Milieu of Me

So one of the biggest clouds over the boy and I’s head since I got pregnant was the discussion about what our family life was going to look like. It could have gone several different ways….as we didn’t really have our hearts completely set on anything prior to baby. I always said I would like to be a stay at home mom, but not at the expense of my husband going crazy trying to provide for us.

Then we met Gracie, and we both held her and looked at her and things became a little less abstract and a little more real. We decided that no matter what we were going to try and make it so that I could stay home.

I think that’s what prompted our purge at the house in Vadnais Heights, and the move up here to save money. We were thinking house and baby and knew that we couldn’t do it there.

So enter October and a Feebus, and we decide for sure I need to stay home. We figured out how we could make it work, even without saving any money on rent, drew up a budget.

Then all our student loans kicked back in and we started having to repay them.

The problem with student loans, which you all may know, or not if you didn’t need them is that there are a million different lenders, a million different rates, payment plans, etc you can go on. And you have Federal and Private loans, which you can’t consolidate together.

I had no help with college, and most of you know I have a lot of college years under my belt. So I have A LOT of loans. The boy’s parents made it so that he barely had to take out any, even though he went to private school for three years. I went to private school for three years and had to pay all that myself.

So we got the Federal ones consolidated no problem, but the private ones have been a nightmare. Most places are going to charge you upwards of 8-10% interest and that drives the monthly payment up, and just has made us both really scared that we won’t be able to hack it, and I will have to go back to work.

Minneapolis has the highest daycare costs in the country. Basically I would be working to give half my paycheck back to daycare and want to kill myself every minute I was not at work. In all honestly, I grew up in a house with home daycare, I worked at a daycare, and I was a full time summer babysitter for every summer from 11 to 16….I know there are good providers and bad ones. If I was at home, I would take the baby to my mom or First Steps and never worry again. I know NO ONE here, and I don’t have time now to get on a list, or research. I’m moving in two weeks and then have to get ready for the baby, and that’s enough for now.

So we fought, and got mad, and we called all five loan companies that offer private loan consolidation and got quotes, and got screwed around by BREMER BANK who took forever in figuring out we weren’t really talking about Federal loans… It was really bad.

Then we started talking about biting the bullet, and taking out a huge loan to just consolidate everything, because at least then we’ll get it paid off, and me working part time. So I figured I could work weekends, or a couple nights a week and and weekend day. I found several customer service places where I could do just that. Then it hit me.

Why do that, and take time away from the baby and the boy when I can just take two kids at $150 a week and do in home daycare and totally make enough money to make the payments AND get to stay home AND not have to give up anything! INSANE. My mom never had less than seven kids in her house before and after school, so watching three during the day I’m sure I can more than manage.

SO that’s totally what I’m going to do. I’m going to get liscensed by the state and take CPR and everything because why not? And we’ll even still have money to go camping, or go out to eat, or buy the little extras!!

Now my prayer is that we will find a church and I can put out the word there and find two little ones with nice honest parents who won’t be mean to me about stupid little things.