Monday Laundry

Today I did laundry! Lots and lots of laundry. Robert had almost no clean clothes, and I had totally no clean seasonable clothes, so it was definitely time. I have a walk-in closet half full of my clothes and only five pairs of shorts. How did that happen? Time to reevaluate my closet a little. I really wish I could have a garage sale, but I don't have a garage, and we're not allowed to do yard sales. I wonder if someone at church or in my knitting group is going to have a yard sale this summer that I could get in on. We have plenty of too-much-stuff that could stand culling. Anyway, I did five loads of laundry and a Dryel bag, so we are looking good for clothes again. Yay! I am still loving the Purex sheets, I'm using the ones I couponed for last week, which are tropical breeze scented. With the sale and the coupons, it costs about 15 cents a load, and I am happy with that. If only making the washing machine run didn't take 1.25 each time and no way around it!

Robert slept in late today, till nearly eight, which made me quite happy. I actually went in and checked on him, after the early hours he's been keeping lately. But he was just having a nice lie-in, one that let me get a little picking up done. Still messy around here, but if I pick up a little more than I mess up each day, this place will theoretically get clean eventually. I also did some couponing, and we made a trip to Target for Luvs and Crystal Light. Crystal Light has "energy" juice tubes with more caffeine than a cup of coffee, they are very popular around here, and this week with a coupon, they are 97 cents for 10, which is unbeatable even with a stick. The other very excellent coupon we got today came in the mail, and was a Buy One Get One Free burrito coupon from Chipotle. We went and got takeout with no drinks, and got two massive burritos for a total of 6.75. I love Chipotle, but we hardly ever go, so it was great.

And we had reason to celebrate, too, or at least tentatively. It is Monday after drop week, and M still has both his classes. Hurrah! The one class is still very, very small, but unless there is some kind of mass defection, it will be taught this summer. It means we still won't be seeing quite as much income as in the school year, but substantially closer than last year's paychecks. That would be great! Imagine if I could take some of the money we've saved up for summer and keep it for an emergency fund, or put it towards some of our other savings goals. It would be really nice. It seems like we're always getting derailed by some emergency or other, and having something set aside for that would ease my mind, especially for something like if I were to get a little sick. A lot sick, we still couldn't handle, but an emergency fund is better than nothing.

My main money task for this week is going to be reapplying for Medicaid for Robert, which is a huge hassle. Reapplying in June/July means the pay stubs are all messed up, so we need to actually get letters from M's schools to explain how much he makes and when. This is inconvenient for everyone, and kind of embarrassing. I mean, it's not like the universities don't know that they don't pay a living wage or offer family health insurance to us, but having to ask them to certify us for public aid, I dunno. It makes me feel a little bad, but it means getting Robert the health care he needs to be safe and well, and I would do much worse for that. It's also stupid, though, because the difference in income is so negligible in the grand scheme of things. I looked up the eligibility requirements for Medicaid for children and babies, and last year we literally made half of what the ceiling is for our family size. A few hundred dollars plus or minus is going to make absolutely zero difference! It only gets more absurd because I also have to detail the small amounts of money I've made with my blog and with taking online surveys, never anything higher than 75 dollars in a month. I could see it if we were close to the line in regular income, but we can't even see the ceiling from where we are. But anyway, that'll keep me busy.

One more nice thing tonight, Amazon was having a one-day sale on baby stuff, including Pampers, which are my favorite diapers. I bought 408 Size 3 diapers for 60 dollars, which is right on the upper edge of my acceptable price point at 14.7 cents per diaper. Considering that normally they run closer to 30 cents per diaper (Pampers are the most expensive brand), it's really a good deal. Robert's little tummy is getting fat these days, and unless he gains a couple more inches in length, he's going to be going up a size in diapers soon. And I still have half a closet full of Size 2! Ulp. Well, at least I have an excellent start on stocking up on Size 3.