Until I get the chance to put our story back on this blog, the way it was on our old blog, here's a copy of the first page. I'll eventually move it to it's own page here as an intro. There's more info on us if you search our 'Post Tags' whether it's regarding living with spinal cord injury, Korean adoptions, a surprise adoption, open-heart surgery etc.
Lisa
All 7 of us!
We have 5 kids, 2 came to us biologically and 3 to us via airplanes. We've been married for 15 years and are now parents to a 12, 9, 7, 4 and 1 year old. We've known since we were engaged I carried a translocation of chromosomes 10 and 14. We lost our very first daughter. After the older boys were born we decided adoption may be a better route for us to have one more child. This epiphany came 7 years and 3 kids ago.
Cole had open heart surgery at 8 1/2 months old for tetralogy of fallot. He was also born with situs inverus and dextro cardia. He is fine now, but will have to be seen by a cardiologist for the rest of his life. He is smart, very active and independent. He gives us a run for our money and things are never dull. His favorite thing to do at home is to play with the babies. He loves babies!
Chase was born with an unrelated birth defect and had two minor corrective surgeries. He is smart, funny and sweet. He likes to play sports and is a ham most of the time.
Kaelin is our, always meant to be, August baby. She is sweet and crazy silly. Her great heart has earned her many friends.
Chelsi was born 10 weeks early at 3 1/2 pounds. She may be small, but mighty....including her voice. :) She is vibrant and smart. A girl full of attitude and life.
Jaemin was our surprise "gift" (as big sister K calls him). He was a sibling call from Korea. We were not expecting any more children and we got him within 3 months of finding out about him. Shocking surprise and the fastest roller coaster ride ever. What a joy my boy is. He is VERY active and a beautiful little boy. Smiles that light up the room.
In 2008, Brian fell, playing basketball, in 2008, and became a walking quadraplegic (replaced C5 after completely crushing it and fractured C6; fused from C4 to C6). It was life changing to go through that experience for our entire family.
Through God's grace we went from the two of us, to the 7 of us. We had no plans for more than 2 or 3 children and really had no idea adoption would be part of the plan. But, God led and we followed. We learned with each adoption that God was there and we stepped in faith more and more believing in Him more and more as each year passed and each child came into our lives.
We are thankful everyday for our unexpected blessings.
I know people don't like labels to describe them, but I will say it. The first two were "born" to us. The last 3 were "adopted" and my husband is a "walking quad" from a spinal cord injury. But these aren't labels to me. Labels determine something. These adjectives are just words that describe who we are/were or how we came to be. They affect us, but they don't determine who we are or what we will be.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Yeehaw!
Jae was sick today with a minor fever, so we spent the day watching CMT videos....what's new. Chelsi made a new video. Today's chosen song is Hillbilly Bone so we could get little brother involved.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
My budding gymnast
Okay, maybe maybe not, but she's trying. Chelsi wasn't a huge fan of soccer, so she's trying out gymnastics. She has ambitions of being a cheerleader one day anyways, so good stepping stone, right? She thought it was a little boring, but you gotta start with the basics. You can't flip in the air until you do some other training first, but she doesn't quite buy that. She did have fun nonetheless.
I'm not sure if this is fear or determination. :)
Monday, March 1, 2010
my last dollar
This is how I spend our money. My mom is well....tight. Yes, mom you have gotten better, but you're still pretty much a tightwad. Love you, but you know you are.
From this, though, I have learned to question every penny I spend. Literally, I analyze every penny by looking at bills, receipts, you name it. I think I 'need' a soda some days and realize I just 'want' one. Then, I think about the kidney infection I may get from it and can usually talk myself out of it. I can talk myself out of just about any purchase when I want to. I don't, very often, hear myself say "oh, it's just .35 cents" or "oh that's just a $1 more". That's not in my vocabulary. It's more like "if I don't spend that .50 cents then I'll for sure and easily have the $3 to pay for my water club every month". Yeah, our water at work tastes horrible and hauling in everyday would be heavy since we walk over 3 blocks carrying all of my other items with me daily. A funny story from the other day. I bought some things at Wal-Mart, on clearance for $3, regular priced at $4. They rang up for $4 and I told the cashier they were on sale for $3. She credited them through and put in $3.50. I told her they weren't $3.50, they were $3 and there were two more. She actually asked if it was okay if I just paid $3.50. :) I told her no...she needed to reduce the price of the other two to make up for the one. Of course, I care about .50 cents.
When I go to meetings at work and there are lunch breaks I get my leftovers out and heat them up while others go out. I don't want to eat another $8. That's how I feel. This has kept me well in-check on our budget. I can't even fathom credit card debt. All I envision is buying groceries and years later, after I've eaten all that food, still paying for it. How crazy is that?
Sometimes it's just a psychological game. You gotta play if you want to win.
Obviously all this 'work', kind of lightly used since I'm so used to it now it's second nature, has paid for 3 adoptions and everything else we've needed in our lives. Three adoptions paid off and in the clear. It works...just try it.
Psych yourself out and save!
Lisa
From this, though, I have learned to question every penny I spend. Literally, I analyze every penny by looking at bills, receipts, you name it. I think I 'need' a soda some days and realize I just 'want' one. Then, I think about the kidney infection I may get from it and can usually talk myself out of it. I can talk myself out of just about any purchase when I want to. I don't, very often, hear myself say "oh, it's just .35 cents" or "oh that's just a $1 more". That's not in my vocabulary. It's more like "if I don't spend that .50 cents then I'll for sure and easily have the $3 to pay for my water club every month". Yeah, our water at work tastes horrible and hauling in everyday would be heavy since we walk over 3 blocks carrying all of my other items with me daily. A funny story from the other day. I bought some things at Wal-Mart, on clearance for $3, regular priced at $4. They rang up for $4 and I told the cashier they were on sale for $3. She credited them through and put in $3.50. I told her they weren't $3.50, they were $3 and there were two more. She actually asked if it was okay if I just paid $3.50. :) I told her no...she needed to reduce the price of the other two to make up for the one. Of course, I care about .50 cents.
When I go to meetings at work and there are lunch breaks I get my leftovers out and heat them up while others go out. I don't want to eat another $8. That's how I feel. This has kept me well in-check on our budget. I can't even fathom credit card debt. All I envision is buying groceries and years later, after I've eaten all that food, still paying for it. How crazy is that?
Sometimes it's just a psychological game. You gotta play if you want to win.
Obviously all this 'work', kind of lightly used since I'm so used to it now it's second nature, has paid for 3 adoptions and everything else we've needed in our lives. Three adoptions paid off and in the clear. It works...just try it.
Psych yourself out and save!
Lisa
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Frugality for a family of 7
I have decided that since I live within the rules of frugality by necessity I would start tagging posts as this. This way if I come up with more ways to be frugal and on-budget, I can easily connect to it for readers.
As a family of 7 where both parents work fulltime, time is of constant limitation. I find myself forgetting small little details that I used to be able to easily remember. So, while we are frugal; our motto for the past couple of years has been to stay frugal and enjoy life within frugality, we have time to balance with saving money. This is us doing this and living this on a daily, hourly basis.
We survive on more than some, but less than most. Maybe not in this exact economy since we're fortunate to still have jobs, but before the crisis caused major job loss. We survive on well less than $100,000 and still enjoy some perks in life.
Clothes are HUGE expense for most families. If you have 5 growing kids, imagine the costs. Brian wears uniforms and he's not a clothes crazy man, so a few shirts and pants and he's good to go. The only thing he asks for is a new, name brand pair of shoes every year or two. I still wear clothes that is close to 10 years old. If' it's not torn or stained, why not? I wear a lot of khakis to work. I can spruce it up with inexpensive, dress shirts for work. I don't buy new shoes often at all. If I still like them, they stay. The kids get most of their clothes off the Kohls, Penneys, Target and Walmart clearance racks. I wait until there's a good discount to go with the department store purchases and can usually buy items for $5 or less. Children's Place outlets are great for little kids to buy cheap. We still rummage sale for the little ones too. Way to many name brand things we can get at these places hardly worn for a dollar or two.
I drive a 2010 minivan...top model. I wanted to enjoy things, so we bought this one with everything the kids and I could want. It is, afterall, the only vehicle we own that all 7 of us can fit in. Brian drives a 1993 station wagon. Serves it's purpose with great gas mileage. He also has a truck for hunting, etc. that 's almost 10 years old. It's very nice though. With him in construction we wouldn't want him driving anything too nice. One drive through the woods, mud, etc. would just tear them up anyways. They are all paid for. We saved trying to do this and intend to continue this.
Luckily, my husband does a lot of cooking. I usually do it on the weekends, but since he's home way earlier than me on weeknights he cooks those nights. You can save a ton by not buying processed, prepared foods. We don't buy canned goods. Though it's cheaper, fresh or frozen is better for you and that tops saving a buck. We eat a lot of venison. This saves a ton. We eat well, I have to say. We're probably not spending as little as we could, but eating healthy is important to us. We buy generic if we can and get the best buy on what we can.
We watch our bills closely. If we're not getting a discount a provider promised us than we stay with it until we do. Every dollar counts.
We have smaller packages when it comes to cable. We don't get any locals without it, so it's not necessarily an necessity, but just to watch the news here, we need it. We have the slowest internet, but we do have it. We have the least expensive package with our phone too. If you call them you can usually get them to find you a better deal for a limited time. Then, when that limited time is up you call again. It's worth $10/month to me.
Save for everything. Do not buy it unless you have the money. We even save for those non-monthly bills such as insurance, tracfone, Christmas, taxes, etc. We have a totally separate account just for these bills and we have the money transferred automatically each month. Then, when the bills come due the money is always there. If a bill goes up the interest will usually cover it and we just call the bank to up how much we save every month for the next bill. We've lived by this for many years and it saves a lot.
We don't buy little things. We give ourselves an allowance every month. With this cash, it's all you get to spend on collections at work, dinners out, sodas, coffee, snacks, etc. This really keeps me from going to vending machines, etc. We usually take turns with our cash grabbing things off a dollar menu to bring home to eat every once in awhile. So while we don't get to go "out" to eat, we don't necessarily have to cook on these few nights either. It's a whole lot cheaper and we just turn it into a carpet picnic with the kids and a movie. And what I mean by don't buy little things is literally, when you go to Walmart or wherever for groceries; think before you buy. Really ask yourself, "do I need this?" I can usually answer no on that trip and if I REALLY want it I can get it another time when I'm sure how bad I want it.
I'd say shop around, but for some families, that's just not possible. For major purchases yes. First, have the money to pay for it, then call around to stores that carry what you want as well as checking the internet. Shop around. Groceries is something we don't have the luxury of that. With 5 kids, we do good to remember we need to grocery shop. We usually do not buy anything at Walmart, weekly, besides groceries though. The toiletries and other things we want from Walmart goes on a 'monthly list'. This makes me think as I buy those items as to whether we really want or need them by the time I go as well as making tracking our expenses easier.
Keep track of what you spend. We do not have debit or ATM cards. I don't like those. It's WAY too easy to spend and lose track. We write very few checks since we only write them if we have to. We have most bills come directly out of our account. We do put most purchases on our credit card. This way we know exactly where the money went, can pay it off monthly and get rewards in cash for doing so. Well worth it.
Don't have too many cards. Keep it to the basics. We have two credits cards. We have one that we use for pretty much everything and another to use at places that don't take the first. I do have a Kohls card too. Only to get those 30% discounts. Otherwise, I rarely even use it or buy there.
Dental insurance is somewhere we save too. Our dental insurance would cost more to pay for insurance monthly for our family compared to just paying for our fees out-of-pocket. My dental offered is not that great, so it's a wise decision for us. You have to compare things.
Keep your life simple. The more simple it is the more affordable. I'm trying to slowly pass these strategies onto my children. Not because I don't think they'll make more than us, but because I want them to spend what money they do have wisely. Why waste? That's pretty much our beliefs....don't waste.
I'll share more as I think of them.
As a family of 7 where both parents work fulltime, time is of constant limitation. I find myself forgetting small little details that I used to be able to easily remember. So, while we are frugal; our motto for the past couple of years has been to stay frugal and enjoy life within frugality, we have time to balance with saving money. This is us doing this and living this on a daily, hourly basis.
We survive on more than some, but less than most. Maybe not in this exact economy since we're fortunate to still have jobs, but before the crisis caused major job loss. We survive on well less than $100,000 and still enjoy some perks in life.
Clothes are HUGE expense for most families. If you have 5 growing kids, imagine the costs. Brian wears uniforms and he's not a clothes crazy man, so a few shirts and pants and he's good to go. The only thing he asks for is a new, name brand pair of shoes every year or two. I still wear clothes that is close to 10 years old. If' it's not torn or stained, why not? I wear a lot of khakis to work. I can spruce it up with inexpensive, dress shirts for work. I don't buy new shoes often at all. If I still like them, they stay. The kids get most of their clothes off the Kohls, Penneys, Target and Walmart clearance racks. I wait until there's a good discount to go with the department store purchases and can usually buy items for $5 or less. Children's Place outlets are great for little kids to buy cheap. We still rummage sale for the little ones too. Way to many name brand things we can get at these places hardly worn for a dollar or two.
I drive a 2010 minivan...top model. I wanted to enjoy things, so we bought this one with everything the kids and I could want. It is, afterall, the only vehicle we own that all 7 of us can fit in. Brian drives a 1993 station wagon. Serves it's purpose with great gas mileage. He also has a truck for hunting, etc. that 's almost 10 years old. It's very nice though. With him in construction we wouldn't want him driving anything too nice. One drive through the woods, mud, etc. would just tear them up anyways. They are all paid for. We saved trying to do this and intend to continue this.
Luckily, my husband does a lot of cooking. I usually do it on the weekends, but since he's home way earlier than me on weeknights he cooks those nights. You can save a ton by not buying processed, prepared foods. We don't buy canned goods. Though it's cheaper, fresh or frozen is better for you and that tops saving a buck. We eat a lot of venison. This saves a ton. We eat well, I have to say. We're probably not spending as little as we could, but eating healthy is important to us. We buy generic if we can and get the best buy on what we can.
We watch our bills closely. If we're not getting a discount a provider promised us than we stay with it until we do. Every dollar counts.
We have smaller packages when it comes to cable. We don't get any locals without it, so it's not necessarily an necessity, but just to watch the news here, we need it. We have the slowest internet, but we do have it. We have the least expensive package with our phone too. If you call them you can usually get them to find you a better deal for a limited time. Then, when that limited time is up you call again. It's worth $10/month to me.
Save for everything. Do not buy it unless you have the money. We even save for those non-monthly bills such as insurance, tracfone, Christmas, taxes, etc. We have a totally separate account just for these bills and we have the money transferred automatically each month. Then, when the bills come due the money is always there. If a bill goes up the interest will usually cover it and we just call the bank to up how much we save every month for the next bill. We've lived by this for many years and it saves a lot.
We don't buy little things. We give ourselves an allowance every month. With this cash, it's all you get to spend on collections at work, dinners out, sodas, coffee, snacks, etc. This really keeps me from going to vending machines, etc. We usually take turns with our cash grabbing things off a dollar menu to bring home to eat every once in awhile. So while we don't get to go "out" to eat, we don't necessarily have to cook on these few nights either. It's a whole lot cheaper and we just turn it into a carpet picnic with the kids and a movie. And what I mean by don't buy little things is literally, when you go to Walmart or wherever for groceries; think before you buy. Really ask yourself, "do I need this?" I can usually answer no on that trip and if I REALLY want it I can get it another time when I'm sure how bad I want it.
I'd say shop around, but for some families, that's just not possible. For major purchases yes. First, have the money to pay for it, then call around to stores that carry what you want as well as checking the internet. Shop around. Groceries is something we don't have the luxury of that. With 5 kids, we do good to remember we need to grocery shop. We usually do not buy anything at Walmart, weekly, besides groceries though. The toiletries and other things we want from Walmart goes on a 'monthly list'. This makes me think as I buy those items as to whether we really want or need them by the time I go as well as making tracking our expenses easier.
Keep track of what you spend. We do not have debit or ATM cards. I don't like those. It's WAY too easy to spend and lose track. We write very few checks since we only write them if we have to. We have most bills come directly out of our account. We do put most purchases on our credit card. This way we know exactly where the money went, can pay it off monthly and get rewards in cash for doing so. Well worth it.
Don't have too many cards. Keep it to the basics. We have two credits cards. We have one that we use for pretty much everything and another to use at places that don't take the first. I do have a Kohls card too. Only to get those 30% discounts. Otherwise, I rarely even use it or buy there.
Dental insurance is somewhere we save too. Our dental insurance would cost more to pay for insurance monthly for our family compared to just paying for our fees out-of-pocket. My dental offered is not that great, so it's a wise decision for us. You have to compare things.
Keep your life simple. The more simple it is the more affordable. I'm trying to slowly pass these strategies onto my children. Not because I don't think they'll make more than us, but because I want them to spend what money they do have wisely. Why waste? That's pretty much our beliefs....don't waste.
I'll share more as I think of them.
Ha haaaa!
Just two days after saying I didn't have Jaemin's Certificate of Citizenship in-hand, the mail man brought it to me today. We're DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOOOOOHHHOOOO!
Lisa
WOOOOOHHHOOOO!
Lisa
Friday, February 26, 2010
Why is it a right?
I have no major ill feelings against smokers, but please keep your smoke to yourself. I can't even walk from work to the parking lot without getting behind someone smoking away. I have to go into a half job to get ahead of them. At least, then, I'm not down wind. I breath in every bit they blow out and I can't stand the smell.
Do what you want to your body, but leave mine out of it!
Lisa
Do what you want to your body, but leave mine out of it!
Lisa
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