I’ll be going off on maternity leave in a few weeks (I know- I’m not sure I’m ready either) so Mr. Roccapuccia and I have been eagerly getting ready by decorating the baby’s room with the help of my Pinterest idea board and some new furniture courtesy of my mom. Today I started to get into the “nitty gritty” of details- applying for the Government programs that will pay me while I’m gone, for example, and I realized something quite sad. While we are fortunate enough to have enough monthly income without my normal salary to pay for essential everyday things like our house, car insurance, cars, debt, etc. when you take away my regular earnings… There’s just not much left over every month.We are super fortunate in that there are mitigating factors in this so you’re not all starting to take collections up for me- one, my company pays out annual bonuses in March which I’m hoping will pay for alot of what I do during my leave; two, I’m expecting tax returns in April when we file our taxes and three, Mr. Roccapuccia gets paid commission so it’s a nice variable to come in every few months.We’re not going to live like hermit crabs either during my leave, but it does mean that we’re going to have to be much more frugal with how we spend our money.
Part of this will be easy- I won’t be driving the 1.5 hours I drive to work everyday, therefore drastically reducing the amount of gas required to get to/from work. Or I’ll remove the driving to/from business portion off my car insurance. Or I’ll be eating at home and not out for lunch. But other things will be much more difficult- I’m not used to not just… Well… Buying something when I want it.
So why am I telling you all this? Well, mainly because some of the topics I cover on my blog have been about things I am no longer going to be able to afford to run out and buy. Farewell random shopping sprees, farewell running to the store and buying whatever I feel like for dinner regardless of if it’s on sale or not, farewell new fancy beauty gadget that I had to have and farewell to the old, immature and rather flippant attitudes about money. You’re a big girl now.
