Living on One Income, Part Two

Part Two, for those whom I didn't completely alienate with Part One.

If you are still with me, I assume you are serious in your desire to figure out how to live on one income.

Let's review the important points:

1. You and your spouse need to be in total agreement on this, because it takes sacrifice and willingness to buck the trend.  You will probably encounter questions and maybe even hostility from others about your decision to have one spouse be at home. You need to approach this as a team, or it won't work.
2. You must have a budget; you have to know how much money comes in, how much goes out, and where it goes to.
3. You need to think outside the box, and not be a trend follower.  Just because all the other moms at Little Billy's school have highlighted hair in the style of the month and fingernails made of petroleum products doesn't mean you have to.  Just because all the other guys in the office have wives that work full time doesn't mean your wife needs to do that just so you can fly to Vegas once or twice a year like they do (or take cruises, or whatever the 'must do' vacation activity is in your social circle).

Okay, now to more how-to from personal experience!

When deciding if it is feasible for your family to go from two incomes to one, you also need to figure in the savings that can only happen when one parent stays home full time.  The biggest savings is usually in the form of childcare; or rather, the lack of a need to pay a babysitter or daycare to mind your child during the workday.  If you are staying at home to be with the kids,then be with the kids! Don't hire a babysitter so you can go off shopping, or to lunch with a friend, or to get your hair done!!  That kind of defeats the whole "I want to quit work so I can be home with my darling babies" thing, and it doesn't save you money on daycare (or other areas of the budget such as food, personal care, clothing, etc)!

Anyway. . .

Once upon a time, DH and I only had three children.  And we'd had a financial setback (full disclosure: DH got laid off and his unemployment barely covered our rent, let alone keep a family of five afloat) which required that I go to work part-time.  Or, more truthfully, it required I go to work and I could not find full time employment in a reasonable amount of time (overdue notices were piling up from our creditors) so I took a part time job instead.  Once we got over our financial hump (ie paid off overdue bills, and even paid off some small debts even though they had low monthly payments), we looked at how much money I really earned after paying for daycare on three kids each week--one of whom was in school six hours each day.

I'd been bringing home, after taxes and daycare, a whopping $50 per week.  Wow.  For all that time spent away from my kids (roughly 30 hours: 25 of work, and 1 hour of commuting to work each day), I got to contribute $50 to the household budget.  My babysitting bill was about four times that much each week.  So, when it got close to summer time, when the eldest of the three kids would no longer be in school and thus requiring three kids to be in day care the entire time I worked instead of two during the day plus one just for after school, DH and I decided we'd be further ahead if I quit my job and stayed home.

On the surface, it looked like we'd be cutting ourselves off from $250 a week in income by my no longer working. $1000 a month is nothing to disregard casually. On closer look, based on the babysitting bill, we would have only 'lost' that $50 I made after paying the babysitter. $200 a month is something you probably can adapt for by adjusting your budget (and how many money-savings activities you are willing to spend your time in).  In reality, by my working all summer there would be some weeks I'd pay the babysitter more than what I actually made at my job (I had a fluctuating schedule which sometimes was 4 weekdays plus Saturday, and sometimes 5 weekdays with Saturday off--those 5 weekdays would have meant 5 days of babysitting times 3 kids equals I'm digging myself into a financial hole with the babysitter bill), and the other weeks--the ones where we only needed a babysitter 4 days because my 5th workday was Saturday and DH would be home to mind the kids-- I'd only be pocketing about $10.  For a month's worth of working outside the home.  Ridiculous.  Not worth the sacrifice my family had to make (remember now, our bills were caught up.  If we were still in a delinquent situation on rent, student loans, etc, that $10 would not have been as easily given up.  Especially considering it was only 3 months--the summer break from school--that I'd be making so little, and once school started again I would still have a job and my take-home pay after babysitting expenses would rebound.)

By having me quit my job when summer came and staying home, not only did we cut out the cost of child care from the budget, but we also reduced the cost of fuel for the car I had to drive to and from work (stopping at the babysitter's house both on the way to work, and again on the way home).  And I no longer needed a work wardrobe.  More money savings.  Also no more mandatory office gatherings where occasionally I had to participate in a  group dinner out (where each employee paid for their own meal), or a gift exchange I would rather have not been a part of.  Which, again, saved my family money.

So, now I'm at home, and some of our spending has been cut.  Break out the bonbons and the soaps, right?  I get to be a lady of leisure.

Uh, no.  That's not the way it works, and if you are a woman contemplating staying home because you think then you can just take it easy all day while your husband slaves away to make the cash to pay the bills, it's time for your comeuppance.  Your marriage will not last with an attitude like that.

If you are not working to make the money, you need to be working to stretch the money.  We've all ready addressed the hair and nails thing in Part One, as well as the cutting of the entertainment portion of your budget down to pretty much nothing.  Now it's time to talk about the work you are going to do at home, for your family.  

You need to clean.  I'm sorry, but if you are home 40 hours a week instead of working 40 hours a week, you don't get a housekeeper.  You are the housekeeper.  Get out the broom, the vacuum, and the toilet scrub brush.  Wield them like a pro.  You just traded an 8-hour day of working for a company for about an hour a day of household cleaning for your family.  So what are you complaining about?  A measly hour of housework is nothing for your freedom from the rat race.  Because the seven hours after that are yours to use.  And you can do your one hour a day whenever it best suits you each day. Not to mention how much more supportive your spouse will be in this having you at home concept if you show a clean house every evening when he walks in the door after work.

Actually, guys who might be in the minority of stay at home spouses, this goes for you too.  Just because you are the man at home while your wife works for the bread money doesn't mean you don't have to clean.  Or do any of the following bold faced items either.  You do.  Otherwise there is going to be a lot of tension in your marriage.

You need to cook.  Uh-huh.  Get to know that thing in your kitchen with the circles on top and the box in the bottom that heat up.  It can help you create all kinds of magical concoctions, while enabling you to snip some more money off your budget.  So what if cooking takes another hour from your day?  You still have only 'worked' two compared to when you used to work eight and still needed to eat afterward.

You should pack a lunch for your spouse.  I'm sure some women are wanting to mapquest where I live and come over and lynch me right about now.  Let me explain.  Brown bagging lunch is another way to cut money out of your budget.  Money that makes it possible for you to stay home.  And your spouse really will appreciate it if you send them off to work with their lunch all ready packed instead of having to pack it themself.  Ladies, let me tell you a little secret: packing your hubby's lunch gives you some control over what he eats (and what he spends).  Want him to eat healthier?  Pack his lunch.  Wish he spent less money on lunches out (maybe that little less will help make it possible for you to quit your job)?  Pack his lunch.  I don't know too many men that will complain that their wife packed them a lunch.  Really.  They are kind of like kids, opening that lunch at the designated lunch time, wondering what kind of yummy surprise is in store for them today.  Just don't go too overboard on the health food stuff; granola and yogurt and a turkey sandwich and sliced veggies is too overwhelming for a guy.  Stick a couple cookies in there too, or at least a container with a bunch of ranch dressing for him to dredge those veggies through.  Maybe even a baggie of chips once in a while.

Now if you are an at-home hubby, your wife will absolutely love it if you pack her a super healthy lunch.  She will think it is so awesome that you are helping her in her endeavors to lose (or at least not gain) weight.  I have not met a single woman in my life who wasn't at least somewhat concerned about her physique and had never tried watching what she ate.  If your wife opened up a lunch box with appropriately portioned fresh healthy foods in it that you packed, well that is big brownie points in your favor.  And if you throw in a small brownie (or piece of dark chocolate--that's the "healthy" chocolate) once in a while, she'll be even happier.

You need to be home, not driving all over creation creating a bigger fuel expense.  Your goal was to stay home, remember?  Don't swap being gone all day at work for being gone all day shopping and socializing and otherwise spending time and money on something other than the essentials for your family.  I'm not saying you can't get out of the house once in a while. But if you are gone most of every weekday, that's too much.  That kind of defeats the purpose of being able to not work so you can stay home.  Also included in this is play dates for your kids.  They don't need to be taken to a play date--or lesson, or sport, or even playground--on a daily basis.

You need to be actively involved with your kids. I repeat, this doesn't mean driving them all over the place.  No, it means you are spending a good portion of your day interacting with them.  Wasn't that another part of why you didn't want to have to work?  So your kids didn't have to spend so much time in daycare instead of with at least one of their parents?  Don't swap the babysitter for an endless list of lessons and sports ($$$ spent) or group activities, and hours of plunking them in front of the tv or computer.  Do things with them.  Teach them to do the housework.  It will get done faster, they will enjoy doing things with you, and you'll be training them how to take care of their own homes when the day comes that they are grown up and ready to leave the family nest.  Have them help you with the cooking.  Take some time to go on walks or draw pictures with them.  Do crafts with them; it will help not only them, but give you some creative outlet too.

Your hobbies should have some usefulness.  I recognize the need for you to have some personal enjoyment and not just be cooking, cleaning, and dealing with kids all the time.  You do need hobbies.  What helps in your endeavor to afford to stay home is having useful hobbies.  Things like baking help shrink the budget.  So does sewing, if you are willing to sew at least some of your kids' clothes (or your own) and are careful not to spend more on fabric for an item than that same item would cost ready made at the store.  Knitting and crocheting are also useful hobbies.  So is gardening.  Or maybe you have a hobby that others would pay you to do; for instance, there is a local small business that does scrapbooks for those who like the idea of scrapbooking but never seem to have the time or interest to actually put the pages together themselves.

Guys, this one, again, applies to you too.  If you could align your hobbies to be somewhat of the handyman type, rather than the accumulating sports stats (while your house crumbles around you) variety, that saves you a whole lot of money in your budget.  Have you priced home repairs lately?  Most of them you can easily learn (heck, a lot of them I can do, and I'm a woman!)

If you want to stay home, if you truly want this one income family thing to work for your family, you are going to have to put a lot of effort into making it happen.  Your spouse's part of the deal is to go to work, deal with all the work-day garbage at the office, and bring home the money (direct deposit is the greatest thing!).  Your part of the deal is to do everything else.  The kids, the food, the shopping (and frugally, please!), the cleaning, the organizing.  A spouse who comes home from an eight or ten or twelve hour workday to a messy house, no food on the table, kids who weren't hardly at all with Mom, and a wife (or husband, guys) complaining about how there isn't enough money to pay the bills, is not going to be a happy camper, nor a willing partner in living the one income life.  I say this from experience.  And from knowing several women who petitioned to stay home, proceeded to do whatever they wanted and contribute very little to the family once they did stay home, and then were befuddled when their marriages went south.

I'll say it again: You need to approach this as a team, or it won't work.

Don't we all hate it when we are assigned group work, and then one or more members of the group don't pull their share?  If you are staying home, your share is all the work at home.  You don't want to have to work full time for someone else, and then come home and work a bunch more while the rest of the family lolls around, do you?  Neither does your spouse.

Don't you also hate it when you are having to do work as a group, and a bunch of work gets dumped on you against your will by the other members of the group?  This is why you and your spouse need to be a team, and to have some serious discussions about living on one income and what that will mean for your family; what budgetary items will be sacrificed, and what duties each spouse will then have, before you voluntarily go from one income to two.

To Be Continued. . . 

Living on One Income, Part One

Despite what you read on the internet, or hear on the news, or from people you know, it is possible, in this day and age, to live on one income.

Now, I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying you can keep up with the Joneses, but it is possible.

This post is kind of a follow up to my post Bonbons and the Magic Dresser, in which I mentioned how DH works and I "don't".  As in I don't bring a paycheck to add to the family money pot.

Some readers, who might have picked up from mentions I have made here and there in my posts over the last three years, might say: "But you are married to an engineer!  You must be rich! That is why you don't have to work outside the home.  I'm not married to an engineer; my husband and I aren't rich.  We can't possibly live on one income."

True, I am married to an engineer.  What is myth, though, is that therefore we must be rich.  I'll say it now:  DH has had his engineering degree since 1993.  He's been employed as an engineer since late 1994 (yes, a more than twelve month lag between earning the degree and scoring the job in his chosen field. His student loan payments kicked in before the desired job was acquired; we paid those, and all our bills the first year and a half of our marriage, on one income that was not an engineer's salary).

Another truth:  we live on a 5-figure income.  Five.  Not six (see?  Engineers aren't automatically rich).  Given the number of hours a week he spends on/at his job, and how that number has increased in the last handful of years since the American auto industry nearly died a fiery death, without a corresponding increase in salary, there are many jobs that pay more dollars per hour than his does.

In other words, yes, he makes good money.  But no, we aren't rich.  We know several people in the nursing field who work less hours a week than he does and make almost as much a year as he does.  Most people do not think of nurses as being wealthier than engineers.

But this isn't a post ranting on being an engineer's wife.  That very well could be a topic in the future. . .

This is a post on the feasibility of living on one income.  Or, rather, kind of a guidebook on how to live on one income.  A first-person experience on what sorts of things need to be done in order to have a one-income family.

First, I want to point out, to all the naysayers, that there are a whole lot of one income families in this country.  How many divorced parents are there?  How many parents that never even got married in the first place?  A whole lot of them live on one income.

So why does it seem to be commonly accepted that a two-parent home cannot possibly be run on just one income?  Why do we accept the notion that our kids have to be raised in daycares and after school programs instead of by one of their parents staying at home instead of working?  How come a single parent household exists on one income, but a two parent household supposedly cannot?

Think on that for a moment.

Okay, time's up.  Point made.  Now let's get down to the nitty gritty.

Having a family on one income requires some planning.  A whole lot of dedication.  Agreement between the spouses.  And lots of thinking outside the conventional American box.

In the case of DH and I, our goal from the start was to have me, the mom, stay home.  So, from the beginning, we lived on one income.  When we looked for a house to rent, it was based on a cap rent amount we had set for ourselves based on what we could afford on one income.  When we bought a car, via an auto loan, it was based on what we decided we could afford in a monthly car payment based on one income.  Even if I was working at the time, our purchasing decisions were made based solely on DH's income, not our combined income.

I think that is where a whole lot of couples go wrong: right off the bat they take their combined dollar figures, say "WOW!  Look at what we can have with that!" and then incur debts that require both of them to continue working in order to make the monthly bill payments.  Then they have trapped themselves into a lifestyle that makes wage slaves out of the both of them.

So, my advice to you, if you are just starting out, is to turn a blind eye to one of your incomes when you are making out the family budget.  (You do have a budget, right?  If you don't have a budget, how do you know how your income compares to your outgo?  How do you know what you can and cannot afford?)  Take that second income, while it is a second income, and either use it to pay down/pay off any debt you have (such as loans and credit cards), and then build up a savings account.  A lot of money programs will tell you to create a savings account first, as a cushion, and then pay off debt, but that isn't how DH and I did it (mostly because the interest earned on a savings account was way, way lower that the interest rates on our debt), and I'm telling my story here.  ;0)

On the subject of budgets, look at yours.  Don't just look at it in the manner of "We made $XXX.XX this month and spent $YYY.YY this month."  No, you need more details than that.  You need categories.  What does your housing (rent/mortgage) cost?  What do your utilities cost?  What do your vehicles cost, in payments and in fuel and insurance?  What amount do you owe monthly on other loans or credit cards?  How much are you spending on food; and I suggest breaking this down into food prepared and eaten at home and food that is prepared elsewhere (whether you eat it at that location or bring it home to eat).  How much does your childcare cost (if you have kids)?  What other things do you spend money on, and how much does that total?

Here are some of the categories in our budget:
Mortgage payment
Visa bill (our only debt aside from our mortgage)
Electricity
Propane (mostly for cooking and hot water in the summer time; we go through about 200 gallons a year)
Food
Auto Insurance
Gas (for the vehicles)
Phone(s)

There are many more, of course, like diesel for the tractor and gas/oil mix for the chainsaw and tiller, clothing and footwear, but the ones listed are our major regular and predicatable expenses.

Did you look at yours?  Did you die of shock (most likely seeing your outgo was more than your income)?  Or did you look at it and say "Huh, there's actually 'extra' money"?  (If you have extra money, that's awesome!  You are ahead of the game.  Now take that extra money and get rid of some debt with it.)

If you want to be a one income family, taking a good hard look at the budget is crucial.  You must know what your non-negotiable expenses are.  The things you can't change very easily, like what is owed on your mortgage or rent, your car, your other loans.  Those are the things you are going to have to make priorities when it's time to fork over your hard earned cash.  The other things you have a little more wiggle room with. Take food, for instance.  If you have a higher amount of money going into food somebody else cooked for you than food you cooked yourself, that is something you can change pretty easily by getting out the pots and pans when you get off work rather than hitting the drive thru or calling the pizza boy.  Likewise anything that falls into the 'entertainment' category: books, magazines, movies, girls night out (or guys night out), concerts, even your cable or satellite tv subscription, is a place you can make immediate money saving changes.

If you really, truly, want to have one spouse stay home, you need to cut the entertainment budget down to what can be afforded on just one income.  This often requires learning a new way of thinking, a new way of defining where your fun comes from.  You can still get together with the guys, or the girls, you just can't do it in a setting where you have to shell out $20 or $30 or $50 (or more!) for that one night.  How about skipping the restaurant or bar meeting place, and just having it at someone's house?  Everyone BYOB and munchies too.  You can still talk, or listen to music, or watch the game, or whatever it is you usually do on these gender limited nights, it just can't have a cover charge, a gratuity tax, or jacked up prices for drinks and food.

Another category of expenditures you need to turn a critical eye to is personal care.  As in cosmetics, toiletries, mani-pedis and hair care.  This is mostly aimed at the women, since it is usually the women who want to stay home.  I can't tell you how many moms I've met in 24 years who've moaned how they wish they could afford to stay home with their kids, yet they sport manicured artificial nails, hair that requires monthly maintenance at a salon, and have an appointment later in the week for a facial.  My tongue-bitten advice, in the nicest way I can think of to phrase it: eat healthy so your own fingernails will be strong and grow long, learn to do a home facial, and find a less expensive hair-do, then you might be able to find some money to stay home on.

Now, I'm not saying stay at home wives need to be frumpy.  Not at all.  But do you really need to plunk down a whole day's wages (or more) each month to make (you feel like) you look nice?  Take some of that time you'd no longer have to spend toiling away for your boss, and learn how to color your own hair if you must change it's natural color.  Practice doing your own nails if you like the manicured and polished look.  There are tons of recipes for homemade skin care products if you want to pamper yourself; you don't have to pay somebody else to put gook on your face (or to scrub off the dead skin cells either).  This might even be a good theme for a girls night in (instead of a girls night out): facials, hair coloring, and watching a dvd!  Kind of like teenage girls at a slumber party.

Guys, I'm not going to let you off easily just because you don't pay somebody to polish your fingernails (at least, I hope not.  I'm assuming not just because most of the men I personally know do not get manicures).  Nope.  You can learn to do your own hair too.  They make hair color kits for men, if you are one of those guys who goes to a salon to cover his grey.  You can even learn to cut your own hair, guys.  DS2 does his.  His freshman year of college, he paid $13 for a haircut (with a coupon!  Emphasis his), after having 'free' haircuts from Mom (ie me) all his life.  Well, he decided right then and there he would never pay for another haircut again. He went out, found himself a nice set of hair clippers for less than $25--less than the price of two more haircuts with coupons-- and has been doing his own hair ever since. Three years now. He does a real nice job, you can't tell his hair isn't done by a 'professional'.

To Be Continued. . . 

Poultry In Motion

Around the barn and chicken coop. . . 

"Man, I am so glad warmer weather is finally here."

"Yeah, I know what you mean, I'm ready to stretch my legs and get away from the coop for a while."

"Hey!  I've got an idea.  Let's go see what's happenin' in the hay field."

"Yeah, yeah, good idea.  Haven't been to the hay field in forever."

"Oooh, you think there will be any bugs yet?"

"Anybody see any bugs to eat?"

"Bummer, not even the flies are out yet."

"And the grass and clovers aren't greening yet either."

Meanwhile, out by the woods. . . .

(Toms:)  "How are you ladies doing this fine day?"

(One hen to the rest):  "Ignore them, they only want one thing."

"Ahem, girls, see anything you like?"

"Wanna shake some tail feathers with me?"

(third tom, in a quiet voice): "Uh guys, I don't think they like us."

(Toms on the right):  "Forget them, let's go over here."

(Tom on the left):  "Maybe they didn't notice yet how awesome I am.  Maybe if I just puff myself up a little more. . . "

(Tom on the left):  "Ooh la la!  Guys, wait for me!"

(group of hens):  "Hey, wait a minute!  Now they're all looking at that girl!"

(Toms):  "Surrounded by ladies.  Now this is more like it!"

"Pick me!  Pick me!  I'm the studliest one of all!"

Bonbons and The Magic Dresser

I do not work outside the home to contribute to our family's finances.  For most of my marriage, that is how it has been.  It is what DH and I both wanted, and what we agreed on, before we were even married (back in the days when he was a full time student and I worked two part time jobs totaling 40-60 hours a week).  Our goal, once he graduated and we got married instead of shacking up together (yes, yes we did.  Sinful people we were.), was that I would stay home, keeping house, tending children and caring for DH.  He would go to work.

Or, in the words of some, he would do all the hard stuff (ie. making the money), and I would stay home eating bonbons and watching soaps.

Which is laughable, as anyone who knows me well knows that I'm not much at all for watching television, and I abhor soap operas.  Plus, anyone who knows me, knows that I spend my days in a whole lot of physical labor type stuff--the barn/livestock chores, the garden chores, the cooking and baking, the canning, etc, etc.  Hardly on the couch with my feet up, taking it easy all day.

Also laughable is the other side of the coin--the feminist side, usually--that says I am being repressed by having to live in a traditional female role and not being allowed to pursue my own career and fulfillment.

Laughable because my greatest goal in life has been to not work for someone else, but to be self-employed. As well as to stay home to raise my kids.  To do what I want to do: a career mother, if you will, in that the career I wanted was to be an at-home mother, and then, when that was passed, to have my own business.  Not at all repressed.  Very much doing my own thing.

That is not to say I have never worked outside the home in the nearly twenty-one years that DH and I have been married.  I have, actually, for most of our married lives.  First, because we really, truly needed me to, when DH lost his job early in our marriage and we had bills to pay.  This actually happened twice in the first five years we were married. Then, because I wanted to, in order to be able to be involved with horses, which are my one true addiction in this world.  When I had to work, I worked whatever hours were required, and the children had to adapt and go to daycare.  When I have wanted to work (for the horses), I have tried to keep that work during school hours only, being at home for my kids when they were not in class.

In return for this ability to not be first and foremost at the beck and call of an employer instead of my family, I do a large share of the running of things at this little place here.  The lion's share of the housework and the garden and the farm-type chores.  I am the appointment scheduler, the chauffeur of the children until they have their own driver's licenses.  I keep the books and make sure the bills get paid.

DH does the rat race and office politicking that I have never cared to do.  He makes all the money that pays all the bills. In return, he doesn't do the secretarial or accounting work, nor the housework, and never does the laundry.

Funny story there, involving me birthing DD2 and DH happening to be the one who loaded the dryer right before it decided to overheat and melt the elastic in everyone's underwear.  So he found himself with a wife and newborn daughter in the hospital, a burnt up dryer, a smoldering mess of cotton and elastic, and three young children needing him to feed them, put them to bed, get them up again in the morning, feed them again, make sure they got dressed, take one to 3rd grade and one to preschool and keep one (DD1 the three year old at the time) with himself while he went shopping for new underwear for the entire family and be back from that in time to pick up DS2 (the four year old) from preschool, then rush to pick DS1 up from 3rd grade at the end of the school day and take them all to the hospital to see their Mommy (me) and new baby sister (DD2).  Apparently it was quite traumatic for him.

That was about the time the Magic Dresser came into being, although it didn't receive it's title until a couple of years later.  You see, DH is the only one in our house who only has to put his dirty clothes into the hamper, and then never touch them again until they are clean, folded, and in his dresser (or closet) ready for him to wear.  Everyone else has to wash their own clothes, or at least, when they were too young to operate the washer and dryer, to take their clean, dry, and folded clothes--courtesy of Mommy--and put them away.

I confess, it was during an argument with DH one day, years and years ago, that I coined the phrase 'Magic Dresser'.  It was one of those typical husband and wife arguments over who's life is easier and who does the most work.  He was stressed over stuff at work, and telling me how good I had it that he provided for me and I didn't 'have to work' (also exacerbated by talking with some of his buddies, all of who's wives worked outside the home).  I had been through a pretty rough several days with the kids and trying to keep up with everything, and I countered the 'you don't work (outside the home)' complaint with "Yeah, well, those guys who have wives that work don't have Magic Dressers!"

A Magic Dresser being one in which every time you open the drawers, there is everything you need to wear.  You never have to refill it, you just take stuff out of it, and day after day it magically replenishes itself with clean clothes.

He and I both knew who made the Magic Dresser operate as such.  It was me, the laundress, the ever loving, hard working wife, who took his dirty apparel from the hamper to the washing machine and washed it.  And from the washing machine, put it in the dryer, or hung it on the line, and dried it.  And then retrieved it, dry, from the dryer or clothes line, sorted and folded it, and carried it back to his dresser and put it away for him.  He never had to think about laundry, never had to plan ahead time in his schedule to make sure he'd have clean underwear and socks (and shirts and pants) from day to day.  He never even had to buy underwear, his own or anyone else's, after that one traumatic day in October 1997. . .

Since then, I have heard a few of his friends make reference to "Magic Dresser" from time to time, so I know he must have relayed that concept to them at some point after the day I spat the phrase in a heated moment.  They always say it in awe.  Which, I think, is how it should properly be used.  In awe.  With respect, and wonderment.

Just like when I tell overbearing feminists that I get to sit and eat bonbons all day.

My figurative bonbons are a special thing.  Not too many women aren't required to bring home a paycheck.  Magic Dressers, in this day and age, are also a special thing. Not too many husbands never have to do laundry.

That is what DH and I have together: a special thing.

Syrup Update

This year's sap season has unfolded pretty much as I thought it would, back when I tapped trees nearly two weeks ago, which was all ready about two weeks later than I had tapped in previous years.

Temperatures have fluctuated up and down, alternately being too cold for sap, then too warm for sap.  Sap needs dry, non windy days above forty degrees, preferably with sunny skies, and nights below freezing to run optimally.

I tapped, then sap didn't run for the next six days because the weather was too cold.  The weather warmed up, and sap ran awesome for two, maybe three days.  Then the weather was windy, rainy, and nights did not drop below freezing for four more days.  Which means, in about thirteen days of having taps set, I have collected a grand total of 17 gallons of sap from ten taps.

That is a low amount of sap, for those not acquainted with the whole maple syrup making procedure.  It will boil off to not even a half-gallon of syrup.

To make it worse, some of the trees are all ready starting to drop bud casings and their sap is turning yellowish.  Meaning buddy sap.  Meaning not tasty.  Meaning I will need to pull taps from those trees very soon.  Possibly today.  Also meaning that sap season is coming to a swift end, as the rest of the maples will be budding out shortly.  Given the weather forecast for the coming week, I expect all the trees to be giving buddy sap before Friday gets here.

So, 2014 looks like it will be short of maple syrup in my part of the country.

This year, I am once again using our turkey fryer, set up in the garage near the overhead doors, to boil off.  So far, with this first batch I am processing, the wind is light enough and from the correct direction to enable me to have the eastern most overhead door completely up. Which is great, because boiling sap for hours on end creates a lot of steam, and being able to have at least one garage door up means the humidity level stays tolerable.

all set up to boil off

collected sap, waiting to be boiled

looks like a pot of water, 

but it is 100% maple sap

the sap changes from clear to brownish as it boils

boiling away

Next year, hopefully DH will have thrown together a little sugar shack back in the woods for boiling off in, and cobbled together a wood-fired arch (the combustion chamber of an evaporator).  We have scrap lumber.  We have cinder blocks for making the arch.  I have a spot in the woods all picked out, thanks to a natural clearing made even larger during the big wind storm we had back in November that took down about 1/5 of the trees back there. It is conveniently located roughly in the middle of the part of our woods where all the maples are located. All I really need is real sap pans to boil off in, and some sweat equity and time from DH's schedule.

future site for my sugar shack?

Still Muddy

DH has been itching to get out to the woods with the tractor.  When I told him that I'd walked through the field with sap yesterday afternoon, he got all excited.  Knowing what he was thinking, I told him the tractor would not make it; the field was still too muddy and soft for that.

However, being a man, he had to try it this morning anyway.

These pictures were taken after he'd all ready turned back.

Like I said, still muddy.

Challenge #13: The Bathroom

Let's peg away a bit more at the spring cleaning with this week's challenge.  If you have one bathroom, this should be pretty quick and easy.  If you have more than one, well, then it will be more challenging!  (It's okay to groan, it was a bad pun.)

For now, ignore the sink, shower and toilet.  Start with the cabinet, or if you have a linen closet in your bathroom, start with that.  Now empty it out.  Totally.

How many things are in there that you forgot you owned?  How many of them are past the point of being useful?  Get rid of those.  If it's some form of medication, you might want to Google the best way of disposing of it.  For non-chemical/non-medicine items, decide if it is recyclable or just plan garbage.

Now look at what remains.  Are there any items you forgot about or haven't used in eons, and otherwise feel safe in getting rid of?  Decide where to pass them on to.  Maybe you have ten million towels and only use six of them.  And maybe you also know of a young person about to leave for college or their own apartment this summer/fall.  Perfect person to ask if they would like some nice usable towels.  Or, if the towels aren't so humanly desirable (a bit worn, perhaps), maybe the local animal shelter would like to have them.

Once you have sorted the trash from the donations, and put the donations into a box or bag to give to their intended recipient, take what you have left--which should be the stuff you actually use or can foresee a need for in the near future--and put those things back into the cabinet or closet AFTER you wipe the cabinet/closet out to get rid of any dust or cobwebs that might be accumulated there.

That should be the biggest task of our bathroom cleaning challenge.  Now all you need to do is the usual cleaning of the bathroom:

• tub/shower, toilet, and sink  
• wipe down the counter, 
• clean the mirror real quick (and the window too if your bathroom has one), 
• take to the laundry any towels that might be hanging over the shower curtain rod or doors and on the towel bars, 
• if you have a window with curtains, take those down and put them in the laundry too
• hang fresh hand towels
• remove any trash and the bag or box of items for donation,
• sweep and quickly mop the floor.  

Once the floor is clean, you can look with a sense of accomplishment at your completed challenge.  Doesn't that sparkly clean, uncluttered bathroom look wonderful?