New Year, New Budget

As this year drew to a close, my husband and I sat down to evaluate our finances and see what needs adjusting.  We’ve come to see that our budgets have been like a pendulum, swinging back and forth with equal energy between spending and extra debt payments. 

We always seemed to manage one or maybe two really strict low spending months, but then a catch up month would follow.  We can eat out of the cupboards and freezer for a month, keeping the groceries under $400, but inevitably the next month we’d be out of paper towels, toilet paper, flour, sugar, rice , potatoes, diapers and just about every other imaginable household item.  Other budget categories had the same problem.  We had no regular line for clothes, which is ok until Shawn needs new winter work boots, which come in over $200, or someone needs snow-pants or socks or whatever.  We can wear out or entire wardrobe but the stock up at the end of it is a big bill!

Shawn received a raise late this fall, so our income has changed slightly.  We sat down to work out a new basic budget, the one that we start out with each month then plan any new items we know are coming up.  We start with the same basic amounts, and then adjust for each month’s unique needs.  We wanted to make a budget that was a bit more balanced, creating a more even pace.

Our first major goal this year is to increase our donation to the church and reach a full tithe by the end of the year.  Since I blogged all about it already (Read about that here)  I won’t do more than mention it today, except to say that I will be tracking more closely the portion of Shawn’s income that is variable and working on a system to make sure I am tithing on things like overtime and bonuses.

We added planned amounts for home maintenance, vehicle maintenance and clothes.  Instead of these things being added as an “ other expense we know of” in a month when a need popped up, we will now have a planned amount.  Unused portions will be transferred into savings, still ear marked for that category and used when bigger-than-this-month’s-allotment expenses come up.

We’ve decided to save a small amount each month, instead of using all extra funds as debt payment.  We will still be paying about 10% of our income onto debt payments each month.  We have decided that the “Dave Ramsey” method of an insane pace sprinting until the finish line isn’t working for us.  We are opting instead for a marginally smaller speed, which will leave us with different options.  The small savings number will help when we want to take a summer camping trip, or pay for something like soccer or ballet.  We can spread these items out over the year instead of the month or two before they are due.

We’ll continue our renovations at a slow pace.  Saving ahead and paying for each stage will set the speed.

It is still our main debt related goal to pay off our Master Card by October when our mortgage will be up for renewal.  After that, we attack our credit line.  Recently, when regular interest rates where changed at the bank, the fees on our credit line doubled.  This will make it harder to pay off extra principal, and we are even more determined to pay off this giant mistake from our past!!

We will start paying our children allowances again.  We have tried different ideas off and on without much success this year and are still looking for a system that is the right fit for our family.  We’ve decided that it’s purpose will be to let our children practice making decisions about how to save and spend money.  They won’t be “earning” it per se with chores, but there will, in the future, be a list of extras they could do if they would like to earn more money for a goal they have.

I have gotten really slack about planning and tracking each month, and I want to make a new excel sheet to get us back on track in this area.

That about sums up my financial resolutions for the up coming year.  What are your goals this year?

A Lovely Little Guilt Trip

This year, I have not been able to stop feeling guilty about  Christmas presents.

Did I over spend? Nope.  I got some awesome deals, and was able to get what I wanted at prices I wanted to spend.

Am I doing some things to help those for whom Christmas can be a difficult season?  Yes. 

Have I focused our home on the true meaning of CHRISTmas?  YES.  We are enjoying celebrating advent with a Jesse Tree going through the Bible to see how it all builds towards Christ’s birth.   

So what do I have to feel guilty about?  I’ll try to put it into words.

I LOVE to give gifts.  I love to watch my children with joy on their faces as they see that they have gotten that much hoped for toy.  I enjoy giving them both toys and opportunities to do something as gifts.  This year, I have a huge pile of things that will delight them awaiting wrapping paper in my hiding spot.  Shawn is building the girls a Barbie house.  Which, to those of you who know him should read : He has another  project on the go, when it’s finished it will be huge and beautiful.  It won’t cost much, though since he can build it mostly out of pieces he has in the garage… which to those of you who know him is a whole other story!

In years past, I have restricted gifts to one for each child from us, one from “Santa”, the stocking, and one from the other siblings combined.  But you know what?  I hated that.  It put a lot of pressure on me to make sure that the gift was “the” thing they were hoping for.  If you’re only giving one, it had better be the biggest item of the wish list!  They still got piles of presents from grandparents, friends and other family members, and the pile looked huge enough! I usually ended up thinking “ Why should the grandparents get all the fun of being the ones who got the awesome toys?”.  I just felt this was the thing to do to keep Christmas from being too much about the presents, so I kept planning this way anyway. 

This year, I did not even attempt such a limit.  We have saved ahead, bought items over time and made room in the budget for several large and dreamed about items for each kid. I bought a lot of the items used, and we planned which things we could make ourselves. We even ended up with several for Bremen, who at just six months will have no idea what is going on!  We weren’t going to do much, but still, there has to be something to write in the baby book as the item he received from us for his first Christmas, and the kids would notice if Santa didn’t leave Bremen a gift and stocking.   Then they insisted they wanted to pick out something to give him too!  Now, we have many gifts for each of them.

But, as I looked at it, I wondered: Is this too much?  So many people have so little, or are not able to feel peace and joy at Christmas.  Why do I feel bad that I can give my children good gifts? 

As much as I want them to enjoy the surprise of all those gifts, I also don’t want them to think they need those things to be happy, at this or any time of year.  I don’t want them to be materialistic, always wanting more or bigger things.  I want them to happy with the simple things, enjoying what they do have.  I don’t want them to forget about the real reasons for all the traditions, but I still want to give them the gifts! Can I have it both ways?

Should I feel bad that we will celebrate an idyllic holiday complete with a turkey and piles of presents? Is giving them a pile of presents more about me wanting to be proud of what I’ve given them?  I don’t think so, but still I can’t help feeling that this year, they have way more than they need.

The mom side of me also had a panic attack when I realized I would have to find homes for all these things!!!

I want to be able to just relax and enjoy the fact that all my planning, hard work and bargain hunting have led us to a year that will delight them all.  But I keep stumbling over my own feeling that the amount of money, though it may not be large in some people’s opinions, really could have been spent more wisely.  That I could have done more for others instead. That my kids don’t need more things! And that maybe the truth is, in the end it would have been better to put the money on debt and pay it off faster, something that no doubt would have paid dividends much longer than the Littlest Pet Shop set out in the garage.  I just can’t help feeling that when it comes down to it, I have chosen the lesser thing.

How to I find balance between my desire to lavish my kiddos with gifts they are going to love and my feeling that it has all become too much?

Kids’ Chores

I’ve been thinking lately about kids and chores.  I think we’re going to switch to an allowance system where they earn their money by doing their chores, rigged a bit, so they end up with the same amount we think they should have.

While I have a few things I already get them to help me with, they aren’t done on a regular basis.  I get the kids to help with whatever I am doing.  If I am cleaning the living room, then I hand them things to put away.  If I am folding Laundry, I give them their clothes to put away.  When we are setting the table, I hand them some of the dishes, etc.  If they aren’t around, or I’m in a hurry, I often just do it myself.

I’d like to move to a system where they are responsible for doing their chores, and knowing when it needs to be done.  I think I’ll have a check mark chart for keeping track of when they do their jobs, and pay them once a week by transfer into their bank account.  Some chores will be mandatory and unpaid, because you are part of our family and everyone helps.  Others will be expected on a regular basis and we’ll still expect them to be done most of the time. Some will be for when they want to earn extra if they choose to.

So… I am trying to come up with some age appropriate chores for each kiddo.  Things they can reasonably do.  Then I’m going to try an figure out which will be mandatory, regular and optional.

Here are a few of the things that my kids often help with…feeding the dog, emptying small garbage cans, spraying and wiping the bathroom counter and sink area, using the scrub brush and wiping the toilet, pairing up socks, spraying and wiping windows, sorting laundry, folding pieces of laundry that they can manage, setting or clearing the table, putting away their clothes, tidying up toys and books, putting away things like boots, shoes and mitts in the porch, rinsing and stacking the dishes that mom washes.  I’ve had them help me with things like wiping walls or wiping down the leather couches too.  Ok, lots of these things they don’t do to perfection, but they do a pretty good job, and  then I check and help. 

Ok, that list seems longer than I thought it would, but again, these aren’t things they do on a regular basis, just things I have asked them to do at one time or another in the past.  Often their involvement isn’t as much of a help as it is an opportunity for them to learn and try.  But I think it’s important for kids to help out, and learn how to do these things.  I’m not asking them for perfection.  At my house, all the blankets on the bed, and the pillow near the top counts as making your bed.

Even Lily at two likes to help with things, and will gladly take a turn with a dusting cloth.  She carries her own diaper to the garbage and loves to rinse dishes.  Now obviously there aren’t going to be many age appropriate chores for a two year old!  But what about Baden at 7 and Colleena at 5? 

What are some chores you’ve assigned your kids?  Are there tasks that you break down and give out in parts?  How do you manage the chores at your house?

Planning for Birthday Gifts

I just wrapped up my latest poll, where I asked everyone to share how much they plan on spending on the gift when your child is invited to a classmate’s party.  The results don’t surprise me too much, and I’m kind of glad to see that I’m about the same as everyone else.

2 people say they plan on spending under ten dollars.  2 people say they plan on spending between 20 and 30 dollars.  Most of us fall somewhere in the middle, planning on spending between 10 and 20.

If I write it in as a budget line, I plan on $20, hoping to stay just under that.  I don’t plan on the ten dollar range, but I LOVE it when that is what I can spend.  It seems like if I have to go today and find something, I spend $20, but if I am able to shop around and look for a while, I can find neat stuff for $10.  Awesome sales under the $10 mark are things I pick up for the gift stash.

This week at superstore, their hot wheels trick track pieces, which are normally $29 are on for $7.  I grabbed one for the gift stash, so this will be one great present for under $10!

Kids Allowance

Reflecting today on kids and money.  I definitely think it’s our job as parents to teach our children proper attitude towards and handling of money.  As Christians we need to teach them that God provides for us, and we are to be wise with money without loving it. 

I didn’t learn great money lessons as a kid, so I have been reading, and talking with friends about ways to teach our kids about money.  One of the ways we have decided on as a family is an allowance.  At our house, it starts in grade one, and kiddo gets 50 cents a week per year of age.  For our son, that’s three dollars a week.  Kids get an allowance to learn how to save and spend money, not because they did chores.  That would make chores optional.  Chores at our house are done because you are part of the family and are not optional.  We chose that amount because it’s enough that he can choose to buy a treat with it, or save it instead.  We don’t want him to have so much money that he can just get everything he wants all the time.  That wouldn’t teach him about saving and waiting and looking for a good price on something.

It works out to about $12 a month, and we pay him monthly.  We started with weekly, but we’d forget to have the $3 in change each Sunday.  So instead, we transfer the $12 from our account to his on the first Sunday of the month.  Putting it in an account also means that change is not being lost all over the house.  The thing he most wants to buy is new games for his DS, and used ones are $20-25, so it takes him two months to save up for one.  I think that works well, it means he has to wait, but not so long that it discourages him.

I was proud of him when he got the DS in the first place.  He sold some of his old toys that he didn’t play with anymore, and saved some allowance, and was able to buy a used DS for himself. 

Another nice side effect has been awareness of what things cost.  When he was being too rough with an item, I asked him what he thought it might cost.  The answer was $40.  “Now, if you break that, and had to pay to replace it, how long would it take you to earn $40?”.  He’s good with math, and knew in a moment “4 months mommy”.  Without saying another word, he stopped beating on the item.

We decided not to give an allowance to our 4 year old yet.  There were several reasons.  First, she has nothing she’d like to save up for, so the concept would be lost on her.  She also loses a lot of the change anyway.  Plus, it’s nice for our son to have some lines that give him more privileges that come with being older.  We’ve told her that Baden is in charge of having money left for special treats, but mommy and daddy are still in charge of having money for her treats.  If we walked to the store for a treat as a family, we would tell our son to bring money from his piggy bank, but we would give our daughter money from our wallet when we got there.  She’d still get to pick her own treat, and if any is left over, it can go in her piggy bank when we get home.  She can look forward to this extra privilege when she starts grade one, and they can both look forward to a “raise” when their birthday rolls around.

There are also optional jobs that the kids can do to earn extra spending money.  We’ve chosen two things so far, one is moving a load of laundry ( from washer to dryer, or from dryer to basket).  I picked this one, because I have front load washers they can reach easily, and because I hate bending down to dig out that last sock which is always stuck in the back of the washer machine.  The second job is pairing up socks.  As I fold laundry, I toss all socks in a little basket, and when it gets too full, I offer the kids the chance to pair them up.  Apparently this is good for their math and thinking skills, but really I just like the help.  They earn 25c for either job, and I pay them immediately out of a change jar we have around, so I don’t forget.  They are very excited to get a quarter because they know that’s the coin they need for the candy machines, hee hee hee!

One thing I would like to work on a bit more is the idea of tithing.  I want our kids to learn that as an expression of gratitude and an acknowledgment that everything we have really comes from God, we give 10% to the church.  Shawn and I already do this, and we let our kids see this.  I would like to make a focus on each child taking their 10% to give to the collection during Sunday school.

So that’s where we are with kids and money.  I want to teach them better, so they don’t have to repeat the mistakes with debts that Shawn and I made.


How do you deal with kids and money?