Monday Q&A | Distractions, Early-Bedtime Difficulties, and Grocery Prices

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. I look forward to hearing from you!

You are at home with your kids, and I work during the day. I was wondering if you feel fully present when you’re at home””or if you feel fragmented, online, on the phone etc.? I’m trying to make a better effort of not checking email at night, etc.””so I can be fully present during family time. Just curious how you feel, focused and fully there with your family…or kind of fragmented?

-Karen S.

Well, I think that being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom of four children is sort of a fragmented, distracted kind of job! There are always things pulling me in different directions.

I do try to minimize this, though. Having a schedule/routine in place is really helpful, as is portioning of segments of the day where I do not get on the computer or talk on the phone. The TV is also a common distraction, so if that’s a temptation for you, I’d highly recommend turning it off during the time you want to spend with your family.

For instance, when we’re doing school, when I’m making dinner, when we’re having family worship, and during the block of time that I spend with Mr. FG each night, the phone and internet are off-limits to me (in case you missed it, I shared my current schedule recently).

Of course, it’s a struggle I’m always fighting against, because electronic distractions do a great job of lure us in. But being mindful of the temptation they represent and having a plan to keep your electronic usage under control is at least a good start.

I know you home educate and so you are not stuck with school times which allows possible freedom on a lot of things. What is it like, social wise, going to bed mid evening instead of the more “traditional” 10, 11 at night? For us, we might be eating at 8.30, or doing things with friends, or about to watch a movie etc… or on the odd occasion be asked out with friends or asked to baby sit. ie, our friend’s free time is the evening and so simple things like phone calls etc.. would not be possible if we went to bed early or got up early.

-Steve H.

It’s definitely a problem for us, especially because Mr. FG’s work schedule requires him to be in bed early on Friday evenings. It makes it hard to participate in church events, family gatherings, and such, because work nights are pretty much just out of the question for social stuff.

When he had a Monday-Friday schedule and a more reasonable bedtime/rising time, we had a lot more flexibility as far as getting together with other people goes.

So, yeah…we’re not at all fans of this schedule, and we’d dearly love for it to be changed. But when Mr. FG got this job, his other job was about to end due to outsourcing, and so we were not in a position to be choosy. You gotta do what you gotta do.

We certainly have times where we feel sorry for ourselves about this schedule, but we’re trying to make the best of it, and we’re well aware that other people have work schedules that are far worse (actually, one of Mr. FG’s old schedules was worse! He had to go to bed at 6:00 pm, and that was truly awful.).

I seriously don’t know how you can get SO much for SO little. I would be very curious to see how much each item cost. I spend TOO much on groceries and I only buy staples, no processed foods. I feel like I am buying 1/4 of the stuff you purchase and pay twice the amount. I am only feeding two people but I wonder if where I live staples are just more expensive. 4L of milk is right around $4.50 and a loaf of french bread is $1.50 for example.

-Ban C.

I’ve addressed this topic before, but I thought it was worth mentioning again. Yes, food costs vary greatly from area to area. I’m assuming you’re in Canada, since you mention milk in liters, and I can safely say that from what I see, food IS more expensive where you live (a gallon of milk at a non-Aldi store here costs $3.50 or so).

So, you could definitely be applying the same grocery shopping principles I use (drink water, buy unprocessed foods, buy generics, cook from scratch or near scratch, etc.) and be spending a lot more than I do.

Plus, if you live in an area where there is little grocery store competition or where there’s no discount store like Aldi, you’ll have a harder time making it with a low budget.

I would suggest not focusing as much on my grocery budget dollar amount as on my shopping principles ( a summary post on those is coming up soon)…if you apply the principles, then you can be fairly sure that you’re doing the best you can for your life situation.

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Readers, have at it! Share your thoughts. 🙂

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