Search Results for “three-alternatives-to-a-budget/budget-lesson-part-5/debt-burnout/budget-lesson-part-3/budget-lesson-part-1/Clearing Up Social Debt in 3 Steps/573/budget-lesson-part-2/experiences-v-stuff/garage-sale-manual/slow-carb-diet-how-to-avoid-going-bat-crazy” — Page 6

Happy Father’s Day: The Benefits of Being a Parent Can’t Be Measured

It’s true that the benefits of a parent cannot be measured or quantified in any meaningful way. It’s hard to put a price on the emotional commitment and special experience of raising a child as a parent, some of which may not even be realized by the parents themselves until afterwards. But it is undeniable that the experience of parenthood is a rewarding and special time in someone’s life.

An icon illustrating a parent and child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For one thing, being a parent can you relive your childhood through your child. There are very few experiences in the world that are as intimate and vicarious as a parent who is raising their newborn child into an adult. Your child’s experiences become your experiences, their safety and learning becomes your priorities, and their success, ultimately, become your own success as a parent. You can rediscover the parts of your childhood that you may even have forgot as your child experiences them for the first time.

As a parent, you are also the center of the world for your child. This can be a tremendous source of self-confidence as well as incentive for self-improvement, to know that another human being sees you as their ultimate role model and will grow up in your footsteps. Just imagine the sense of wonder and awe with which you regarded your own parents when you were a child, and apply them to your child. That is the way they will see the world for a long time, with a constant sense of amazement and curiosity. The mundane becomes extraordinary and fantastic to a child, and a parent is part of the magic and the child’s discovery of the world.

In addition, parenting is a rewarding experience because you involved in the creation of a life and the raising of your child with your partner. There is a great amount of pressure, but also a sense of pride as your child’s characteristics and worldview will, in a large part, be derived from your interaction and education of them. All the things that you wish you had done in your childhood, or wish you had experienced or learned about earlier. These are all things that you can teach your child. As a parent, you are your child’s most important friend, teacher and role model. That is a tremendous source of empowerment and responsibility. But the reward you can get out of being a great parent is a new life in the world that you shaped with your words and actions. What you teach them becomes their most important life lessons, and your actions as a role model becomes the standard by which they live the rest of their lives.

So yes, the benefits of being a parent cannot be measured in conventional terms. But these benefits can definitely outweigh any worldly possession or unit of valuation. Parenthood is an emotional, spiritual, intellectual and educational experience that very few other experiences in the world can replace or even come close to imitating.

Budget Lesson, Part 8

Finance

This is a continuation of the budget series. See these posts for the history of this series.

This time, I’m looking at our discretionary budget. These are the things that don’t have a fixed cost. Any individual item is largely optional, and, ultimately, we don’t track these purchases closely. At the beginning of the month, I pull this money out of the bank in cash, except for 1 category. When the discretionary budget is gone, it’s gone.

Groceries/Dining – At the beginning of the week, we sit down with a meal planner and (Can you guess?) plan our meals. The planner we use has a weekly calendar with a checklist below each day to build the grocery list. At the bottom of the page is another checklist for staples that don’t apply to a specific day’s meal, like milk or snacks. We build the list, then transfer it to another sheet, broken out by grocery department. That keeps me from having to criss-cross the store. I make one lap. When I go to the store, I only bring that week’s grocery budget in cash, so I keep close track of how much is going into the cart. Recently, we’ve gotten so good at making our meals cheaply from scratch that I reduced our monthly food budget by $50. I enjoy good food, so I wouldn’t reduce this budget item if it was a sacrifice in quality. For example, the Rainbow Foods store-brand chips actually taste better than Lay’s for half of the price. We stock up when things are on sale and cook creatively. Sometimes, if time has been too tight to make a meal plan, we eat solely from the pantry for a week, buying nothing but bread and milk. By sticking to the list, and not fearing the store’s brand, we are able to feed our family of 5 1/2 for $450 per month and still eat well.
Discretionary – This is for the random things that come up, and some of the not-so-random. Toiletries, activity fees, admissions, and fund-raisers all come out of this fund. At the end of the month, whatever is left gets tucked into a box and forgotten. When the box gets full, it goes to the bank to be applied to debt. There isn’t a lot to cut here, since this line-item is only $200.
Baby stuff – This category is continually shrinking. Our middle kid is recently potty-trained and our youngest is trying. There is no baby food and no formula, just 1 pack of diapers every month. In 6 months, this category will be eliminated.
Gas/oil – This is the single category that isn’t cash-based. It makes no sense to take the kids out of the car to pay inside, especially in the winter. Also, all of the temptation is inside. It’s much better to spend the money at the pump. There isn’t much we can do to reduce this, at the moment. Our next car won’t be a full-sized pickup, but we are several years from that purchase. We’ve started clipping oil-change coupons to keep this down to the minimum amount possible.
Clothes – We only allocate $15 per month for clothes. In a good month, we don’t spend it. We can’t eliminate it completely, because things do come up. Over the summer, I’m hoping to completely leave it alone to save up for a new(used) winter jacket for our older daughter, who doesn’t get hand-me-downs.
Blow Money – This is the safety valve. It can’t get reduced and still work.

We’ve now addressed out entire budget, including what we can do and have done to keep our costs under control. Looking back, I don’t see too many cuts I’ve missed.

Sunday Roundup: Varsity Punk

Misc

I moved this roundup to Sunday to give myself a bit more time to track my weight-loss and push-up goals, since I weigh in on Saturdays. Yesterday, however was super busy. It was all good, but full.

Starting Friday: After work, I rushed my oldest to the B-squad wrestling tournament, where he took first place in his weight bracket. When I got home, I fell asleep almost immediately.

Saturday, we woke up and rushed to the varsity tournament. It was his first time wrestling varsity. Now, he wrestles for a youth league. Participants vary from 3rd to 8th grades. My son is 11, 5′ 7″, and 150 pounds. Guess who he wrestles? Almost exclusively eighth graders. He lost both of his matches, but he put in a great showing. He lasted a round and a half against the top-rated kid in his bracket and managed to get quite a few points.

After that, we rushed home, made dinner for some friends and went to a movie. Red Riding Hood is worth seeing. We got home at 1 and immediately fell asleep. This is the first time I’ve had the computer on at home since Thursday night, other than to check movie times and prices.

30 Day Project Update

This month, I am trying to do 100 perfect push-ups in a single set. I’m recording each session in a spreadsheet. I am currently up to 91 in a set and 261 in a session, spread across 5 sets. I’m expecting to be down in my next session, since I’ve totally slacked off the few days.

Weight Loss Update

I am on the Slow Carb Diet. At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing. For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms. My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils). There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism. The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind. There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.

I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs. Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 40 pounds since January 2nd. That’s 2 pound since last week. I’ve dropped 7 pounds in March, while doing an insane amount of push-ups and packing on a few pounds of muscle.

Total Inches: I have lost 24 inches in the same time frame, down 1.5 inches since last week. I’ve lost 7 inches each off of my waist and hips. It’s time to go clothes shopping, which sucks. I manage to avoid doing that for a year or more at a time, but now, my pants have stopped fitting. When I cinch my belt to where it actually fits, my jeans have pleats.

Best Posts

The recording industry has sued Limewire for damages totaling more than the economic value of…Earth.

Making money line is easier when you’re not bing conned. PT has a list of legit paying survey sites.

I’d love to raise chickens. It’s technically allowed in my city, but only with a permit that the city refuses to issue.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago. Did you miss them then?

I wrote Fall from Grace, a post about how and why I got into debt.

There was also a post on credit repair.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

You’re Gonna Die, Part 1 was included in the Totally Money Carnival.

Getting Out of Debt: The Prime Rule as included in Carnival of Personal Finance.

Financial Pet Peeve: Fees To Receive Paper Bank Statements was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader. I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook. Facebook gets more use than Google. It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter. This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of. I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

How You’re Finding Me

Misc

Every once in a while, I like to dig through Google Analytics and see how people are finding this site. Some of the search terms are interesting.

“father of three” mid life crisis

Here’s a free piece of advice. As a father of three, you don’t get to have a mid-life crisis. It’s not allowed. Rather, it’s allowed, but you aren’t allowed to act on it. At a minimum, until your children are out of the house, you need to man up and provide all of the support you possibly can. No sports cars you can’t afford and no 22 year old hardbodies. Be there for your kids.

“payday loans” which accepts guest posts

Payday loan marketing. Just go away. You aren’t running a guest post here.

“slow carb” hungry all the time

You’re doing it wrong. If you are hungry, eat more bacon. Or beans. Beans fill you up longer.

$1000000 business idea

Ideas are the easy part. Execution makes you a millionaire.

articles on why appearance shouldn’t matter?

Appearances do matter, and always will. Your appearance is what makes the initial impression when you meet someone new. You don’t have to be a model, but basic grooming and fashion sense is necessary. Take this with a grain of salt. I’ve got a week’s growth of a beard and I wear a different plaid, button-down shirt every day.

are push ups supposed to be hard

Only the first 50. After that, I kind of go on blissed-out autopilot. If you can do 100 pushups, you can probably do 200.

acceptable place to put tattoo

If you wear clothes there, you can put a tattoo there. Visible tattoos are called “job stoppers” for a reason. If you put a tattoo on your face, the only job you qualify for is “drug dealer’s girlfriend”. Or possibly prison janitor.

burning bridges with toxic people

If you must burn bridges, filling them with toxic people first isn’t a bad idea.

candied pork butt

Rule 34: If it exists, there is porn of it. Interesting side story: while double-checking the rule number, I stumbled across My Little Ponies doing things they never advertise on the box.

cut my wife’s hair

I did this once. Pro tip: In the back, at the bottom, cut small chunks and leave them longer than you think they should be. You can always cut more, but uncutting hair is really hard.

f***** on the roadside by your mechanic

He probably deserves a tip for that.

girls fart for money and girls live farts

See the bit about the pork butt, remove the funny, and…ewww.

how to be a successful debtor

I recommend starting by paying your bills. When the debts are gone, you win. Success!

i ate bacon on slow carb diet

So did everyone else, sweetie. It’s the biggest draw to the slow carb diet.

in memory of pets tattoos

When I get a pet, I get it with the understanding that I’m going to outlive it. The day I bring it home, some small part of me is preparing for the day when I have to dig a hole in my backyard. Tattooing that day? Not gonna happen.

thickening felt behind testicle

Why are you on google? Go to the doctor. Please?

Interesting. Between girls farting and my post about being well-trained, there is a significant amount of fetish traffic coming through here. Maybe I need to explore a new advertising strategy.

Sunday Roundup: Spent weekend

Misc

The problem with running a training class for a side hustle is that it sucks up half of my weekend, whenever I hold a class. I like my weekends. Unfortunately for downtime, I like extra money more.