We knew we needed more space, but I have to admit…the idea of even getting started was overwhelming. What are the steps to building an addition to your house?
I mean, could we even afford it?
If so, how would we get the money to cover everything?
Then, where do we even go from there?
But my biggest worries were… how to find trustworthy contractors? And what added expenses would crop up once we got started?
(That one ended up being a doozy. But I didn’t know how big of a doozy it would be until just a week ago.)
After taking a good 9 months (plus?) off blogging, I’m finally back in the saddle.
Whoop!
Time to dust off the old “5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week” series and see what fun things we can add to it.
It’s challenging to come up with ideas I haven’t shared before. I mean, come on…I’ve done 162 of these things! I can’t promise there haven’t been repeats.
But I do my darnedest to try to come up with outside the box ideas whenever I can. (Also, I just learned how to spell darnedest for the first time.)
My name is Jamie, and once upon a time, I was a blogger here at Medium Sized Family.
😉 😉
Life in our medium sized family has been c-r-a-z-y for the past year. So much so that I had to let a ball drop. Unfortunately, that ball turned out to be the blog.
You know, sometimes I look around and see other rock star women who manage to homeschool their children, do a home makeover, and run an amazing blog, all while giving birth and keeping a well stocked freezer. And it turns out, I am not that woman.
(No, I did not give birth again in the past year. But the homeschooling and home renovation stuff, yeah. We did that. I also ran for a political office in our small town. And now we have 3 high schoolers, all in different high schools.)
But for now, let’s focus on that whole home renovation part, shall we?
We Have a Second Bathroom!
(Spoiler alert!)
A dream that we’ve had for the 13.5 years we’ve lived in this house is to have a second bathroom.
Having 8 people in a house with only one bathroom goes EXACTLY like you would think it would go.
There’s always a line. Always.
(Really? It’s 2 a.m. and someone is in the bathroom? Uh huh.)
The room smells like 5 boys use it all the time.
It’s not pretty, no matter how many ways I try to paint it.
That was life for 13 years and 6 months (almost exactly) (but who’s counting?).
But finally, my dreams have come true! I have my own bathroom in my own master bedroom!
We live in southern Ohio, where we tend to get either a lot of snow, or hardly any at all. Our winters are unpredictable anymore.
This year, we’re getting lots of snow!
It makes me happy that we always prepare as though it will be one of those cold, snowy winters. It’s nice having plenty of food in the house and a backup plan in case the power goes out (which always happens at the worst time!).
This is the year to learn how to get kids off screens…and enrich their lives.
You can say a lot of things about 2020.
Most of us gained some weight.
We saved money on gas and clothes, I would imagine.
Aaaand our kids had more screen time than ever before.
I get it. That’s how kids communicate these days.
And staring at the walls of your house day in and day out gets boring even for us parents.
But as much as we’d like to believe that those calories didn’t count during quarantine, my cholesterol levels say differently.
And as much as we’d like to believe that kids can cope with tons of screen time, their behavior shows what’s really going on in those rapidly growing brains of theirs.
I'm Jamie, and I believe that you can build your savings, even when life is frustrating. Learn more.
Click Here To Get Your Chart
Medium Sized Family is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
