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.
Not the Center of the Universe
On Sunday, I dropped Punk #3 off at a birthday party. She walked into the yard, saw her friends and took off running. I confirmed times with the birthday girl’s mother and left. I went home and had Punk #2 help me with repairs to Coffin #1. It is Halloween season, after all.
When I came back two hours later, they had just finished eating cake and were about to open up presents, so I got to hang around for a while.
I noticed some amazing things:
- Fully 75% of this family’s living room was devoted to play space for the kid. As you walk in the front door, you get to see a giant pile of toys and kid-craft crap. Most of what is traditionally a gathering area was taken over by kid.
- Of the dozen or so children who came to the party, close to half of the parents stayed. Really, is your precious little snowflake so endangered by her friends that you can’t come up with something better to do that watch her play with her friends and ignore you for two hours while under the supervision of the resident parent?
- Clowns. Ok, it wasn’t technically a clown, but a guy named Mr. Fun who hands out whoopie cushions and entertains kids while wearing odd clothes counts as a clown, to me. I get it, you want your special little snowflake to have a memorable birthday, but if every party is big and over-the-top, which one will she remember? Maybe she’ll only remember a sense of entitlement.
I very firmly believe that children should not be raised to feel like they are the center of the universe. Not even to Mom & Dad. They need to know that we have lives and interests that aren’t them.
Mothers and fathers NEED to have lives and interests that are entirely separate from their children. If your entire focus for 20+years is on the lives of your little brats, what is going to happen to you when they move out? Are you prepared to abandon two decades of self-training and suddenly become your own person again?
Husbands and wives need to have time to themselves that excludes the children. When the monsters finally leave, you need to be able to have a relationship that doesn’t revolve around who spilled what where and who’s turn is it to clean it up.
Children are not–and should not be–the focal point of a household. Leave them at a birthday party. Let them find a way to entertain themselves for a few hours. Go on a date.
I promise you, letting your kids see their parents happily doing things together–even if it’s gleefully leaving them with a sitter–will do more for their long-term well-being than knowing you’re standing in the corner at a birthday party watching her fake a fart with a 25 cent toy.
Let her be independent. Let her know that other priorities do exist for other people. Let her fall down and scrape her knees. Let her figure out how things work for herself.
That is life, after all. Let her live it and don’t forget to live it for yourself.
30 Day Project – January
This month, I have two 30 Day Projects.
My first project is to start waking up at 5am. This will add an extra 90 minutes to my day, which will give me time to manage all of my other 30 day projects. I’ll be able to wake up to a quiet house, walk the dog, eat breakfast and not start every day in a rush to get out of the house. Today was my exception. After watching 2010 arrive, I didn’t get up early.
The second project is to start reading to my children every night before bed. We read to the kids often, but not every day. That’s going to change. We are also working on breaking the girls of the family bed. If I can read them to sleep each night, it will help. Good, educational family time that makes it easier to sleep every night.
These are both habits I want to keep long after the month is up.
Shopping Online: The Money-Saving Secret
I try to do as much of my shopping online, if at all possible. The one exception is groceries. The two local companies that offer online grocery shopping and delivery have a markup that just doesn’t balance out with the convenience of not having to fight crowds at the grocery store.
I buy books, CDs, movies, even toilet paper online. It’s so much easier to spend 5 minutes on a website than to pack up the kids, drive to the store, wander around while trying to avoid coming within view of the toy aisles, get what I need and get out without buying a bunch of crap I don’t need.
For a long time, I’d just accept the price as the price. I’d pay whatever was asked. Eventually, I quit overlooking the magic money-saving option on almost all e-commerce websites: the coupon field.
Here’s how it works: While you are checking out, you will usually see a box marked “coupon code” or “promo code”. Put in a coupon code, and poof! you save money. Magic is fun.
What happens if you don’t have a coupon code?
I crank up my second brain, aka Google. For example, if I’m shopping at the Gap, I’ll type in “Gap coupon code“. When the search results come up, I open the top 4-5 pages all at once and look for the best deals. If a site is trying to charge $30 for shipping, a free shipping coupon is a winner. If I’m ordering $300 worth of Christmas presents, a 15% off code is a real prize. Other times, I will concentrate on the buy-one, get-one type of coupons. Those are handy when I’m trying to buy presents for all of my nieces and nephews.
The real secret is coupon stacking. It’s usually not allowed, but some sites allow you to stack different types of coupons. If I can find a “15% off $300” coupon and a “free shipping” coupon for the same site, I’ll try to use them both. One Christmas, I was able to get $100 of free stuff shipped for $5 by stacking BOGOs, discounts, and shipping coupons. I love to get free stuff. Always try to use extra coupons, if you can find them. This isn’t extreme couponing, just using the system as it was designed.
I search coupon codes every single time I order anything online. No exceptions. How do you save money when you shop online?
Written on behalf of Dealtaker.com
I just turned 2!
Update: Over $500 in prizes!
Yesterday was my second anniversary here. For the last two years, I have shared my thoughts, feelings, and finances three times a week and you have been there to watch and share as I figure out my financial future.
I appreciate it.
To show my appreciation, I’m giving stuff away.
Here are the prizes:
1 $100 prize
1 $75 prize
6 $25 prizes, courtesy of ThirtySixMonths, Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, Maximizing Money, Personal Finance Whiz, and Broke Professionals.
1 iPod Shuffle courtesy of Prairie Eco-Thrifter.
1 $25 Amazon gift card courtesy of Beating Broke.
A copy of each of the iPhone and iPad versions of the Pay Off Debt app from The Debt Myth
1 $20 Amazon gift card, courtesy of Money Crush.
1 $25 Starbuck’s gift card, courtesy of Mom’s Plans.
I’m also giving away some books, some of which have been lightly read.
Financial Peace Revisited by Dave Ramsey
Never Pay Retail by Sid Kirchheimer
Delivering Happiness (advanced reader copy) by Tony Hsieh
I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau
CreditCards.com Book of Cartoons
Women & Money by Suze Orman
To enter:
Follow the instuctions in the widget below. Following me on Facebook, Twitter, RSS, or email will all earn entries. Following any of the sponsors on Twitter of Facebook will earn you entries. Tweeting about the giveaway as often as you like or linking to this page on your site will earn you entries.
There are lots of ways to enter and 16 prizes to win.
The drawing will be held on December 23rd, just in time to give you some cash before Christmas.
Good luck!
Babies Are Expensive
From the comments here. The discussion is on how much it costs to have a baby. Edited for clarity.
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Actual birthing costs vary. We’ve had three kids over ten years and birthing costs have varied from $250 out of pocket to $8500. Our highest and lowest price births were 20 months apart. The highest price birth involved induced labor with an epidural. For the lowest out-of-pocket price, I added my wife to my policy before the birth, so she was double-covered. If one of your policies is less than ideal and there are multiple policies available, I recommend doing this. It saved us thousands. All told, If things go well, you could slide for as little as $1500 total.
For the highest price birth, we threw ourselves on the mercy of the finance department. They have a charity fund to pay the bills of the less fortunate. We qualified…barely. If you have a medical bill you can’t afford, ask if there is a grant or donation you can apply for. Always ask if there is some way the bill could be lowered.
Breast-feeding beats the heck out of formula, financially, but breast-feeding doesn’t always work. Ignore the boob-nazis who insist you are slowly killing your kid by using formula. I’ve got 3 kids, and each had different feeding issues.
Baby formula runs $19 for a big container at Sam’s Club, or a large percentage of your soul at most other big box stores. Formula alone will pay for your membership in under a month. For a big eater, that’s $20-30 per week. For a normal eater, 2-3 weeks. For planning purposes, assume $100/month in formula costs for the first six months, when food starts coming into play heavily. After that, the formula expense goes down, but not away for at least 6 more months.
Diapers are painful. Not just the smell–though that hurts, too, sometimes–but the expense. I currently have 2 in diapers; one is potty-training. Our monthly costs for diapers, now, are about $75. It was easily twice that when they were younger. Figure at least $100 per month in diapers. Unless your baby has irritation problems, go with cheap diapers. Leak-guard is a joke. If you are relying on leak-guard to keep the contents inside the diaper, you aren’t changing your baby often enough.
I couldn’t begin to guess at how much you’ll spend on baby clothes. I have never bought clothes for our kids. Whatever didn’t come free from friends and family walked into the house of it’s own volition, following my wife home from the store.
Toys are an almost purely voluntary expense. You’ll get as much as the kids needs free, as presents. You’ll go overboard and give the kids 10 times that, without realizing it. Don’t. For the first four to five months, its fingers and toes will be entertaining enough. After that, if there are more than about ten toys, it’s too many; the kid will never get attached to any of them. Keep it small. It’s better for the kids and the budget. Little kids prefer boxes to toys, anyway. Give the kid a shoebox instead of a Leapfrog. Really.
Portraits suck, too. If you have to get them done professionally, get a membership that covers sitting fees, and use coupons. I recommend JC Penney’s. Using judicious coupons and the membership, we get portraits for under $20.
Baby food is probably cheaper to make in a food processor, but you can’t beat the convenience of the little jars. If you watch sales, you can stock up affordably. Mix every meal with some rice or oatmeal mush to stretch it, without making it unhealthy. Depending on your kids, and how much you listen to the “experts”, this is a nonexistent expense before six months. Our kids started eating baby food in their second months, at least a little bit.
Babies are expensive. Don’t doubt that for a second, but ignore the polled averages when it comes to expense. Hand-me-downs, thrift stores, and good sales cut the expense a lot.
How do you save money and value with a baby in the house?