After looking at the budget, again and again for 3 months I have come to the conclusion that no more money can be spared from any section of it. For the last 8 years I have been in the habit of recording every dollar that we spend and trying to stay within certain amounts for spending, and make those amounts as small as possible.
Then we moved to Mackay, where suddenly our expenses increased by 30 percent for food, insurance and petrol. The biggies. Then I got sick and medicine couldn't help me, so I went gluten and dairy free (which saved me from a life of lying on the couch) and started taking some supplements (which are healing me). All so, so expensive. And so, for the second time in our married life I have come to the conclusion that more money cannot be saved and we must earn more.
For the last week I have been converting half of our downstairs spare room for an office. I know a few people who are looking for a speechie so I will put the word out. It's not working that concerns ,me, I love Speech Pathology. I just wonder how everything else will be able to fit, particularly at this 'still healing' phase of my life. My husband works from 9am till 9pm, sometimes coming home for dinner, 5 days a week. On the sixth day he finishes at about 5.30. I teach Sunday school each week. I go to Bible study one night and we are sharing the gospel together one night a week. I am mentoring a couple of women at church, one of whom is doing a ministry training scheme. That's without all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, transporting, and kid wrangling/eczema care that I do as well.
Something's gotta give. I just don't see what. How do other minister's wives do it all? Do they get to do kid-free stuff sometimes?
No ideas, but we'll be praying for you :)
ReplyDeleteAfter a while you realise that there is a whole pile of stuff you just can't do. So you stop doing it. Andrew has an evangelistic bs here one night a week and I sit in my room and do other stuff. It feels wrong, but it's not.
ReplyDeleteIf you need money, you need to work. So work. It will mean you can't do some other things, but that's okay.
It is really hard to see opportunities and not take them, but if health and sanity are important, that's what you need to do.
How are you going Helen? Hope all is okay.
ReplyDeleteI have no answers on how to do it all...because I tend to overcommit here and then realise afterwards that I've taken on a bit too much. And part of it is my perfectionistic nature too. What Simone said was good, you just have to prioritise sometimes and let things go if there's too many balls to juggle.
Are you in ministry-paid housing? That's the only way I can see that your accommodation expenses wouldn't have shot up upon moving to Mackay. And that expense is what drove us back to SEQ - we couldn't sensibly afford the rent on an air-conditioned house (if there had been any vacancies anyway) because it would have required another car so we could both work (unless Ian would have been happy to be at work until 6 pm at least three nights a week).
ReplyDeleteIs there another person in your church who could do Sunday School? What part of Mackay are you in and where do the children go to school? Is there another parent you trust who could drop your children off on the way home or to school? (Maybe you could take turns on this). Just throwing some ideas out there - feel free to ignore them all.