Search results matching tag 'children'

10 money moves I’d do differently

Karen Datko — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:27:00 GMT

This guest post comes from "vh" at Funny about Money.

Ever think about what you'd do if you could turn back the clock and be 20 again? Though I wouldn't especially want to live my life over, there are a number of money moves -- and decisions that had more influence on lifelong personal finance than I could have guessed at the time -- that I'd either not do at all or that, given a peek forward 40 years, I'd do differently.

For example:

I would have taken advanced degrees in disciplines whose graduates make decent pay. Can't say I regret having prepared for an academic career. It has allowed me to earn an adequate (not generous) living after spending way too much time as a lady of leisure.

However, I'd never recommend to a young person who wants a life in academe that she or he pursue a doctorate in the humanities. University faculty in business, engineering and law earn more than those in other disciplines. A Ph.D. in accounting can start at the assistant-professor level with a six-figure salary, and believe you me, that is one hell of a lot more than you earn teaching history or English.

Mind-numbing major? Puh-leeze! What could be more mind-numbing than postmodern theory? Oh yeah: postmodern feminist theory! Give me a bag of beans to count, any day.

Knowing what I know today, I'd still want a career in higher education. I would take an undergraduate degree in a humanities discipline that a) interested me, b) would furnish a young mind, and c) would build skills in logical thinking. But at the same time I would take lower- and upper-division courses in statistics and basic college-level math. Then I would get myself an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in business management, a subject not too taxing for my sketchy math skills. With those credentials -- which certainly demand no more work, expense, or skill than the doctorate in English that resulted in a well respected book published through a prestigious press -- I'd be earning about twice what I make now.

I would have started working in higher education early on, even though it entailed having to teach five sections a semester of freshman comp at a community college. What I didn't understand, in my callow youth, about that horrifying prospect is that over time community college faculty find ways to evade the most onerous courses and to wangle course release time, just as university professors do. Nor did I have any idea how much more community college faculty here earn, compared with Great Desert University, UofA, and NAU faculty.

Without the fugues into magazine journalism, today I'd be earning a decent income, and I'd probably occupy a layoff-proof job. Or, more likely, I would have retired by now with plenty of savings to support me in the style to which I was accustomed while I was married to the corporate lawyer.

If I were 25 again, I would insist that my husband include me in the marital finances. It was easy to tell my women friends to get a grip on their family finances, establish credit in their own names, and know where the money was. But all the time I was dispensing that excellent advice, I wasn't following it myself.

I had no idea where all our money was going, I did not know what my husband was investing our money in or what debt he was obligating us to, and to tell the truth, I never did know exactly how much he earned.

Because he deliberately entered false figures in the checkbook, I couldn't reconcile the bank statements when I tried, and so I had no clue how much we had in our joint account. Nor did I know about the two other bank accounts he'd opened without my name on them.

I would open my own savings and checking accounts -- preferably at an institution other than the one that held our joint account -- and set aside part of my paychecks, my freelance income, or (when I wasn't working) part of the grocery money. Being my relentlessly frugal father's child, I was bothered when the husband refused to save for our son's college education. But he never tried to exercise any serious control over how much I spent.

In those days, I paid for everything with checks and often asked grocery store cashiers for cash back (cash-back policies were more generous then). I could easily have creamed off $100 a month -- weekly cash-backs of $25 would've gone unnoticed. If I'd started doing that the month my son was born, I would have stashed $21,600 for him by the time he graduated from high school.

My husband also refused to budget; his express reason was that budgeting is for poor people. Consequently I had no control over our spending and no idea whether I was spending more than we had. If I'd put aside money for myself, I could at least have budgeted independent of his whims and felt more in control of some of our finances.

I'd use a credit union instead of banks. Even before banks decided to make a profitable business of fleecing their customers, credit unions were always preferable to commercial banks. Savings rates are higher, checking is free, and service is infinitely better.

I would have learned about investing early on. If I'd had a clue about such things as mutual funds (no joke: before I walked from the marriage, I'd never heard of them), I wouldn't have taken my husband's private banker's weird advice to invest a $40,000 inheritance in (hang on to your hats, folks) one-week CDs! Yes. Forty grand sat in one-week CDs for over a year, until after I ran away, spent three awful months sleeping on the ground in the outback of Alaska and Canada, and finally made my way back to the city.

Yup. I could've invested the $21,600 of grocery money in instruments that earned compounding interest, too. Hmm. Check out this handy-dandy little calculator. Assuming we went ahead and paid for my son's education out of his father's capacious salary and so I just kept on investing a hundred bucks a month for him at, say, 8%, today he would stand to inherit another $177,395.38. Ah, coulda shoulda woulda.

I would have learned and started to use Quicken the minute it came out. Quicken is the answer to the innumerate English major's dreams. Not having to add and subtract (something I can't do reliably even with a calculator) made it possible to reconcile bank statements easily, without dampening sheets of paper with sweat or with tears. Consequently the program allowed me to take firm control of my financial life, in a way that wouldn't have been possible when every encounter with money involved a daunting episode of math torture.

I would have learned how to use Excel. I still don't know it well enough to free myself from Intuit, which, despite the glories of its Quicken program, rips off customers by issuing ever-more-bloated annual updates that won't read data in formats more than three or four years old. Excel does everything I need Quicken to do, it doesn't go out of date, and it functions across platforms.

I probably would have spent less on my current home's landscaping. I'm pleased with the yard and glad to have it, but something acceptable could have been accomplished at lower cost. Specifically, I wouldn't install such a large front patio (or possibly any front courtyard), and I would have planted younger, less expensive trees.

I would have opened a Roth IRA as soon as they became available and maxed out contributions every year. Though we can add a substantial amount to our 403(b) above and beyond our mandatory retirement contributions, the university matches only 7% of our paychecks. IMHO, that makes these highly restrictive investment instruments less desirable than the after-tax Roth IRA, which accrues interest and dividends tax-free and can be passed to your heirs without encumbrance.

My not building Roth savings from the get-go is a function of late-blooming investment knowledge. Which takes us back to item No. 6: Learn about investing early on.

What would you do differently if you could start from financial scratch again?

Related reading at Funny about Money:

On blogging and money

How bad public policy and other people's foolishness cost you and me

Facing unemployment: The emotional effects, the business consequences

Recession-inspired road trip games

Karen Datko — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:44:00 GMT

Many folks -- although 13% fewer than last year, AAA predicts -- will be hitting the road this Labor Day weekend. To make the time pass (and keep the kids occupied) maybe you'll roll out those old road trip games, like finding the letters of the alphabet in order on road signs and license plates. (If you're driving, you may not want to compete in that one.)

Or you can try out recession-inspired games and songs created by Laura Rich at Recessionwire.

For instance, sing this song to the tune of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall":

150 million working Americans (she doesn't add "on the wall" here, but we think you can),
150 million working Americans,
Take one down, kick him around,
149 million working Americans.

You can stop at 141 million or whatever number of people still have jobs at the time, she says.

A few others from her post "8 recession road trip games":

A variation on the punch-someone-when-you-see-a-VW-Bug game, you tap the person next to you when you see a house for-sale sign. Punching would be too brutal. There are lots of signs out there.
"Old McDonald Had a Farm" morphs into "Old McDonald Sold His Farm" with appropriate word changes in each verse.
Twenty questions recession-style is similar to the regular version, except, Laura says, "To keep it fun, make a rule that the object has to be something related to the downturn. Such as: a pink slip; or a clunker; or Bernie Madoff."

Related reading:

Are we there yet? Road trips are back

Madoff victims fight for money

Weakness behind those payroll numbers

Big jump in July foreclosures

Discount back-to-school, sports physicals

Teresa Mears — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:30:00 GMT

If you still need to schedule a back-to-school or sports physical for your child, Walgreens Take Care Clinics are offering the exams for $30, half-price, until Sept. 30. The deal is only good for patients who pay upfront rather than submitting the claim to an insurance company.

Target Clinics in Maryland and Minnesota are offering the same deal, as are the CVS Minute Clinics, where $30 seems to be the regular price for sports physicals. Sports physicals at The Little Clinic, available at some grocery chains, are $29, also the regular price.

Prices at Wal-Mart clinics vary, so it's worth a call to your local clinic to find out the price in your area. Also check with local urgent care centers. While we were researching this post, an ad popped up with a coupon for a $25 sports or school physical (normally $65) in the next county.

These walk-in clinics can be a good resource for people without insurance or for people who have a minor ailment and can't get a timely appointment to see their regular doctor.

Leah Ingram at Suddenly Frugal offers some tips for getting the required physicals and forms for children to go back to school or play sports. Her doctor will fill out forms for free if it's part of an office visit, but charges $25 to $40 to fill them out at a separate time, meaning that coordinating visits with required forms saves money.

The late Dr. Stephen Parker of Web MD's Healthy Children blog offered some pros and cons on taking your children to retail clinics. Zrinka Peters of Education.com talks about back-to-school health issues, including providing a link to immunization requirements in all 50 states provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Web MD also has an article on what a sports physical should include.

If you're looking for vaccinations, the retail walk-in clinics may not be the best deal. Check first with your county health department. Many offer required vaccinations for free. Some health departments and large hospitals also host free health screenings and vaccination clinics.

Related reading:

A survival guide for the uninsured

Your 5-minute guide to health insurance

How will Wal-Mart clinics affect health care?

Toys ‘R’ Us launches ‘cash for cribs’

Karen Datko — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:10:00 GMT

We've expressed alarm here about how often baby products like cribs and bassinets are recalled because they pose a deadly hazard to tiny kids. Now Toys "R" Us is offering a financial incentive to parents to trade in used cribs, bassinets, play yards, car seats and other baby items and get dangerous products out of circulation for good.

Why not call it "cash for cribs"? And it's important. Consumer advocate Kids In Danger estimates that fewer than 30% of recalled baby items are actually turned in. Combine that with the fact that people are buying secondhand items to stretch every buck, and you can imagine how many unsafe baby items are still being used.

Here's how to participate in what's officially dubbed the "Great Trade-In" -- which starts Friday, Aug. 28 -- and get a 20% discount when you buy new baby items:

The program applies to used cribs, car seats, bassinets, strollers, travel systems, play yards and high chairs.
It runs through Sept. 20 at all Babies "R" Us and Toys "R" Us locations in the U.S.
When you trade in a used item from the above list, you'll get 20% off on the purchase of a new item on the list. The Los Angeles Times says there's no limit on how many items you can trade in. Sixteen manufacturers are participating, so you'll have quite a selection to choose from when you buy your new crib or other baby gear.

Even if you don't take advantage of this offer, keep in mind that buying used baby items like cribs, etc., is not a good idea. Safety standards improve, materials they're made of can deteriorate, and, for all you know, the car seat could have been damaged in a crash or the item could have been recalled but not returned.

The LA Times reported:

Last week, for instance, the (CPSC) reissued an August 2008 recall of about 900,000 Simplicity bassinets because two infants had died after becoming trapped between the product's bars or in a pocket of fabric; the initial recall was prompted by the deaths of two other children.

To looks for recalls, check out the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Web site or sign up for free e-mail alerts from the CPSC, which is what we did.

Recall alerts delivered right to your mailbox

10 things you should never buy used

Do school uniforms save money?

Teresa Mears — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:35:00 GMT

As students head back to school this fall, an age-old debate is raging: Do school uniforms save parents money on school clothes? Catholic school students have always worn uniforms, but in recent years more public school students are wearing uniforms, too.

Whether requiring students to wear uniforms improves the education experience continues to be debated. Marian Wilde at Great Schools reports that studies have found both that it does and it doesn't.

But is it cheaper? Parents disagree on that, too. And the answer may depend on whether the school uniform code is flexible, such as requiring any navy pants and white polo shirts, or navy pants and white polo shifts from specific vendors.

Parents are definitely trying to save money on school clothes this year. According to the The National Retail Federation's annual Back to School Survey, four of five Americans say the economy is significantly affecting back-to-school spending plans.

Many parents say uniforms for public school students do save money, and as more schools have turned to uniforms, more stores -- from Wal-Mart to J.C. Penney to Sears to Lands' End -- have added school uniforms to their offerings.

Tiffany Ulmer, a mother of two charter school students in Eagle Mountain, Utah, persuaded her local Wal-Mart to stock the uniforms her kids needed.

If you're shopping for school uniforms this year, here are a few ways to save:

Check local thrift stores for used uniforms.
Organize a uniform exchange with other parents.
Check online sources.
Look for online coupons.

Cheap Kate, of the Orlando Sentinel's Frugal Force, cautions that it's best not to do too much back-to-school shopping before school starts because your kids' needs may change during the year.

What are your tips to save money on school uniforms or school clothes in general? Do you think requiring uniforms for public school students is a good plan?

Related reading:

Make your clothes last longer

Clothes shopping for frugal families

18 top tips for buying used clothes

Passport to Adventure offers free incentives to kids

Joan Melcher — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:16:00 GMT

Outdoor gear retailer REI wants kids to explore the outdoors and it’s providing incentives with its Passport to Adventure program.

Kids ages 5-12 can win prizes (and not just some trinkets -- we’re talking cool REI kids’ gear) when they keep an adventure journal, documenting hikes, biking and other outdoor adventures.

First, parents need to pick up a journal at an REI outlet or download one from the cooperative’s site. Next, it’s time to pick an activity. REI provides an interactive map to locate parks and other outdoor adventure sites in your area.

The maps appear to be quite comprehensive. We checked the map for our town and found all the usual outdoor haunts, as well as a conservation area we haven’t visited. All directions are given from the nearest REI store.

After your child finishes the outdoor adventure, you send a filled-in tear-off postcard from the adventure journal or fill out an online form to get a certificate of completion for a prize.

Prizes available include a whistle and binoculars that incorporate other functions in their designs, including a compass, thermometer and magnifying glass.

Want to learn more about what sorts of activities may be in store for your kids? Read about the adventures of Elise and Amara Hachfeld, who have participated in the program since it was launched in the summer of 2007.

Free sites provide a chance for the personal touch

Joan Melcher — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:07:00 GMT

With summer months stretching into the horizon, it may be a good time to plan a few home projects.

Here’s a suggestion: Use photos to create your own calendars and learning tools.

What better way to teach the alphabet than to create your own with photos and text? Project Alphabet gives plenty of examples of how people have personalized this learning experience.

We liked Gabriel’s Alphabet, which uses the alphabet to tell the story of a child’s adoption, and The Irish Alphabet, which documents a family’s trip to Ireland.

Project Alphabet also allows you to use your own photos to create calendars, as does Smilebox, which gives you the option of adding music. You can e-mail the calendar you make, print it, post it to a blog or burn it to a DVD. You’ll have to join the Smilebox Club to save it to a DVD, but there is a free 14-day trial period.

Want to share calendars with friends, family members or colleagues? Keep and Share offers a free membership that includes space for uploading up 100 MB in photos along with password-controlled access to your account. You have the option to choose ad-supported free access or a 14-day free trial.

Still a little intimidated by the process? Check out a post by “GinneyHarris” at HubPages, which includes tips for shooting digital photographs and creating a calendar.

10 tips for affordable family trips

Show your kids that frugality can be fun

Joan Melcher — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:22:00 GMT

Summer offers time for learning adventures -- and what better way to teach your children the value of frugality than to introduce them to the free fun and learning opportunities online?

A good place to start is Free Things for Kids. This site is brimming with links to freebies ranging from washable tattoos to endangered species coloring books.

A few of our favorites: a free magic book and trick from MisterJeff.com, an opportunity to “download” a dinosaur, and comic books from the Federal Reserve with titles like “The Story of Banks” and “The Story of Money.”

This site also teaches patience. Many of the 200 listed freebies must be ordered through the mail and require a self-addressed stamped envelope. The logic used is: “Your kids love to get something in the mail. Help them to get as many things as possible and watch them look forward to the mail coming every day.”

If you’re looking for more spontaneous fun, you’ll want to check out free online video games, and One Family’s Blog has the skinny on them. Blogger “ks” found Arcademic Skill Builders and PBS Kids to be the best K-6 commercial-free educational sites, but several others also are listed.

Freaky Freddies contributes to the cause with a myriad of fun freebies, including a link to a search engine that finds restaurants that offer free meals and deals to kids. We also liked the idea of ordering a K! Magazine from KidzMatter and the free download of the kit designed to help kids and parents identify urban birds.

If your kids are still bored, here are a few more resources:

Half Price Books is offering kids age 12 and under a $3 shopping card for each week they read 15 minutes each day. The offer is good June 1-July 31. You’ll want to check your local outlet for details.
Zertiflyable Games offers free games to play online.
Both Home Depot and Lowe’s are offering free Saturday workshops for kids. At Home Depot’s workshops, kids can make a hardware sorter June 6 or a picnic caddy July 4. The workshops are offered to children ages 5-12 from 9 a.m. to noon. In addition to a project kit, the company says each child will receive a kid-sized orange apron and an achievement pin. Lowe’s free Build and Grow workshops are scheduled from 10 to 11 a.m. on two Saturdays in June. The first 50 children will be supplied with project kits for making a mini putting green on June 13 and a pirate ship on June 27. You’ll need to sign up online for both of these offers or check your local outlet for details.

Free reads and learning opportunities for summer

Bowling alleys set up free pins for kids

Summer movies -- for free or a buck

10 resources to find cheap or free summer fun

Karen Datko — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:57:00 GMT

This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.

Like many families, the schedule of our family changes drastically during the summer. My wife goes on hiatus from her job for a few months, our children are constantly at home, and I strive to rearrange my own work so that I can spend more time with them. Plus, the weather is beautiful, encouraging us to be outside.

We load our summer schedule with all kinds of activities -- camping trips and visits to state parks, community festivals and lots of other things.

But how do you find all of these things. Here are 10 resources we use for finding great free/cheap things to do during the summer.

Community festivals. Looking for festivals in your local community or in neighboring communities? Festivals.com is the best resource I've found that collects listings of those festivals. While it doesn't include everything, it does point out lots of interesting activities near your ZIP code throughout the summer.

Music festivals. Try Festival Finder. Once you get beyond mega-festivals like Bonnaroo, there are a lot of music festivals all across the country, and many are surprisingly inexpensive (sometimes free). Such festivals are a great way to hear lots of interesting music and meet people who have similar interests.

National parks. Try the National Park Service's Find a Park Web site. A national park pass can be one of the best frugal investments around. National parks are wonderful places to explore, camp, hike and enjoy. The stunning beauty and majesty of nature found within many of the parks is well worth visiting.

State parks. If you want an even less expensive and local alternative to national parks, try finding a great state park in your area at StateParks.com. State parks offer very inexpensive camping options and plenty of interesting areas to explore and enjoy.

Libraries. Search for public libraries here. Many libraries offer great summer programs of all kinds: reading groups, reading programs for kids, free film nights. Summertime is a great time to get in touch with the many interesting and free programs available right in your own town at the library.

Community calendars. Just add your city and state to this Google query to find the community calendar for your own town. Community calendars are loaded with interesting and enjoyable free events, from community dinners to farmers markets in your local area. It's also worth searching for the community calendars of nearby cities and towns.

Craft fairs. You can find local craft fairs here. If you enjoy crafting, craft fairs can be an incredibly fun way to spend a day or two. Most craft fairs are free to enter and often provide a way to sell or trade your craft products, as well as pick up interesting and useful supplies and learn new techniques.

Natural collections. Summertime is the perfect time to start a natural collection of your own. It gives you a great reason to start exploring the outdoors, doesn't cost a thing, and can provide the foundation of a lifelong passion. Start a notebook tracking the birds you find. Collect leaves or interesting rocks. Just explore the natural beauty around you.

Minor League Baseball. Many communities have a Minor League Baseball team in the area. Baseball games are pure fun -- much more frugal and much more laid-back than major league games, often with wacky entertainment to boot. Minor league versions of any other sport are similar in their frugal fun.

Volunteering. Want a great free activity that you can spend lots of hours on and feel good about yourself afterward? Check out VolunteerMatch. Few things can beat volunteering, and you can usually get the whole family involved.

Related reading at The Simple Dollar:

How being a control freak costs you money

7 steps toward minimizing junk mail and unwanted calls

Some thoughts on the Tightwad Gazette's ‘flexible casserole' recipe

Celebrate Memorial Day weekend with a freebie

Joan Melcher — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:37:00 GMT

Memorial Day is a day to remember the ultimate sacrifice of our nation’s service members.

It’s also the unofficial beginning of summer and a time to cast off the dregs of winter.

We’re got a few deals and freebies that should help with that, including a free breakfast, free frozen yogurt, a great deal on a frosty, and free pizza for kids.

Ikea is offering free food again -- coffee and a breakfast entrée -- at participating stores from Saturday, May 23, through Monday, May 25.

The offer is limited to one per customer while supplies last and is not valid at outlets in Charlotte, N.C.; Hicksville, N.Y.; Houston; Stoughton, Mass.; or Tampa, Fla.
You can cool down with refreshing frozen yogurt and get a Blue Bunny rebate when you purchase any Aspen or Sedona frozen yogurt sandwich over the weekend. One rebate is allowed per household.

Wendy’s is offering a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for a frosty, and kids can make their own pizza free at participating Uno Chicago Grills through May 31.

Lowe’s is offering a free “Build and Grow” clinic in participating stores Saturday, May 23, from 10 to 11 a.m. Our local Lowe’s is providing a free kit to the first 50 children who sign up for the clinic. Details vary by store, so you’ll want to check your local outlet.

Here are a few tips on finding Memorial Day history, cards and graphics:

CurrClick offers a free history of Memorial Day designed for homeschooling that is a good general information resource. You’ll have to log on with an e-mail address.
Free e-cards can be found at several sites, including MemorialDay-eCards.com, AmericanGreetings.com, and 100Free-Ecards.com.
You can download free Memorial Day graphic page frames here.
Early adopters may want to explore a new online graphics trend -- a “loop” of a waving American flag that can be used for online presentations. The Web site claims loops “add a creative element to your announcements, song lyrics or message points.”

And while we’re at it, here’s some free information on displaying the American flag. (One of our pet peeves is the nonchalance sometimes shown these days by those who display the flag. Yes, we’re probably showing our age.)

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs explains on its Web site: “Traditional guidelines call for displaying the flag in public only from sunrise to sunset. However, the flag may be displayed at all times if it’s illuminated during darkness. The flag should not be subject to weather damage, so it should not be displayed during rain, snow and wind storms unless it is an all-weather flag.”

After you properly display your flag, you might want to check out what’s happening in your area. We found all sorts of free events in Phoenix, including a showing of the award-winning documentary "Lessons in Loyalty: One American's Internment Camp Experience" at 1p.m. Saturday at Chandler’s McCullough-Price House.

If you live in the Greeley, Colo., area and you bought a new or used vehicle May 13-16 from Weld County Garage, a GMC, Pontiac and Buick dealership, pray for rain on Memorial Day. If it rains, the dealership will refund the purchase price.

The DenverChannel.com, has the specifics: “A sprinkle at 3 a.m. doesn't count, the rules say it must rain at least one inch on Memorial Day (May 25), between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.” Good luck. (Stranger things have happened.)

Finally, as we all know, Memorial Day weekend is a great time for retail sales. Here’s a taste of the deals: $1 flip-flops (up to five pairs) at Old Navy stores on Saturday, May 23. You’ll want to check to see if your local store is participating.