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Monday 28 May 2012

Day 6 and 7 of Flats handwashing challenge Plus my next challenge

Today I am writing the last of my Flat diaper hand washing challenge, and to sum the experience up it is hard work. I have choose to combine the last two suggested writing topic due to time and having a sick child. My micro-man is really sick and has me worried, we have a Dr. appointment on Tuesday morning. I have learned a lot about myself in this challenge and found me to be more determined then I could have guessed, I also find myself to have a little more ingenuity the I know was possible.
I talked to my Mother-in-Law about her thoughts on cloth diapers and she did not like them due to the mess. I personally do not find them to be much messier then disposable really if I had a diaper sprayer I believe the mess that I do have would go away almost completely. What she did like about cloth was the cost saving and multiple uses other then as diapers.
I have been asking myself the question would I do this challenge again or for longer and the answer is yes I would. If I had to I would even do this as a lifestyle choice. I do not want to give up my washing machine and may have to find a new system to make hand washing work for everyday life.
I have found the different folds for the diapers to be fun to learn I may not be doing them right though and making my own folds. Of course it doesn't matter what fold you use as long as it keeps the baby dry and the poop in the diaper.
All in all this has been a learning experience and I feel like a better person for doing this.
Now for my next challenge, this one will be a lot longer term I am looking at making it last for the summer, I will be feeding my family of 4 on less then $80 a month. The rules of this challenge are not completely set yet but for now in addition to food and drink that $80 also has to cover smokes for my husband. This could be scary.
I will be using this blog to help keep track of my experiences. This week so far I have spent 66.60 and that includes all  meat, most veggies and fruit and all of the sides.
Lastly I am going to ask for opinions on so of the rules we are debating 1) should any other items then food and drink be included in that budget? 2) If we have extra money in our pockets can we use that to buy things like smokes, pop, treats for the kids ect. with out including it in our final total? and 3) If there is extra money at the end of a week can we carry the extra to the next week or should we start fresh every week?
Any thoughts ideas opinions would be appreciated.

1 comment:

  1. Well, if the $80 has to cover food and cigarettes, that could be a way to encourage him not to smoke (or to smoke less), if he agrees to the budget. Obviously food should come first, so if there's not much left for cigarettes, that's that.

    I don't know about whether other items should be included in the budget, or what to do about the extra money not counting towards the total. That probably depends on your reasons and what about it is important to you. But as far as holding over money from one week to another if you don't spend it, I'd say absolutely. I know that for my fiance and I, some weeks we do very well and don't need to buy much at all because we've already got the basics, we just might need a couple ingredients for variety. Then some weeks we need to run out of some of the bigger ingredients and have to get new ones, and that costs a little more than the estimated weekly budget. It balances out.

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