finances

5 Tips to Save on School Lunches

Philmundo — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:33:58 -0700

by Phil Stott

You know how it is; you want to give your child as healthy and nutritious lunch as possible, and to fill their lunchbox with all the things you know they enjoy, but all those juice boxes and pre-packaged snacks can really begin to add up. Here, then, are 5 ways to control the cost of what goes into Junior's lunch box while ensuring that you're not cutting down on quality.

Cut down the juice (or cut it out)

There are two important labels to consider when looking at juice boxes for kids: the one on the shelf in the store that tells you the price per gallon, and the one on the box with the calories and ingredients. When you check out the former, you realize that the bigger the container, the cheaper the contents become-the bonus of buying in bulk. So if you do send your kids to school with juice, get the biggest container of it you can find and portion it out into a reusable cup for your child every day. Also, don't be afraid to water it down (or cut it out altogether): that nutrition label reveals that most fruit juices have a staggering amount of sugar and calories, most of which your child is probably better off without.

Use leftovers

You're not too proud to parcel up the leftovers from one meal and haul them in for a cheap lunch at work, right? So why be afraid of doing so for your child? Obviously you don't want to send them in with something that's going to be too messy (leftover ribs, anyone?) or that will require any kind of preparation, but leftover slices of pizza are sure to be a hit, while things like chicken can be re-used in sandwiches.

Make your own...

No matter what food you name, it's usually cheaper and healthier to make your own version of it, even if it takes a little effort. And the best part: you can get your kids involved. Try making your own cookies or brownies for snack-time treats, or even your own soups for hot, healthy lunches (you might need to invest a little in a decent thermos, though).

Ditch the brown bags-and the plastic ones

Splash out a little on a lunchbox and a couple of plastic or (even better) metal containers for your child. Not only will they enjoy toting their favorite cartoon character or sports team with them every day, it'll also save you a bundle in the long run on all those plastic baggies and brown paper sacks.

The more adventurous (or less time-stretched) among you may want to try stepping it up a notch on your kids' lunches as well. For that reason, I offer the following link to a phenomenon I read about in the New York Times recently: kid-friendly bento boxes. Be warned, though: you may well end up feeling like the most inadequate parent in the world.

Ask your child what they want

Remember getting to school as a kid only to open your lunchbox and find that you hated what was inside? I got caught on more than one occasion trying to ditch my sandwiches in the lunchroom trashcan. Don't have your kids going through the day hungry: talk to them about what they'd like-and about what worked and didn't work. One of the big treats when I was growing up in Britain was to get a jelly sandwich with one of these cookies in it-ridiculously unhealthy, but really good. What my mum didn't realize, though, was that if she put the sandwich together in the morning, the jelly caused the cookie to get mushy. Solution: pack them separately, allow the child to assemble (the same goes for any sandwich where one ingredient has to stay crispy).

The Health Care Bill

Toby — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:56:28 -0700

Greetings Dads,
What is the deal with the healthcare bill? There is so much from both sides, I cannot digest it. http://tiny.cc/prAbe Any Dr., Nurse, Hospital admin, medical salesperson, etc that would like to share an opinion? Is it true those in Washington are rebuffing this plan for themselves to stay on their current plan? If it is so good for the people, why not for them? I do not want sides, I want information please.
This is one of the biggest votes in history and I want to make sure that we (and our politicians) have all the data. Again, please do not use this topic to post your political opinions, forget about Red and Blue states - we need to be UNITED! I, and other Dads, need to hear from those inside the Healthcare system so we can make the best decision for out families.
Thank you for your posts.
Cheers,
Toby

Recession will be longer than we think?

tony — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:47:04 -0800

Now, there are experts saying the recession won't be the "typical" 8-12 months long - it will be more like 2-3 years. For more on recessions, check out Roubini's description of the "L curve" Also, here's a good history of all previous recessions in the US.

A great time to buy a car?

tony — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:30:12 -0800

The down economy presents some good car-buying opportunities. And not just for American cars.

Family planning in the recession

Philmundo — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:59:24 -0800

by Phil Stott

As the financial crisis continues, it's beginning to take its toll in ways that I'd never have predicted. Having personally survived two rounds of layoffs at work (so far!) and been handed a pay freeze, I'd begun to think that we were weathering the worst of it. Not so fast: it now turns out that the school my wife teaches at is also in dire straits. In addition to a round of layoffs there, they've also frozen pay, but have gone one better when it comes to hitting us in the pocket: the subsidized daycare we'd been enjoying for Maeve has gone, meaning we're going to be paying 50 percent for it more come September. And did I mention that we've had our salaries frozen?

I suspect that we're far from alone in finding ourselves facing strained financial circumstances in the coming months and years-indeed, we're downright lucky for both still having jobs. One of the biggest questions the crisis has raised in our house is likely to be an ongoing debate for some time. The issue is this: with Maeve now 14 months old, we both want a second child, and would like to have one who's reasonably close in age to Maeve. Given the current crisis, however, and especially the increased stress on our finances, we're seriously questioning whether we can afford to have another child at this point.

Stick or twist?

In tossing the idea around, I keep seesawing between two opposing points of view. On one side, I realize that having children is not an inexpensive proposition, and given the current uncertainties over the solidity of our future employment prospects, I'm reluctant to commit to attempting to bring a child into a world where we can't provide for it. Let's call that my pragmatic side. For brevity's sake, here's a summary of that side's arguments:

The economy, the economy, the economy: neither of our jobs feels particularly stable at the moment, which is a pretty major concern. Add in the rising cost of healthcare, daycare, and no idea when our salaries will be unfrozen, and the financial picture starts to look quite scary.

Being a stay-at-home dad: Given that we'd almost certainly be unable to afford daycare for two kids, the only option would be for one of us to spend a couple of years at home-most likely me. While I'd get to spend a lot of time with my kids (see the pluses summary below), the flip side would be losing time and momentum in my career.

My other side, however, is more romantic, and doesn't believe that money should play as big a role as other considerations, especially as I believe that a recovery could be on the cards in the next couple of years. Predictably, the list of arguments that this side of me comes up with is slightly longer:

My wife and I both want more children: We agree that becoming parents is the single best thing we've ever done. Who wouldn't want more of that?
Siblings: If Maeve is to grow up with brothers and sisters that are close to her in age, it's soon or never.
Biological clock: While I'm not going to give Meghan's age away, we're at the stage where a couple of years of waiting makes a big difference to her chances for even being able to get pregnant. While we're also committed to the idea of adoption in the future, we'd still like to have more kids in the meantime. And, y'know, makin' babies is free (in addition to being fun), while the adoption process definitely is not.
Being a stay-at-home dad: While I'm finding this idea a bit difficult to reconcile with my long-term career goals (see the against column above), the opportunity to spend extra time with my child(ren) when they're young would be great.
Supplies: We already have almost everything we'd need for the first year of a second child's life-one of the benefits of not finding out Maeve's gender before she was born is that we have a lot of gender-neutral clothes and toys. And, having gone the reusable route, we even have diapers.

The closing argument

Despite all the sensible, pragmatic reasons for not trying to have a child at the moment, I can't help but feel that an addition to our family would only enrich our lives in ways that all the money in the world couldn't. Still, theorizing about that and actually making the commitment to make oneself considerably worse off financially are poles apart. I'm sure it's something that I'll continue to discuss with my wife as the weeks and months roll by, but I'm also interested in what others think on this issue. Are you going through a similar quandary? Is the state of the economy something you're thinking about as part of your family planning, or does "family planning" involve simply letting nature take its course? And where do you stand on the pragmatic vs. romantic scale? Do get involved below and let us know.

Well-researched money-saving green tips

tony — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:07:51 -0800

Here's one of the better-researched lists of energy-saving and money-saving green tips for our house. Very practical, with many suggestions possible with one trip to Lowe's and a few hours. Time to clean up my air filter.

The "Real" Unemployment Rate is 13.9%

tony — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:13:00 -0800

Today all the talk is about the new unemployment numbers. Let's stop obsessing about the 7.6% unemployment rate already. Here's an explanation of the real unemployment rate in America. And here's the official BLS report.

4 Money Mistakes We Make with Our Kids

tony — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:49:35 -0800

Shoot. This one got me nailed to the mat. Guilty as charged.

Preparing for the Down Economy

tony — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:41:09 -0800

by Tony Chen

Here's what we have to look forward to in 2009: deepening recession, international political instability, lots of high-profile bankruptcies, and an estimated 1 million pink slips. All we can do is take a deep breathe and focus on what we can control. Here are 20 things we dads can do to prepare our families for the times ahead. Time to get in touch with your inner eagle scout.

The Work Front: No one is safe, right? Every week, I'm hearing about friends of all professions getting laid off. The experts that keep track of this stuff say 60% of companies plan on laying people off in 2009 (compared to ~50% in 2008).

Refresh the resume. There's plenty of resume advice out there, but the best thing I've ever done is to constantly refresh two versions of my resume -- my one-pager and my everything-I've-ever-done-resume. No one sees the latter except me, but it helps me document everything I've ever done. Then I can easily emphasize different parts of my experience on my resume for different job searches. Cataloging everything regularly helps me remember all the things I did.
Network - Everyone knows to do this, but you can be in the 5% of folks who actually follow through. Make a list of 5 people to reconnect with in the next month and go meet up with them for lunch, coffee, or a quick "happy new year, how are you?" call. As of late, I've been meeting a ton of people through my LinkedIn profile - there are a lot more friend of friends that have common career, professional, and project interests than I would think. A LOT more.
Tidy up Your Online Persona Speaking of LinkedIn, this profile is your online resume, your professional homepage. Take some time set up your profile and maybe get some former colleagues to write you a glowing recommendation. Especially if there are er... new years party pictures of you on Google searches, this is a good way to move that stuff lower and out of sight from potential employers googling you. If that doesn't work, change your name to "John Smith" and you'll be covered.
Surf the job boards, even if you're completely happy with your job and not looking. I've found some good companies, salary information, job opportunities by casually surfing and saving all of it for a rainy day. Sure, the position would be filled by then, but you'll have a better sense of what the next steps might be when you're ready to make your move.
Become indispensable. Oh, I mean, less dispensable. In your current role, are there new projects to volunteer for, areas you see that could be improved, customers that you can win back? One rule of thumb: the closer you are to the customer (and the revenue), the better.
Learn a new skill. You're a waiter? learn how to roller skate. You're a financial analyst? Become an expert on financial software packages. You're a salesperson? Pick up some accounting. Too boring? Then, learn something you love, regardless of how "marketable" it is. It's fun, and experts and neurologists agree that it keeps your mind sharp and more creative. Hey, someone has to play the accordian.
Don't go negative. This is the best way to get fired. Be a pain at work. Complain. Talk negatively about co-workers. It's obvious, but how many of us immediately think of someone in our office right now who's fueling their own good-bye?
Get certified. Get a certification for your industry and/or your functional expertise. It's usually just a matter of attending some seminars (see #2 above) and taking a test. For me, I've gotten to know some great people that have led to lots of project, professional, and job leads. Being certified, as cheesy as it may be, is a great thing to have in common.
Take this tough time as an opportunity. If you're running a small business, this may be the perfect time for recruiting some great talent (lots out there right now!), going back to the basics, and rethinking your business.

The Money Front

Fluff up the cushion. Most financial experts say we should have an emergency fund that would cover 3-6 months of expenses. Whether you're in debt or all saved up, now would be a great time to beef it up and grow it to 12 months. 2.3 million people have been unemployed for more than a year. Such are the times.
Cut the fluff, i.e. all unnecessary expenses. BankRate has a great article with 100 ways to save money. WSJ lists 7 small buys that provide major returns. A few bucks a day adds up pretty quickly.
Get your money into an internet bank. One reason: higher interest rates. ING or Emigrant. These companies don't have to pay rent for physical bank locations and can pass that savings onto you.
Refinance. Rates are down and will probably go down some more. There are plenty of good brokers out there who will waive the fee, so you can basically refinance by just spending an hour signing papers. 30-year loans will probably go down to 5%. If you don't own a home, it's a buyer's market.
Invest. Maybe this is a good time to make some investment in beaten down stocks. Fortune has featured 10 stocks to buy right now. And specifically, maybe this is a good time to add an additional plug of money into junior's 529 plan. Short-term volatility doesn't matter, as we won't be touching that money for 15 years.
Find ways to pick up some extra cash. Any freelancing gigs? Part-time/weekend gigs? Is it time to sell off those baseball cards or those books from your disheveled, dusty bookcase? Time for some ebay and amazon selling.

The Family Front: In times like this, some experts say to forget about work/life balance. Maybe that's okay for a time, but "maybe next week, junior" turns into next month and then next year pretty quickly.

Teach in this teachable moment. They won't fully understand, but it's good for them to know that it's not just up, up, and up. Maybe this is also a good time to bring them down to the local soup kitchen to volunteer. They'll see with their own eyes that happiness in life doesn't have to be tied to what's going on financially and materially. I sometimes wonder why I've seen so much more deeply-rooted joy in kids I've met in Haiti, Native America tribes, and China, versus here in America?
Head to the library. Family time doesn't have to be expensive. And yes, libraries are making a wicked comeback.
Talk to your wife about the contingency plan. If you got laid off, obviously you would get really stressed, depressed, demotivated, and lost. Money, family, house, kids can sometimes hang in the balance - this is heavy stuff. Having an agreed-upon plan in hand will give everyone the motivation and purpose to keep on keeping on and to avoid a lot of resentment and anxiety.
Make exercise a family activity. In our constant go-go-go society, we are actually doing ourselves a disservice by not taking care of our bodies. Taking the time to sharpen the saw allows you to give your best to your family and work. Even if they don't realize it yet, our kids are watching how we handle this.
Take a savvy family vacation that won't break the bank. Check out this MSNBC article on 20 recession family travel rules. Now is always the best time to enjoy the family. Man, they grow up quick, don't they?

Are you ready to take on 2009? Would love to hear your ideas on how you and your family are preparing for the shaky times ahead.

Revenge of the toys

wonkitime — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:09:09 -0800

By Phil Stott

So after writing a couple of weeks ago about the challenges and advantages of taking it easy with gift spending over the festive season, I have a couple of things to report. First is that my daughter Maeve (a one-year-old) received a much bigger Christmas than either my wife or I anticipated. And the second is that, although I've broken my budget -- something that happens every year -- it's not been by as much as I might have expected, given the amount and quality of gifts we've accumulated.

There are a few reasons that Maeve's first "real" Christmas has escalated from one main gift towards the super-sized without overstretching the Stott family budget. A few weeks ago (right after I wrote the initial holiday spending piece, in fact), my wife and I took Maeve for a day out to the winter fair at the school my wife used to teach at. As with all good winter fairs, there was food and shopping aplenty -- including a full room dedicated solely to second-hand toys, a previously untapped market for me. I'm not going to reveal the full extent of everything we bought there -- I'm convinced Maeve is like Stewie from Family Guy, and can read but is hiding it from us to her advantage -- but suffice it to say that for $15 we picked up enough mint-condition toys to give any one year-old a decent Christmas, and for $50 we would have needed a second car to get everything home!

(The sad side note is that there was so much other stuff in perfect or near-perfect condition that would have made any child happy, but while I can give second-hand toys to my own kid, I can't give them to the "Toys for tots" program my office is running this festive season. I understand that there are sound reasons for not accepting some second-hand toys, but a blanket ban seems a little harsh, if indicative of the times we live in.)

The second-hand thing is something I've really come to embrace since becoming a parent. While I flirted with thrift store shopping as a poor student -- poor in that I couldn't afford a decent winter coat but always seemed to have money for beer! -- finding stuff for kids seems much easier, and entails much less in the way of digging through racks of mold-infested tat. Part of the reason is that people tend to overbuy for children, whether their own or someone else's, and kids grow and develop so fast that the clothes and toys they get can end up very lightly used, if at all, by the time the child is too old for them.

So far, my wife and I have spent next to nothing on clothes or toys for Maeve, as we've been fortunate enough to have a few neighbors and colleagues with slightly older kids, so we've benefited greatly from others' clutter -- oftentimes getting full outfits that still have the store tags on them. The only problem I had was getting over an initial twinge of pride ("I'm capable of providing for my own child") -- something that evaporated as soon as I comprehended the sheer amount of stuff that people accumulate when kids come on the scene. At that point, pragmatism overtook pride as I realized it would be downright stupid not to take advantage of an entire stream of good-quality free stuff that we'd have ended up buying anyway.

As for the other main reason our holiday shopping exploded, I have two words for you: recession and bankruptcy. If you've got kids and you haven't been down to your local branch of KB Toys to snap up the bargains, there may still be time. I'd been expecting a full-on melee to be in progress when I arrived at ours, but was surprised to find that the crowds were light enough to make it some of the least stressful holiday shopping I've done so far. Come to think of it, it's probably a reflection of why the firm went bust in the first place -- I only realized we had a KB Toys in town when I saw a guy with a sign promoting the going out of business sale. Turns out it was right next door to our usual grocery store!

Anyway, the point of this wasn't to gloat about making out like a bandit in the recession (although that does feel nice!), but to point out that there's more than one way to skin the holiday shopping cat - especially with the economic mess out there this year, which has actually benefited people like me who tend to leave their gift buying until the last minute. I also wanted to point out that, although I may dole out advice on gift giving, I'm as likely as anyone to overshoot the boundaries of my well-crafted plans -- especially where my kid's involved. The trick is to try and do it when opportunity arises. As my own dad said when I called him lamenting the volume of stuff we'd bought: "You have an attic. You don't have to give it all at once." On which note...I'm off to see what I can find in the sales for next Christmas!