Nothing About Pregnancy is Frugal

Spent $175 today at Target on maternity clothing, including $60 for two pairs of jeans. I don't think I've spent $30 on jeans since I was in school. There's not a lot of options in maternity wear, though. My body is changing so fast that I have to try everything on, which makes mail-order impractical, and the only second-hand store with maternity clothing barely ever has any jeans, and none of those have fit. Also, the store is a thirty minute drive from my house, which really isn't that far, but currently feels like about forever. So I spent basically a fortune on clothing that I can reasonably expect to wear for the next five months, counting one month of post-pregnancy wear due to a combination of scarcity and laziness. Not my usual modus operandi.

Also, in the non-frugal category, my morning pre-natal vitamins are $40/month. I have insurance; when they accidentally ran them without insurance the first time I got them, they were over $100. My evening pre-natal vitamins are a more reasonable $10/month copay. I know this is a total rip-off, but I have trouble spending any of my precious energy researching other options, especially since I'll only be purchasing them three more times.

Finally, as a third non-frugal expense, my car is getting absolutely filthy. I usually try to do my car once a week, alternating between the interior and the exterior. However, I can no longer bend at the waist, and being out in the heat makes me sick (it's ~95 degrees Fairenheit during the day down here right now). So I'm going to have to pay someone to do it for me, or do it in 10 minute increments. Detailing a car costs somewhere around $100 down here, so I've got a lot of incentive to either figure out how to keep my car clean or live with it filthy.

What it boils down to is that I've got all the time in the world (I'm pretty much on leave from the farm until next year), but I don't have the energy that frugility requires. I think this is a good lesson when looking ahead to retirement - I've always thought I would live cheaper, because I would have time to shop for bargains. I need to give consideration to the years when my health won't allow for much bargineering.