Budget

We’re having a diaper dilemma in our house. For the most part we’re Pampers people but my husband Rob – the ever money-saver who drives to different grocery stores for their specials – has been experimenting with other diapers. When Tessa was just a couple weeks old, he bought some grocery-store brand diapers and proudly announced “If we like these, we’re going to save so much money!” Too bad we didn’t. We could barely even get them strapped on her because the sticky strips were . . . well, not sticky. At about five weeks, Tessa was wearing a Huggies diaper and urine leaked out and all over Rob. He wasn’t happy and demanded that we throw all of those away (though now me as the culprit to save money, I kept and used them when he was at work, making sure she was wearing a Pampers diaper by the time he got home). And now last weekend, Rob comes home with a mega-size of CostCo diapers that are the exact same size and shape as the Huggies ones he hated three months ago. Tess has yet to poop and stay within those darn diapers.

Executive summary: I’m going to order a box of Pampers and call it a day. All of this has almost made me reconsider cloth diapering.

Anyone else having a diaper fiasco?

My husband and I are on a budget. But isn’t everyone on a budget these days? Well, our budget allows us to have two date nights a month. We each “host” one of the nights and have $50 allotted. We can supplement with our allowance money – another story – but we get a $50 credit. We rarely use it.

The other night, for example, my husband made chicken parmesan for dinner, we watched a Netflix movie of his choice and then we sipped a bottle of Chianti by a home-built fire in our courtyard. We had a good meal, cuddle time on the couch and a romantic fire. I love date nights!

Sometimes we go to the movies and have ice cream afterwards – but nowadays that involves a babysitter, significantly digging into our $50 allotted to the evening’s activities. I sometimes use the cash to order sushi take-out and we eat in while watching a movie of my choice – hello bad movies like “Enchanted” or – during the holiday season – “Elf” on repeat.

I really like the way we set-up date night because it puts the responsibility on one person to be at least semi-creative and treat the other person to an evening where you don’t have to make any decisions – you can just sit back and enjoy. On the flip side, it allows one person to be able to call all the shots and the boss in me thinks that’s a blast.  Both sides of the coin are enjoyable and it also keeps us on a budget we can live with.