The Frugal Fridays. The money talk...

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Since it's the end of the month, it's only appropriate to start talking budgets and balances, right? :) I mentioned a few times before that August was a complete bust for us. But the whole summer was very expensive. In fact, with things popping here and there, we hardly put anything into savings in the past three months and not a dime in August. Well, we even dipped into savings this month... But I hope to bump it back very soon.

Today I got a very pleasant surprise. I don't know how I miscalculated it before but for some reason I thought that our 3-paycheck month will be in December. I'm due at the end of November (technically, December but I will be induced earlier if I even make it that far). We were going back and forth about getting a month of FMLA so my husband can be with us for the first few weeks after the twins are born. We won't get much help from anywhere else, and I'm not sure how I would take care of 4 kids completely on my own in the first weeks. But since FMLA is unpaid it will put quite a burden on our family, especially because I won't be able to work for a few months and because our savings will take a huge hit when all the medical bills will start rolling in...

And that's why a 3-pay check OCTOBER was such a pleasant surprise! I have no idea how I counted before but that's so awesome!! I really didn't want to lose that money and now we can beef our savings and put it towards weeks at home. My goal (or at least a desire) is to add another $1000 to it before the babies are here to be able to afford FMLA. Of course, at this stage, I cannot really plan anything. Nobody knows what next week will bring. But it doesn't mean we won't try to do our part and leave the rest in the hands of the Lord...

The next three months will bring tremendous changes to our lives, emotionally, financially and even physically. I'm trying to prepare myself and all of our family mentally but I realize that some things you just can't be prepared for (I wish, I could stock up on sleep, among other things...). It's kind of weird because usually these are the months when I try to get all the ducks in a row, make Christmas shopping one of the priorities and prepare for next year. This time everything but my family will be on the back burner. And I'm fine with that but it WILL be and is an adjustment that is very foreign for me. What can I say? I do love to have everything under control? :) Maybe, that's why God is sending me four kids to put me back into my place, lol? :)

So what does your fall looks like? Do you plan your finances month to month or do you work with longer periods of time in mind? Have you started planning for Christmas yet?