I Just Want You to Know_ Letters to My Kids on Love, Faith, and Family - Kate Gosselin [28]
Mady at a rare trip to Dutch Wonderland.
Jon was now stuck with the fun job of wrestling with costs and insurance. He managed to pull the dentist aside, and she kindly agreed to work things out with our new insurance. I was so relieved, I started crying when Jon told me. All of our kids’ dental issues would be taken care of, and we’ve gone to Dr. Kristin ever since. Another miracle from the Lord.
I always considered it my job to save money whenever possible, and I constantly used coupons and looked for sales. One way for me to save money was to buy in bulk or stock up during sales. That worked out well, except we were often faced with space issues. We knew an extra freezer would help so much. My surgery was what finally convinced us. I was cooking two weeks ahead in preparation for my temporary incapacitation, and I needed a place to store the food I had prepared. It was a big decision to spend $650 on an upright freezer, but the need had become urgent. We found a great sale for $550. When we came home with the freezer, my brother found a $50 coupon, so we went back and had the receipt adjusted. This thrilled me!
Another big expense for us to consider was rear air-conditioning for the Big Blue Bus. The van had front air, but because these vehicles were primarily used commercially, they weren’t equipped with rear air. For us, this meant the kids in the back would roast if we traveled in hot weather. We bought battery operated clip-on fans, which did pull some of the cool air back, but it wasn’t enough. For a while we attended the early service at church so we’d be home by noon or 12:30, before the heat really hit; but planning trips around the weather just wasn’t practical in every situation. We knew we had to make this investment.
The solution came when we opted to drive instead of fly to Florida for our show-related trip that summer. Even though it took us nineteen hours to drive, it worked out to everyone’s advantage since production picked up the cost of air-conditioning instead of ten plane tickets, and we had the lasting benefit of having rear air-conditioning in our van. This was yet another example of how the show provided for our needs that we wouldn’t have been able to cover otherwise. All these perks helped us to survive.
Hannah, Alexis, and Collin as we loaded up the Big Blue Bus.
I still see the show as a blessing that provided for many of our needs. Plus, because of the show, we pursued opportunities that we otherwise wouldn’t have considered. It was important to me for our kids to be able to experience these trips because I did not have similar opportunities as a kid.
Even with the show, we couldn’t have managed alone. We needed help from others. When help came, I needed to learn to accept it, which was another hard lesson for me to learn. I like to be independent.
As we settled into our neighborhood in Elizabethtown, our community reached out to us. One neighbor loved to bake and used to make us delicious cookies every other week or so—a huge neatly arranged bag of them. I so appreciated having fresh baked cookies in our house. Other people in the community used to make us dinner every so often. We didn’t even know them, but their care and concern was so helpful and important to us. Someone making us dinner meant that my whole naptime was free to do laundry and catch up on other things.
While our schedule got crazier with the show, our financial pressures eased up because of increasing fringe benefits. Thankfully companies unsolicited started sending us sample product, and our kids were all too happy to open the surprise of the day. We absolutely loved it, as it helped subsidize our living costs. Then companies noticed we ate organically and sent us organic juice boxes and snacks, which was a complete luxury we certainly appreciated.
We could hardly believe how much was sent to us, as fans too would send us new and secondhand clothing and toys—stuff that