Sep 30, 2010

Musing: Transitioning to Being Home

My last day at work was three weeks ago tomorrow, and I really thought things would be running a lot more smoothly by now. After all, I'm pretty smart and organized, and I'm spending more time at home so naturally I should be able to get my home put together.

Yeah right.

The reality has been that two big transitions at the same time - me being home and Alex starting kindergarten - is an awful lot to handle. There's just so much that's new, like juggling homework and dinner prep in the afternoon. I have time to cook dinner every night, but I don't have a laundry routine anymore. I just do it when the basket is full, but I nearly forgot to wash the kids' sheets yesterday.

I do sense that things are starting to settle down a little. I finally was able to itemize all of the items we've set aside for charity, and will be dropping them off for a fund-raiser garage sale tomorrow. It will feel fabulous to have all of those things out of the house.

I am also gradually cleaning and organizing here and there, but I do find myself wishing I had larger blocks of time to do these things.

And that brings me to something I wasn't expecting: shopping burnout. Already. One of the things I was so excited about with this transition to being home was that I could go shopping any day of the week, whenever I wanted. And I felt like I had to - after all, one of my jobs now is to shop smart and save my family money so that the loss of my income doesn't hurt that much. But over the last few days, I've come to realize something that I've learned previously: it's too stressful to try to catch every deal.

So I'm going to cut back on the shopping trips, be okay with missing a few deals, and focus on getting my home in order rather than stockpiling so that I don't have to pay full price for something if we run out. The chances of that happening are minimal anyway, since I've been couponing for a while and we have a pretty good stash of most things. And I'll still shop some - just not as much.

Hopefully within a couple of weeks, I'll be feeling much better about the state of things around here. Especially because there's a moment every day when I pause and give thanks for how lucky I am to be able to stay home now. I've spent time in Alex's classroom and seen how great his teacher is, I've attended every meeting at school that's been open to parents, and I've been able to reassure myself that he's in a good environment that I can help to make even better. Those things would have been much harder to achieve if I still worked at an office downtown, and I would have been incredibly stressed out. So I'm very glad and grateful that we worked hard to be able to make this happen, because it was well worth it!

*Previously: Coping with Drugstore Game Burnout

Sep 29, 2010

Works for Me: Moisturize while washing dishes (plus a deal on rubber gloves)

Since I'm spending more time at home now, I've been washing my hands and dishes with greater frequency, and my poor hands were paying a heavy price - cracked, dry skin that was painful. I don't remember where I first read this tip a few years ago, but it really works: put on a thick moisturizer before washing dishes with rubber gloves. There's just something about the skin being encased while bathed in hot water that speeds healing and moisturizing.

Walgreens has the gloves pictured to the right for 50 cents per pair this week. Even if you've never shopped at Walgreens before, you could do two transactions for cheap gloves:

Transaction #1:
1 Fullbar Fit Appetite Control Bar $1.99

Pay: $1.99 + tax
Receive: $2 Register Rewards (a coupon you can use on your next purchase)

Transaction #2:
4 pairs of Homecenter Gloves 50 cents each with in-ad coupon

Use $2 RR from previous purchase

Pay: tax only

Find more Works for Me Wednesday tips at We are THAT Family.

Sep 28, 2010

Recipe: Chocolate Chip-Cranberry-Oatmeal Cookies

Note: I'll be posting more recipes and food-related posts since I'm spending more time in the kitchen, and I want to be better about adding photos to them. You'll have to bear with me as I learn about food photography!

One of my goals now that I'm home more is to cook from scratch more, and sneak healthier foods into everyone. Plus, Alex now needs an after-school snack every day. I've taken to making fresh fruit smoothies most days, but sometimes there's nothing better than a platter of cookies. And Ellyn Satter recommends occasionally serving a snack of as many cookies as the child wants so the child understands that things like cookies are not a restricted commodity meant to be coveted and inhaled when available.

I adapted this Cooking Light recipe, since it's relatively healthy as cookie recipes go and it's been a hit around here.

Chocolate Chip-Cranberry-Oatmeal Cookies
Makes about 4 dozen cookies

3 cups packed brown sugar (I used dark, but you can use light or a combination)
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup dried cranberries, chopped (sweetened okay)
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, sour cream and sugar until fluffy and smooth. Add vanilla extract and eggs and beat well.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Stir with a fork or whisk to combine well. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until just blended. Fold in the cranberries and chocolate chips.

4. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto a cookie sheet coated with cooking spray or lined with parchment paper, leaving at least two inches between cookies (they will spread quite a bit). Bake for 15 minutes or until edges of cookies are browned. Let cool on pan five minutes or until firm enough to transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. If you want to freeze the dough, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Form dough into tablespoon-size balls and place on the baking sheet, making sure the balls don't touch. Freeze overnight, then transfer to a zip-top bag. The dough will not get super hard, so I wouldn't keep it longer than a month. To bake, place frozen balls on a cookie sheet coated with cooking spray or lined with parchment paper, leaving at least two inches between cookies and bake for 20 minutes or until edges of cookies are browned. Let cool on pan five minutes or until firm enough to transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Note: The photo shows some frozen balls that I placed on a small baking sheet and baked up in my toaster oven. As you can see, I tend to reuse parchment paper if it's clean. It usually lasts through two to four batches of cookies.

Find more recipes at Cooking Thursday at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom.

Sep 27, 2010

Menu Plan Monday: Trying to make this a habit




This is my first time posting our menu for the week. I'm totally unprepared past Tuesday, but here's what I'm thinking:

Monday - Tuna Noodle Casserole, Steamed Broccoli, Artisan Bread

Tuesday - Meatloaf Burgers, Tossed Salad, Artisan Bread

Wednesday - Miso Chicken, Rice, vegetable depending on what's at Farmer's Market

Thursday - plans to eat out

Friday - Pasta Bolognese, Artisan Bread, vegetable depending on what's at Farmer's Market

Saturday - Breakfast for dinner: waffles, bacon, eggs, fruit

Sunday - plans to eat out

Lunch for Marc and me is usually leftovers. Lunch for the kids is an entirely different story and worthy of its own post in the next week or two.

See more weekly menus at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Sep 23, 2010

Instant Cash Sweepstakes Update

I've written about Instant Cash Sweepstakes before as part of my Ways to Make & Save Money series, and I wanted to highlight some changes they recently made because I won $50!

ICS is a market research site that offers tiny cash payouts for taking surveys - usually 1 to 9 cents every three hours or so, with four questions per survey. With each survey, you win coins and tickets, and it used to be that your tickets would be entered into a daily $50 sweepstakes. You could use your coins to buy more tickets, but I always found it inconvenient, because you couldn't just convert all of your coins to tickets and it took too long to buy small batches of tickets.

But one of the recent changes ICS made recently is to make it easy to convert all of your coins to tickets, and by last week, I'd accumulated over 30 million coins. So I entered them all into the daily sweepstakes one day and won the $50 daily prize. :D

Instead of buying more tickets for the $50 daily prize, you could go for another of the recent changes and use your coins to enter the $2 drawing that's held every four hours.

As I mentioned in my last post about ICS, it's taking me less time to earn money through them than through other methods like MySurvey, and I like that I can earn it consistently, even if it's just a few cents at a time. ICS pays out through PayPal very promptly, which I appreciate.

If you're new to ICS, I'd love it if you'd sign up using my referral link - your pennies + my pennies will help me reach my savings goals that much faster. Thank you!

Sep 21, 2010

Coupons Allow Me To Be Generous

I mentioned earlier today that my friend K. broke her ankle a couple of weeks ago, and of course, this being a time of transition - especially financial transition - for us means that I'm feeling a little anxious about making sure our money situation is working out the way we expect it will. So I'm especially grateful for coupons and The Drugstore Game, which have allowed me to be generous without much of a financial toll.

I've bought a couple of lunches and made a couple of dinners for K. and her family, and that's probably cost about $50 total. Everything else that I've taken over has been free or very cheap thanks to coupons and The Drugstore Game, including cans of soup (25 cents a piece after sale and coupon at Vons this past week), paper goods, and toiletries. I plan to drop off more similar items just so that her husband doesn't have to stress about running out of the basics and making a mad dash to a drugstore or supermarket in the middle of the night.

I think I've also mentioned before that my friend B.'s husband lost his job a few months back, and here, too, coupons have allowed me to be generous without taxing our friendship. B. knows I actively coupon and that I didn't spend a lot on the bags of food, household items and toiletries that I've given to her, which I think makes it easier for her to accept the items. It's not charity, it's just a friend passing on extras. And that's a wonderful thing to be able to do :)

Sep 17, 2010

Adjusting to Kindergarten: Desperate for a Routine

Today is the last day of our first week of kindergarten, and I am desperate to get into a routine. Because once I have a routine for school, then I can create a routine for myself. This first week has really been about adjusting to kindergarten and definitely not about me adjusting to not working.

I am trying to get the timing down for our morning routine - when Alex should eat breakfast so that he's not hungry well before morning snack time at school, how long it takes me to pack his snack and lunch, how long it takes to put on sunscreen, how long it takes us to walk to school, etc.

The biggest adjustment I have had to make is in packing snack and lunch. I packed his lunch every day for preschool (see my previous bento posts here), but after the first day, when he came home with half his lunch still in his lunch box, I remembered something I'd read over at Lunch in a Box last year: kindergartners have a lot less time to eat than preschoolers.

Back in preschool, lunch was a leisurely affair. Since most of the older kids don't need naps, lunch time often lasted an hour. The kids all ate at their own pace, and it was a fun, relaxing time - especially during the summer, when the class ate outside. They could even be noisy, since they didn't have to worry about waking the younger kids who were sleeping.

Now, though, the kinder kids seem to get forty-five minutes to eat and use the bathroom. (I'm not clear on whether there's any play time during this period.) Alex came home on Wednesday with his container of fruit untouched, so I decided to try something different yesterday: I packed his fruit in his snack instead. And he ate it.

I'm packing smaller lunches now, and trying to think of foods that he can eat quickly while avoiding foods that take more time, like anything that requires assembly (such as homemade "Lunchable"-style kits). I need to pick up a small thermos that can keep foods warm, so I can pack some chicken nuggets, pizza and pasta. He's been pretty hungry in the afternoon when he gets home from school, so I think I will increase the size of his morning snack next week (he's always been able to finish the snack).

Homework starts next week, and that will probably require another adjustment. I am hoping to tackle homework together right after his snack so that it's done by dinner time. Is it too much to hope that by the end of next week, I'll be feeling settled in? :)

Sep 16, 2010

On Being A Working Mom

I know some readers who love CFO precisely because I've been a working mom talking about the constant juggling and balancing that moms who work full-time outside of the home really have to master. It's hard. There were times when it was truly overwhelming, and for me, I reached the point where something had to give.

If I'd truly loved my job, this blog would have been the thing to go. But since I wasn't enjoying work very much, and I do still love blogging, I decided to keep the blog and ditch the full-time job. This blog, in many ways, will be my job since it's now my primary source of income.

I read sometimes about pressure among stay-at-home moms to be a working mom, but among working moms, there's often pressure to be a stay-at-home mom. Some (many? most?) of us feel guilty about working and not spending more time with our kids, some of us feel that the stay-at-home moms we know think we're odd for working, and some of us put the pressure on ourselves because we’d rather be home with the kids. In fact, all of the moms at my job told me they were jealous.

But there are those of us who love working. In fact, I have some friends who could afford to quit but don't want to. It's not that their family isn't a priority, and they'd quit in a heartbeat if it was better for their family – say, if their child became ill. But if they can work, they'd rather do so.

In the meantime, I am mentally preparing myself for an identity crisis as I meet new people and can no longer say that I'm an attorney. That’s just going to be weird.

Sep 14, 2010

BPA-free Stainless Steel Water Bottles are Expensive!

I mentioned this morning that I need to buy re-useable bottles for Alex's lunch and snack, so I stopped by Target but I didn't see any. I figured that Whole Foods would have some, and I was right. They had two racks of Sigg brand stainless steel bottles, which all have a BPA-free liner. I bought two, a .3-liter bottle (pictured) and .4-liter bottle - according to my calculations, that's about 10 and 13.5 ounces, respectively.

So all that was good. But the price tag was rather shocking - the .3-liter bottle was $17.99 and the .4-liter bottle was $19.99. I rationalize the cost with the savings that I'll realize by sending diluted juice or plain water in the bottles instead of juice boxes over the course of the school year. I'll be starting with a half-gallon of Welch's Healthy Start refrigerated juice that I picked up for 49 cents after coupons. If I can keep finding sales like that, I should at least break even. :)

Update on my New Year's Resolution: End of August

Back in January, I shared my financial resolution for this year, which was to save a crazy amount of money to create a large cash cushion. I promised a monthly update, and as of last month, we had saved 49% of our goal for the year. But since we are losing my income (which is actually a good thing!), this will be the last update in this series. As of the end of August, we are at 58% of our goal.

I knew my goal was ambitious to begin with, so I'm satisfied with what we've achieved thus far. And by the time all is said and done, my cashed-out vacation time should get us fairly close to our total goal.

Although we won't be able to save as much, I do intend to save a smaller amount each month, and our savings should still continue to grow. It'll just be at a much slower pace.

Sep 13, 2010

Transition Time: First day of school & more

This is a big transition time for us - it's Alex's first day of kindergarten, and my first day of not going to an office to work. We now have to work out a new daily routine - and I need to work out a new routine for myself. I operate best when I have some kind of rhythm to my life, so I look forward to establishing a new one - one that's not so chaotic, but more relaxed and focused on the things that are really important to me.

I realize that it's going to take some time for me to get to that place. For one thing, in getting ready for my last day of work, I utterly neglected much of my regular upkeep at home. I have a huge stack of papers that need to be filed, bags and boxes of stuff that used to be in my office that now need a new home, and tons of stuff that need to be donated. My to-do list is more than a mile long.

So for this week, I am going to skip the weekly starter drugstore deals. For Walgreens, I'll direct you to Wild for Wags, who has a great moneymaker scenario that I wouldn't have come up with myself (Christie's obviously a Wags expert!).

I'm thinking of joining in with I'm an Organizing Junkie's Menu Plan Mondays. Because of my work schedule, it used to be that I would start my weekly menus on Fridays, but now I think the Monday-Sunday thing might work out for me. And regardless of whether I'm posting my menus, you can definitely look forward to a lot more recipes and food posts since I plan on spending a lot of my time home in the kitchen.

A few months ago, I'd gotten into the FlyLady routine, but about a month after that, things got incredibly crazy and stressful at work and I got out of the routine. (And yes, that stress definitely contributed to my decision to quit!) Now I'm going back to reading the daily emails and cleaning slowly but surely, because as my favorite quote from her goes (and I'll have to paraphrase because I don't have it right in front of me), Housekeeping done imperfectly still blesses.

But, it's important that I be kind to myself during this transition process. Driving myself nuts trying to do everything all at once isn't going to help anybody. My plan is to have a manageable to-do list every day, with one major non-immediate task (sorting, cleaning, etc.) and something of a daily routine - exercise, laundry, dinner prep, and so on. I'm hoping to get on some kind of freezer-cooking day schedule, a cleaning routine that adapts FlyLady's system to work for me, and of course, a blogging schedule that works for you and me.

So, as I work things out during this transition period, I'd love for you to tell me what you like or don't like around here, what you'd like to see more or less of, and so on. I can't satisfy everyone, but I'll do my best - for example, I get mixed reports on the Morning Coffee posts. Some readers love them and some say they'd rather have me post less frequently but more thoughtfully. What I've tried to do in the last few months is keep the Morning Coffee but write more thoughtful posts as well, to hopefully make as many people as possible happy :)

Sep 11, 2010

Yogurt Experiment

I had some vanilla yogurt that expired a couple of days ago and no one wanted to eat it, so I decided to try an experiment: I put the yogurt into ice cube trays and froze it. I've frozen yogurt before, but I didn't like the texture. So we won't be defrosting and eating it.

My plan is to use the frozen yogurt in smoothies, for some sweetness, tartness and thickness. I'll let you know how that goes. Any predictions?

Sep 10, 2010

BIG Announcement

I am beyond thrilled to announce that I have quit my day job to become a full-time blogger!

I cannot fully express what a big deal this is. I have wanted to be a work-at-home mom for several years now, but it always seemed like a far off dream. But we worked diligently, and things have fallen into place. Over the next few weeks, I'll share more details about my journey. But here's a quick summary of some of the things we've done in the last few years to make today possible:
We are basically cutting our income in half, and that's a very scary thought. Ideally, I would have liked to have had time to practice living on one salary before we actually started doing it, but I just couldn’t wait to quit any longer. And with our oldest starting kindergarten this month, it was, in a sense, the perfect time.

I have loved being a lawyer, but I have felt a calling to do something else for a while now. Especially to be mommy to my children, who up until now have had a mommy stretched very thin from lawyering, blogging, mothering, and everything else. With the lawyering stripped away, I will have a greater capacity to mother, and I am very much looking forward to that.

Of course, I will also have a greater capacity to blog! I have great plans and dreams for Chief Family Officer, and now I’ll be able to implement them. I plan to start slow, but I’ve been known to steamroll once I get going. :D

I have to thank my darling husband for all of his support and love, without which none of this would be possible. He always says he wants me to be happy, and he really means it. I love you, honey!

Sep 7, 2010

Is a law degree worth the cost and risk?

As a lawyer, I follow the legal industry, and my favorite legal blog, Above the Law, actually bills itself as a "legal tabloid." One constant theme is how much it sucks to be a lawyer right now, especially an unemployed one. And another recurring theme is how much it sucks to be a law student right now, with worse employment prospects than the fourth-year associate who just got laid off. Here's a recent example: UCLA School of Law (arguably the most prestigious law school in LA) recently sent around a job listing to students that was for the position of chauffeur to an entertainment lawyer, the pitch being that you could talk to him about his job while you were driving him around to his various appointments. At least when I was a student, the law school tried to help students get hired as law clerks or externs doing real legal work.

Last week, Above the Law discussed whether a student entering his second year should quit before incurring more loans. (The gender of the student isn't disclosed so for simplicity, I'm going to assume he's male.) The student in question goes to a top eight school, has decent but not stellar grades, thinks he would enjoy public interest law, already has $70,000 in student loans, and is convinced he would graduate with $170,000 in debt. The editors gave the pros and cons of staying in school, but I thought what was really interesting was what was missing from the discussion: deciding whether you really want to be a lawyer and if so, how to make it happen.

For example, if the student really wants to be a prosecutor or legal legislative work, then continuing with law school is the only way to make that happen. Or maybe he really wants to be an entertainment lawyer - he's still going to need that law degree. The fact that he is at a top law school indicates that he is bright and is likely to pass the bar exam, be considered for interviews, etc. Especially if the student is willing to relocate for his dream job, then I think someone bright enough to go to a top law school would be able to get the position. At the very least, he will be able to get some position in his chosen field.

That leaves the money question. Crystal at Money Saving Mom often writes about how her husband was able to make it through law school without incurring any debt, but I don't think that's realistic for most people. Tuition and fees at the law schools in Los Angeles is about $40,000 per year. I don't know if it's even possible to come out completely debt-free if you go to a relatively respectable school and don't have a whole lot of money coming from somewhere other than loans, such as savings, a spouse, or a job.

Speaking of a job . . . that's something most law students don't have, and understandably so. I didn't, for the first two years of law school. First year grades in particular are so important that most students don't want to have distractions from studying. But the student we were discussing is already a second-year, and could conceivably hold down a job if he was serious about limiting the amount of debt he graduates with. Even ten hours a week would bring in some income.

And of course, there's the big one - lifestyle. To be honest, back when I was in law school, I didn't have a full grasp of what it means to live within one's means. And most of my peers seemed to be the same. But a frugal lifestyle could significantly reduce the total amount of loans at graduation.

Just as important, a frugal lifestyle after graduation will ensure those loans are paid off relatively quickly. Most loan programs allow for 20 to 25 years to pay off your student loans. But if you follow the proven debt-reduction techniques like the debt snowball, you can cut that time by half or more. These are all things that should be taken into consideration when deciding on a future career path, whether it's the law or something else.

Sep 4, 2010

Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oatmeal (not a recipe yet)

We're big fans of the steel cut oatmeal at Jamba Juice, but I've been convinced that I can make it at home. I did my research and found some threads that said the cooked oatmeal can be frozen in individual portions. So I used Frugal Upstate's recipe as a launching point. It's got great texture, but I want to work on the flavors and especially the additions. Also, the timing is waaaay off. Maybe Jenn's slow cooker is older than mine, but my oatmeal doesn't take more than six hours, tops. I could never do it overnight.

So I have two tips for the time being: (1) experiment with cooking times and keep an eye on your slow cooker; and (2) if the oatmeal is sticking to the sides of the crock, stick the whole crock in the fridge - it will come off the sides much easier when it's cold.

I'm going to keep working on a recipe I'm proud to post, but in the meantime, I would love to hear your suggestions on what toppings to use. So far, we've used brown sugar, raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries, bananas, and nut-free homemade granola (not my personal favorite, but I can't have nuts in the house for allergy reasons). Thanks!