A lot has gone in in the past few weeks. And I’ve had a hell of a time staying awake through any of it.

Work got interesting. Up until recently I was salary non-exempt. Meaning I was salary in that I was required to work a minimum of 40 hours a week and I got paid a certain rate per hour, so no matter what I brought home a certain amount of money per-week. Technically if I worked under the 40, I still brought home that amount. So I was salary. However, if I worked over 40 hours a week I got paid per hour over that amount, not time and a half, but still the regular rate.

Now, I’m just regular full-time required to work an average of 37.5 hours a week. For the next few weeks I’m only getting 35 hours. But as long as it averages out to at least 37.5 at the end of the year, I’m good.

I could see this as good news or bad news. Since I was making about 50$ a week more than I could before Pat started losing benefits and we started losing insurance, I’m going with good news.

That’s the thing… with my husband being on disability I can’t just work more to increase our cash flow. For every dollar I make over a certain amount, he loses two. If I were making a ton of money, that wouldn’t be a huge deal. But I’m not, so that loss really hurts us. I’m all for not spending my life dependent on the government. But with the current state of the economy and the cost of health care, dude you gotta do what you gotta do.

It’s funny because when my sister found out I was pregnant with Luke, she went on this huge rant, to my mom cuz god forbid she take her grievances to my face, about how I couldn’t afford another kid. How could I when 2 months after her birthday she finally decided what she wanted me to get her and told me so and my response was that she’d have to wait a couple of weeks for me too work it into the budget, but I’d be happy to. Her point was that if I couldn’t afford a present for her, how could I afford a kid. An understandable point. But let’s look at the facts.

1. 2 months after her birthday is about a month before my oldest’s birthday. So my “spare” money was focused on his presents and his party. I had her in the budget the month of her birthday. She refused to come forward with ideas, I moved on.

2. We budget around here. We keep some emergency money for just in case. But aside from that, every paycheck is pre-planned about a month in advance. We know when bills hit, about when we’ll run out of diapers and plan a certain amount weekly for groceries and gas. This allows us to afford everything we need and gives us some extra for fun. We don’t use credit cards. if we don’t have the cash, we don’t have the item. So asking me for something out of the blue and expecting it within a week, not going to happen.

3. I was prepared to spend a good 100$ or more on her birthday because I wasn’t able to do anything for the previous Christmas and felt bad. So 100$ out of the blue, well see point 2.

So really, I’m not sure how valid her point was.

Now consider this.

Every member of our family allows me to work that many more hours before my husband starts losing his SSI. He was, at that point at his max. So it wasn’t going to go up no matter how many kids I popped out. But I was going to be able to work more. Without Luke, my promotion with both hours and pay increase would have landed him at nothing, and we’d be homeless… Despite the fact I now work more hours for more money per hour. Chew on that.

So basically, because of Luke, we can afford Luke. And believe it or not, we can afford a third when the time comes. With the added benefit of not going bankrupt because I accidentally worked overtime 2 weeks in a row.

I have more to post but that was long winded enough as is, so I’ll touch on the rest later. I promise.

For now I leave you with this. We’ll call him, tax deduction #2.