A New Mom, a New Take on Mother’s Day
As a new mom, I am so looking forward to what I consider to be my first actual Mother’s Day. Even though Grace was born on April 22, and I experienced my first Mother’s Day shortly after she was born, we were all too exhausted to celebrate it. So, I can’t wait to see what my husband has in store…
However, with Grace’s growing independence and need for entertainment, we have found that our monthly budget is quickly running out as we search for fun outdoor activities and toys for her to play with. We recently bought her a sand box, sand toys, a shade tent, and plan to buy a kiddie pool for her to splash around in.
And, while many of you may not know me or see how seriously I take my monthly budgeting, you can trust that I am constantly checking to see if I am on budget, and if not, I cut spending immediately. (If you are wondering how I track our spending, I can honestly say that I use Meridian’s Budgeting Tool through our Navigator. Actually, I am pretty much obsessed with it, as it has really helped our family stay on track with our finances).
Anyway, with a lot of our money going towards Grace, (see the Gifts section of our budget), I was sensing my Mother’s Day budget was quickly reducing. And while I know I can leave great surprises up to my husband, I try not to leave the spending up to him. If I did, we would constantly be over budget in both the Gift and Shopping categories because he is both generous and invests in quality products. In fact, as an extra motivator to stay on budget, I set up email alerts so that both Patrick and I would know when we exceeded a budget:
So, I took a moment this weekend to sit him down and explain what I felt Mother’s Day meant to me. I told my husband that, for me, it was more about the care and intent behind the actions than the cost of flowers, or chocolate, or jewelry, etc. I asked for a homemade card, an absolutely fantastic breakfast, hand-picked flowers from our yard, and to just be made to feel special throughout the day. The only cost to this gift is time and effort—and while Patrick will have to purchase breakfast items, the fact that we are on track for our food budget for the month makes this financial choice a good one.
