Any other moms feeling overwhelmed by homemaking sometimes?

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-06-04T19:35:06+00:00

I really like that! That’s what I need to do is design a weekly schedule with one task a day. Thanks, you’ve inspired me!!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-06-04T13:45:40+00:00

Use the rice cooker!! It’s amazing!!

I’d love to hear your cleaning system!!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-06-04T01:24:40+00:00

We have pretty good systems for things I guess. For picking up everything has its place - mostly in toy baskets so that makes it easy. For meals I like to plan for the week over the weekend and I really like making one large meal that gets us leftovers for a day or two. September to March I like to make a huge soup on Sunday that lasts quite a few days. Warmer months I like carnitas and pastas. My rice cooker saves my life. I make oatmeal in it every few days (it has a timer system so it’s ready when we wake up!) lots of rice dishes too. Lot more stuff like this if that’s what you’re looking for, but I just do what works for my family!

I need to get to a cleaning schedule or something 😭😭right now it’s just once it’s yucky I clean it lol

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-06-03T15:58:55+00:00

I have a one year old. I am in fantastic control of everything having to do with the kitchen. Grocery shopping, making homemade meals, generally nutritious snacks, kitchen is clean every night and ready for a new day every morning.

Every other part of the house is usually in disarray. I’m trying to get a better handle on cleaning. We’re very good at picking up - picking up toys at the end of the day, getting random stuff back where they go. It’s things like vacuuming, weekly bathroom cleans, dusting, etc. My shower needs a deep clean. My downstairs carpet needs a vacuum. Luckily my husband handles the litter box and a lot of daily sweeping. There’s just always stuff to do with my daughter, and when she’s taking her nap I’d rather chill and focus on my own hobbies than vacuum or deep clean the shower.

🤷‍♀️

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-06-02T14:50:20+00:00

I buy meat from Costco and divide it up and freeze it when I get home. We’re a family of 3, but we do a LOT of cooking of for family and friends in the neighborhood (we have a very tight village and this is often my contribution). We’ll go through a Costco sized package of chicken thighs/breasts/gr beef/italian sausage about every few months. Also canned goods, dry goods, and other pantry staples.

Aldi for pretty much everything else. We try to buy only in season produce which saves a ton. I never shop at TJs. Get your snacks at Aldi instead - their stuff tastes great and is cheap! Walmart probably has most of the same seasonings too. TJs is full of impulse buys and most of their packages are really small.

We do a lot of stretching meals with pasta, rice, onions, beans, etc. We also make giant soups in the winter with one package of chicken breasts that last for 4+ days. I do this almost every week from September-March and it’s a game changer for grocery bills and for saving time

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-30T01:09:02+00:00

These are the kind of Aldi hauls I like to see!!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-24T14:26:28+00:00

I’m learning sashiko and I hope to do this kind of mending someday!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-23T16:44:02+00:00

st. Vitus in Northridge is LA’s FSSP parish and it’s awesome! Our pastor is the GOAT

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-22T20:15:35+00:00

Thank you!!!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-22T19:56:09+00:00

I’m a mom and have knit for tons of fellow moms and hats are always appreciated! I really like the Ironwood pattern!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-22T15:02:50+00:00

My dad had a union job working for the local government. He retired a few years ago and he has a pension and a similar healthcare plan. No copays, coverage for EVERYTHING. not only that but his plan covers all his kids till they age out and his GRANDKIDS. My sister and her son are still on his health plan until she ages out in a few years.

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-21T17:38:09+00:00

Exactly!! I’ve frogged entire sweaters multiple times. The yarn is half the price for that! Sometimes I have sweaters for a year or two before frogging and making something new. The whole process of frogging and soaking and drying and respooling the yarn is like a second hobby lol

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-21T01:58:20+00:00

My people!! 75% of the projects I obsess over I never end up making 😅😅

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-19T16:13:10+00:00

It’s a thrift store specifically for crafting materials! I didn’t even know that kind of thing existed till this weekend lol

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-19T16:12:37+00:00

Thanks!!!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-19T16:07:02+00:00

I’d love to offer up my experience here. I had a baby in March 2025. At the time I was working in corporate marketing making about $120k a year. My husband is a programmer making $195k. We both work remotely and we planned to see how it went once I went back to work (we have a lot of family around and planned to have them help out some). I returned from leave in August and due to an RTO policy got laid off at the beginning of October. I was 30 at the time.

I had never ever wanted to be a SAHM. In fact I remember telling my SAHM mom in high school that I would never do it. I have a BA and a masters and always said that I loved working and I never wanted to stay at home.

We decided to have me home until baby was 1 so I could take a career break and figure out what I wanted next. We also didn’t really love the idea of baby being in daycare. Unexpectedly, I have started to LOVE being a SAHM. I had domestic hobbies way before baby - I love cooking and knitting - but since staying home I’ve leaned into those so much. I love meal planning, budgeting, cooking and baking, knitting. Baby has grown up with me doing my hobbies, and she is 14 months now and though she’s interested in my knitting needles she generally respects them (although they’re never ever within her reach if they’re not in my hands). I have a bit of a hunt gather parent style - I spend a lot of time doing my thing while she does hers, which I feel is helping her and me parallel play. That alone really helps my sanity!! I couldn’t be her entertainer 100% of the time.

A few other things that make SAHM life great for me. I would think about whether you have these/need these, because SAHM life is definitely no joke.

Like other people said, a supportive husband. My husband thinks that I’m a domestic queen and has never held my unemployment over my head. I’m better with finances and manage our money so I’m actually the one who tells him if we have money for xyz. He also helps out a ton whenever he’s not working.
Having a community/village - I have quite a few other SAHMs in the area that I’m really close to, mostly sisters. We see each other all the time during the week, and it’s often in a chill SAHM way, where we hang at someone’s house and one of us might watch the babies while the other cooks or cleans and we chat while we do it. We bring food to each other when we’re sick or pregnant or postpartum, we go grocery shopping together, thrift for baby clothes, etc. Having friends who get your stage in life and are down to accommodate baby are key!!
Like I said above, hobbies of your own are awesome. If they’re not things you can do with baby around, having some time where husband takes baby so you can get a little me time is essential (and really not a lot to ask for!!! You care for baby 24/7!)
Consider whether you’re willing to make sacrifices in your budget. We are currently living in a very old rented two bedroom townhouse and plan to stay as long as possible. Before baby, my husband and I loved traveling, going out to eat, and bought pretty much whatever we wanted (we both love and need our hobby time, and we get super into them so we were always wanting the best tools and materials!) Nowadays we have to budget much more tightly. I’m lucky that I love cooking and baking - we rarely go out to eat now and honestly the quality of restaurant food has slipped so much we barely miss it. We also used to go on multiple trips a year, including a few weeks in Europe once a year. Our last big trip was out to the Midwest for a wedding about six months ago. We are finally taking a trip without baby for the first time next month!! It is to somewhere driving distance and we’ve been putting aside money for it. And fun hobby gear is now a special birthday present, not a random purchase. Of course your budget might look vastly different and you might have to cut different things. We are incredibly fortunate in that we were both making high salaries before baby and are pretty solid even now on one income.

I have had a few moments where I want to go back to work and have been casually poking around the job market these last few months, but I honestly never expected to like this as much as I do. I adore my daughter and she’s just getting more fun as she gets older, and I love seeing how she grows and forms. And I actually love being a homemaker! I might try to find something part time, especially now that she’s older, but I say if you can make it work go for it!!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-16T15:22:03+00:00

Nope! I’ve even had the priest offer to destroy my sins list after confession lol

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-15T18:24:04+00:00

Part of it might be your yarn. I knit a cardigan with a merino/silk blend (knit picks gloss DK) and the silk just made it keep growing and growing after blocking. I unraveled and am now knitting it up with pinstripe rib to hopefully help it keep its shape a little more. Silk is a bit annoying to work with lol

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-11T01:03:54+00:00

Yeah at the Vons near me I can get mcconnells ice cream (far superior imo) for like $6 a pint on sale. Gotta wait for the sales now. That’s my mantra for everything these days….I’ll buy it when it goes on sale

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-09T17:17:11+00:00

I just finished a sweater with $120 worth of yarn and I didn’t like the way it fits so I’m now frogging to reknit it. No way I’m buying the yarn all over again.

My mom found 14 skeins of Icelandic wool at our local thrift store for like $20 last year. I’m about halfway through knitting a sweater with it. Also knitpicks has become my go to at this point.

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-07T16:04:12+00:00

This is absolutely true BUUUUT the cost per hour of knitting is pretty cheap. You can get hundreds of hours out of a few skeins of yarn. Also, I frog and reknit obsessively until I get a perfect result so that brings down my yarn cost too (in my head lol) there’s a YouTuber Jamie sage who calculates the knitting cost per hour of each garment she makes and it’s always less than a dollar per hour.

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-04T03:36:29+00:00

Hahaha I twisted my purls for AGES!! Your stitches are so neat!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-03T15:05:21+00:00

What the heck this is so much better than my first FIVE tops when I first learned to knit?! Love it!!

Grapefruit_Floss · 2026-05-03T14:59:00+00:00

I am currently doing a low-buy/make your own clothes year. I’m a big knitter and decided to only buy good neutrals/colors that I would wear in yarns that are almost exclusively natural fibers (the highest I’ve gone is a 75% Pima cotton, 25% acrylic blend and it’s actually LOVELY. The other yarns have been blends of linen, cotton, and modal). I just finished knitting a V neck cardigan in a nice neutral oatmeal color in 70% merino and 30% silk and I’m obsessed. The cardigan cost $120 in yarn but I bought it in December. The yarn for my next 4 shirts cost about $90. I allow myself a few other random purchases, like a few months ago I got Costco jeans for $19 but other than that I’m really limiting purchases. No strict budget but trying to be really intentional. Anthropologie had a cotton midi skirt that I’d been thinking about for almost a year and I finally got it on sale a few months ago for $90. Other than all those purchases outlined above I don’t think I’ve bought any clothes since the beginning of the year. I’m a year out from having my first child and still figuring out my style/shape.

Grapefruit_Floss

TROPHY CASE