This is a continuation of the popular post Wishes for Money.
On Saturday, the respite sitter told me that she was sure I could work for the [outsourced] respite company even though I receive respite hours myself. The pay is $9/hr plus 50 cents per mile, plus you are allowed to be paid cash directly by parents if they run out of free county hours, and you can charge what you like then.
I'd love to do this one or two evenings a week when Marc is home with Wyatt. But, I'm a little worried that once I got involved with respite sitting that clients will want more of my time than I can give. We've had two respite sitters that quit because they got so busy so fast that they burnt out. (No, it wasn't because Wyatt was a terror! Usually when we have a sitter over, he goes right to sleep/hibernation because he's conserving his energy to keep us awake half the night. It's his little revenge for leaving him home).
The other thing the sitter said was that one of her client gets paid $1200 a month by the county under IHSS which stands for In-Home Suppotive Services. That is when the county pays the parent to be a caregiver for their disabled dependent, which is cheaper than institutionalization. It is described as, "a state administered, county run program that provides state, counmty, and federal funding to enable program recipients to hire a caregiver." My case worker had told me it might only be $200 a month that I would receive, so don't get my hopes up. But since the respite sitter told my husband that $1200 figure, his hopes have been up. In California, if you have a disability, you qualify for government funded medical care, regardless of your income. But it takes forever to apply and get it all squared away. If a person qualifies for the government medical care, then they qualify for IHSS (money).
This had never been fully explained to me. I just figured that I wouldn't qualify for whatever it was because of modest income and assets. But that isn't the case.
Anyway, if anyone has money angst, or money-saving ideas, feel free to post here or do your own Money Blog entry. So far we have bagless vacuum cleaners, meat grinders, library cards, FreeCycle, garage/yard sales, Dollar Store, and I can't remember if there was anything else.
Probably an obvious
Probably an obvious one...coupons. My wife is the coupon queen and lives for sale prices. She cuts coupons every Sunday, then enjoys telling me how much we saved every week on groceries. Sometimes it is a lot of cash!
For me it is store circular
For me it is store circular ads. There are five grocery store chains that send ads and it is so worth the time it takes to read through and circle the deals. They make good visual shopping lists for Wyatt, too. If I don't have a PEC for the item, I cut out the ad picture and put it on a chunk of index card and then wrap the whole thing up in clear packing tape. I've started being lazy and just stapling the ad picture to a list for myself rather than write things down.
Most of the time, I'm too cheap to buy a Sunday paper, but I do love free coupons!!!
Just look at me replying woo
Just look at me replying woo hoo! Thanks Todd, you're the
greatest! As for saving money I want chickens sooooo bad
but Elsie would go nuts. She is very territorial. She hates
other dogs & cats, I can just see her runnin around the back
yard with a mangled hen in her mouth ugh. Dont forget a
good vegetable garden, one of these days we'll get around
to planting one. We always had a garden when I was a kid.
I was raised mormon so we had a years supply of non-perishable
food at all times. The food would be rotated. We always
had plenty of canned goods mom would buy on sale, rice,
beans, canned meat etc. And we had a small grain mill
that ran on electricity but could also be cranked by hand.
My folks made home made jam, jelly. Oh I have to tell a
funny story. When I was about sixteen I came home to
find my folks back by the pool slaughtering the chickens
that had stopped laying. Dad would catch them and ring
their necks and my mom was dunking each one in hot
water and removing the feathers. It reminded me of
the Beverly Hillbillies by the cement pond. So mom calls
to me "Sis, come learn how to do this." I freaked, I called
them "Blood thirsty murderers!" My mom chased me
around the pool with a broom lol, but at least I didnt
have to pull feathers off a chicken carcass!!!