I’m a full-time web and graphic designer working out of my home right now, so I’m privy to a lot more of the daily household goings-on than I used to be.
In Rose Creek Village the normal living situation is 2–3 families to a home, and ours is no different. We have 6 adults and 8 kids in our household. As you can imagine, this can make normal household happenings colorful and interesting, and can ease the load, and complicate, a home maker’s every day tasks.
One of the weekly jobs the ladies divvy up and work together on is grocery shopping. When you’re getting food for a household of this many people, the amount of food you need weekly is phenomenal. Fortunately the surrounding grocery stores are all used to being overrun by village ladies on Thursdays or Fridays shopping for small armies by now after experiencing it for the last decade or so, but I imagine that if our household were to go shop at an unfamiliar store, they’d be like, “Ah, family reunion, right? No? Oh, ok, just stocking up, then? You do know that Y2K passed and nothing happened, right…?”
This week there was apparently a discrepancy in the grocery funds, due to us having to juggle some portions coming out of cash, some on cards, etc. Ari and Alaina asked me for help to figure the situation out.
“Sure,” I said, and they launched into the explanation of the situation. We had covered grocery money for one of the other ladies, that needed to be paid back next week, and there were a couple of interesting twists in the scenario which made it seem more than a 1+2=3 type problem.
Did you know that men and women think differently?
They do, just in case you didn’t.
After the initial explanation, I thought, “Ok, I’ve got this, this is easy.” And proceeded to explain the answer.
“Huh?” They were confused. We discussed it, with me trying to explain in a different way.
“What?”
It quickly became apparent that I was the one who was confused about what was going on.
So Alaina explained the situation to me again.
“Oh, ok,” I said. “I see what the problem is. All you’ve gotta do is…” and outlined the revised version of my answer.
“Huh? No, that’s not right!”
They explained again. And again.
I just gave up, and let them dicker it out. I wasn’t annoyed, I was just finding it really humorous at this point. I kept on with the task I had been working on, and enjoyed the rucus.
Finally, Ari and Lain got it all worked out, and I could tell they were satisfied with their solution.
“Ok, now we just need to tell Jerusha.”
Whew I thought.
Right about then, Jerusha walked into the room.
“I’ve got it all figured out!” She announced, and launched into an explanation that was a lot different then the one the other two ladies had labored over.
I busted out laughing.
Ari and Alaina groaned. Then they all started over.
It’s funny, but the most commonly used phrase in the conversation was, “No, no, it’s easy! Listen…”
Corporate life is wonderful. Really.
hahahahahahahhaahahaha…
It’s all about the spreadsheets, man.
When we lived with the Mooneys, I built a spreadsheet that calculated each family or single’s contribution margin to the total expense of the house each month. Mooneys did 60%, we did 40% for groceries, 50/50 for utilities, rent, singles paid a flat fee. We marked all the receipts as to who paid what, and then what they would of paid to meet the monthly total fairly. I think I was the only one who understood it. It all got reconciled at the end of the month.
Though looking back, I kind of prefer not doing all the heavy cost accounting on it, from a generosity stance — i.e. I can pick up an extra $200 grocery bill this month and there’s nothing expected in return. And when people lose jobs, you pick up our portion of the rent for X months, with nothing expected in return.
As with anything, it can make one person feel over-burdened or like they aren’t contributing enough. Kind of how freedom works.
Eric, seems to be a common thing here in the village to just pay a certain amount per person in each family, though the amount varies depending on the household, how many total people are there, size of said people, etc. 🙂 So then we’ll have a set amount of grocery money per week to work with, and they’ll make a menu for the week based on that.
I’ve watched them do this for a long time now. It still gives me a headache, but also a lot of genuine admiration for the women. Their job ain’t easy, and they’re gifted to carry it somehow.
There’s probably better ways of doing it than ours, but I do like that it requires a lot of communication. Communication’s good.
Hahaha… I used to shop for the single guys, so I know a little how it feels. Ad-match destroys braincells sometimes.