WIC-Ed

As our baby adventure unfolds, we have been looking over our financial state with much more forethought and projection towards the future. In the past we have looked only a few months ahead and that has been sufficient to get all the ends to meet. With junior on the way, however, we have been taking stock of all our nickels and dimes and come to the conclusion that things will get tighter than they already are. In looking at the financial balance of things, we have begun looking at the Women, Infants, and Children [WIC] program.

The WIC program is designed to provide education on diet for mommy/baby and car safety, as well as a small amount of financial assistance for mothers and their children in the form of coupons that allow for several of the basic food staples. Some of these include eggs, milk, fruits, veggies, and peanut butter.

In discussing our research with some family members, the response has been more or less "ZOMG! Only the devil's children would take that money!" The overarching thought being that one should not take handouts from the government, or that we should not be lazy, and/or spend our money wiser and then we wouldn't need the help.

While we have thought about these lines of argument, here is where we are coming from currently:

• Tennille's only escape from having 2+ jobs at any given time since she was 17 was to get pregnant [not that I make her have 2 jobs, she just likes to be active].
• I have worked more or less straight from graduation of high school, at one point having 4 jobs.
• We have zero debt. We don't owe money for college, car, or anything else.
• We live frugally.

The term "live frugally" can of course be pretty arbitrary. We have one car that averages 30 miles to the gallon and we try to walk or ride our bikes when the situations allow. We are energy conscious with lights and we only heat and cool the house while we are in it. We don't eat out more than twice a month on average, barring special events of course. We don't own expensive things [see post on yard saleing]. We have one cell phone that we share. We don't pay for TV or internet. We save for months and months for the things that do cost significant amounts of money [around and over $100].