Did May even happen? It seriously flew by for me. How is half of this year gone?? I know this year has been nuts for everyone. Danny and I were talking about what our year has been like last night. In early January, I had massive hemorrhaging and blood clots that wound me up in the hospital for a week and on bed rest for 9 weeks. February was thus spent on bed rest for me. I had a two week break of fun in March, and then we started social distancing for ~8 weeks, so all of April was isolated and some of May. Danny got to go back to work in May, and then our twins were born! And then I had a million health problems and we stayed in the hospital for an extra week haha. It’s been crazy. Anyway, here are May’s 10 things:
WE HAD TWINS!
Our sweet babes joined our family on May 16, weighing in at 6lb 6oz and 7lb 9oz! We are so thankful they are healthy and happy and the sweetest snuggliest babies around. We’ve been waiting so long for them and are truly so thankful they are here.
I HAD A C-SECTION AND A NATURAL DELIVERY!
After laboring for about 12 hours, I had Baby A unmedicated and vaginally with a third degree tear to boot. Unfortunately Baby B’s umbilical cord was in the way so he got to arrive by c-section, haha. That was literally my biggest fear for my delivery and it was fairly traumatic but I will say a c-section is not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Recovery from both has also been better than I expected, for which I’m very grateful. Our hospital bills are starting to roll in and they are extremely nauseating haha. I had to spend a few extra days in the hospital because my hemoglobin levels were extremely low (had to get a blood transfusion) and I developed pre-eclampsia during labor (had super high blood pressure) and no matter how much blood pressure medication they seemed to give me, it would not budge! That part was honestly more traumatic for me than having both a c-section and natural delivery. Because of the coronavirus, we couldn’t have visitors which made our 7 day stay feel like a lifetime. We were in a very tiny hospital room that didn’t have any natural light and I was hooked up to an IV and a million medications the whole time. It felt like prison– we are SO thankful to be home! Anyway, I’m glad I’ve had some experience negotiating hospital bills [Related: How to Lower Your Hospital Bill] and so thankful for our health share ministry that will reimburse the cost of this crazy delivery. [Related: Should I Join a Health Share Ministry?]
DANNY GOT TO GO BACK TO WORK.
The week before the twins were born, Danny got to reopen his dental practice which was very exciting. Living off our savings for a couple of months right before expanding our family was a little intense but I am thankful we were able to spend a few last weeks together as a family of three. That time will always be precious to me.
LOOKING FORWARD TO RESUMING OUR DEBT PAYOFF NEXT MONTH.
Now that Dan man has been back to work for a few weeks, we’ll resume our debt repayment next month. We deferred our student loans while his dental practice had to be closed down. Right before corona virus hit, we re-refinanced our student loans with Laurel Road and they’ve been great to work with. If you’ve been considering refinancing or are looking into re-refinancing, we’ve personally used Laurel Road, SoFi, and CommonBond and have had great experiences with all 3. If you aren’t sure what the heck to do with your student loans, I highly recommend getting a consult from the Student Loan Planner. It saved us $200,000 on our student loans so it’s well worth the price.
THE APP IS STILL COMING ALONG.
We slowed down our app’s development while we weren’t working but are excited it’s wrapping up and getting ready for beta testing! If you want to be notified when the app launches, enter your email address on the app’s website here.
WE’VE HAD COMPANY!
My mom visited the first two weeks of the twins life, now my sister is here with her kids and Danny’s parents are also here. It’s been so nice having so much help with the babies and especially with our 5 year old who we are trying to give plenty of attention! It also feels really good to slowly start seeing other human beings after social distancing for so long.
WE HIKED EVERYTHING.
Hiking is without a doubt one of my very favorite frugal activities. The first two weeks of May we tried to get in all of the hiking that we possibly could since we knew it was going to get pretty hot here in AZ/we probably wouldn’t want to hike with the twins for the first couple of months while it’s so hot. And I was also hoping all that hiking would put me into labor but alas it never did ha. Anyway, I love this time of year in Arizona where there are SO many wild flowers and cactus blooms. There’s just nothing like it!
WE USE ROUGHLY 20 DIAPERS A DAY.
Random fact, but since this is a personal finance blog (and funny enough it’s a question I get asked a lot) we use about 20 diapers a day. On the low end, I can get diapers for about 13 cents per diaper. On the higher end, it’s about 25 cents per diaper. So we’re spending about $2.60-$5 per day just on diapers alone with the twins. Wild. [Related: How to Save Money on Baby Stuff].
Ibotta, Fetch, and Ebates are saving my life (well grocery budget) right now.
I am doing most of my shopping online and doing grocery pick up these days now that we have twins in tow. If you haven’t been using these yet, you can download each of these free apps on your phone so that you can earn cash back for the shopping you are already doing. In the past you could only use Ibotta and Fetch in stores, but now you can use them with your online grocery orders as well! The short of the long version is that you get cash back rebates on some of the products you purchase.
Get $5 cash back on Ibotta here.
Get started with a free $2 by clicking here. Be sure to enter the the referral code YUUG7 when you sign up to get the $2. 🙂
Earn $10 when you make your first purchase using Rakuten here!
If you want to learn more about how these apps/websites work, check out this post on how to save money on groceries here.
That’s technically only 9 things but when you have new born babes… I mean there’s just not that much going on around here besides snuggling and taking care of babies. We are so happy!
How was your May? Drop a comment, I’d love to hear from you.
Hi there! I’m Amber! And welcome to the Deeply in Debt blog where we’re offering simple solutions for big debt.