Mo Money Mo Problems | Heir to Blair

These are my confessions.

2 Jun posted by heirtoblair

A little over six months ago, I made a startling confession.

When I wrote it, I was all “Blair, you can’t write this. There’s almost a year of ramblings that point otherwise.” But I wrote it & it felt good & I compared the emotion to a warm Snuggie. & I’ve got another confession.

I like being a work-outside-of-da-home mom.

After a solid year of relunctantly dragging my ass to work & fuming that I was missing Yogurt Mountain playdates with my besties & their kiddos, I have come to the realization that my career life is pretty swell. I’m pretty good at it. & I like it.

It comes when I start thinking & discussing career growth & opportunities. I get that adrenaline slug that I used to get every day when I walked through the business school doors. I start thinking about learning & kicking ass & I get all tingly inside. I always knew I wanted to be in business. I always knew I’d be a working mom. It’s about damn time those two reconciled.

It’s there when I close a sale & know that I just put money in our pockets & even more money in my employer’s pockets. (far, far more money)

I owe a lot of it to some pretty amazeballs friends of mine that prove you can still be an amazing mom with an eight-to-five. You just make up for it on Saturday mornings with playdates in the park. The strength in numbers that comes from my growing posse of working mommas gives me confidence to face the world with a “Yeah, what of it?” when people ask if I work.

& my stay-at-home-momma friends who have never once given me judgment or flack. Once I pulled my head out of my ass, we started making dinner dates at Chick-fil-a & they make sure I’m invited to events, just in case I might be off work. (it’s a true story that I do not deserve my friends)

It has it’s challenges, of course, & if you’re interested in hearing me bitch about getting my house clean & finding time to work out or worrying that my kid will need therapy, the blog archives are calling your name.

But when I think about staying home…it just doesn’t feel so completely “right” for me anymore. Harrison is happy & loved during the day by his auntie. I am growing comfortable with my time limits. I’m setting career goals. We have a routine down that suites our personalities & lifestyle. I wouldn’t miss the commute, of course, but I would miss the meetings & weird typing sounds in the still of the office. When I get frustrated & have the moments that we all do in the office where I want to throw up my hands & walk out? I can admit that I’d probably be job hunting within 48 hours.

& of course, working outside of the home means I have legit reason to order groceries online that nobody can argue. I really hate grocery shopping.

It’s not to brag. It’s to simply say that I’ve made peace & even gone a step further passed general acceptance of my fate into really grabbing it by the balls & making it my own.

HeirtoBlair500x150 v41 These are my confessions.

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Filed Under: Adult Club, I have real-life friends, I wish parenting came with a manual, Mo money mo problems, Outsourcing Parenting Skills, Potential for Doocing, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child, Unpopular opinions

Real Simple (not just a magazine I adore)

10 Jan posted by heirtoblair

Two days ago, I turned in our cable boxes.

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

It was like cutting an umbilical cord made of wires & screws. I even got a little misty-eyed as I shut down the DVR for the final time, saying goodbye to the saved Carolina basketball games of the 2008-2009 season & my Lipstick Jungle episodes (curse you, NBC, for cancelling my weekly dose of Brooke Shields!). When I tell folks of our new freedom, the first question is always “WHY?!” quickly followed by, ”What will you do about television?!” The first, I shall address in a moment. The reply to the second? Not a damn thing.

Nate & I have discussed cancelling cable for the past year, once Harrison made his entry into the world. Mostly, to save money. We are constantly searching for ways to cut costs so that I may one day stay home, but alas, knocking $100 off our monthly bills doesn’t quite cut it yet. & when it boils down to time, we’re looking at maybe 4 hours in the evenings between arriving home & bedtime. & those 4 hours will already be full of dinner, bedtime routines, working out, & getting ready for the following day. But we never could bring ourselves to make the first move. Until this week.

The first nudge came from an old friend of mine who cancelled her own cable in favor of Apple TV as a response to her new full-time job as a mother. It’s always easy to fantasize about cutting something so drastic (at least, drastic in American culture), but so hard to pull the plug. But to see someone else take that step? It’s like a light goes off that says, “HEY! You can do this & not wither away into irrelevant oblivion!”

Drawing inspiration on Nish’s courage, I tried to cancel. No, really. I actually called the cable company on Tuesday morning & told them I was cancelling. “But Mrs. Blair,” the customer service rep asked with a gasp. “How will you watch your shows? You don’t really think you can be completely televison-less, do you?” I stuttered. “I’ll tell you what,” the rep crooned. “I’ll lower your bill for you. How about that? $98 per month? You’ll have to cancel your DVR, but that is $50 off your bill.” A few nice words later, I hung up.

DAMN IT ALL TO HELL. He got me. That conniving little bastard, probably high-fiving the headset in the cubicle next to him, smug over keeping one more idiotic fish in the Time Warner sea.

But then Wednesday afternoon, we received our cable bill. $140. With a notice of rate increases that would raise our bill to roughly $150 per month. This tidbit of information was about as well received as Tiger Woods at a Promise Keepers meeting.

So Thursday, I steeled my mind. Crawled in the dust behind both televisions, disconnected the boxes, loaded them & Harrison up in the Subaru, & drove downtown to the cable company. Where I promptly dropped a box of equipment on the counter & said, “We quit.” I like to think that I looked quietly determined & that is why the lady silently took the equipment with no further offers, but the truth is that between Harrison squawking in his car seat, the dirt smear on my cheek from the dusty cable boxes, & me still feel duped by the customer service rep, I probably looked one Prozac away from a padded cell.

Forty-eight hours into being a cable-free family, Nate & I both agree it is the best thing we’ve done since reproducing. We haven’t even hooked the cord into the wall to receive our free channels. It’s so easy to lose track of the mindless hours we spend in front of a television, not paying attention to each other or life. Today, we woke up & fixed a hot breakfast – biscuits & gravy for him, Nutrisystem pancakes for me. We played with Harrison as a family for over an hour - not just one of us half-assedly batting a rattle while the other channel surfs. Nate emptied the dishwasher without being asked (because y’all, he wasn’t sucked into a golf tournament). We read more -outloud & to ourselves. We play board games. Our Wii now hosts several old school games that take us back 20 years. We laugh more – with each other, not at a cartoon prancing across the screen.

So our television stand may be empty. But our lives are far more full of this:

and this:

I think we’ve gained more than $120 in our bank account, don’t you?

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Filed Under: Adult Club, Life in General, Mo money mo problems

17 Apr posted by heirtoblair

Good news on the insurance front!

Nate’s policy came back with a quote $100 less than my company, which is glorious & affordable.

So it’s a fairy tale ending — HJ is insured & we don’t eat beans for the rest of our lives!

aaaaaaand I have a bowl of cheese grits to begin my Friday. So it’s going to be a GLORIOUS day.

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Filed Under: Adult Club, Mo money mo problems

Ice cream replaced gin. But I still need meetings.

15 Apr posted by heirtoblair

If you couldn’t tell, yesterday was “Blair Freaks Out Like an Over-emotional & Over-indulged Stereotypical Pregnant Chick” Day.

Glorious.

I suppose we’re all entitled to at least ONE day in these mind-numbing 40 weeks of pregnancy, and personally, I’d like to keep it at just one. As for the NT scan results, I have finally simmered the eff down, so many thanks to those who left encouraging comments & emails.

To try & break down the insurance debacle into a more coherent structure, here are the situation’s fine points:

My understanding regarding my insurance was that all maternity costs, labor & delivery, hospital charges for baby, etc would all be lumped under “general insurance” & my regular out-of-pocket max & fees.
Nate has good private insurance through his company. I am not on his insurance because it would cost roughly $450/month to insure me privately, due to maternity, asthma, & my heart condition.
My understanding was completely wrong — since I have ZERO maternity benefits (that’s right, NONE) then HJ is not automatically covered by my policy. The moment I push HJ out of my vag or the doc lifts him/her out via uterine sunroof, HJ must have his/her own policy. My insurance will cover no nursery costs, pediatrician visits, hospital costs, etc.
I learned yesterday that to add HJ to my insurance policy, my costs will soar $240 per month, meaning that we will pay almost $300/month to insure me & HJ. We will also have a $6,000 out-of-pocket max to reach.

So freak-out ensued. I called Nate in a panic on his office phone, which generally signifies EMERGENCY-OH-MY-GOD-HUSBAND-ANSWER-YOUR-DAMN-PHONE-NOW. I’m sure you all understand having a wee code between spouses that signifies the world is coming to an end, right? Nate, being the beloved husband he is, called me “sweetie” and said he’d talk to his insurance guy the moment I could pull my shit together & stop hyperventilating into his ear. & he found out this:

His insurance, of course, refuses to cover me now that I am knocked up. So I must stick with my current insurance.
His insurance guy basically blows Nate off without giving him a quote & after Nate pressed him, said that $300/month sounded about right.
I’m pretty sure my husband used genteel Southern graces to display his distaste with the insurance guy’s laziness. Or at least, used some of my favorite 4-letter words.
So said asshole insurance guy is visiting Nate today to give him a quote to add HJ to his policy after birth.

Now MASSIVE freak-out occurred, where I sobbed in my car & then ran home to stuff my face with a half-pint of Heath Bar ice cream (which, by the way, is incredibly tasty & highly recommended). While I hoarded Heath Bar chips in my cheeks like a chipmunk, Nate & I sat down & discussed our options:

We add HJ to my policy, meaning hospital charges will definitely be covered. While we are prepared to pay the 6K out-of-pocket max if need be, the monthly cost is daunting. But we can swing it, providing my car keeps trucking.
We take the risk of HJ being healthy & purchase private insurance that will cover HJ 30 days after birth. After brief discussion, this is a huge risk that we’re not willing to take since it would mean HJ is uncovered for the first 30 days of life.
Nate’s company offers a policy that will insure HJ from the moment s/he is born, that is less than my insurance’s option.

Obviously, we are praying for #3. If #3 does not pan out, we will choose #1 & simply work room into the budget for the costs. Hopefully Nate will have a quote tonight & we can make a decision quickly & prepare for it. I know it will all work out in the end, but right now, I pretty much feel like a hamster on a wheel & it’s hard to function through the hormonal panic. I feel like I’m missing some important piece, or doing something wrong…maybe one of you can find something amiss about what I have outlined?

oh, and p.s. Target brand granola bars are far too chewy. Like they sat in a vat of lard or water or something equally not tasty.

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Filed Under: Adult Club, Mo money mo problems

mild panic attack turned into MASSIVE panic attack

14 Apr posted by heirtoblair

Reaffirming that I have ZERO maternity benefits, therefore HJ will not be covered by my insurance the moment I squeeze his/her fat little cheeks out of my vagina.

Unless, of course, I want to multiply my monthly insurance cost by 10 for the next year and double my out-of-pocket expense.

::paper bag fails, blair faints cold on the floor::

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Filed Under: Adult Club, Mo money mo problems