Burn Fat – Not Oil

I saw that on some guy’s shirt the other day and thought that it pretty much described my life right now and it made me giggle.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that we were having vehicle trouble. My poor van is not doing so well, it has high kilometers and things are just breaking down. Even if my husband had time to fix what is wrong with it, it would still cost more to fix it than what the van is ultimately worth (fixed). With registration and insurance due, we decided to park the van for the summer and try and figure out what to do in August for the school year. We looked at lots of vehicles, but never really found a great deal, or the perfect vehicle, nor did we really ever have any peace over any of the purchases we were considering, so in hopes of saving money over the summer, we decided the best thing to do was wait.

So the kids and I (Brandon - 16, Jesse - 14, Justin - 14, and Tia - 11) will need to burn fat, not oil, if we want to get somewhere!

I realized some things very quickly:

1. That my husbands jeep that seats 5 does not fit 6 people, no matter how hard you try push them in!

2. Jesse can get even hungrier than he already was.

3. Jesse can actually eat more than he already was!

4. That the likelihood of actually saving any money is slim, I am just using all of the saved money to feed Jesse!

5. Tia can bike slower than she can walk, so slow in fact that I can barely keep my bike upright.

6. Walking in runners after my daughter used them and stretched them out causes blisters.

7. That if I don’t want my daughter to “borrow” my shoes I must hid them.

8. That when your water bottle leaks, just be thankful that you were not carrying it and that your son looks like he wet his pants, not you (sorry Jes).

9. That Brandon can actually walk faster than everyone else and when he has a designation in mind he is very capable of walking there.

10. Tia has less energy walking somewhere than she does walking home afterwards - after walking over 10 kms she seems to complain less!

11. That peaceful walking requires earplugs or music to drown out the children’s bickering, complaining and questioning.

12. That so far (since July 1st) we have walked, biked or roller bladed: 46 kms (or 20.9 miles)

13. That this may be a very long summer!!!

For more Frugal summer tips check out Frugal Friday!

Christine