Monday Q&A | Adjusting to an Early Schedule and Going Vegan

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line.

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My husband, like yours, recently got a promotion. YAY! But with this promotion came new work hours. He was working 9 am until 6 or 7 pm Monday through Friday. He now works 5 am until 3 or 4 pm. I was wondering if you had any tips for us?

When your family was on this type of schedule, did your older kids go to bed earlier as well? My 11 year old son is having trouble with getting in bed at 9:00 pm.

We are very grateful that my husband got his promotion, especially since there are so many in our area without jobs right now. But, I never thought his schedule change would cause this much chaos.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

-Kathy

Ooh! That’s a hard adjustment, considering that he had such a normal schedule before. I sympathize with you, because that’s how it was when my husband started his early hours…he’d had quite a flexible daytime shift before that.

I know just how you feel…being thankful for a promotion or just a job at all, but still feeling a little like, “Ack! What in the world am I supposed to do with these hours???”.

When we were on our early hours, Mr. FG and I headed to bed around 8:30, and Lisey and Joshua put themselves to bed between 8:30 and 9:30 depending on the night. Since they’re 10 and 12 and can be trusted to do what we tell them, that worked out just fine.

My kids sometimes complained about our early schedule (and they sometimes are unhappy with our current late schedule), but I just gently remind them that Mr. FG and I don’t think this is ideal either, and that we’ve all got to just make the best of it. I also remind them of the upsides of whatever schedule we have, and I remind them (and myself!) that we’re really grateful that Mr. FG has a job at all, and we’re even more grateful that he got a promotion.

Hang in there! Hopefully you guys will adjust soon.

My usual grocery bill each week wavers in the $100 range. We also get organic produce from a CSA (local farmers). Last week, trying to tighten our belt and make less of an impact on the environment and the world, we decided to leave out the meat and meat products. I was shocked when our grocery bill was only $54! I had not realized the financial impact of buying meat.

Now, I know you buy beef in bulk to save money and support local ranchers, but have you ever considered going vegan or partially vegan? Maybe one or two weeks a month? Have you done this and how did it work?

For us, if we “went vegan” one week a month, we could save $600 a year, which sounds terrific.

-Millicent

Going vegan wouldn’t work too well for us, mostly because Mr. FG loathes legumes, and those are a large part of a vegan diet. And I personally would be a very sad person without my butter, milk, cheese, and eggs.

We don’t eat a ton of meat, though…generally speaking, our breakfast and lunch meals are vegetarian. Our protein at those meals typically comes from yogurt, cheese, milk, eggs, and nuts.

Though I’m not personally convinced that a vegan diet is the ticket to health, I definitely don’t think that animal products have to be present at each and every meal, and if eating vegan part-time works for you, then go for it!

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Today’s 365 post: Tiny playing cards