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Hardship tour, for sure!



Can't believe that, until A Perfect Fit, I had not written new blog post in over a year. Time flew, life was lived, and lessons were learned.

Most noteworthy is that I've assumed a more relaxed posture towards housekeeping. I found that keeping up with the standard of clean and tidy I had become used to, having household help overseas, is unmanageable. I still clean thoroughly, if not as frequently, and we still endeavor to have a place for everything and everything in its place. Still, with three young children, I spend much of my day tidying.

We attempted to ease the burden of cooking by enjoying takeout out a few more times a month but quickly realized that eating out more than a handful of times per month, even at inexpensive restaurants, has a significant effect on our food budget. For a family of five, the only way to stay under budget, $5 to $7 per person, per day, is to prepare the majority of meals at home. To put things into perspective, what we can reasonably spend on food most closely follows the Thrifty and Low-cost USDA food plans.

In my Bulk Yolks and Reward Points post, I wrote about shopping online at Costco via Instacart. We have since changed our approach. We now do our bulk shopping, in person, every 2-4 weeks. We determined that renting a car for 12 hours usually works out to under $70, including the cost of gas. Obviously, this is more expensive than taking a taxi to and from Costco but we maximize use of the vehicle when we have one. We consider our transportation needs ahead of time and choose to rent a car when we anticipate dropping kids off for playdates, or have a shopping list for a store that is not in our neighborhood. Also, we now have to consider that our children are of age to pay Metrorail fares. An off peak, round trip will cost a family of five no less than $20. Travel during peak hours can be up to $60 round trip. For that, we may as well rent a car.

D.C. tours notoriously leave Foreign Service families heavily in debt and are considered by many to be a true hardship tour. We are resolved to surviving this posting without going into debt but it is abundantly clear why being posted here is so difficult.

My husband's commute to work was a top priority when we chose a place to live. As we have no car, he needed to be able to walk from home to the Metro and from the Metro to work. He has a 30 minute commute, door to door, and we pay for the convenience. The minimum rent for a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment in our area is about $2800. For the average Foreign Service Officer, this likely exceeds 50% of their monthly take home pay. If rent and food alone accounts for 70% to 75% of salary, discretionary income is practically nonexistent.

My post, Child's Play, addresses how we have been able to entertain our children on the cheap; keeping the grown ups entertained is a lot more challenging. I identify as an introvert and I suspect that this is a huge factor in my ability to handle the sharp downturn in our social activity since we have returned stateside. Our 1070 sq. ft. is not an ideal entertaining space so we rarely have friends over, babysitters are expensive and we are not in a position to establish a routine of meeting up for drinks and eats, so we see our friends sporadically. We've accepted that some of our friendships will be casualties of life in D.C. and we are sorry, not sorry. It is a huge sacrifice but we have no regrets living within our means. We spend our savings thoughtfully, on activities and events that create lasting memories for our family.

Overseas postings are ripe for falling victim to lifestyle creep. Thus, transitioning to life stateside is especially difficult. If we take steps to avoid lifestyle creep while overseas, it becomes a habit and a saving grace.

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