The Mom Crowd

My second baby is 6 weeks old and I am in Survival Mode until he can sleep longer than 4 hours at a time. It is tiring managing two kids schedules, breastfeeding, diagnosing illnesses, dispensing medications around the clock, not to mention any regular household chores, and just getting to say hello to the husband. I really never expected it to be this difficult adjusting to 2 children.

Some wonderful women have shared with me some great advice on how to survive this phase.  Here is some of what they said and what I am living by at this moment.

• Don’t look down! Don’t look at your floors or even the sticky breakfast table.
• Cartoons to entertain siblings are perfectly okay!
• Don’t be too proud to accept any and all help.
• Keep an eye on the light at the end of the tunnel. Remember that this phase doesn’t last forever!
• Don’t beat yourself up with what you haven’t done. If your kids are good, then you have done a great job that day!
• Put off the diet, until you can get sleep and function!
• Sleep whenever you can.
• Get out of the house once in a while on a play date or by yourself after bedtimes.
• It is okay, if you never get out of your pajamas that day.
• Don’t stress so much about the quality of food the siblings are getting, just as long as they eat.
• It is okay to say no.
• Enjoy this time, because they grow so fast.
• Remember you are a GREAT mom! Don’t be so hard on yourself!

What helped you get through your baby’s first weeks?

You may be paying too much for your prescriptions. It’s easy to accept prescription prices from the pharmacy and just deal with it. However, if you are like me and you are on a high deductible health plan (because we are self-employed), then prescriptions can be very expensive. As a Stay at Home Mom I feel like it is my job to save my family money wherever I can and watching our health costs is just part of my job.

I have had a long day today on the phone with doctors’ offices and pharmacies, but I saved my family about $300 just by spending some time figuring out the prescriptions for my kids.

Here is what I have learned in 5 tips for saving money on prescriptions.

1. Shop Around. This can be a real hassle, but can save you a lot of money. In order to shop around you need to know the name, dose, and quantity of the medicine prescribed. Ask the nurse or doctor to spell out the name for you. Also, ask the doctor or nurse if there is a generic available. Once you are armed with this info, you can call around to the pharmacies and ask for the cash price. Also, you will need the paper prescription from the doctor’s office. So instead of them faxing in a prescription to the pharmacy for you, you need to leave the doctor’s office with it or go pick up the paper copy.

I shopped my prescription around today by phone. CVS, my usual pharmacy was going to charge me $261 for my daughter’s prescription. My grocery store was $96, WalMart was $80, and Costco was $65 for the same prescription. I earned $196 today in 1 hour of work.

2. Ask your doctor for a cheaper alternative medicine. When doctor’s prescribe medicines they aren’t thinking about the cost. Sometimes there is another medicine that can do the same job, but at a cheaper price. We are the doctor’s customer, so they should strive to serve us. Don’t be afraid to ask.

The doctor’s office gave me an alternative if the prescription for my son was going to be too expensive. Also, on a follow-up appointment to my Pediatrician I told her we didn’t get my daughter’s excema cream, because it was going to be $250. She then told me which over-the-counter product I could use. Thankfully that product has worked.

3. You don’t have to get the whole prescription filled. Depending on the prescription type you can fill it a little at a time. Even if the pharmacy has already put your order together, you don’t have to buy all of it. If you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask your doctor, doctor’s nurse, or pharmacist if you need to fill all of the prescription at once.

My son’s prescription today was going to be $355 for a 16 day treatment. Each box is $89 and covers 4 days of treatment. Per my doctor’s instructions I am to use this medicine for 4 days and see if he gets better. So instead of buying all 4 boxes at once, I only bought one. Then I can refill it and get more boxes, once I find out that it works. I may end up spending $355 and buying all 4 boxes, but I may only need 8 days of treatment and I could potentially save us $178.

4. Ask for samples. Sometimes I am too shy to ask, but I have learned to speak up. Sometimes they have samples or a coupon that you can use. It never hurts to ask.

I spoke up the other day at a doctor’s visit and asked about cold medicine for 2 year-olds. There aren’t any cold medicines for 2-year-olds on the store shelves, because of FDA rulings. She gave me two bottles of medicine that I can give my daughter. Free medicine!

5. Check into mail order prescriptions. If you have a regular recurring prescription, then a mail order option may be a lot cheaper. It is not a waste of time to research and ask, because it could save you hundreds of dollars.

How do you save money on prescriptions?

This is a guest post from my friend Natalie. She is one of the most caring moms that I know and she makes the most beautiful children. Natalie works at my church and is in charge of the Creative Arts Team.  Here is her insight on how to handle being a mom while working at the same time.

I have been a mother now for almost 3 years. Not only am I a mom of a 3 year old and 6 month old, but I am also a “working mom”.  My experience has been full of joyous moments and even crying in the shower moments at the end of a long day. Thankfully, my job has allowed me to bring my kids to work. My oldest now attends our Mother’s Day Out program at our church, but he was with me 3 times a week until he started crawling. We all know that when our kids get mobile it’s hard finding time to do anything.  My daughter will soon be moving along before I know it and I will have to once again make the decision to find someone else to keep her.

It’s easy to feel guilty that I am not a “stay at home mom”, but I know that this is where I am called to be.  Although I am so thankful for such a great situation, it’s not the easiest thing. In addition to all my responsibilities at work, I am also responsible for raising my kids!  Juggling a work schedule, nap schedule, eating schedule and finding time to get my house clean and dinner cooked has been one of the most challenging things I have ever done.

I will never forget the first time I brought my daughter to work and had to get my son off to pre-school.  The morning was spent getting bottles ready, diapers packed, both my kids dressed, and myself decent enough to go into work. I found out very quickly that I needed to add another 45 minutes on to the start of my day! I think by the end of the first 2 weeks I was crying in the shower every morning and falling asleep the minute my head hit the pillow.  My husband came home one night about a month ago, handed me the keys and said, “Go get something to eat and take the long way home.”  I think that was the most romantic thing ever.

Whether you are a working mom or you stay at home with your kids, we all have a lot on our plates. We will never have enough time and/or energy to teach our kids how to read by the time they are 3, potty train them by the time they are 18 months old and make sure we are the perfect homeroom mom. We will try though, won’t we?  The one thing I know I will always have time for is loving them.  I have found myself getting so upset that my son is not potty trained yet. I think to myself, “If only I were at home ALL day then he would be done by now.”  That’s not true at all. My mom raised 5 kids working and we are all finding our way to the restroom.  So, if that means they aren’t potty trained until they are 3 years old and 5 days (I am determined!!), then oh well! We can’t do it all, but we can love them.

5 Tips for Working Moms

1. Schedule fun days – Set aside a Family Weekend once a month. There will always be something that can take up your weekend. Put it on the calendar in advance and stick to it.

2. Bring home to the office. – Decorate your office with pictures of your children. Bring in their artwork and put it up. I love when I get to look my kids smiling faces. It makes me smile and I find myself being grateful!

3. Don’t bring work home! – You can choose to cheat your family or your job. Cheat your job. Leave work at the office and don’t bring it home. I work from home once a week, but I shut things down at 2:00 pm.

4. Volunteer Part-time – You may not be able to be in charge of every school party, but you can certainly help out. Volunteer to make phone calls or help by bringing something. Don’t forget to talk with your employer. They have a family too and you may surprised by what latitude they give you.

5. Find time for yourself and your husband – One of the best things you can do for yourself is have a loving marriage. It’s too easy to get home at night and mindlessly watch reruns of “Everybody Loves Raymond”. Put the kids to bed early, talk, rent a movie and have a date at home. We have done this many times!

At a recent dinner party I attended the husbands were lovingly razzing us Stay at Homes Moms, because we only call them at work to see if we can spend fifteen bucks at Target. One husband wondered out loud how a mom who “stays home” could use so much gas in one week. The wives and I retorted that they should be thankful for having such low maintenance wives and how in the big picture we barely spend money.

One mom and I realized that we don’t even wash our face with proper face wash, because we are so cheap. So this got me thinking about what other things make us frugal mamas.

Here are 10 signs that you might be a Frugal Mama:

1. You wear the same three pair of blue jeans over and over.

2. You love the little red stickers at Target.

3. You buy Easter and Christmas dresses for the next year on clearance the year before.

4. You check the Baby+Kids section of Craigslist everyday looking for deals.

5. You are up early on Saturday mornings hitting the sales in front yards.

6. You talk yourself out of buying the items you picked up while standing in the checkout line.

7. You brag about what you saved in coupons and sales after every trip to the grocery store.

8. You haven’t had a hair cut in six months.

9. You love the challenge of coming in under budget.

10. You don’t buy toys, because you wait for family and friends to buy them for you.

What makes you a Frugal Mama?

- photo courtesy of iChris.

As you can see The Mom Crowd has a new design! We are still in the process of tweaking it a bit.

I am super thankful for Cicily at August Afternoon Designs! She did a FANTASTIC job incorporating everything I wanted in the design. My husband and I put together the old blue design ourselves and it is great to have a professional to clean up our amateur work and make something gorgeous.

I would also like to thank, Daniel, my wonderful husband who is the genius behind Grow Development. He took Cicily’s design and made it reality. Not to mention he also upgraded my prehistoric version of WordPress.

Thank you Cicily and Daniel!!

I hope you all like our new layout!