Friday, October 3, 2008

Too Tired to Cook

Another in my line of overwork blogs... (I decided to at least blog about my woes, because I miss blogging even though I've been tired and haven't been blogging. But I miss it, so here I go!)

We all know how important it is to plan what to eat, to eat at home as much as possible... for health, financial, and environmental reasons.

I'm a big fan of the book Your Money or Your Life. In that book, you are asked to calculate how much working costs you. Yep -- that's right -- how much money do you lose by going to work. For example, do you need different clothes? Do you spend money commuting? Do you buy/do things to relieve the stress you have from working? Do you buy convenience food because you're too tired to cook?

Of course we have to make adjustments in our lifestyles so that we can work. That can be a good thing. I'd probably not be a better person if I spent all day in my pajamas, comfy though that might be.

What's killing me this semester is food. And that's a shame, because I really like to cook.
Here's how it works:

I teach a night class two nights a week. The night in between, I spend a lot of time preparing my classes, and don't get to chill out. The night following my second night class, I spend a lot of time lying on the couch because I'm exhausted. Friday night I usually do some quick cooking or we go out because I've had a hard week and feel that I deserve it. Saturday and Sunday I cook.

Uh oh... what's my family eating? Um... I'm not totally sure. There's a lot of pasta and leftovers and fruit. It's not that bad, really, but there's not much left for lunch.

So, for lunch I've been eating cinnamon rolls and take-out. What the heck!? That's a recipe for disaster. Oh, and sometimes I eat nothing.

All work and no play makes grad green a grumpy girl.

What do you think your work expenses are? Do you eat differently on the days that you work? Better? Worse? How do you handle dinner?

Thursday, October 2, 2008

TGITh ... I am overworked

Whenever we make a big money decision in my house, my husband and I think about our priorities. When we were going to buy a house, we decided to wait because our priorities are 1) a good education for our children, 2)being able to walk to things, and 3) having enough money to do fun stuff. We decided not to get stuck in a house that was in not quite the area that we wanted because 1) the schools weren't as good as we wanted, 2) the stores, etc. weren't as close as we wanted and 3) we were going to get locked into a high fixed expense that was not quite comfortable for us economically.

This semester I failed to consider my priorities and now I have 3 jobs. I thought that the extra money would be great to save for a bigger down payment on a house, but now that I am actually doing the jobs, I don't think it's worth it.

What are my priorities?
Money for a downpayment? Or everything else?

Because that's what's happened. With 3 jobs in 3 different schools, I teach a total of 7 different levels. On some days of the week I teach from 8 am to 10 pm, with only a few hours to come home and do the homework/dinner routine with my family. The other day, I had to leave for work with my daughter sobbing in the driveway. That is NOT what I wanted.

So, I've been thinking about this a lot. I gave up one of my jobs, effective mid-October. Just thinking about that makes me feel better. I've realized that this semester I've been living for the weekend. On Sunday night, I start to get really stressed out and sort of nauseous and that feeling doesn't go away until Thursday afternoon (my teaching load is relatively light on Fridays).

Clearly, I need to work less. The extra money just isn't worth it. My priority is to have a relaxed lifestyle, to be able to spend enjoyable time with my family, and to actually see my friends. If you can't do those things, you're probably working too much... just like me.