Friday, January 27, 2012

Not so frugal week

I have been so busy this week trying to get things done that I haven't had a lot of time to work on being frugal. As some of you know I am now caring 24/7 for my elderly uncle who has dementia. Anyway he has lost his apartment because they do not allow you to live there if you have to have 24 hour care like he does. So we been having to find room to place some of his stuff. Its been divided between my house and my brothers. I have given over two rooms of my house to my uncle. He is using my den as his bedroom and the enclosed porch right off the den is his sitting room. It was my sewing and craft room till he moved in and I have had to find some place to put all my sewing and craft supplies.

I haven't had much time for cooking this week between moving my stuff out of the rooms and putting his in but we did manage to only have to eat take out once this week. The other nights I cooked hamburgers at home or sausage, fried egg and cheese burgers. We have to have his apartment empty by this coming Monday and then I will be able to have more time to cook.

There is a frugal side to having more than one generation living in the same house but there are drawbacks as well. Two generations living in the same house can split the bills making it easier on both. Grandparents are close by to help with little ones and young adults are there to help the elderly. If you can come up with agreeable living arrangements it can make life better for all involved. If you can't agree on the arrangements then you should not try living together.

There are three generations living in my house right now. My uncle, my husband and I and our son. Our had his own apartment but only had a part time job and when winter came his hours got cut and he could no longer afford the apartment. It was taking his whole months wages just to pay the rent, electric and heat. The poor kid had no money for food. He wouldn't let us know about it and by the time we found out he had lost over 30 lbs and was down to eating food they threw away at closing time at work which was not always a lot. We let him move back home with us and now he pays room and board, has a little better paying part time job and is taking college courses online to get his degree.

There are times when all of us don't get along. It's hard dealing with an elderly person that has dementia and is going through the "sundowning" stage. He is up all night and wants to sleep all day. I have to fight to keep him awake during the day time which means I get cussed and yelled at. And some times he throws things at me. But I just keep plugging along making all the noise I can to keep him awake. Not even the sleeping pills the doctor put him on keep him asleep for more than an hour.

My son works second shift so he stays up all night and sleeps all day so when I need help from him and have to wake him up he is a grouch. Hey can I help it that on my last job I had to get up at 4am every morning for work. I am a day time person. I need sunlight to get me going. Not lamp light. LOL I am ready to crawl into bed by 9 pm not that I ever make it by then. I don't get to  bed much before midnight and then I am up with uncle 3-4 times a night and as soon as the clock strikes 5 am I am up and wide awake. I do not take naps unless I am sick because if I take a nap I can kiss going to sleep at night goodbye.

But like I said earlier. There are good points about more than one generation living under the same roof. In most cases there is a sharing of household chores, helping with caring for the little ones and less expense for all involved when there is only one house to pay for. It take the same amount of power to cook for 10 as it does two. So there is a savings there. It takes less to light one room in one house then one room in two houses and so on.

If you decide to let someone move in with you sit down and weigh all the pros and cons. Make sure everyone agrees on a price for room and board and make sure the household chores are split as evenly as possible so they are fair to all involved. Make sure everyone has a space to call their very own. And make sure everyone has a place or a time to watch what they want to on tv After doing all of that you should be able to have a peaceful living arrangement for all concerned.

No comments:

Post a Comment