LRN got hacked this morning. Thankfully, I backup weekly and subscribe to my own RSS feed. 20 minutes to total restoration.
Birthday Parties are Evil
This is a post from my archives.
I hate birthday parties. Well, not all birthday parties. Not even most parties. Just the expensive-for-the-sake-of-expensive parties. The bar-raising parties. The status-boosting parties. I’m done.
My son is seven years older than my first daughter. In those seven years, with only one kid, we managed to spoil him regarding birthday parties. Every party was big and there were a lot of presents. That’s an expensive way to run a birthday and it is a lot of stress. We even moved the parties home, but still invited all of our friends and family. It was much too stressful.
A good friend used the pizza and game place, buying tokens for everyone at the party. That’s incredibly expensive. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t afford that for three kids. There’s an element of keeping up with everyone around me, but I just can’t make myself care about that anymore. They aren’t paying my debt or cleaning my house. They don’t get a vote.
My plan this year was to have a sleepover for my son. He had five friends spend the night, playing games and watching movies. They giggled and squealed for eighteen hours, all for the cost of some take-and-bake pizzas and snacks. It was a hit for everyone involved. The other parents got a night off and all of the kids had a blast.
My girls are one and two. We’re done with parties for them, too. They got big parties for their first birthdays. Those are parties for the adults; the kids don’t care. In a few years–even a few months–they won’t remember the party. My older daughter’s birthday will be a trip to the apple orchard, followed by cake and ice cream. She’ll get presents. She’ll get “her day”. She’ll remember that her birthday is special, without costing a lot of money.
We want them to have fun. We want them all to feel special. We also want to manage their expectations and keep the parties from breaking the budget. So far this year, it is working.
How do you run a birthday party on a budget?
Sammy’s Story, Part 3
If you haven’t been following along with Sammy’s story, please take a few minutes to do so here and here.
After Sammy gave me the sketches of his landscaping plan for my mother-in-law’s yard, we sat down to work out a proposal. Keep in mind that he’s never run a business and I’ve never run a landscaping business, so it was a bit of a learning experience for both of us.
We finally came up with a proposal for $1200, which included laying a plastic border around the yard, mulching the border, removing some trees and stumps, sanding and painting a swing and barbecue pit, and hard-raking the yard. He asked if $400 of that could be applied to the car he bought from us. I said yes, which was a mistake.
Sammy’s plan was to hire guys from the Salvation Army and at-risk kids, giving them a chance to improve their situations. As it turns out, a significant percentage of those folks don’t really want to work to improve their situations. The guys from the Salvation Army were all vetted by one of the counselors, but still only worked out about half of the time. The kids quit wanting to work when they found out it involved…work.
That was an expensive lesson that caused a bit of a cost overrun. If the crew that finished the job would have started it, we’d have been done weeks ago. What should have taken 3-4 days ended up taking a month. Not a 40-hour per week month, but it was still a month.
As we came closer to our garage sale, Sammy had the great idea to tackle the front yard, too. He wanted to make it pretty as an advertisement for the people coming to the sale. That inflated the cost.
We used the stacks of bricks that came with the house for the border instead of the plastic roll. Another price boost, since it involved digging deeper and laying freaking bricks.
The plan was for us to pay $800 out-of-pocket for the work, plus $3-400 in tools and equipment to help launch the business, plus materials. We ended up paying a bit under $3000 for everything. Between the labor problems and an expanding project, the price got a bit higher than either of us had anticipated.
At least the yard looks nice.
Horseback Riding Lessons
For the past couple of years, my daughters have been riding in horse shows with a local saddle club. We’ve been lucky in that my wife’s cousin has let us borrow her horse for the shows, so costs have been minimal.
Unfortunately, that horse isn’t available this year. We knew that a few months ago, so the plan was to take a year off from the shows and focus on lessons, to get the girls some real skills. We found a great instructor at a stable about 30 miles from our house. Since we live less than two miles from the border of the biggest city in the state, that’s a comparatively short drive.
We pay her $200 per month for 1 lesson per week for both girls. They each get 30-45 minutes on the horse during each lesson.
Now that show season has started, the plan seems to have changed. The girls will be riding a different borrowed pony tomorrow. The shows cost about $50 for registration, lunch, and gas. Our club has 1 show per month, but my wife has assured me they’ll only be hitting three shows this season and limiting the number of events to keep the cost down.
The direct costs aren’t too bad, but there’s a problem with keeping-up-with-the-Joneses accessorizing. Vests and boots and helmets and belts and shirts, oh my.
I’d guess our costs for the summer will be $300 per month.
One thing we’ve been considering is buying a pony. We can get an older pony for around $500-1000. Older is good because they are calmer and slower. Boarding the thing will cost another $200 per month. We’ve been slowly accumulating the stuff to own a horse, so I’m guessing the “OMG, he let me buy a horse, now I need X” shopping bill will come to around $1500, but I’ll figure $2000 to be safe. We already have a trailer, a saddle, blankets, buddy-straps, combs, brushes, buckets, rakes, shovels, and I-bought-this-but-I-will-just-put-it-in-the-pile-of-horse-stuff-so-Jason-will-never-notice stuff. We’re certainly close to being ready to buy.
(FYI: If you’re starting from scratch, don’t think you’re going to get into horse ownership for less than $10,000 the first year, and that’s being a very efficient price-shopper.)
So we’re looking at $5400 for a horse, gear, and boarding the first year. If we cancel the lessons, by spring we’d have $2000 of that saved and most of the rest can be bought over time.
On the other hand, if we go that route, we’ll never save enough to buy the hobby farm we’re looking for.
Decisions, decisions. I should just buy a new motorcycle. Within a year, I win financially.
Stand Up For Yourself
Monday night, my son was struggling to get all of his homework done before bed. He had a 6 page packet of work from his advanced math class that he was supposed to have done over the weekend.
When I asked him why he hadn’t done it, he told me he forgot about it.
I wasn’t happy.
We’ve had a lot of conversations about responsibility and planning over the years. He knows better.
Cue Dad Lecture #26.
Towards the end, when I’m building up this rocking crescendo about how what he does now will affect him for the rest of his life, I stopped.
“Buddy, weren’t you sick on Friday?”
He didn’t get his weekend homework until Monday. Of course he didn’t do it over the weekend.
Dad Lecture #26 immediately transitioned to Ad Hoc Lecture #4, titled “Why did you let me chew you out for something you didn’t do?”
I’ve always tried to raise my kids to be independent. I’ve never stifled asking questions, and I am willing to explain my decisions to them, even if they don’t stand a chance of winning the appeal. As frustrating as independent, strong-willed children can be, I know it will serve them well as adults.
Now I’m trying to figure out why that fell apart on Monday. I wasn’t yelling at him and he doesn’t think I was. Sometimes, the perception of who’s yelling differs depending on which side of my loud voice you are on.
He doesn’t know why he sat back at took the lecture instead of explaining what happened. He apparently forgot that he was given that homework just a few hours before.
My question to all of you is how can I make my kid behave and obey when necessary, but still have enough backbone to stand up for himself when he’s not wrong? And know when each is necessary.
