Moolah Monday - Our Disagreement about School Supplies

Happy Monday everyone!

This post brought to you by the upcoming school year which has 3 of our kiddos returning to a formal education program and one additional beginning a formal Pre-K program this year.

(In case you were wondering, we are currently a public school family with 4 kids in 3 different schools in our local district.  2 of them are in the gifted & talented magnet school, one at the "local" school, and one at a school pretty much as far away as she can get because there are more Pre-K programs "over there" vs. near us, and it's near daycare.  If you count daycare we have 6 kids in 4 schools.  Nice.)

I spent a significant amount of time and money this weekend shopping for back-to-school.  I try to spend 1x1 time with each kiddo for BTS shopping taking one out at a time.  It's easier that way but it's also a good quality time opportunity if I could swing it.  This year I did the shopping in 2 trips with the 2 oldest (separately).

I tried to shop extremely frugally, like I always do.  To begin, we had $350 per foster child to spend before adoption day toward clothes ($1400 total).    We had 5% coupons from the Target prescription rewards program.  I have the Target red card debit card (links to my checking account) for another 5%.  Plus, it was tax-free weekend here locally so I saved a little more than 8% there.    Add to that my bend toward being cheap and never paying full-price and I saved a boatload.  So, for $1400 I was able to receive about another $250 in "free" clothes and shoes.

I actually found it hard to spend some of this money because I have SO MANY clothes in most sizes already from the years we've been fostering.  I ended up buying clothes for the next few sizes up for some of the kids and for Baby Baby, who I have the most clothes for, I mostly spent that money on shoes.  (He's in size 7 now and is set on new shoes until size 12).  Our kids wear the fire out of their shoes so this will come in really handy in the upcoming years as we lose foster-care support for our forever kids.  (It's also cool in case we come across someone in need).

I only have one or two things left per child to purchase on our own, the biggest of which is lunchboxes and backpacks.  As I brought this up to my husband I was met with a significant amount of resistance.  He was hungry, which might have been part of it, but in general we are on completely opposite sides of this debate.  Though I'll try to be submissive here and I'm not trying to air out our dirty laundry, it did make mie wonder what my audience here did about backpacks.

Hubby's position - With 6 kids new backpacks and lunchboxes each year seems ridiculous.  It's money we can save. Why buy new ones when there are perfectly good ones all over the house.  They should learn to take care of the ones they have.

My position - Buying new backpacks and lunchboxes is an exciting part of getting ready to go back to school.  Getting to pick out a new backpack helps the kids feel excited about their upcoming year.  There's nothing like getting all your school supplies ready in your new bag, laying out your (new) outfit for your first day of school, and getting pumped up for what's to come.  It's a relatively inexpensive way to signal transition from old school year and summer to the new one.  Remember, I'm frugal as it is so $40 (or more! jeesh) backpacks aren't even on the consideration list.  It gives them a chance to pick a "more mature" backpack than they did last year if they wish.  Plus, it's what we've always done and we've had conversations with the kids in the last year about waiting until the new year to get a new backpack (with wheels, for one kid, not superman, for another).

One additional piece of the discussion was related to backpacks wearing out.
Mie: Backpacks wear out.  They need to be replaced.
Hubby: Then we'll replace them when they wear out.
Mie: But then the kid who didn't take care of theirs will get a new one after they weren't careful with it because they were throwing it around or whatever (or they damaged it or lost it on purpose because they wanted a new one and wanted to game the system) and the kid who took great care of it like they were supposed to won't ever get a new one.  That's not rewarding the behavior we want.
Hubby: Then we'll buy a new one for the kid that took great care of theirs and the kid who didn't can get their sibling's used backpack.
Mie: But then the kid who didn't take care of it will always have a handicap...they'll never get a new one because they'll always have an old one that will naturally wear out earlier.

(Here's the thing...we have two strong-willed challenging kids that will fall into the "damaged backpack due to lack of care or other more deviant choices" group and two that will fall into the "take care of their backpack and already resenting the deviant choice group for screwing up so many of the good things they could have with their crazy behavior".  Adding to or distracting from this dynamic is critical in our family).

So - where we ended last night was to let the kids pick a new backpack and lunchbox this year (because we already told them we would) and then we'll tell them it has to last them 2 years before they get a new one.

Or

As an alternative I suggested we implement a reward system for not mindlessly buying a new one.  We can offer them a new backpack (with limits...they can't spend over a certain amount) OR they can keep the one they have and get $5.  They can choose to live with what they have to save money (which literally gives them money to save and is cheaper than us buying new bags) or they can choose to have a new bag.  Then they'll have the choice again next year.

All of this, of course, is dependent on our financial ability to make these choices - if we absolutely don't have the money then of course we don't NEED to buy anything, we can make do with what we have.  In my mind that changes the game and in hubby's mind we need to be thinking that way now.

What do you all think?  How do you handle this in your homes?

Quick Updates - Quickness is Necessary

Dear Friends - I'm busy.  Super busy.  I mean, a full-time working mom to 3 (or 6) children is busy.  But right now I'm more busy than usual and behind.  I'm simultaneously trying to catch up at work (and keep afloat at the same time), work on a special project, write a chapter in a book about foster care, celebrate kindergarten graduation, correct really bad 3 year old behavior through attachment-related and therapeutic parenting and extra time at school and extra prayer and tears, and finally say goodbye to friends who are leaving out-of-state.  OH YEAH, and go through the process to actually bring the children we've been waiting 5 months for into our home.  It's been busy.

*Logan had his graduation today.  Fun times.  He still has to actually finish school (weird) but graduation was fun and we were able to make a day of it.

*Summer is about to get kicked out of preschool for her behavior.  She's done GREAT this week though, which is encouraging after we've been working SO hard at reversing the trend she's been on but we really need a miracle here. 

*We ARE moving forward with bringing the kids to our home.  We had a couple visits last week with just the hubby, myself, and the 3 new kids to start the process.  Then this weekend we had them all weekend.  It was wonderful.  Much better than either of us could have planned.  We do plan to have them move in with us very soon and we look forward to the day when they start graduating from the child seats because it takes 8 minutes to buckle the 6 children, all of whom are in car seats, into the car not to mention getting them all (and their stuff) out there.  Amen.

*Today I took my forever kids to the water park to celebrate Logan's graduation.  Except, they closed 5 minutes after we got there for a private event.  I wasn't nice to the person at the gate.  Lord forgive me.  So, because I have a ton of time on my hands and I couldn't bare to let the kiddos down and it was perhaps the last time I might get a chance to go with just the two of them, I drove to the next closest water park 40 miles away (and got lost several times to add to the time).  We had fun.  Then I drove another 90 minutes home (accounting for a dinner stop and gas and such).  Summer peed in her car seat and spilt an entire bottle of juice in the one next to her.  We have 3 car seat (covers) in the washing machine right now.

*We booked our trip to Sea World this year.  For a family of 8 for a 5 day vacation we are paying $1100.  That is $27 per person, per day if you were counting, including entry to the park (for every day, if we wanted), hotel, and most everything else.  Best of all - if for some reason the kids don't come live with us, we're not out any money (though our hotel room will be bigger than necesary, I suppose).  Of course that would bring our average to $44 per person per day.  Yes, we'd be happy to have a family vacation for 8 to Sea World.  You judge if we're crazy or not.  You're going to anyway.

*I've received several inquiries over the last two weeks for new readers who would like me to contact them.  Welcome new readers!  I DO want to contact you.  I'm going to as soon as I possibly can.  I'm not trying to ignore you and you are important to me.  Hang in there.  I'll do my best, really.

I'm also not pregnant, in case you were wondering.  So there you have it.

Moolah Monday - Vacation Planning Tips: Looking for Deals

This weekend I shredded some of those credit card check thingies that seem to come to our home in over-abundance. I’m always shredding them it seems. Yesterday, it was about 6 separate sets of them. As I did, the verbiage on one of them caught my eye. It talked about using the checks for all those unexpected things...car repairs, home repairs, travel...

 

No joke...travel was in that list and I thought how is travel possibly unexpected? I suppose there are times that you travel that you didn’t expect well in advance like we did when my dad was in a motorcycle accident and the outcome was uncertain or when my Uncle was murdered and we attended his services. But even then it’s not like I suddenly woke and found myself driving or flying somewhere thinking hmmm...how did I get on this journey – this drive is so unexpected? (and so forth...). I don’t know – the wording just struck mie wrong.

 

Bottom line – you don’t have to go into debt to travel and/or vacation. There are ways to plan to keep yourself from burying a hole that forces you to work even harder for the next year It may very well be difficult but the rewards are worth it.

 

I’ll leave that lesson to Small Town Joy because as I told you last week she’s the best at it. I do want to add a few tricks to her process that we use to help us plan.

 

We’ve picked up taking an annual vacation to visit Sea World in San Antonio. It’s a place we can drive to reasonably and we have SO much fun. So far we’ve been a family of 6 with 4 kids making the trip a challenge physically (trying to keep them all alive, you know), and financially. Here’s how we’ve done it:

 

• Research ahead of time to find the best deal – In our case, we found a local hotel that offered several things free when you stayed with them. When you purchased one room they added in gift bags for the kids when they arrived, free breakfast for 4 (normally like $20 per person), one free dinner, and free annual passes to Sea World. The price difference from a regular room was minimal (maybe $20) and more than paid for itself. We had to stay down there anyway and though we could have looked around for a cheaper motel or stayed with friends the price of the deal made it worth it. In other words – if we hadn’t stayed at that hotel with that deal we would have had to pay the same amount to get into the park for the day and wouldn’t have had the added bonus of free breakfast, goody bags, the hotel pool and accomodations, etc. We might as well have stayed in the hotel! I want to say we paid $150 or so per night, and we stay 3 nights.
• Consider the annual pass – Our annual pass came with our hotel but it made a huge difference! If you don’t find a deal like the one we found, look into it on your own. Many parks have some sort of season or annual pass that is the same price or only slightly more than the pass you would buy for a day. We used that to visit the park two days in a row. Most of the theme parks I’ve been to can certainly be an entertainment option for multiple days on the same vacation and Sea World San Antonio is no exception. Rather than attend multiple parks or tour multiple areas, we just camped out at Sea World for a couple days, seeing the shows, playing in the water park, and riding rides.
• Re-use the annual pass – if you do find a park you want to visit that has a reasonably priced annual pass (or free, like the one we found with our hotel room) pay attention to the time period it is good for. Our annual pass was good for a full 12 months from the time we purchased it. SO because we liked our trip so much we decided to vacation there again the following year. We just made sure to go back before our passes expired and as the dates went we were able to return about 4 weeks before they expired. This means through our planning and research we were able to visit Sea World on 4 different dates with 6 people without paying for a single pass. If you add up the hotel rooms for both years we ended up paying approximately $900 plus fuel, food, and bonus stuff (souvenirs, etc.). That’s $450 per year for a 4 day vacation for a family of 6 or $75 per person, including hotel and theme park admission. I’d say that’s pretty good.
• Determine what you’d splurge on, then do more research – Because our price for the vacation(s) to this point was pretty low, we decided to do a few more things to make our trip easier/more special/more cost-effective. For example, Sea World had a wristband program both years where you were able to pay an extra $40 dollars or so, which gave you the ability to go to the front of the line on several rides. We took advantage of that (for our kids who were old/big enough). This meant that it made our lives MUCH easier being able to take our bigger kids straight to the front of the line, quickly getting to ride the ride they wanted, without the other parent having to try to somehow entertain the littles (toddlers) in 100+ degree heat for however long it took to stand in the traditional line (usually they said 60-90 minutes!). That extra $150 or so for our family was definitely worth it. The second year we researched a bit on the cabanas they had available. For about $200 we purchased a cabana rental that included those wristbands, a cabana with a stocked fridge, towels (to keep), shade, a fan, (a place for the toddlers to nap!), dinner or lunch (2 pizzas and drinks), ice creams, sunscreen, and a private character visit to the cabanas for pictures and hugs. If you do the math, all of that “extra” stuff cost us $50 which was far less than those items would have been on their own (seriously – it provided for 2 meals for a family of 6 at a theme park – that itself is usually way more than $50). And, since we didn’t pay for the theme park tickets themselves, it seemed very much worth it to us to “splurge” there.

I will caution you to be careful with the “deals”. Not everything is a fantastic deal. For example – if we would have purchased the wristbands for all of our children automatically it would have been a waste – the wristbands were only good on some rides and my kids under 36” wouldn’t have been able to ride anything with them. Food plans can be a good deal but again you may not want to purchase for little kids or you may want to bring PB&J to cut the costs even more. As you do your research, really think about how much you can afford to spend and what would work for YOUR family.

 

I did spend an evening (several hours) researching the park website, hotel websites, travel websites, etc. to be able to find these deals, so you do have to factor that in but again if you look at the total cost we paid (about $800 total, per vacation, including the splurges), it was well worth it.

 

(This post was NOT sponsored - we just like Sea World THAT much).

Working Mama Wednesday - Bonus Time 2013

A good portion of my income is made of my annual bonus. We always look forward to bonus payout because it helps us to check off a few things on our list that we'd wanted to do for the past several months but because of Christmas & New Year, both of which bring higher expenses for our family, we weren't otherwise able to do.  You know, all the exciting stuff like buying new tires where steel belts are coming through and replacing the fence at the rental house.  That being said, we always set aside a little money for each of us to spend independently on things we want.  It becomes a bit of a treat for us both to purchase something nice for ourselves without any guilt what-so-ever because all of our other expenses that we'd been putting off have been taken care of.  In this past this has meant things like a new Xbox360 for my hubby or new clothes/shoes for me.

This year my hubby new exactly what he wanted.  In fact, he knew exactly what he wanted for about 6 months and I give him super props for using self-control to avoid purchasing it earlier.  You see, our tv was 8 years old and on its last leg.  Hubby bought a 60" Sony as a bonus gift to himself after he hired on at his current job which was also his first "career-type" position.  He took great care of it and it served our family well while it lasted but unfortunately it had a problem where it was slowly turning blue.  Something related to the picture quality was actually melting so every time we turned it on or off the edge of the picture became a little more blue and we lost a few more pixels.  By the time the new year came around the damage to the tv was very obvious - every time you turned it off the screen looked more like the opening scenes of Star Wars (think "In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...) than it did a blank screen.  Those "stars" appeared during a show too.

I admit, even I was getting bothered by it.  Mie, the frugal one who doesn't care much about picture quality or screen size - I was pretty much ready to get a new one too.

So hubby researched and read and researched some more to figure out what he really wanted.  This is what we ended up buying, the day my bonus hit the bank.

And fun was had by all.  We even watched a 3D movie (well 2 of the kids did - that's all the glasses we have for now, which by the way doesn't work well when you have a 7 member family...).  Everyone's happy and the astronomical tv is headed upstairs to the play room for future use.

A few days later I had the opportunity to do some shopping of my own and buy the thing I was looking for...

These are close - I can't find them anymore online because true to self the shoes I bought were on clearance and are nowhere to be found online...

When I showed my hubby my purchase he said "don't you already have enough shoes?".  I quickly pointed out that I had 2, one for working in the yard and one for normal wear.  The ones for working in the yard I bought about 10 years ago...they are for working in the yard because I don't worry about how nasty they get out there, they are already that bad.  The other pair for "wear" are the ones I bought oh, about 5 years ago, the ones I bought to replace the others purchased 10 years ago.  I showed him where there was no more paint or materials in spots, where the sole is worn completely through in spots, etc.

I fully intended on ribbing him about here on my blog about the apparent discrepancy in our purchases and how I definitely didn't need a hard time from him on my purchase of a discount pair of shoes on clearance after 5 years (when he purchased a brand new tv with all the bells and whistles!), with my bonus.

That was, at least, until this happened:

Photo courtesy www.firehouse.com

Ok, so it really wasn't that bad but since apparently my hubby forgot to take a picture this will have to do.
Yes, I crashed my car.  Unfortunately I crashed my car into the rental car we had.  In my driveway.  While my entire family watched.  While our other car was in the shop waiting to be picked up from getting fixed after a freak accident led to its damage.  Yeah.  That.

So I guess we're even.

Moolah Monday - A GREAT Gift Idea

We were fortunate this year to have a big family Christmas.  Almost everyone from our immediate family came out for my graduation ceremony and we grabbed the opportunity to celebrate Christmas together a couple weeks early.  Super fun.  And a bit crazy.  But fun for sure.

At one point we sat around like I imagine most families do to open presents together.  As my husband, my sister and her husband, and I opened our gifts from my parents we each found an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of printed paper with information on it about a really nice restaurant.  My parents decided to purchase a gift voucher for the four of us to go out to eat dinner together at this nice restaurant in town.  She'd done some research to find a nice restaurant and then went to TRAVELZOO to purchase a voucher worth $200 that included appetizers, dinner, and dessert for 4 people.  Then, as our gift, she gave each of us a copy of the voucher with our name on it (and some clothes).

Last night we all went out on a nice date to a fancy restaurant.  We all got dressed up, hired babysitters, and drove downtown at night for a kid-free evening.  (read: Someone else put my kids to bed!).  We all agreed that the restaurant was not our type of restaurant because we didn't know what half of the things on the menu were and there weren't kids running all over the place (um..no kids at all).  It was such a treat.  It wasn't somewhere we would have ever gone if we hadn't had a gift voucher.  We wouldn't have taken time like that as adults together except for the gift.  All of it just wouldn't have happened at all.

It ended with a great dessert and lots of laughter, at least some of which was at our experience eating at that restaurant, like when we convinced our husbands to feed each other and let us take a picture of it or when I took a large bite of steak butter because I thought it was cheese.  (Bleh!).

I came home to all kids in bed (not necesarily their own, but hey, beggars can't be choosers!) and it was quiet.  Lovely!!!

If you're looking for a gift for foster parents (or any parents) this was a super gift.  As far as I can tell my parents probably paid $25 per person for the gift and received an additional $25 per person as a promotional value.  That is a reasonable price in my book but I'd venture to guess they have other deals to match your price range.  It forced us to go out together for free for us and relatively inexpensive for the gift-giver for a night-out we wouldn't have taken on our own.  So next time you're looking for a gift-this might be a good option for you.

Thanks Mom & Dad!

(This post is entirely my opinion and not sponsored in any way).

Moolah Monday: Planning for Christmas Presents with Large Families

I know many of you may be finished with your Christmas shopping already but I wanted to share our method of planning for and shopping for gifts in our household.  Creating a plan is a good way to ensure you purchase all the gifts you intend to purchase while having visibility into how much you're spending compared to budget.

Our family gifts on Christmas morning (immediate family) includes a present from Santa, a present from mom, a present from dad, and then each of the siblings trade gifts.  Mom and dad usually give bigger gifts than Santa.  After those three gifts are opened, one sibling will give out the gifts from them to all of the other siblings.  So we'll say "ok Logan, it's your turn to give your gifts.  Kids these gifts are from Logan!" and in his case now that he's older he's had a hand in picking them out.  Even the babies or new fosters will have a chance to give "their" gifts out, whether or not are big enough to pick out their gifts to give or physically hand them out.  When we don't have foster brothers and sisters we'll include the dogs as givers, but for the last few years we've had foster brothers and sisters so we haven't worried about that.  Additionally Santa will fill stockings and we'll have a present to open on Christmas eve.

Currently we have 4 kiddos in our home or 6 total family members.  Even if you're not great at math you can tell that our system can become complicated to manage AND expensive without a plan.  We use a matrix graph like the one shown here (I've drawn this out for you - we usually draw it out too) to help plan and then guide our purchases.

You can use this in several ways.  Here's my process:

1) Use the pink shaded areas (giving to you from you) to keep track of presents you think might come from the jolly old fellow himself.  This keeps those presents on your list without making it obvious in case little eyes should happen upon the list (of course it could be obvious to those little eyes if they see the list then see what they received from Santa later, but still, it gives you a chance to come up with a plan if you need to).

2) First things, first.  Set your overall target budget.  How much are you wanting to spend on Christmas gifts.  Note - this needs to be less than your total if you have other people to buy for (grandparents, coworkers, nieces & nephews, etc.).  Don't stray from this total budget amount unless you know where that money is coming from (extra in your budget, savings, etc.)...

The next step you can choose to do either A or B first - whichever makes you happy or works better for you.  We do A first so that's what I'll start with.  HINT - Use pencil. You WILL need to make changes.

3A)  Using your childrens wish lists, write in the presents you want to purchase for them & the estimated price.  You'll notice from Dad to Logan there is a Meep online tablet.  This is a real wish for our son despite the fact that we bought him a Leap Pad last year.  (Also note that we don't usually spend that much on one person, except I just told you we bought a Leap Pad last year so maybe we do...this year we'll be giving the Leap Pad to Summer as a gift for her since it's fairly new & Logan would get the Meep.  Shhh...don't tell him.)  You may fill in all of the boxes with their wish lists this way.  

3B) Write in how much you'd like to spend in each box.  So, I might say that since #14 is so young I'd like to keep each gift between $5 and $10 and fill that in for each of his gifts in row "#14" across.  

4) When there is an estimated OR allotted amount in each box, add up the total for each row (and/or column, if you wish).  You should now have a target goal for each person (received if you're using the total column, given if you're using the total row). 

5) Add up the total columns (or rows).  If you're total is LESS than the grand total goal (bottom right box) then you can make adjustments by spending MORE on one or more person (or keep the difference in your budget!).  If you're total is MORE than the grand total goal then you need to make adjustments by reducing the amount spent on one or more person.  Repeat steps 3-5 until your total for each person matches the grand total you wish to spend.  Note - you may not fill in the exact item for each box - as long as you have a target amount you're fine. but I recommend at least having the type of item (book, socks, movie, etc.) so you're not running through the whole store trying to think of SOMETHING.

NOTE - in our family we don't particularly care whether one child received EXACTLY the same $$ amount of gifts as the other kids in our family or not.  They are different ages and like different things so the amount spent might be different.  The amount given might also be different at this point since we're funding all of the gifts BUT the total given for each person could be useful if you have older kids who are buying their own gifts (something I recommend, as a lesson in budgeting AND giving).  Not to mention they need to be grateful with what they received not comparing to what everyone else received.  In any case you might be interested in this total by person concept to make them match exactly or at least know how much you spent, if you care.

6) Shop for the "MUST HAVES" on your list. Using a colored pen or marker, cross off the gifts as you put them in the cart.  VERY IMPORTANT - cross out the target price and write down the ACTUAL price next to it in the same box.  For example, I might find a MEEP on sale for $100.  I'd cross off the $150 and write $100 next to it).  Don't estimate - write down what the price tag says (or sale price if it is on sale). 

If you're purchasing a gift that is MORE than what you had planned, you'll have to immediately figure out which present you're making the adjustment to.  For example, I might find a MEEP for $165 dollars, which is $15 more than I'd planned to spend on it.  In that case I might erase the $25 for each of the other kiddos and put $20 each instead - that helps me make up the $5.  Or, I decide I don't want to cut money from my other kids to buy this MEEP so I find a different item, go shopping for it somewhere else, etc.

7)  Once you pick-up the "must haves" on your list, you can use the same process as in #6 to buy all of the things you weren't particular about.  For us these are the gifts for the younger kiddos who don't care and we can spend less on, if needed.  Realistically, last year we had a 16-month old and a 2 year old who didn't really care what they opened!  So we ended up spending $5 or so on many of their gifts to be able to afford the bigger gifts for the others (Xbox Kinect, Leap Pad, etc.).  

TIP- I drew this matrix to take up the whole sheet so you could see it.  You could either draw it smaller (or do it electronically) so you have room on the sides to write down other gifts you want to purchase or use the back of the sheet so you can have that with you while shopping.  You'll notice I wrote down the PJs (Christmas eve gift) on the side - I should write an amount.

The thing I like the most about this system is that it helps mie stay organized and on-track without constantly having to think back as to whether or not I got kid #1 a gift from kid #2 already or not.  It's also helpful when I (or the hubby *wink*) decides last minute to purchase a gift that would be way higher than what we can afford or intended to spend - we can easily regroup about the gift situation and determine if we want to cut from other places, not buy that gift, or pull from savings.  We can look across the landscape of gifts we're buying each other and make sure we're incorporating the kids wishes without going broke.  I also love that it doesn't matter what your budget is - you might end up with lots of $1 store presents if that's what you can afford - you can make this system work for you.  You *could* start this process much earlier in the year (for your forever kids anyway) and keep track of their wishes through the year that you might want to get them so you can look for things on sale or at least start earlier than I will be.  If you have more kids, add more rows and columns.  If you have less kids, it works there too.  You can put mom and dad on the list, or not, it's up to what works for your family.

(BTW - I won't be shopping for most of these gifts until, oh, the weekend before Christmas because that's how I roll and that's when we'll receive the paycheck that we've planned to cover Christmas gifts.  But honestly that's the way I like to do it anyway...nothing like staying up every night before Christmas wrapping presents!  I'm serious).

Hope this has been helpful.

Merry Christmas everyone!

100 Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces: 2012

Are you looking into adoption benefits?  Looking for an employer with superior benefits?  Check out the brand new list of the 2012 100 Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces published by the Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption.  This is a great tool for really digging into some of the employers out there that really go above and beyond to make adoption more possible for their employees.

In honor of this new publication, the President and CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption, Rita Soronen, kindly offered to answer a few questions about adoption and foster-to-adopt benefits for mie.

Mie: What can average employees do to impact the adoption benefits their employer offers?
Rita Soronen: This is a great question. Simply asking for the inclusion of adoption benefits is the first step. Many employers do not know that they can offer this to their employees. And then make the case for these benefits – they are cost-effective, build employee loyalty, and enhance a company’s image of being family-friendly. Offering benefits to families who are formed through adoption or through birth is the right thing to do. We make it easy by providing the templates, toolkits and information for employees and employers.

Mie: As an adoptive or prospective adoptive parent, where could I go to get more information about benefits available to my family?
Rita Soronen: There are many excellent resources for families to get information about adoption benefits. The variety of resources continues to grow and includes workplace benefits, adoption tax credits, adoption subsidies (for children adopted from foster care), education assistance for adopted youth, adoption assistance from private organizations, and benefits for military families who want to adopt. The following is a selected list of contacts, but the Foundation can help with additional resources:

• Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (workplace benefits) www.davethomasfoundationforadoption.org
• North American Council on Adoptable Children (subsidies) www.nacac.org
• Internal Revenue Service (adoption tax credit) www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc607.html
• Military adoption assistancehttp://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/Home/Benefit_Library/Federal_Benefits_Page/Adoption_Assistance.html
• Education assistance for adopted youth (scholarships, vouchers and waivers)www.childwelfare.gov/adoption/adopt_people/assistance.cfm
• Individual adoption assistance (helping with the costs of adoption) www.childwelfare.gov/adoption/adoptive/funding.cfm

Mie: There are several common benefits (medicaid, fee reimbursement, etc.) - what are some of the lesser known benefits?
Rita Soronen: Some of the benefits listed above – the adoption tax credit, education assistance and individual assistance are not as well known. Of course, every adoption is different and the family needs vary, so the best any parent can do is learn as much as possible. We can help connect individuals to the national resources available.

Mie: In your experience, what are the biggest obstacles people claim prevent them from adopting (from foster care)?
Rita Soronen: There are some key misperceptions that may cause individuals to either stop or not engage in the foster care adoption process. First, we know that there is a perception that it is simply too expensive to adopt. Although other forms of adoption (domestic infant or inter-country adoption) can cost tens of thousands of dollars, to adopt from foster care costs little to nothing. Second, there is a misconception that once a child is adopted, a birth family may file further legal action to regain custody oftheir child. In the child welfare system, once a child has been permanently freed for adoption, all legal paths are closed to the birth parents; the adoption is final and the child is a member of the adoptive family. And finally, there are so many misperceptions that surround the children waiting to be adopted – that they are too old for new families, that they are “unadoptable” or not able to fit into families. Nothing could be further from the truth. These children have grief and loss issues, and many may have trust or attachment challenges, but every child waiting to be adopted deserves a safe, nurturing and permanent home and the opportunity to grow and thrive in the 
birthright of every child – a family.   


As we began the adoption process we had great friends who were able to help explain some of the basic adoption benefits available when adopting through foster care.  I've found that unless you have some close friends or even more so unless you actually go through the process it is hard to really get a good understanding of the benefits available to you as an adoptive or foster-to-adopt parent.

Workplace benefits has become an extremely important topic to mie since prospective adoption became very real with our 4th placement (Summer) and the drama surrounding her brother's subsequent adoption.  We went from adopting a fully-supported sibling group to adopting a single, unsupported child, then back-and-forth between two unsupported children and a myriad of combinations in-between.  Though we entered the adoption process thinking our expenses would be largely covered, we were suddenly in the position of figuring out how to pay for one or possibly two adoptions that we weren't planning to pay for.  In the end, I found my company offered some minimal but appreciated adoption benefits and my husband's didn't appear to offer any, at all.  I also began researching possible benefits out there and found that many companies to a GREAT job! As an adoptive mom and leader in the HR-ish field, the meaning of adoption-friendly intrigues mie.

I applaud these employers and the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption for their work in supporting adoption-friendly workplaces.  Personally, anything I can do to support all of these organizations is worth it to mie as together we support finding every child a permanent, loving home and family.

On behalf of Letting Go of Mie, I want to sincerely thank Rita Soronen and her team at the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption for not only doing all the work to put this together but for giving mie the opportunity to share their message here on my blog.

Rita Soronen
President & CEO
The Dave Thomas Foundation
for Adoption

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is a national nonprofit public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the adoptions of the more than 134,000 children waiting in North America’s foster care systems. Created by Wendy’s® founder Dave Thomas who was adopted, the Foundation implements evidence-based, results-driven national signature programs, foster care adoption awareness initiatives and research-based advocacy efforts. To learn more, visit davethomasfoundation.org, or call 1-800-ASK-DTFA.

Moolah Monday - Saving While Spending

I'm writing this post for 2 reasons.  I want to show you how I can hardly make a decision that doesn't at least strongly consider frugality.  Second, I want to give you some ideas on how to use math in your favor to be frugal and/or overcome frugality.

I'm going to give you some real numbers here and some of you are going to say WAIT!  That's not frugal - that's a lot of dough.  Others are going to say "I spend WAY more than that".  The amount isn't so much the point as is the mindset.  I remember learning early on in my life that there will always be more to buy and you will always be able to feel like you don't have enough, if you let it.  In other words - the more you make the more you spend.  To combat this - try thinking in percentages or hours worked.  In other words, if you bought lunch today, that may have cost $5.  If you make $5 an hour, that's worth 1 hour of work!  Or, if you make $40 per day, that's worth 12.5% of your daily gross income.  I use this technique with older kids who ask me for things as a way to explain to them how much things cost and the importance of understanding how wage works.  I use minimum wage as an example (and stress the importance of working hard to make more than minimum wage) and then explain that the (insert football, soda, etc.) that they want to buy would mean they'd have to work 2 hours (or whatever) to earn...it gives them another perspective.

(It gives us one too if we think about it that way).

So here are my two examples of how I think about frugality and work it into our spending plan.

Example 1 - Home Decoration


My home has 17 rooms.  I've lived in it for 2 years.  All of the rooms are the original beige from when it was built in 2005, except one, which was painted sage-ish green before we moved in.  Since then we've painted the kitchen (though not behind the refrigerator) and Summer's room.  Logan's room is partially painted (and has been for about a year).  That's it.  We more than doubled the sq. footage from our last home so we have several rooms that aren't "setup" at all - the office, the craft closet, the media room - and all the rest are just filled in with what we have.  I'm frugal.  According to our adoption homestudy our home is "practically decorated".  That it is.

Last night my hubby sent me to the store to buy decorations for the guest room downstairs seeing as how my mom will be visiting soon and it was looking pretty shabby.  We don't have any bedroom furniture sets in our house and this room is no exception.  When we began decorating last night it had the queen size futon my hubby's had since he was a teenager, a cheap desk from Walmart or Target my hubby bought for our old house, and Summer's nap-time pack n' play.  There were curtains left from the previous owner.  Basically it was ready for a makeover.

I'm a closet interior decorator.  I love to do it.  I'm bold with color.  I just don't get around to it much.  It takes patience.  It takes a babysitter (I just won't paint with my current set of kiddos around - too chaotic).  It takes money.

Anyway - I went shopping for 90 minutes to buy "a couple hundred dollars" of stuff to decorate.  My hubby was thinking wall decor but I knew we needed a new bedding set and curtains to really make a difference.  I shopped all of kohls.  I shopped all of Target.  (that's all that was open at 8:30pm on Sunday night).  I didn't find anything that struck me as the right quality for a low-low price.  I didn't find anything that gave me vision for the room when we were ready to paint.  I couldn't imagine buying new curtains and new bedding and wall decor and eventually new furniture.  But I wanted a relaxing escape that matched the rest of my house.  I did find two bedding sets that would work - one with a greenish hue and one with an orange/brown/burgandy/taupe color.

I decided on the orange/brown/burgandy/taupe set.  Why?  Because I knew if I bought that set I'd be able to reuse the decor from my old guest bedroom that happened to have been painted the same color orange.  I ended up buying the queen bedding set, 4 panels of curtains (one set of thermal), 4 new pillows, a new double rod curtain holder, and a wicker hamper for about $275 (including the 5% discount for using the Target debit card).  When I got home my hubby helped me fix the bed up, hang the curtains, position the hamper, and hang the mirror and 6 matching pictures that we'd already had sitting in a closet.  It still needs paint and one day a nice furniture set, but for today it is a beautifully decorated room.  I'm re-purposing the existing curtains and curtain rod to go into the dining room - the room that was painted sage green and the one I'd say is the most "done".

Example 2 - Sea World
Last weekend we vacationed in Sea World - we needed to get at least one more use of the annual pass we'd acquired through a hotel package that included free Sea World passes.  (Before I go further, yes I believe the hotel rate was inflated at least a little to accommodate the tickets).  In any case - last year we were able to go to Sea World 2x for "free" but I felt we needed to use them again to make it worth it.  So I found a buy 2 get one free hotel deal (at the same hotel as last year) so we could spend a couple more days at the park.

Entry to Sea World was "free" so we added a few extras.  We ate breakfast with the Sesame Street characters day 1.  Day 2 we rented a cabana.  This was the BEST DEAL EVER!  Here's how it worked:

For $199 you got the following:
-4 Sea World Towels ($40)
-1 bottle of sunscreen ($10)
-2 Large pizzas ($40)
-8 bottles of water ($16)
-8 bottles of soda ($16)
-8 bags of chips ($16)
-4 Ice Cream Bars ($10)
-4 Unlimited Quick Queue passes (jump to the front of the line on rides, all day) - ($140)
-Locker Rental (in the cabana, private locker with refrigerator and freezer) - $10

Of course with all that you also got all day use of the cabana which a great place to put our stuff, gave our kids a place to nap in the park, gave us a private place to eat where our kids could be crazy (or not), and had a ceiling fan.  We also had a private visit from the characters with plenty of time for interaction and pictures.  It was a special treat for the kids.  It was a huge blessing for us.

So, from my estimation with just the tangible items the cabana rental was worth $298 if we purchased things separately.  It was listed for $199.  We paid $160 - you got a 20% discount if you were an annual pass holder, which we were, because we got "free" tickets from our hotel room last year.

Yes, $160 is a lot of money and we could have really not spent anything.  That being said we learned last year that investing in the Quick Queue passes was a huge blessing for a family like ours because of the ages of our kids.  The ones big enough are not really patient enough to wait in lines but I do want them to learn they have to delay gratification.  The bigger help is for the parent staying off with the kiddos not big enough to ride who have to sit there in the stroller just waiting - if they had to do that for an hour or more waiting for their brother and sister to get off the ride it would really suck, especially because we go in the summer when it's really hot.  Either that or we would have to have one parent go off and do a "little kid thing" with the little kids and one go off and do the "big kid thing" with the big kids.  Our family spends enough time apart so it is worth it to us to spend the $140 and we'd planned on it, which meant it cost us $20 for everything else.  One meal for 6 could have easily cost $20 even if we'd brought it into the park or left it in our car so we could have a picnic.  We could have made the food they gave us last all day - due to a storm we chose to buy dinner and get out of the rain (which of course we could have done in the cabana too) - so that means everything else was "free".

That's how I look at it - I'll happily spend money on something, if I have it to spend, if I can see the value in the purchase.  Alternatively, I have a hard time spending money just to spend it or on luxuries like home decorating or cabana comfort.

Just a little glimpse into my head :)

Moolah Monday - Research Participation

Last week I told you about how we're saving money in groceries by shopping every other week.  I also briefly mentioned that I had participated in a research study.  This is a great idea for our family that helps us have extra income periodically that really helps our family budget without too much work.

A few years ago a friend at work told mie about a local research firm that paid money for participation in research studies.  This company is a bona-fide research company and does not sell your information (other than the information you agree to provide as part of the research, of course) and does not try to sell you anything.  They have a database with information about you and your family (income level, age, # of children, etc.) and some of your preferences and habits (health diagnoses that you disclose, cars in your family, types of extracurricular activities, etc.).  They use this information to match you to research studies their firm has been hired to conduct (or provide an audience for) and when there is a match they call you to see if you can participate.

Participation can include anything from a brief written survey to a focus group or even a more in-depth product testing panel.  If you're familiar with research design, the parties who hire this firm are trying to get a sample from the population that matches their target consumer.

I've been on the list with this group for a while but have never really matched a survey or been available during the times available, until last week.  Last week they called mie with a brief 30 minute car survey, a beer tasting survey, one about paper goods (paper towels, etc.) and one about sporting goods and apparel.  I didn't qualify for the car survey because my car prior to the Sienna was too old ('01).  J was actually targeted for the beer tasting but since we don't drink at all that was out.  I qualified for the paper goods one but because I work at an organization that sells paper goods I was disqualified.  Because I have had been running to train for the marathon relay I qualified for the sporting goods and apparel focus group.

I went after work one day last week.  It was a 2 hour survey (6:45 to 8:45), sort of near my work (so there wasn't much commute involved) and for my participation I received $80 cash at the end, no strings attached.

It was a fun experience, though the whole time I was worrying about how things were going at home.  I will say though that having a research background I am pretty sure they were disappointed that I qualified.  They were looking for highly active sports enthusiasts.  That is not mie.  I qualified for my training with running but other than that didn't fit in AT ALL.  That's usually ok because they target particular audiences, but in reality I can pretty confidently say that I wasn't there target audience.  Not my problem though - I gave my opinions and earned the $80.

I will also say that I was a bit disappointed too because of the way I "fit" into the target audience.  As it was, I was representing the "older" female in the group - there was a younger girl in college and I was the token 30 year old.  I can't believe I was representing all the old ladies out there.  Jeesh  :)

Anyway - this $80 was unbudgeted so we're using it for a few cool things.  First, I took the first $10 for "myself".  I used this to buy breakfast at Chick-Fil-A one morning last week.  Nice treat.  We used $20 to take the kids to CiCi's on Friday, which technically was a budgeted expense but now will give us $20 extra to use on something else.  Now we have $50 leftover which will be used in a few ways.

First - After writing that last paragraph I realized we didn't tithe on that money.  We should and we will.  $8 out.
Second - Parents night out is coming up at church in a few weeks.  It will cost us about $20 for us to put our kiddos in childcare for the night so we can go out on a date.  We wouldn't have planned it because we're trying to be frugal and save, but since we have this extra we'll take advantage of it.  We have a couple gift cards to a restaurant that we received for Christmas and our anniversary, I think, so we're going to probably use that for a dinner out.

The remaining money might be used for another trip to CiCis or maybe something else - I haven't yet allocated those dollars to something specific.  That's ok - we'll find a good home for it somewhere :)

If you're in the DFW area we use Dallas By Definition.  Otherwise, I'm sure you can do a Google search and find some research companies with good reputations that you can use to sign yourself up.  Happy hunting!

Moolah Monday - Groceries

I previously told you that our life schedule was changing.  We're now 1-week into our new schedule and overall I love it.  The best part about it is that my husband has taken it upon himself to step-up his game on being a dad and husband.  I mean big time.  I don't think the two are related, necessarily, but instead it's a coincidence in timing that makes this whole transition in our life just wonderful for mie at the moment.  In response, I'm trying to be very supportive of my husband as well as I know this change is major for him and has some not-so-great side effects for him that he's more than willingly taking on for the sake of the family.

He would tell you it's working for him too with all the extra cuddles from the kids he's receiving.  Last week I went to a focus group after work one night and he sent mie this picture.  Apparently after putting #10 to bed the kids all, on their own, joined him on the couch to cuddle and watch cartoons.

If you must know, I was happy for him but also wanted to punch him.  It is not cool that everything went so easy for him the first night he had them by himself.  Seriously...even Mr. Logan No Sleep went to bed on-time without fighting at all and was asleep before I got home.  But really I was happy for him or he wouldn't want to do it again!  


And yes, those are my stockings on the fireplace still hanging from Christmas.  And yes #9 is wearing Christmas PJs.  That's real life around here folks.


Back to the point of this post.

With the change we've had to figure out how to do some things differently in our schedule.  We used to go grocery shopping together mid-day on the weekends but that no longer works for us.  In anticipation of this change I decided a few weeks ago to start shopping 2 weeks at a time.  My thought was that this way I'd only have to take the kids with mie shopping 2x a month rather than 4 and maybe I'd also choose to buy less extras because I'd cut my chances down by half.  So far, only going shopping 2x per month (and still Costco weekly - for the tradition of it mainly) has worked out really well for us with Costco being a good shot at filling-in with fresh bananas and milk every week.  I have learned though that I need to find a different time to go.  Waiting until 6:30pm on Sunday night to head out with all the kids in tow was probably not the best choice of times, especially having to shop for 2 weeks worth which made it a looonnng shopping trip for all of us.

And, I have to say to the sweet lady who encouraged us at the store - thank you.  Except for one thing that was well meaning but not effective for us...she said "Just blink and they'll get older".  I wanted to say - NO!  They never get older!  They are always the same age.  We persistently have 1-2 year olds - they never get older we just start over with them every few months.  :)


As I was saying - my hypothesis was also that we'd spend less because we'd shop fewer times.  I believe we've found a winner with this strategy even though it's not necessarily the plan of hard-core couponers who shop when the deal is right.  Our plan is slightly different - we shop for what is right when we go shopping - meaning, we stock up on things that are a good deal but are shelf-stable when we're on our shopping trips and then try to minimize the cost of things we "need" when they aren't on sell but we need them.

For example, last night I purchased 10 boxes of health food Hamburger Helper.  That normally should have cost us $16.50 at this particular store.  Instead, it was on sale for a price of $10 and I had two coupons that saved us $1 each.  That meant we paid $8.00 and saved $8.50 off the regular price.  SCORE!  Will we eat all that in the next two weeks?  Not a chance - we will have hamburger helper ONCE in the next two weeks and I might decide to make 2 boxes of it to have leftovers for my lunches.  The rest will be good for a while. I also purchased AXE shower gel, the kind preferred by my husband and his son who wants to be just like him.  The price was $4.17, which was marked as a sale price but admittedly I don't believe it was a real sale.  Nevertheless, I had a coupon that was expiring before I go shopping again and it was buy one get one free.  My husband didn't need any new shower gel, but for $4.17 I got two bottles of it - $2.08 is a good price for that type of shower gel - and we'll stock that in the cabinet.

On the other hand, we needed to add some fruits to our selection.  I scoured the displays to find a few kinds that were good prices.  Rather than saying "we're out of apples so I'll buy apples" regardless of price, I found "Cuties" - those clementine oranges "for kids" - and grapes on sale for a good price so I bought some of those to last us the next two weeks.

We really stocked up yesterday.  I already had all the meat I needed for the next two weeks because I'd stocked up on my last trip when I found a few great deals (50% off the meats I'd purchased).  Now that I stocked up on several non-perishables (or, really items with long code dates, they will perish some day), I'm set for a while.

I did get a bit nervous as the clerk was ringing things up - the bill went all the way to $228.  That would be on-par with what we normally spend a week, not a savings.  That would be ok, but I was hoping to save both time (energy) and money going every two weeks.  Normally we'd spend about $120 per week at the grocery store and $75-$80 on stuff at Costco.  That adds up quickly.  Then I scanned my rewards card and he added my coupons in.  The bill went all the way down to $161.  I saved $67 or 30% off the regular bill.  That was cool and meant we're saving money with this tactic - about $160 per month just with stuff we're buying at the grocery store.  I've been really careful about what we're buying at Costco too.  With the exception of diapers/pull-ups, we usually only need about $10-20 more worth of stuff - bananas and milk and maybe a few other things like waffles or peanut butter or syrup (see the theme!).  So, we're saving a boatload there as well.

Now, if I can just figure out when to go I'd be set!

Moolah Monday - Donations

(This is part 1 of 2)

Our budget has been stretched pretty thin since we adopted Summer.  In one day our budget became about $1600 lower than it had been before.  This one day came only 14 days after our budget had taken a separate $1400 hit.  Add that up and it's a grand total of $3000 less to spend each month.  No wonder we're feeling the pinch!

Thankfully God continues to provide for us and in reality this $3000 has come entirely from our additional spending or saving money.  In all honesty, it makes the frugal momma in mie sick that we didn't even think about the fact that we were spending THAT much money each month that we obviously didn't need.  Without it, we were still able to spend plenty on Christmas and we're still making it during our most challenging financial months of the year (January & February).  Let mie tell you, our financial hearts have been taught a lesson in being responsible with our finances.

Due to our limited resources we've been less able to spend on things we'd previously said we "needed", including a full wardrobe for #9.  She's a bit larger than the average 3-year-old and seeing as how this is both the oldest (and largest) girl we've had we're less prepared with clothes that fit her.  She didn't come with many that fit to begin with - her existing wardrobe apparently was made up from anything from 18 months to size 8 - I think I salvaged 2 pairs of PJs (one slightly torn), 1 pair of underwear, 1 pair of pants (that were slightly too short), and 2 shirts.  That's all the girl had that fit.  After going through my stockpile of clothes I was pleased to find a few more size 3s (good for Summer), some size 4s, and 1 or 2 size 5s.  Most of the size 4s were too small but some were suitable.  Other than that this little girl was in serious need of clothes that fit!

When she came I went out and spent about $100 on things we needed, both for her and her brother.  $50 of that came from a gift from a family member for Summer's adoption.  In that loot I was able to score some leggings and turtlenecks along with some sweatsuit sets in her size.  This left her with about 5-6 outfits that could be worn regularly.

(Then my washer went out...seriously not convenient timing...it challenged my creativity to keep her clothed well!)

Last week at church Summer's teacher stopped us several times to say that she had some clothes for us.  A family  member of hers was going to give them away to a charitable foundation but she pleaded to give them to someone at church.  She thought of our dear Summer.  This wonderful woman thought of us when she had plenty to share.  She had no idea how much she was helping out.

Look at all those clothes.  If you can't see very well, those are 6 stacks of girls' clothes - each stack is 8-12 pieces high.  Most of them are size 3T, which is perfect for Summer as she grows into them this spring and summer.  Some were size 2T, which I can add to my 2T collection for future kiddos.  Then there were several 4T and 5T items as well.  The stack in the top right corner is all 4T and 5T shirts - I had #9 try them all on and you should have seen her light up.  That green one on top is especially cute and she beamed when she wore it to church on Sunday.  After letting the girls try on a few pieces I went in and sorted through their existing stuff and put things away either in their drawers (to be used now) or in tubs (to be used in the future).

Now we are perfectly set for clothes for Summer until she's in 4T.  When we get to 4T we probably need some more items, but we have a really good start.  #9 has a great start on her 5T wardrobe and many of the 4T stuff will do for now.  We are so blessed.

Come back tomorrow for part 2 of 2 - Tuesday's Tears - Donations

Moolah Monday - Financial Support & Humility

Foster Parents, or at least their children, often qualify for various government and private-sector financial support programs designed to keep foster children out of poverty.  These programs include things like foster parent subsidy, free lunch at school, medicaid (which also covers therapy), pre-school/headstart, WIC, and a whole host of other programs.

In our case, we take advantage of medical care through medicaid, ECI therapy for our kids under 3 who qualify based on delays, play therapy for our older kids who need it, state-paid daycare, and of course our foster parent subsidy through the state.  We receive about $660 per child, per month, for the foster parent subsidy.  It's hard to quantify how much we "receive" for the other services because they are paid directly through the state to the provider and we never receive a bill or reimbursement.  This is actually quite helpful as we don't have to worry about how to pay for various services our children require, aside for actually finding a provider that will take our children and accepts the state funding.

We currently do not take advantage of some programs that we technically qualify for:

• Preschool - We could enroll our kids for free in headstart or early headstart programs or state-provided pre-school.  This would also be something Summer qualifies for as she gets older, if we so choose, because the way the "free-rules" are written it applies to anyone who has ever been in foster care, regardless of where they are currently, even if they are adopted.  We don't receive this benefit primarily because the state pays for childcare since we both work full-time and the daycare they attend is also a preschool.  It's just easier to go that route than try to get them into a limited-space facility that may or may not be convenient to our commute.  That being said I could see this being a valuable resource if the daycare wasn't an option or if I was a SAHM and needed a half-day preschool for my kiddos.  I definitely see this as an option if we end up adopting more preschoolers and face a ridiculously high childcare bill.
• WIC - We could enroll in WIC.  We have chosen not to for 2 reasons.  First of all, we don't need it.  Yes, it is something we qualify for (our kids do), but we can provide them with enough nutrition to give them what they need and therefore I don't believe in accepting this support.  Contrary to some popular beliefs, the government isn't independently made of money - it is a finite resource primarily funded through taxpayers.  There is nothing wrong with accepting support if you need it but since we don't I see it as leaving the funds for someone who actually does require it to feed their kids.  Of course, if our financial situation changes and we need the money to feed our kids, it would be a great option to allow us to continue to foster.  Second of all, it would be yet another regular appointment to try to manage.
• Various programs - Foster children (at least here) typically are considered a household of 1 with no income, therefore they qualify for most financial aid programs.  They would qualify for most food stamp programs and some housing programs also.  To mie it's just more of a hassle than it is worth at this point in time, not to mention my previously stated belief about what support we need at this point in our life.

For foster parents who haven't had to face some level of poverty in their past, receiving some of this support can invoke a certain level of humility.  They may want to hide their face in shame for being seen in "one of THOSE places" and it forces them to deal with certain pre-conceived notions of "THOSE kind of people" who would be seen in "one of THOSE places".  I think this is good - you never can be too humble.  

Over the holidays my children, even Summer, received presents from angel tree-type programs that focused on meeting the needs of local foster children.  Of course we received these gifts after we'd already purchased gifts for the kids and some of the gifts were duplicates of what we already had so we decided to take some back.  

Summer received a play vacuum, something her daddy had already picked out to give her, so we took back the one we received from the county.  We didn't have a receipt to say where it came from but thankfully there was an "exclusively from Target" declaration on the front.  When I took it back I had to explain the situation and I felt like scum.  I was taking back a gift my foster child received from the kindness of strangers.  I couldn't hide the fact that it was that type of a situation because I didn't realize until I handed it to the associate that on the back of the gift was the angel-tree ornament thing with her name, age, request, etc.  I felt like someone returning a gift to buy booze or something, who made up the story to sound better.  Ugh.  

Summer also received a really nice ($59.99) jacket from Children's Place.  I loved the jacket, I really did, but it was size 2T and we already have 2 jackets in that size.  I didn't want it to go to waste, so I took it back to the store a few days after Christmas.  Imagine my embarrassment when she looked at mie funny and said "Mam, that jacket was from last year's line".  Ugh again.  I explained my situation, mostly out of embarrassment, which only made mie feel worse because yet again I was the mom trying to take my child's gift back to get money.  Actually though, this time I was trying to exchange it for a larger size and she was nice enough to help mie find a different jacket.  There just happened to be one hanging on a clearance rack - a $69.99 jacket mistakenly marked down to $14.99 in size 4T.  All-in-all with the minimal credit we got on the other jacket we ended up paying $5 for a new $70 jacket for our daughter and she will probably be able to wear it next year (or if we end up needing it for #9 she could use it this year too).  It all worked out.

I'm so glad that I get the chance to be humbled from time-to-time in the ways that I have so I remember where our blessings come from, and it's not the government.  I'm also grateful for these social programs that enable families to foster who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to be foster families.  I'd hope that foster families use just what they need, though I hear so many do it "for the money".  

All that to say, if you think you couldn't afford to foster, think again.  

Moolah Monday - Getting our Financial House in Order

Inspired by less funds/more expenses after the adoption of Little Miss and relatives who recently paid off all their debt, my husband and I have decided to get our financial house back in order.  Please note the eye rolling and simultaneous happy dance.

I am so doing this because I have to.  I know I have to for many reasons.  First, if we keep spending like we are used to we are eventually going to start bouncing checks.  We haven't faced that scenario in quite some time but it's not something we're eager to get back to.  The eye rolling part of me is acting kind of like a teenager who knows they've lost the battle with their parents (or heaven forbid that their parent is actually right) - yep that's right I'm going along but quite reluctantly, with my nose turned up in the air, and certainly with a few heavy sighs.  Quite mature of mie.  I don't want to budget.  I don't want to have to account for our resources.  I don't want to have to track pennies.  I don't want to have to deny myself anything.  WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

On the other hand though, I'm the one who asked my hubby if he'd help mie start and then if he'd lead this process.  Though he's now doing a wonderful job of managing it, it was I who initiated the conversation.  The mature, responsible part of mie overruled the teenager within and convinced her that getting things taken care of now would be much more fun than dealing with consequences after the fact.

And of course the grown-up in mie was right.  It is so much better to have a plan for our money than wondering how the month will play out financially.  The teenager in mie has had a good time feeling grown-up and responsible too, so it's a win-win.

Surely the process couldn't be easy and straight-forward though.  Anyone who follows Dave Ramsey is aware of the way he alludes to the role of Murphy's law in the budgeting process and his insistence on the "Emergency Fund" prior to paying off debt for just those situations.  He does this because they happen.  I'm told they always happen.  We're not an exception.

Here's what we needed to include in the budget for the remainder of December:

Income (at the time it was 3 paychecks)

Tithe

Groceries - $240

Daycare - $1000

Gas Money (2 fill-ups for each car)

Car Insurance Payment

Christmas Presents - $880

I think that was it - balancing out the income with the expenses we ended up with the amounts included above plus enough money to put aside to pay both mortgages in January, put an extra $1000 into savings, and have $220 leftover as spending money - we split it $100 each and put the extra $20 toward presents.

If you look at it another way, we had the mortgages plus $1220 leftover in our budget after paying "necessities".

It didn't stay that way.

We got a call from a collection agency.  Apparently for some still unknown reason my student loans went into repayment in October.  I never paid attention to the statements because it shouldn't have been in repayment yet and so apparently I was 60 days past due with a $1240 outstanding bill.

: (

Thankfully I had the money in the budget to pay for that, but it ate up our extra spending dollars and what was to go into savings.  I was able to pay it though, so we're grateful for that and now the account is current  yet again.  (How embarrassing, and they're still looking into why it went into repayment early).

That day as I drove home I noticed the tire light on the car - it means there was a low tire.  After a hideously bad commute (it took mie 2+ hours to drive home when it usually takes about 45 minutes), hubby checked out the tire and found a large gash and a screw WITH a washer in it.  The tire was not fixable.

We learned a while back that if our tires are not fixable they have to be special ordered at the cost of about $350 each.  We also learned of a place we could get them for about $260 but they still had to be shipped.

So I drove around on the spare tire sparingly (*snort*) for 2 days before the tire came in earlier than expected.  That ate into our January mortgage savings - which really isn't that big of a deal since the mortgage will be paid from January funds anyway, but it's still nice to be that much ahead.  Now we're just a little less ahead.

I had the opportunity to go Christmas shopping for presents with my hubby on Friday.  Here's where it gets cool.  We had budgeted $880 but were going to try to keep it less than that and catch up a little where we lost on the tire.  As I redid the math I realized just off the bat I had just done poor math and we only needed $780 - an immediate $100 to help pay for the tire.  Then when we did our shopping we came in about $250 under what we'd planned.  I still have about $150 left to spend on gifts, so there's another $100 savings for the tire - we managed to spend $200 less than we'd budgeted that could go toward the cost of the tire.

Then I started thinking about a particular check one night - I wondered if that check was ever cashed or if I still had it in my purse.  The next day guess what floated up to the top of my purse - a $65 check I'd had in there since Black Friday that I'd forgotten about.  That left us with $265 toward the tire - enough to purchase it AND pay the fee to get it installed at WalMart without having to dip into our mortgage savings for January.

How cool is that?

I'm sure as we continue this process we'll have other adjustments we'll have to make, but it feels so good to know we're getting back on-track and more importantly that we're doing it together.

It's the right thing to do anyway - being good stewards of the resources we've been given.

Moolah Monday - Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Are you all Black Friday and Cyber Monday peeps?

With my tendency toward frugality and need desire to find deals you'd think these annual occassions would be right up my alley.  Truth-be-told, they are, but not necesarily for the frugality.  I've never really participated in Cyber Monday so I suppose Black Friday is the only one really up my alley - which will make sense after I expound a bit more.

I've done Black Friday shopping maybe 4 or 5 times or so since I've been married (which, I'll remind you is now 9 years).  There have been years I've been able to shop and some years where it just hasn't worked out.  Prior to having children it was easier to participate even though it's never been "easy" to get up and out of the house at the necesary hour.  Since kiddos have entered the picture it's been much more difficult, especially with the hubby's work schedule.  I just can't see me taking them out that early in the morning to fight the crowds and stress over keeping them safe to get a semi-good deal.  It's more and more unusual that I get to participate in Black Friday for that reason.

Honestly?  That's ok with me, especially this year.  I had NO desire to go out for Black Friday deals this year.  Maybe it was the move to shopping earlier (on Thanksgiving) that got me, but this year I was not only uninterested in the festivities, I was repulsed by them.  The whole idea of Black Friday shopping just made me sick.  Am I alone here?

Usually I love Black Friday not for the deals (though those are fun) but for the experience.  Contrary to normal people, I actually love the crowds.  I love being around all the people.  I love being part of the shopping while others are shopping and feeling the comraderie of it all.  I enjoy the special craziness it takes to get on a motorcycle with your dad at 11pm on Thanksgiving night in your mom's leathers to stay warm in the freezing temperatures to introduce your dad to Black Friday deals at the outlet malls.  (was that just mie?) Super fun!  I love the idea of walking around through all the people and fighting traffic and waiting in lines.

I'm not being sarcastic.  I actually love those things!  Though I hate getting out of bed on a cold morning, or any morning before 8 really, I love doing it "for Black Friday".  I love that it usually signals the beginning of the Christmas season and what's to come with other holiday festivities.  I usually love getting my first pumpkin spice steamer from Starbucks.  I love going to my favorite stores and seeing how they've decorated and what deals they have and how other shoppers have left the place a complete mess whether or not I'm actually going to buy something.  I just love the passion in it.

This year was different though.  I couldn't get myself to get excited over all those things because I realized that the passion and tradition I love so much has turned into something that is destroying the meaning of Christmas.  Rather than all that I love about Black Friday, it has turned into an all-out free-for-all where anything goes including violence, to save money on stuff.  It's just stuff.  And people are out trying to check off all of their Christmas lists.  Check them off.  I got something for Jim and Bob and Sam and Sara.  Check check check check.  This year I sensed that it was all about finding something to buy for someone on the list.  It felt like a bunch of people making a mad-dash for junk.  It is, after-all, just junk.

As a society, have we become more interested in giving something because it's obligatory than because we want to bless someone with a gift?  Are we teaching our children to expect people to give us stuff, and to love that stuff more than we love the people who give it?  Do we really need a flat screen tv in every room and every video game system and the latest i-device?  Really? 

Don't get mie wrong.  I love giving.  I love blessing my children with things their little hearts desire.  I love seeing something I know would bless a friend and being able to pick it up at a good deal.  I love being able to spend money on other people.  I love surprises and watching someone open the gift I carefully picked out just for them.  What I don't love is how it feels like we've turned into a society that expects something for nothing, that believes we "deserve" the latest and greatest and demand that others go to great lengths to make us happy with stuff.  I don't love that at least on some level we've lost the sentiment behind gift-giving so that its now something we have to do to keep up with the Jones' or prove our love rather than something we do out of a joyful spirit.  I don't love that the Christmas season is now feeding a never-full hunger for more stuff rather than getting us closer to the heart of God that sent us the most amazing gift 2000 years ago and that the celebration of that day has turned into a day of debt and consumerism instead of freedom and gratitude.

I did go shopping at night on Black Friday but only because I was out-of-town at the time visiting friends and family and I wanted to leave them with gifts I'd picked out for them, saving the unnecesary cost of shipping.  I would have much rather shopped over time, as I felt led to pick out just the right thing for the people I wanted to shop for.  I only had a few gifts to buy because I had already started picking out the right gifts months before as I saw things I knew would be a blessing to the special people in my life and I had already brought them with me on our trip. 

And we went at night because during the day we took a day trip to the mountains with my parents and kids.  We saw the desert and enjoyed creation.  We took the kids sledding in snow in the mountains and played with them for hours.  We went on a nature hike on a small trail in the mountains to see what we could find - to learn about that area - to play some more.  We were together.  We had a good time.  We could have done it for free (but chose to take a rather expensive tram ride).  I'd much rather THAT be our Black Friday tradition from now on. 

Treasuring memories, creation, and time-spent with loved ones instead of stuff that will eventually rot away.

Working Mama Wednesday - Breakfast & Lunch

As a working mama, breakfast & lunch are two meals that are almost always eaten out of the home.  If we're not careful (and we're not always careful) we can easily end up eating out for breakfast and lunch too.  That's not good for our stomachs or our wallets. 

I haven't quite figured out how to avoid too much eating out.  I mean, the solution is obvious - prepare meals at home.  It should be esay and frankly it is except for our apparent aversion to eating leftovers and delight in treating ourselves by eating out.  I can't tell you how often we have really yummy leftovers that go bad because we just didn't eat it.  I also can't tell you how often I've lost tupperware in the fridge here at work because I left it in there so long I forgot it was there on deep cleaning day (which is this Friday...better go take a look!).  I'm not mad about it - it's what I get for preparing a decent lunch and then choosing to go out and buy something anyway.

Nevertheless, I'm trying to do a better job at preparing lunches that I eat and making sure we eat breakfast out only on sporadic occasions.  It's easier now that I have two kiddos who need to eat breakfast at home instead of one.  It used to be that the fosters attended a school that fed them breakfast while Logie had to eat breakfast before school.  He's not a big eater in the morning so that usually meant a piece of fruit or a cup of cereal with milk that he "ate" on the way.  Now that #4 is in school with him and has to eat breakfast early too, we are getting up earlier, eating breakfast together at the island, and then going to school (and work) all filled up.  That has helped me not buy out this week much.  Except of course daddy thought it would be special to take them out to donuts before school this morning.  Such is the life of a daddy who works a different schedule!  Not taking that from him.  Especially since I have a few pancake days up my sleeve...

For breakfast then I'll eat cereal with the kiddos (we love frosted mini-wheats) or yogurt with berries and granola and sometimes I'll add my homemade Chai that I drink on the way to work.

For lunch the kiddos eat at school, except on Fridays when I need to make their lunches.  I almost always make "ham and cheese rollups" - nothing more than ham and cheese rolled up with a tortilla and mayonaise.  My kiddo prefers that over anything else, even store-bought lunch or PB&J, and LOVES that his mommy makes it for him.  I'm cherishing these days and hoping #4 catches on to the love of rollups.  We've also added a rotating lunchables day - not that I love lunchables and wouldn't go for the crackers and cheese (unless homemade) - he picks the pizza which is still gross to me but it comes with fruit and water so I compromise there.  #4 isn't going to get the rotating lunchable day for a long time!

Lunch for me most always consists of the remaining leftover as a core element - usually a meat of some sort, this week it has been leftover tamales - edamame from Costco (really convenient), a piece of fresh fruit (oranges are my favorite), and a diet soda, usually Coke Zero but can be Diet Pepsi if my mom has been in town recently.

Of course, I often forgo the prepared lunch for yummy alternatives - a "Steak Queso Burrito" from Qdoba or In-N-Out.  Those two get me to stray from my prepped lunch all-too-frequently. 

What gets you to stray from your more healthy/cheap lunch and breakfast?  Please tell me I'm not alone here...

Moolah Monday - Working Together

My husband and I are big Dave Ramsey fans and believe whole-heartedly in his approach to money management.  Though arguably one of the biggest points of his message is that living debt-free is the best (only) way to go if you're going to be financially successful in the long-term, one of the key things I appreciate is his perspective on the importance of money in relationships.  It is so important in what he teaches that it falls in the second week in his 13-week Financial Peace University course, second only to the overview of the program and his financial management system/plan, the "Baby Steps".

If you've ever listened to his radio program, you may know that on Fridays they typically focus (but not exclusively) on the success stories.  People who have paid off all of their debt or all of their debt except their mortgage get to call in and scream "I/We're Debt Free!!!" on the air.  Some people even drive into their studios to be able to do the scream in person. If you need some motivation, listen to the Friday program to get started...I often tear up when I'm able to listen because you can just hear the freedom and joy in their lives because of the accomplishments they've made.

If you listen to the debt-free screams for some time you might also recognize the pattern of questions Mr. Ramsey seems to ask regularly.  One of the questions he asks often is something along the lines of "what was the most important thing that helped you be successful".  The answer that I hear people give the most is "working with my spouse" or "being on the same page with my spouse".

What a great reciprical situation!

Depending on who you ask, financial matters influence a majority of relational (spousal) stress and divorce.  Many people solve the problem by keeping separate bank accounts, dividing up who's responsible to pay which bills, and then keeping financial information and accountability an individual responsibility in a marriage.  Though I understand the desire to remain conflict-free, avoiding the conflict doesn't mean it's not there and furthermore, when you take that route you miss the opportunity to resolve the conflict which helps further unity in marriage.

In other words, when you keep your finances separate, you're choosing to live parrallel lives rather than living together, at least in the financial world.  I'd argue that this has spiritual implications, but even for those who are not spiritual you can picture a world where keeping finances separate and living parrallel lives there can lead toward and even cause disharmony in other areas of marriage as well.  I'm not saying it's a guarantee, but avoiding money conflicts rather than solving them not only places you further at risk for financial disaster but also for marital discord and divorce. 

Lest I sound better-than-thou (or less you do research into my marriage and finances and find me a hypocrit), let me be forthright in saying that in our marriage we are neither debt-free nor do we do a great job at staying on the same page.  We don't have a written budget, budget committtee meetings, or stick to a financial plan.  It's something we're working on.  We do have a shell budget that we both try to stay grounded to for the most part and for the most part we stay within our monthly saving/spending plan as a whole.  It is very difficult for us to find make time to be on the same page, particularly with a written budget and other money management tasks due to our crazy schedules that make us cross-paths more often than we're together.  And so we sometimes pay the price - last week we both spent more than we should have on various things and ended up with a negative balance in our checking account (yikes!).  Thankfully we have a savings account with money that we can transfer (and, honestly some of our spending was planned to use the savings, we just thought we might be able to do it without actually using our savings), but the truth is if we don't watch it we could easily find ourselves in the situation where we don't have any more money to transfer, if you know what I mean.  More importantly, as I mentioned before, just because you can spend doesn't mean you should and not having a plan and actively working together puts us at risk, both financially and in our marriage - we could and should be better stewards.

The good news for us is that at least we're starting from the same foundational point in our financial relationship - we both want to be debt free, we both believe in being generous, and we both know who ultimately owns the money.  So we're on the same page, at least from a broad perspective.  Now it's the details we need to take care of.

Why do I write this? Apparently based on how easy it flowed off my finger tips I believe it might be worthwhile for someone out there to hear where we are and where we want to head. Maybe it will encourage you? Maybe the resources I linked to will be of value to you? Maybe one of you will have a story to share with us that could encourage us on getting better at being on the same page?

Ultimately, I hope being honest with our situation will help us be accountable to ourselves and in our own marriage.  It's not comfortable telling all of you that we strongly believe in something and yet don't do it.  Hypocrit may fit for now, but I'm hoping we don't stay there.