Creative Ways to Save for a Family Vacation

It's getting close to summer vacation time!  Have you saved enough to have fun for a week or two?  If not, here are some ideas from my friends at http://www.backupcare.org/:

Family vacations are a great way to make lasting memories that you all cherish for the rest of your lives, but they can also be quite pricey. That doesn’t mean that the trip of your dreams is out of reach, however, even if you’re faced with a relatively tight budget. These 20 savings tips can add up big time, helping you to reach your travel goals before you know it.

1. Start a Family Travel Fund – Pitch in as a family. Contributing allowances, gift money and spare change as a group helps everyone take responsibility for the expenses of an exciting travel adventure.
2. Hold a Garage Sale – The garage sale is a time-honored tradition that can help you create more space in your home as well as collect a bit of pocket money. Holding a garage sale with the intention of putting 100% of the proceeds towards your vacation is a great way to jump-start your vacation savings account.
3. Break Out the Change Jar – Making a habit of dumping your pocket change into a large jar adds up surprisingly fast, even more so when every member of the family is chipping in.
4. Liquidate Your Assets – Selling a bunch of old collectibles that are taking up space online helps you corner a niche market that may not be available through a traditional, on-site garage sale. In some cases specialty items can fetch much higher prices online.
5. Establish a Family Dinner Routine – If your family eats out more than once a week, start researching money-saving meals you can prepare at home and deposit the average check price of those meals into a dedicated savings account.
6. Make Cutting Energy Costs Fun – Make a game of seeing who can use the least amount of energy in your home. Not only will you save big on your utility bills, you’ll also be reducing your household footprint.
7. Sign Up for Flash Sale Groups – Online marketing groups that offer flash sales generally have big-ticket items available at bargain-basement prices for a very short time. Signing up for these groups can help you save big and you can put the money you would have spent away for your family trip.
8. Have Family Coupon Clipping Parties – Clipping coupons is tedious work, but it can be fun when the whole family sits down together to make an event of the chore.
9. Encourage Kids to Contribute – Whether they’re mowing lawns, babysitting, setting up a lemonade stand or chipping in from a birthday fund, encouraging your kids to contribute allows them to make a difference in your vacation budget. This gives them a sense of pride and the savings account a boost.
10. Break Bad Habits Together – If one member of the family is a smoker, another has an expensive coffee habit and the kids are all addicted to sugar, making a family effort to break those bad habits while putting the money saved in a travel account can be a great motivator on all fronts.
11. Cut Down on Car Use – There are times in most families’ lives when it would be just as easy to walk, use mass transit or bike to a location than to drive. When those opportunities arise, take advantage of them and save money on gasoline in the process.
12. Hold a Savings Competition – Competing with one another to see who can save the most is a great way to encourage savings, especially when you’re all contributing to a common goal.
13. Make a Savings Thermometer – There’s a reason why the savings thermometer is a fundraising standby: it works! Making your own vacation savings gauge provides an actual goal and shows how much further you have to go before you reach it.
14. Start a “No Waste” Challenge – The average family throws away a shocking amount of money through sheer product waste. Starting a “no waste” challenge encourages more responsible habits and saves money.
15. Take Advantage of Local “Free Days” – Museums, libraries and other institutions often run “free day” promotions. Taking advantage of them allows your family to enjoy no-cost entertainment, freeing up more funds for travel.
16. Host Potluck Get-Togethers – There’s no need to stop entertaining when you’re trying to save, but instead of footing the bill for the entire meal just hold an old-fashioned potluck! When everyone contributes to the party, you’re able to save big and still enjoy the company of your nearest and dearest.
17. Hold Fashion Swaps – Kids outgrow clothing so quickly that it’s not uncommon to send an item with tags still attached to the local thrift store. Hosting a fashion-swap at your house with other parents allows everyone to trade out gently-worn clothing, saving money and enjoying one another’s company in the process.
18. Go Paperless – Stop spending money on stamps, envelopes and checks by going paperless with all of your bills.
19. Get DIY Savvy – There are so many things you can do at home for a fraction of the price of purchasing store-bought goods, all you need is a bit of know-how. Online tutorials for everything from making butter to building furniture are plentiful.
20. Visit Professionals in Training – Rather than spending a small fortune on haircuts, teeth cleanings and other basic services, consider visiting your local training center. There, professionals in training will perform these services with the supervision of a skilled instructor at a fraction of the cost!

Happy parenting!!

" I love you more."

 

A few days ago, I overheard a mother and her six-year-old son "arguing" like this:

Son: "I love you, Mom."
Mom: "I love you more."
Son: (a little louder) "I love you, Mom."
Mom: "But I love you more."
Son: (even louder) "I LOVE you, Mom."
Mom: (still calm) "Yes, but I love you more, now let's stop this."

I half expected the kid to take out an ad in the local paper proclaiming his love for his mother.  Did the mother not see that she was totally ruining the moment by invalidating her son's love for her? Did she not see that saying she loves him more sends the message that he doesn't love her enough ... ever?  How did that annoying practice begin - telling someone that you love him more than he is capable of loving you?

Certainly, you can say, "I love you more than chocolate." That would surely satisfy me!  Or how about, "I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow," to quote a Spiral Staircase tune.  That's also acceptable.  Anything is better than, "I love you more."

So what might the six-year-old have said after Mom's "I love you more"?  Maybe "That's impossible," but that's a bit advanced for his age. How about, "I know," but that invalidates his own "I love you" again.  Hmmm... I don't see anything that would satisfy the controlling mother who wants to subconsciouly put her son down by saying she loves him more than he could ever possibly love her. 

So the bottom line is, when your child tells you he or she loves you, accept that unconditional love with a hug, a kiss, and an, "I love you, too."  Everybody wins in that situation.  And remember to say that wonderful phrase first sometimes!

Happy parenting!

Breaking your child's sense of entitlement

This guest blog is from my friends at www.nannyclassifieds.com. The author summarizes what I've been saying for years - reward good behavior, ignore bad behavior, and don't create little mercenaries by rewarding with money all the time!

Raising children in a reasonably privileged household and ensuring that they have all of the opportunities that privilege affords them without creating a false sense of entitlement is difficult to do. However, breaking a budding sense of entitlement that’s already beginning to take hold is even more of a challenge. While you naturally want to do everything in your power to make your children happy and provide them with the best possible life, it’s important to remember that their childhood training needs to be grounded in the idea of helping them become productive, independent members of adult society. Stripping away the negative trappings of privilege, like the loss of pride, responsibility and initiative that come with feeling that good things are owed by virtue of existence is essential, especially if you’re not willing to spend the rest of your life financially supporting children who feel as if they’re deserving of the easiest road through life.

Give Rewards, Not Lavish Gifts
So much of commercial marketing is directed at children, teaching them from an early age that their value in society is attached to how many of the coolest gadgets, toys and outfits they can collect. Combating the influence of a consumer-driven culture is one of the most difficult tasks the modern parent faces, but it’s also one of the most important. Rather than purchasing every big-ticket item that your child asks for simply because he wants it, sit down together and work on finding a way of helping him earn it. When kids work to obtain the things they want, their possessions have more value and they’re learning a basic tenet of adult life: if you want something, you have to earn it.

Create – and Stick to – a Chore Schedule
Whether you’re working out a system of completing chores in exchange for rewards or have decided that your children should simply be responsible for helping to maintain their living spaces, a chore schedule is one of the most effective ways of teaching children about the necessity of work. Even if you’ve chosen not to connect a weekly allowance or tangible rewards to the completion of their chores, it may be wise to create a chart where kids can check off what they’ve completed or receive stickers for a job well done. Remember that acknowledging their hard work and giving them recognition for their efforts is important, and isn’t the same as bribing them with toys or money to do housework.

Refuse to "Reward" Bad Behavior
At the peak of a public meltdown, it can be very tempting to simply buy the toy your child is screaming for in order to salvage whatever is left of your dignity. By giving in to the screams, shouts and demands, however, you’re effectively allowing your child to hold you hostage emotionally. Learning that his bad behavior earns him the recognition he needs and the physical items he desires only inspires your child to continue the pattern of outbursts when he’s denied something he wants. Refusing to give in to those demands helps him to see that not only does bad behavior not get the results he’s looking for, but that he also has to face the consequences of having a tantrum.

Volunteer as a Family
When you volunteer together, your children not only observe the socially-conscious and helpful behavior that you’re modeling for them, but also experience first-hand just how unfortunate others can be in comparison. One of the first steps along the path of abolishing a sense of entitlement is to help your youngster understand just how much he’s been blessed with and how hard his parents work to provide the things that he has. Seeing people that aren’t so lucky can drive that point home.


Spend Time, Not Money
Assuaging your own feelings of guilt after a divorce or because work pulls you away from home too often by making extravagant purchases is normal behavior, but it can have some unpleasant repercussions. Rather than spending the contents of your wallet in an afternoon, try to spend some quality time together. Busy, working parents may not be able to be with their children as much as they’d like, but there is some time in the evenings or on weekends that can be carved out. Spend that time doing something that you both enjoy that doesn’t involve expensive gear or high admission prices.

Happy parenting!