Just found this post set to post nearly a month ago. It was saved as a draft and never posted. So sorry about that!

Hello there! I’m positively ashamed of how much I’ve neglected the blog lately, but be assured, it’s been for good reason. I’m going to try to get back to regular posting now.

Here’s what we’ve been up to since November.

Holidays (’nuff said?)

My attempt at the Atkins diet. This has been really time intensive, as I’ve been focusing so much on my diet, as well as learning to prepare new foods. Our food budget has suffered, but we’ve found a way to make up for that (more on that in a moment). I’ve lost 14 pounds and have been rewarded by our health insurance company—they know my motivator—Amazon.com gift cards! I’m still working to loose, but in the process of this, I have learned that I have allergies to both corn and wheat. Once I eliminated those (as Atkins required) I’ve never felt better! Joint pain, rashes, and constant digestive issues have vanished. I’ve always had digestive problems and “soothed” the difficulty with breads, especially bagels, trying to eat foods that would be gentle on my stomach. Little did I know….I was only making things worse. Now my “part-time-job” is finding my “new normal” diet.

Home schooling. We’re still home -schooling our oldest and now deciding what to do with our youngest for Kindergarten in the fall. She would flourish in the classroom, but she’s also the baby of the family and a handful. It would be very easy for me to send her off to school, and very easy for her to adapt to it (especially since she spent her first three years in orphanages), but easy and right aren’t always the same. Lots of heavy thinking still to go on this decision.

My small business. My small business grew by leaps and bounds in November and each successive month has added new clients. My plan was always to use that business to keep us boosted up while I built my writing career, but it’s hardly leaving any room to write. For now, we’re not going to turn up noses at income, especially since we’re still doing the Total Money Makeover.

Our Total Money Makeover. We started the Dave Ramsey program back in January of 2009 and are plugging through as best as we can. We’re hoping to be debt-free except our house in July of this year. Possibly earlier if we can keep up the hustle like we have been the past few months.

Gleaning. I joined a community cooperative gleaning program. It’s a volunteer position that requires about 5-7 hours per week, but supplements our family’s grocery budget—and we can usually provide groceries for 4-5 other families in addition. (For free!) It is a huge amount of work, but fairly flexible and the kids are helping out too.

Gardening. Yes, we live in a tiny city townhouse, but we do keep a container garden on the patio, and a flowerbed out front. Our elderly neighbor has been ill, so we planted her flowers this year also, and we have a tiny shared plot behind our building that we’ve been talking with our neighbor about doing a “berry garden” since we moved in six years ago. The kids and I planted four raspberries, two blueberries, two grapes and fifty strawberry starts back there and we’re hoping for a fantastic summer “crop.” We also re-planted our herb containers and located (via freecycle) another worm composter who was willing to share worms with us for our worm bin. True, in most places, sharing “worms” would be considered a bad thing, but at the going rate of $25 a pound for worms for the compost bin, this freecycler’s gift of 2 lbs of red wrigglers was greatly appreciated. The cans of home-canned tomatoes seemed like an unfair exchange (I love to share canned items with folks who send something my way from freecycle).

So, where are we at overall? In 2009 we cut our household living expenses in half. This year we’ve already cut our grocery budget in more than half (down another $250 a month with gleaning) and added revenue. We got the taxes done and still have oodles of “adoption tax credit” carryover for 2010 so we adjusted our withholding (for Rob’s job) and I have a savings account for self-employment taxes but my business is still small enough that the tax burden is very small.

The net-effect is that we should be debt-free (except the house) by the end of this year, plus 4-5 months of living expenses in an emergency fund, plus fully funded retirement accounts for 2010. It will take diligence and “hustle” but we’re pretty sure we can get there by the end of 2010. We also are continuing to give throughout this process (many ask about tithing—we give to our church and also to a couple of orphan-related charities that are dear to our hearts).

As for the house, real estate value is still down, and we don’t have money saved yet for another adoption, so we are going to sit tight through 2010 before deciding what to do with our condo. Also, we’ve had an unusually dry winter, so there’s been no flood risk to us, which is also great news for the prospect of selling our condo in 2011.

So where from here? I’ll be resuming the $1 dinner series and working on an ebook on the same topic. I’ll be posting regular updates about money-saving resources. I’d like to do a whole series on home-made cleaners and detergents. I’ll do a round-up/summary about our family’s experience with Financial Peace University. I’ll also do a short series on lessons we’ve learned about estate planning, as my husband and I have resolved to create a full estate plan in 2010. What else would you like to see here at Penny-Wise Family?

Jessica

Have you ever noticed that change, even a little change, can get really expensive? I remember when we got our cat. We bought him from a shelter on “last day” sale for $20. Then we paid $30 for a license. Then we bought a $32 bag of cat food, and then some toys, and then a vet checkup, and then a flea shampoo, and then a flea carpet treatment. I added it up, and in the first three months of our being “cat parents” a few years ago—we spent $800 on the damn $20 cat. Now, don’t mistake me, we adore our cat and refer to him as “our only son—for now.” I just didn’t expect one furry little creature to have such a gigantic financial reach.

Likewise, I began a low-carb diet back in December. Sure, a little more money on eggs, and meat, no more oatmeal for me at eight cents a serving. The grocery bill went up slightly (and has since been offset by gleaning) but suddenly I felt better and had more energy than I ever had. I made appointments to go out with friends for dinner or to the movies (I could stay awake through a movie!) I spontaneously took the kids to the zoo and on other outings. Every day felt like a “once in a lifetime experience.” And got really expensive!

Again, more change in February, my small business volume grew dramatically again for the second time in six months. Being a one-woman show around here with no employees, I was suddenly stretched thin, and commuting like crazy (my work is mobile—so I travel a lot). My gas bill was 4x what it usually is, and I resorted to fast food—killing my diet and my budget.

And then I got sick.

Not just a little sick, but like when I had mono last fall. Everything hurt, my stomach was always upset. Honestly, I’ve always had trouble with pain and stomach problems but this was truly miserable—especially after two months of doing so great.

Further investigation revealed that I have Celiac Disease—an autoimmune disease that turns gluten from certain grains, basically into a poison. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense and explains a lifetime of health problems, but my most immediate concern is—now what?

Folks, this is gonna be expensive! At least while I figure it out, but I have a feeling it’s going to stay that way. Celiac disease means I cannot ever again eat wheat, oats, spelt, rye or barley—or anything that touches it. No beer, no blue cheese, no chocolate bars with whey as an emulsifier. No bread. No pretzels. No hot dog buns. Actually, most hot dogs have wheat fillers, so nix those too. Baseball will never be the same.

After having the experience of a few weeks without gluten, I can tell you that I have never in my life felt better, so I don’t regret the decision to cut out the gluten, but this is a major change.

I’ll have to invest in (and learn how to use) almond flour, manioc, rice flour, garbanzo flour, teff and tapioca flour. These aren’t direct-substitute types of things either. Likewise, I had to purge the fridge and pantry of items that are now deemed “not safe.” Salad dressings, BBQ sauces, katchup, malt vinegar, granola bars, oatmeal… the list goes on and on.

To tide myself over I got a gluten free cookbook (with a gift card from a friend) and bought a loaf of gluten free bread. It tastes OK (kind of like a cheddar-flavored angel food cake) but it was $7 for one loaf! This evening after a lot of late night out of town work and my husband pulling a double shift—I ordered pizza. Two pizzas from a place that I know makes a gluten free crust. The prices weren’t on the menu. I should have asked. The final bill was $57.00. FIFTY-SEVEN BUCKS!!

There’s a special place in hell for those who exploit others’ genetic weaknesses….

So, how to mitigate this new change? It’s going to take me many hours of research and reading. In the meantime, I’ll have to adhere strictly to the diet in order to keep up the energy to keep up my newly increased work from my small business.

It feels to me like a bit of a helix…. if I work less to learn more/faster and save money, then I may have insufficient income. If I work too much, I may get much sicker or slip up on my diet. (One little slip-up can leave me sick for days). I’ve been gluten free about two weeks now, but did have a “contamination” incident the other day when I got ill from cream cheese that the kids had also been spreading on their toast.

Have you experienced these kinds of domino changes that affect your finances?

I’m curious about our reader’s take on this—how do you manage your money when your life feels like it’s getting the upper hand on you?

On the plus side, even if this does slow me down a little now as I adapt, it does mean I have a much longer, healthier and more productive life ahead of me, which does make me very, very happy!