and clothing at discounted prices. Especially clothing, at very low rates during 70-80% sales
4. We buy some foods like eggs, meat, honey and vegetables from local farmers or at the local market called Zelny Trh. Eggs from real chicken from small growers cost half the price of the one you get in the supermarket...
5. I plan each meal 2 days in advance - the Internet and especially Youtube is helping me a lot here, all kind of recipes you can find online. We learned how to cook Indian food even, and quite tasty also
6. Snacks, bites and sweet treats we also make at home, either baked or when its too hot outside we just do raw deserts. I was amazed about some raw vegan desserts, they are so tasty and make you full for 2 days
I think there are much more things and tips to be added to my list, so feel free to tell me yours in the comments section below. Take care!
Comments
Post a Comment