5 Ways to Enjoy Community Living

--> About two years ago, my family, meaning my husband and kids, my sister and her husband and daughter, and my parents, all moved into one house. We were very lucky to inherit a large Victorian that used to be a rooming house, just a couple of blocks from the beach. We renovated the house into three separate apartments and started our adventure in community living. Our original intention was to save money while my husband started his solo law practice, but over the last two years we've found the benefits of living so close have far outweighed the disadvantages. Here are some unexpected ways community living has made us stronger and how you might be able to duplicate some of the benefits for yourself:

1) Food: For the last year or so we've had a dinner plan. For us it works like this: We rotate weeks to cook dinner. My mom, my sister and I each take a week, so each person is only cooking big dinners every third week. We make enough to feed everyone. Sometimes we actually eat all together but more often we just take a plate, grab the food, and go home to enjoy dinner with our individual families. We usually only do it Monday through Thursday or Friday, depending on everyone's plans. That way we get to go out to eat or cook what we prefer on the weekends.

Dinners don't have to be elaborate, there is plenty of spaghetti and breakfast for dinner happening over on Webb Avenue, but because I'm only cooking every third week, I have less cooking burnout and therefore tend to try nicer meals than I would if left on my own.

We have stopped eating out during the week, saving money and making much healthier choices.
 
It just seems easier to me to cook for six adults than to cook for two. Am I wrong? When it was just Greg and I, I had to halve or "third" all the recipes, and I always seemed to have too many leftovers that got thrown away. It created a disincentive to buy fresh food and an incentive to get take-out. Cooking a meal from scratch with fresh food was often more expensive than eating out, figuring in the waste. Now I seldom have leftovers and when I do, there are plenty of people to feed them to for lunch.

Only shopping for "real" groceries every third week saves so much time and possibly money. Going on a long grocery trip every week was eating up cash and time that I would have rather spent elsewhere. Now I run to Costco or Target for milk only visit the big grocery store just before my week to cook. I don't spend that much more to cook for the big family than I did cooking for my own, and I don't have to drag the kids out shopping so much.

At the end of my week, if I have fresh ingredients I think someone else can use, I pass them on to the next cook. That way my dozen eggs or pound of meat isn’t wasted on my off weeks.

How you can do it: I know most people don't have the option to form a commune with their families in a big house by the ocean, but are there other ways you can share some of the load? Maybe your extended family could start with having a family dinner one night a week, and trade off on who cooks. No family around? How about having a little dinner co-op with some mom friends one night? One mom could cook a jumbo dinner and drop it off or have it picked up, and then you switch. This would work great if you traded meals at a your kids' school or co-op.  Or how about having a "cooking party" once or twice a month. You could get together and make some meals to freeze. Split up the ingredients ahead of time and then let everyone do the cooking tasks they enjoy the most or are the best at. Clean up together and be done! Even if it's just once a week, not having to cook dinner frees you up to enjoy your family, read your Bible, or just relax. Not to mention that dinner cooked by someone else always seems to taste better :)

2) Clothes: I admit it, I love dressing my kids up in adorable clothes. Finding that perfect little sweater for my son or a gorgeous dress for my baby girl gives me pleasure. I love hunting for just the right thing, I love finding just the right accessories, and I love dressing them. And then.... you have to wash them, and store them, and get rid of them when they don't fit anymore. All of this is a big time and brain suck. I find myself purging the kids' closet almost weekly, trying to keep up with all the growth spurts and seasonal changes. Just when I think I have it covered, my son rips through the last pair of un-ripped jeans, my daughter outgrows her only bathing suit, and everyone needs new shoes.

 Some ways I’ve used community living to simplify the time and money I spend on kids’ clothes:

Hand me downs. (both giving and receiving) I have a friend with a son just a size or two larger than mine who hands down great clothing. Even though I don’t get everything we need this way, it still saves money, and more importantly, time to get clothes in a garbage bag instead of painstakingly shopping for them. My niece hands down fabulous clothes – I actually have to limit what I save from her because it’s often more than we actually need. I’ve also found great joy in handing down clothes to friends. When your babies have worn things it’s hard sometimes to dump them off at Goodwill and hope they end up in a good home. When I give a special dress to a friend, there’s a chance I’ll get to see the outfit again on another sweet baby and that makes me happy.

Sharing coupons. My sister loves Gymboree. So do I, but a Gymboree wardrobe is not always the first thing I want to spend my money on. Also Gymboree offers great deals, if you are buying lots of clothes every couple of months. I try to co-op with my sister and use our Gymbucks together to get the most out of the promotions. I might need something when they are offering the Gymbucks redemption. Instead of spending money on clothes we don’t need or trying to buy ahead for my unpredictably growing children, I give the bucks to her. In turn she does the same for me when she has bucks she doesn’t need. The same goes for Stride Rite promotions.

As much joy as I get from dressing up my babies, I hate dressing myself. I never seem to find what I'm looking for when I go shopping, and when I do find something I like, I tend to just wear it until it falls apart. Once upon a time I worked at a law firm and had a closet full of suits, blouses, and skirts, drawers full of earrings and necklaces, and boxes of shoes. I was very, very happy to downsize that closet and trade it in for my mom wardrobe of jeans, uggs and drape-y sweaters. That said, there are times when I do need to dress up, and my wardrobe that is just perfect suddenly seems terribly lacking. Instead of keeping half a closet full of options I rarely use, I've found ways to share the burden of getting dressed.

If I need a dress for a wedding or holiday, I borrow one from my sister. If she needs flip-flops or tall boots or a drape-y sweater, I’m her girl. We’re pretty much the same size, so why have duplicates of every rarely needed article of clothing? This also works well for coats, shoes, and bags. Who wants to store enough handbags to match every outfit? If your love language is clothing you’re probably having a conniption right now, but for those of us for whom shopping for clothes is a burden, share some of it with a friend. I know some friends who pass around a box of maternity clothes, which I think is just brilliant. Not only do you not have to buy an entirely new pregnant wardrobe, you don’t have to store it all when you’re not using it.

3) Space: This might not be as big of a deal for some of you, but for other northeasterners like myself, space is at a premium. I live in a two-bedroom apartment with my family of four, and items in our space have to earn the right to remain. Because space is such a commodity for us, I’ve found ways to trade for it. For example, I lend out our baby equipment as soon as we are done with it. The deal is, my friends use it, if it breaks that’s totally fine. If it’s still useable when they’re done they give it back and we have it for the next baby. My friends don’t have to buy it, or store it when they’re done, and I get to retain ownership of some great stuff without it being in my house all the time. The same goes for some nice tablecloths, chair covers, and glasses I bought for a party. My friend who has ample storage space stores the boxes for me, and she gets to use them whenever she wants. Between us we’ve used the items for many events. She gets a free party stuff, I get free storage space, win-win. I have another friend who lives in Brooklyn, so she’s even lower on the space totem pole than we are. She lends me books to read; in return I put them in my bookcase until she wants them back. The space they take up is worth it because I get to read great books for free!

Trading spaces: Give away your stuff! If you’re not using something, then lend or give it to someone who can use it. If you have spare room for something, offer to store stuff for a friend. Sharing and lending is efficient and it shows that we trust one another. That said, don’t lend things if you’d be devastated by losing them. The trust should be proportionate to the relationship. I felt terrible when Hurricane Sandy destroyed some books I’d borrowed from a friend. Luckily our friendship was a lot stronger than some lost books.

4) Childcare: This is possibly the biggest advantage of our current living situation. My mom often watches my son for an hour or two just before dinner, allowing me some precious quality time with my daughter, or if she is napping, even more precious alone time. I watch my niece so that my brother-in-law can ref soccer games or volunteer at an after-school program for middle school kids. If someone needs to run out early in the morning or late at night when the kids are still sleeping, there’s always someone else around to cover. We take turns taking all three kids to the playground, to Sesame Place, to the beach, all freeing up parents to do other things. Having support with childcare has been life-changing.

How to do it: I understand this can be tricky. It’s not always easy to trust others with the care of our children. I don’t hire babysitters, generally, because I was a teenaged babysitter, and now realize how completely clueless I was. I was lucky that there were never any real emergencies when I was nanny-ing and babysitting, because I’m not sure I would have known what to do. I had never taken CPR or even heard of anaphylactic shock and people trusted me with their babies. I still can’t even believe it. Throw in my very clingy baby and finding a friend to share kids with can be daunting.


That said, finding people in your life you can trust can be incredibly freeing. Think about whether you can trade off something simple, like carpooling to sports or classes. Even a small change like carpooling could save you hours a week and give you and the other participants a much needed break. Or consider trading childcare for a date-night. You could offer to watch a friend’s kids once or twice a month so that the parents can spend time together, and vice versa.

One way we share childcare without going too far is by hiring a sitter for a group. My small group (consisting several families from church) gets together every couple of weeks. Now that the group has gotten bigger we sometimes find our own childcare, but for a long time we all met in one home and split the cost of a sitter to play with the kids, feed them dinner, and referee while we enjoyed a little bit of adult conversation. By sharing the cost we were able to afford wonderful adult supervision and the kids got a chance to socialize as well. This might be a good option if you are nervous about trusting others with your children or if you have children with special needs. The babysitter is a neutral party who keeps the peace, and parents don’t have to worry about stepping on anyone’s toes. Having our kids share a babysitter has bonded us as parents and has allowed our children to form their own little community.

5) Holidays: I used to love holidays. The change in decor, the yummy food, and buying gifts were all a welcome change from the mundane. Then I had two kids, and quickly became responsible for a slew of details, not just for me, but for our whole family. I had to decorate, plan the social calendar, food, clothes, and gifts. Suddenly Christmas was no longer a welcome break, but rather a trial to survive. I found myself so exhausted and burnt out by the holidays that I needed a vacation after the vacation. I no longer looked forward to planning fun themed birthday parties, I could hardly remember to do anything special for Valentine's Day or my anniversary. Instead of picking out cute outfits and lovingly signing photo cards, I became resentful toward all the work.

Right about the time my family started co-oping dinner time, we decided to split up some of the tasks for holidays as well. Now for birthday parties, my sister is mostly in charge of food, while I handle decorations and goody bags. Before Christmas photos we get a photographer for an hour to come to the house, and take every possible combination of picture for Christmas cards. Last year my sister handled the Easter baskets (much better than the first Easter when Henry got three giant baskets!), and this year I put them together.

Sharing some of the tasks involved in holiday prep allows us to spend more time focused on the purpose of the holiday and less time stressing over details. Think about ways you can cut back on holiday stress by sharing the load. Maybe you could do a stocking exchange with a group of moms, where everyone brings multiples of a stocking stuffer, and everyone goes home with full stockings for the kids with carefully chosen goodies instead of last-minute junk. Maybe you could have a present wrapping party and share wrapping supplies. If your kids are into crafts, but coming up with activities for every special day on the calendar is overwhelming to you, swap holidays with a friend. One house can host the Valentine-making frenzy while another does the Easter egg dyeing. Not only does this kind of community living relieve some of the pressure we put on ourselves during holidays, it also gives us the chance to make special memories. My kids will grow up sharing lots of great times with friends and families, and their mom will be less harried in the process.