@Florence- great tips! I’m hoping to get into a routine of making soup or something on Sunday…the idea of having leftovers available during the week is appealing. Sometimes we grill on Sunday and then have a protein available to be a building block for meals during the week…

Some thoughts on what we did on a tighter budget, most of which I’ve heard on other episodes or been inspired from other episodes: online grocery shopping and delivery ($5), annual to do list to keep track of when to do stuff like buy kids’ winter gear on sale etc, try to involve kids in cleaning or working out so you can do it during daytime hours and hang out as a couple once kids are in bed, make a huge pot of soup and healthy grains on Sunday afternoon and eat it S/M/T/W, have a quick supper on Thursday (omelet or tofu), frozen pizza vs takeout on Friday and cook a special family meal on Saturday, have all navy pants for kids that match with everything, have enough kids’ clothes to only do laundry once a week, don’t fold little kids’ clothes, lower cleaning standards. As an alternative to a nanny, we used to have a mother’s helper come one day a week and clean, organize, do laundry, meal prep while our kids were in daycare…less expensive than a nanny in our case but a huge game changer for quality of life.

Thank you Laura – this is very helpful!

@Simon – I think the weekly planning time becomes even more critical when the schedule has limited wiggle room. When I spend time mapping out the next week and what needs to happen (and what we want to see happen) I can see when there might be tight spots or potential problems and think about ways to solve them. I think having a helpful community is just key for anyone combining work and life – you guys have family so that’s great, and others pay for help, or it might be possible to swap a lot with neighbors and friends for kid coverage – I’ve seen several people do that, like trading off weekend playdates so parents can run errands…

@Simon – thanks for your note, and thanks for listening to the show! We’ve featured a lot of different family situations and work set ups on the show over 6.5 (!) years.
While I know that many families don’t have full time nannies, one of the key messages of the show is that there is nothing wrong with paying for full time childcare in whatever form that comes. I know I sometimes find advice from men whose wives are covering everything on the home front not that helpful, but people tend not to criticize their lived reality. I wanted to create a show that helped women figure out ways that they could have the support to fully focus at work. We’re sharing what has helped us and I know a number of other people have found the advice helpful over the years too.

@Elisabeth- glad you have a system that works for you! I feel like clean dishes in the morning is still a clean slate – it’s the dirty dishes that would be a problem!