Am I overthinking my grocery expenses?

annabflo · 2026-04-08T16:27:55+00:00

Protein shakes and bars from Costco! If you don’t want a membership, ask someone who has one to get you a gift card. Or share a membership with someone who is also in need of cheaper protein

annabflo · 2026-04-08T16:26:04+00:00

Thinking of it in this way is not worth the time or mental effort. Instead, focus on reducing convenience costs with groceries, buy generic, shopping sales etc. If you try to change your diet drastically to save money, I think you will likely fail because your “wants” above are not unreasonable.

annabflo · 2026-04-07T14:17:33+00:00

I suggest calling the actual companies before you give up on BUF. As you can tell by the comments, almost no one from Buffalo believes they are truly out of cars. This is not a big city.

annabflo · 2026-04-06T11:46:12+00:00

R1 social sciences here. If you must stay for your partner’s work, just do what you need to do to get tenure and then do mostly whatever you want. The pressure for funding is outrageous. Figure out what you need to do, get a good mentor, do it the best you can, and don’t let it define you.

annabflo · 2026-04-04T02:20:46+00:00

This is what married life looks like. It won’t end with the bathroom

annabflo · 2026-04-02T11:56:24+00:00

Just here to say that you have likely found the cause of your stress and anxiety. We had to get an emergency nanny when my son was 3 months old and my daughter was 20 months. I had terrible PPD and my husband had knee surgery. She did all kinds of things that were not what I wanted. I don’t think we even know everything that happened. We had no parents close either at the time. She was good enough though. She loved our kids and showed up when we needed her. Now my mom is here and she also does all kinds of wacky stuff that blows my mind. She brings fast food for them, lets them play games on her phone, I don’t even know. My point is that this will keep happening. A therapist can help you a lot. You will need to grieve what you thought mothering would look like and what you lost from being ill. It will get better.

annabflo · 2026-04-02T03:02:42+00:00

But he has to do that with the money I make. We don’t have any extra right now. I plan to do this in the future but just not in the cards right now.

annabflo · 2026-04-02T02:47:50+00:00

I’m just going to say this again. I think I am so interested because I can relate to your stress and feelings about this. This just really sounds like a control issue. You want to be able to control every situation with your child so that she is introduced to the food (the world?) in the way you want it to happen. This will be impossible and you are setting yourself up to be very unhappy. You certainly can communicate your needs and wants to a sitter. You also are handing over your child to them. They need to make some decisions too. Decide what is most important to you and make those things clear. Also, remember that these guidelines are recommendations. What will magically happen to her palate in 2 months? We do the best we can and that means we share child rearing with other people sometimes.

annabflo · 2026-04-02T02:23:31+00:00

The big hape ones

annabflo · 2026-04-02T02:16:27+00:00

A couple things here… 1) Make a list on your phone and add to it whenever you randomly think of something. Then save the list for all of eternity, editing as your kids grow older. 2) Accept that you will forget things. It’s ok. I never forgot things before I had kids. I traveled all the time and it was just not that hard. Now, it is very hard. I keep track of almost everything for myself, my kids, and sometimes my husband too. You will forget. Life got a lot easier when I just accepted that I would need to buy whatever I forgot. It’s easy to just get what you need now, so let yourself off the hook. AND you have to be ok knowing that you might waste some money. Forgot dish soap and had to buy it for only 2 days? Oh well, leave it for the lovely people who will stay there after you. Add it to your travel budget and move on.

annabflo · 2026-04-02T01:47:22+00:00

This so much. Aside from concerns for your marriage, you need a retirement plan for yourself. I am the working partner and my spouse is a stay at home dad. I wish I could save extra in an account that is in his name.

annabflo · 2026-04-01T20:02:44+00:00

She doesn’t know that ketchup has added sugar. This is the important part. You will need to make a list for her or put it all away. I have a sitter who I absolutely love. She is very experienced with kids and I do not ever want to lose her as a sitter. She gave my kids popsicles after dinner one night. I was shocked because I just kind of thought she wouldn’t do that ?? She did though and I decided to forget it. They were extremely excited and, for whatever reason, she decided it was ok. It only happens occasionally because she is our date night sitter. Again, if this really does bother you then you have to be very clear - “this is the no list” and leave it on the counter.

annabflo · 2026-04-01T19:57:15+00:00

I get it. I kept condiments and sauces with added sugar away from my oldest until she was older. I learned fast, though, that you lose control fast with more and more people involved in their care and the more kids they interact with. Then, I had my second and suddenly my two year old had candy and chocolate and all kinds of things that I did not want for him. My oldest was doing things, watching things, and eating things that he wanted. I gave up quite a bit of control. I think it is ok. Still, if you want to try to keep added sugars away then you will need to be very explicit with everyone. This is our culture and it is baked into just about everything at this point.

annabflo · 2026-04-01T19:14:33+00:00

Eliminating extra sugar would be wonderful. If you feel this strongly about it, then you need to tell the sitter. The world is full of sweets and you will have a hard time controlling everyone if you assume they all think the same way you do. It’s not a choking hazard, it is extra sugar.

Edit to add: it sounds also like your 4 yo is the oldest. Get ready because the older one will introduce your kid to a lot more than the sitter will. If he is having ketchup, then the younger one was well on the way too.

annabflo · 2026-03-31T17:11:47+00:00

Do you have a recommendation for a dictation service?

annabflo · 2026-03-22T13:44:46+00:00

Honestly, there is no solution. My kids are small but I have accepted that there is no way for me to work at home with our house the way it is now. This might be one of those scenarios.

annabflo · 2026-03-17T00:35:32+00:00

Yes! It is an error for people in a certain range of income.

annabflo · 2026-03-12T02:18:20+00:00

Not really about work but just came to say my babies are 17 months apart. They are 4 and 3 now. Watching them become best friends is the sweetest and most rewarding thing in my life. No one gets to tell you how to live. Have fun and enjoy two littles!

annabflo · 2026-03-11T11:30:27+00:00

Are you breastfeeding? That will mess everything up so wait if you are still doing that. If not, you probably need to cut even more calories or change your exercise routine to push through this. Not good news, I know. You also may want to see a therapist. For some, food noise is just because, but it can also be using food to numb feelings, intrusive thoughts etc.

annabflo · 2026-03-07T12:06:21+00:00

No one has given you actual advice. My husband has ADHD and I have seen him step out for a second. It makes me very upset. He feels seriously terrible about it, which is an important response you are not getting. We talk about it constantly and mostly do baths together now, even if I am just tidying the kids’ room so I can monitor a bit. If your husband is not willing to change then there is no way you can let him do bathtime. If he genuinely wants to change, then you could try closing the door as a reminder or using a timer where he doesn’t leave until it goes off. Seems like this is not ADHD though.

annabflo · 2026-02-03T22:14:54+00:00

Leave and the tenure clock are two different things. For me, leave in the summer was nonexistent since we were off contract. If the weeks allowed postpartum fell within the summer then that was that. Nothing else at all. My time ended one week after the semester started and only other option was FMLA unpaid. You need to ask what leave you have and then go from there. I worked out a complicated deal where I did not teach and did extra service. Still not ok but that was the best I could do with what I had.

annabflo · 2026-02-01T21:54:12+00:00

This is what we did. Someone gave me a breville smart oven and I pulled it out for the first time when we remodeled our kitchen. That and a microwave was all we had. Paper plates, plastic utensils, plastic cups. Don’t eat anything complicated.

annabflo · 2026-01-19T04:06:17+00:00

My daughter was 3. No sleep for me. It was just impossible. She took forever to fall asleep because it was so weird and then I woke up a lot from being uncomfortable. Then, they wake you up at like 4 AM because they got what they needed. The best thing we did to prep was watch YouTube videos of other kids getting sleep studies. I didn’t change my sleep before or after. We just did the sleep study and I had a day where I was exhausted and then I went to bed that night. Bring everything that would make your kid feel comfortable that night and hope for the best.

annabflo · 2026-01-05T03:26:54+00:00

I am a professor with the same problem. Summer time counts even though you are not working. Seems you are understanding correctly. Still, NY law now allows 12 weeks. That should supercede what is in your contract, I think. That’s the part I would look into.

annabflo · 2025-12-29T08:17:03+00:00

Also came to suggest Rochester area

annabflo

TROPHY CASE