Starting off with how we're doing. Which isn't 100% financial, but lays the groundwork

So I'm about 8 weeks into a shelter in place order. My 4 year old's daycare closed. My work, which was already half in office/half remote, went full remote. My husband, whose office NEVER has anyone remote, went fully remote a week later.

However, he works in an area where the pandemic is affecting his job in a way that they are helping some of the government backed initiatives for small businesses, which means he's worked 7 days a week for the last 7 weeks. On salary, but had gotten small bonuses here & there for extra help.

My work (i.e. Senior management that have no idea what its like for those of us in the trenches at my job) expects us to maintain/exceed all goals.

Which is fun to try to do when my husband is training and on calls half the date, I try to maintain my production and quality and at the same time, try to make a 'normal' for my pre-k kid.

Poor kid wants our help with things all the time, wants 'help' with schoolwork, and for us to play with her.

She misses school, we have been left with no guidance on how to 'teach' her. I have spent hours researching schoolwork/activities and over the weeks, we have made mistakes, but made a 'schedule.

I get up first, usually with her, at 7am. We can watch Sesame Street or Daniel Tiger or play a game on her tablet until breakfast, giving me time to start prepping work.

9am we start school. She does pre-k workbooks, home projects for learning and art. At 10am, she watches an online Kindergartern class (its 1 hour and this woman volunteered to do a sort of circle time to keep kids feeling ok). It is phenomenal and my daughter has thrived with it.

Free play at 11 when the Kindergarten Live is over. Lunch, then an hour rest (she hasn't taking naps in a year).

More school when she gets up, then depending on my workload, we do art or coloring or more free play.

If my husband gets a break, he takes her for a quick walk in the day.

As long as its not raining, when I am done between 3 and 4, I take her outside.

On the weekends, we try to make things fun. We hit up local parks for hiking(free), play in the yard, do art projects.

I'd say we have spent maybe $150 on pre-k workbooks, craft supplies, paper, construction paper, small items, a kickboxing stand and a new bicycle helmet.

We've been eating out 1-2 times a week to support local small businesses and our grocery spending is up (we're all eating breakfast & lunch at home now). Prices seem to go up too.

However, we are lucky. We both are working at full salary and while its stressful to parent + teach + work all day, we've been doing it. We can do this.

Things will start slight openings tomorrow - although the #s of hospitalizations and deaths are still increasing in my state. So we plan to still isolate. Maybe eventually some 'playdates' with family or friends we know also have been self-quarantining. But I figure not until the end of May before we'd consider it.


Just some of the frugal things we're doing to entertain:

We checked out a bunch of books and movies from the library, right before they closed.

We are using old summer toys: a slide ($5 a yard sale last summer), water table ($10 yard sale find - lasted 3 summers), chalk (gifted), Frisbee (free), kickball ($5 from 2 summers ago), tee-ball set up ($10 a year ago). She's learned to ride her bike (a birthday gift)(with the new helmet $25) and her scooter ($5 yard sale find). She's also getting really good at driving her Barbie jeep ($20 yard sale).

We have been using our fire pit, eating on the deck when its nice, hiking a lot.

Indoors, I have pulled out all the stops with art supplies (mostly on hand already) and spend about another $25 bucks on additional paper, handwriting practice pater, construction paper, paints, beads, etc. We have kept tp rolls and paper towel rolls, Kleenex boxes, cardboard boxes and are utilizing those too.

Trying to stay as frugal as possible, but happy to invest in pre-k workbooks, paints, connect the dots books, hidden pictures books (like Highlight magazine), etc.

We have invested in a chest freezer and are going to purchase from a local farm. Beef is getting hard to find and chicken is hit or miss in the stores. I am meal planning and we are utilizing what we have.

I also have been braving the stores every 10 days or so for supplies for my parents and dropping them off to them. Rough times out there.