Family Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

Best Baby Gear – 2023 Guide For New Parents

Last Updated: May 27, 2023 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Are you wondering what to buy when you’re expecting your first baby? Are you looking for the best baby gear?

Whether you are currently pregnant or if you are a new parent, there are so many things to think about and research.

Marlowe, my first child, was born less than one year ago, and I am constantly researching questions about the best baby gear.

When I was pregnant, it felt like all I did was look up the top things a baby needs.

I remember looking up everything from what the best strollers were to what I could do financially to best prepare for a baby. There are so many companies to buy the best baby items from, and everyone has an opinion on what’s best.

Because I was so overwhelmed in the beginning, I decided to put together a blog post that outlines must-have baby items for first-time moms, plus the best baby gear whether it’s your first or 5th child!

My hope is that I can answer many of your questions, so you don’t have to spend nearly as much time researching things as I did.

And, I definitely think this will be helpful because I have been writing, researching, and gathering information for this article ever since I found out I was pregnant. I quickly realized that there wasn’t one easy-to-read guide for new parents, and that’s where this article comes in.

The areas we will talk about in this best baby gear guide include:

Pregnancy, birthing, and new parent courses
All about different baby registries
How to get a free baby box
Pregnancy and new mom gear
Best baby gear
Baby bath and diapering essentials
Baby sleep essentials
Breastfeeding gear
Baby clothing
What you need to financially prepare for a baby
How to take maternity leave when self-employed

Now, you definitely do not need everything on this list.

Babies don’t really need much other than food, sleep, and some clothing items. So, no matter your budget, please remember that your baby will be happy and healthy! Also, for every expensive baby item, there are also great budget-friendly baby items as well! [Read more…]

I’m a Female Breadwinner! I Earn Much More Than My Husband – So What?

Last Updated: May 27, 2023 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 77 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

It is less and less uncommon to have a female head of household, and it works very well for many couples. However, these changing roles can bring new challenges for both sides of the relationship.

I know this is true because I am a female breadwinner. In 2016, I earned nearly $1,000,000 from my business, and I am on track to earn even more 2017.

Even though I am the breadwinner, my husband takes on an equally important role in our relationship. He is responsible for the majority of the behind the scene duties that allow us to live a great life. He does help with the blog, but he is mainly in charge of us traveling full-time, cleaning, making our meals, managing the household, and more. He even makes sure that I am taking care of myself, especially making sure that I manage a good work-life balance.

We have a great relationship, and that’s because we make equal contributions to our relationship.

However, because I am a female breadwinner, it means that people often pass negative judgements on the both of us.

If our roles were reversed, it would be no big deal to have my husband as the sole breadwinner. Most would actually applaud him for his financial contribution and wouldn’t bat an eye at me taking on the role he plays in our relationship. [Read more…]

Do You Have An Emergency List For Your Family?

Last Updated: December 16, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 46 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

In our household, I manage most of the bills, financial accounts, and more. I know I’m not alone either – in most families, one person usually handles all of these things.

I’ve been in charge of our important information for years, mainly because it’s just something I know I can do and we’ve fallen into a routine now after doing this for so long.

Recently though, we realized that this could turn into a financial emergency disaster. I manage everything just from my memory, so nothing is actually written down and most of our bills are either auto-pay or paperless, so there is no paper record in our house of anything either.

This could be a financial emergency disaster because if something were to happen to me, I honestly do not know what Wes would do. It would make everything much more difficult for him when he would already be having a hard time, and that is not something anyone wants to deal with. Having some sort of financial emergency response plan is something we need to create.

While to some this situation may be no big deal, I know there are many, many families out there who would be very lost if something were to happen to the person who usually manages their financial situation. Accounts could get lost, bills may be forgotten about, and more.

It’s best to keep a financial emergency response plan of everything just in case something were to happen, even if it’s something no one ever wants to think about. Having one just makes life so much easier.

My top tip is to check out the In Case of Emergency Binder to help you with creating your own emergency binder. This is a 100+ page fillable PDF workbook. The In Case of Emergency Binder was created to remove significant complications from the process and help you actually get your important information ready. The research is done, the workbook is put into easy to follow sections, and everything you need is included. Please check it out here.

Below are three easy steps to creating a financial emergency response plan for your family. [Read more…]

Clean Eating and $1,910 in Extra Income

Last Updated: May 26, 2023 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 41 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

No new picture for this week, so here’s an old one. Miami 2011.

Hi everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend. It was a pretty slow weekend for me. Just cleaning up around the house and trying to relax.

I wanted to give all of you an update on my Reconnecting with Family post that I made back in January. I CALLED MY AUNT ON SATURDAY! I’ve been debating about this forever and would call and then hang up just because I was nervous. She told me that she’s been doing the same and that she was really glad that I called.

We played phone tag a couple more times after the first time I called because she couldn’t talk for much the first time. But on Sunday we talked for nearly an hour. It was great. It was nice talking to her. We didn’t really talk about my dad at all. She would chime in every now and then and would say that he would be proud of me, but then every couple of minutes she would say that she wished she could talk about my dad but that she didn’t want to turn it into a depressing phone call. I’m still not really ready to talk about him without getting upset, so I am fine with that. Anyway, it was nice talking to her and I’m glad that I finally called.

I did ask about my grandfather and was about to ask for his phone number so that I could call him, but she said he had passed away. They weren’t close so she didn’t say much about it, and I didn’t really want to ask. I wish I would have reconnected earlier of course, and will just have to live with this regret. I spent every summer with my grandfather when I was younger, and we visited all the time, so I am sad… I wish I could say more, but it’s hard to type this so I’m just going to completely switch the subject.

So, I recalculated everything with my student loans and expected payoff, and I decided to wait until May (next month) to pay off my student loans. I really don’t want to empty everything out of our emergency fund just to pay off my student loans early, so I decided to wait until next month. I know, I know, PF FAIL especially since it seems like we have been spending a crazy amount on everything. Oh well oh well I failed you all 😛

Spending

We didn’t really do too much shopping this past week. We did go to Lowes and buy some things for the house (spent $300 on plants and a fire pit, AH!) but luckily we have a gift card that covered all of it and still have a lot more left on the gift card thankfully!. There are still a lot of other things for the house that we need to buy, and we will get to all of that eventually.

Extra Income (does not include income from our main jobs)

Extra income went back up last week and it was a good week. I’m still working on increasing affiliate income, and I’m currently try to think of new ways to increase it. I’m also looking to diversify my income even more. What to you do to diversify? What about passive income? I want to get more into passive income. HELP!

Also, Lance is looking for a potential staff writer for his blog. I know that a ton of you are always seeing if I know of any opportunities, so here you go. Email him!

Food – Clean Eating!

We are doing AWESOME with our food spending this past week. We hardly ate out (I honestly can’t think of anything major), and we made really good meals every night. I started following a lot of “healthy eating” and “clean eating” people on Instagram and have been using their recipes for our meals every night. One of my favorite healthy Instagramers is FITalacious. She makes super cheap meals that actually taste pretty good. Have you ever heard of her? Who do you love on Instagram?

Our menu plan for next week includes a lot of grilled salmon, grilled chicken, brown rice, vegetables, peppers and so on. Usually we eat pretty unhealthy every night. Everything would be doused in dressing, cheese, sugar, butter or something else. Surprisingly, we have been eating everything more “clean,” which means that we’re not really adding anything to our food besides lemon. We’re both really working on eating more healthy and “clean” foods. We’ve also been enjoying the food more this way, I guess that’s just what happens when you eat extremely unhealthy for so long – you just start craving more healthy food! What’s on your meal plan? Share any links, recipes, pictures and so on in the comments below.

Being healthy

I’m doing AWESOME with this. Look above 🙂 I’ve also been doing a lot better with running. Haven’t used the treadmill too much lately. I feel bad running inside the house because my dog just sits at the end of the treadmill and makes me feel guilty for not running with her… So instead I’ve just been running outside with her.

Spending

Extra Income (does not include income from our main jobs)

Food – Clean Eating!

Being healthy

Have you been doing well with your extra income, spending and being healthy?