Jana Says

Living life from cover to cover

What’s the going rate for teeth?

by Jana 21 Comments

I have crossed many thresholds in my parenting journey thus far: sleeping through the night, teething, potty training, weaning off bottles, ear piercing, finishing daycare and preschool (2 more payments, or 4 more weeks, to go and then we’re done!)…lots of accomplishments in her 5 1/2 years. But this weekend we crossed one more. And it is by far the one I’ve been dreading the most.

My daughter has her first loose tooth.

Loose teeth are disgusting. They completely and totally gross me out. I can’t even think about one without shuddering (much like I cannot think about lice or the chicken pox without having severe bouts of itching). In fact, it is the one thing I’ve told my husband I cannot handle. Blood, vomit, diarrhea, broken bones, bee stings, splinters…I can handle all of that. But a loose tooth sends me running for the hills (or underneath my desk. Whichever is closer). So when I realized my daughter’s tooth was loose, I got freaked out.

This will soon be making a visit to our house. How delightful.

And then I thought of the tooth fairy. Which freaked me out even more.

When I was a kid (back in the 80s), I’m fairly certain I got about $1 for my first lost tooth and about a quarter for every tooth after that. My parents were cute about it at first. They did the whole tooth fairy thing and went out of their way to make me think that she was sneaky enough to come into my room and leave money under my pillow. I believed it, too, until I was about 7 and they would just fork over the money after the tooth was out. I was thrilled with that quarter and raced to my room to put it in my  “piggy” bank (ah, to be 7 again. Or need quarters for laundry day). But if I’m to understand it correctly, the tooth fairy has increased her prices dramatically. And I’m not sure why.

I don’t think teeth are more valuable now than they were 30 years ago. So I’ve been trying to speculate on why, from what I understand, the going rate for a tooth is around $5 a tooth yes, $5 a tooth. I’m as shocked as you are. Unless you have kids. Then maybe you’re not so shocked). Maybe the tooth fairy’s expenses have gone up and she’s just passing that along to the rest of us. Maybe she feels that she needs a raise because, unlike Santa who works one night a year, she has to work every day, dammit, travelling all over the world and having to remember the exchange rates and not leave a Canadian coin under an American child’s pillow; that’s a shit ton of work. Maybe she’s sick of people thinking she’s not real and she’s just extorting us as payback. I don’t know. What I do know is that the price of teeth is out of control.

My husband and I haven’t discussed how we’re going to handle payment for the lost teeth (which, if you think about it, is kind of weird. We’re giving her money for losing a tooth. I would like to get money for losing something. How about the next time I lose my keys, I make my husband give me $3? Do you think he’d go for that?). We do know that losing the whole set is going to put us back $100. In the grand scheme of things, $100 isn’t a great deal of money since she won’t lose all of her teeth at once but still–$5 a tooth seems a bit steep. I’m thinking we do an inflated version of what my parents did. $5 for the first tooth and $1 or $2 for every other tooth.

Another option is to agree to pay her $5 per tooth and then have a “tooth fund”. Since we know they’re going to fall out and she has 20 of them, we know we’re going to have to pay $100. Also, we know that we have some time before the first one falls out, which gives us time to save the money. I feel kind of ridiculous having a savings account for teeth but I don’t want her to think the tooth fairy is stiffing her. That would be unfair.

I feel ridiculous that I’m agonizing over her losing her teeth but it’s a pretty big deal. The tooth fairy is almost a rite of passage; every kid deserves to have a visit, including my daughter. I just don’t want to be extorted by a make-believe fairy responsible for making parents pay, literally, for the most disgusting part of raising a child.

Parents of kids who’ve lost teeth, how much did you pay? Any suggestions on how we should handle this?

Why we’ll never be a 1 car family

by Jana 19 Comments

I loathe cars. Everything about them annoys me. Repairs, getting gas, sitting in traffic, shopping for them, regular maintenance…all of it. I dream of living in a city with good public transportation and having a membership to ZipCar or something like that. But alas, that is not my life. No, my life is that of a 2 car family. And no matter how much I wish to change it, it is just not practical for my family to only have 1 car.

Even when we were in the throes of paying down our debt, we had to maintain 2 cars. It was expensive and annoying but we had to do it, mainly for these reasons:

  • Public transportation where I live is horrible. We have no rail system save for a few trains running to Philadelphia and a few stops before that. If you work in the northern part of the state and work in the middle or southern part of the state (like my husband) there is no way to take a train. And the buses? Are a joke. They’re never on time and traveling by bus takes forever. When I was in grad school, I had a professor who did a study of how long it took to go grocery shopping using just the buses. She found that it took 3 hours to travel to and from the store. Considering I live a 5 minute car ride from the nearest supermarket, it doesn’t make sense to take the bus. 
  • My husband and I work in complete opposite directions. Our house is in the middle of our offices. Although carpooling would be fantastic, and we did do it when we both worked in the same city, it just doesn’t work now. There is no conceivable way for me to get him to work and then myself to work on time (not to mention getting the kid to school) and without spending a freaking fortune in gas. Should I quit my job, it becomes a bit more feasible to give up one car but I highly doubt that it is practical. 
  • I live within walking distance of absolutely nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true. I live near a HUGE park but I have to play Frogger across 2 major roads to get there. I’ve never been good at arcade games, especially not in the real life version. Although I have what to do at my house and my very small neighborhood has a playground, it’s easy for my daughter and I to get a little stir crazy. Having a car means that we can go to the library or the park or wherever we need to go without having to drive all over the state to get the car from my husband (or drive him to and from work). It saves our sanity and gives us choices. 
  • I have major paranoia issues. This is also the reason I still have a landline. I am terrified that something bad is going to happen and I’m going to be trapped (and without a phone). If we are a 1 car family, that means my husband has our car (since I’m home right now) and I become helpless in the event of an emergency. That is not something I can handle. 
If my family were in a very dire financial situation, I would let one of our cars go. Maybe. At this point, we own both of our cars and the only savings we’d get is in gas and insurance which would make some difference but not enough to give up a car entirely. Unless we wind up in a situation like we did with my husband’s previous car (which was my car from high school); repairing that car cost more than the car was worth and we were spending that money about every 4 months. Then it would make sense to go down to 1 car.
Hopefully that day won’t come and we’ll never have to make that decision. So, for now, we’ll stick with our 2 cars. No matter how ridiculously annoying they are.

I want, I want, I want!

by Jana 14 Comments

I desperately, more than anything, want a third dog. I know. It’s insane and foolish and a terrible idea. Yet I can’t let it go.

I peruse Petfinder almost daily. I had to actively stop myself from downloading the app onto my phone. The other night, our neighbor’s dog got loose and, seeing as how the family didn’t go looking for him, I contemplating telling them that if they weren’t going to care for him, I would gladly take him off their hands. But I couldn’t do that to their kids (or could I?)

My husband knows that I want to add another furry member to our family. He supports it…eventually. He entertains my delusions of puppy grandeur, and recently, even agreed to go meet a dog I found at a local shelter (the dog was adopted before we had a chance to get there. Good for the dog. Sad for us). But he knows, more than I do, that right now is not the greatest time to add a third dog to our family. Although timing-wise it’s perfect, financially it’s a horrible choice. Here’s why:

  • Adoption fees. I have no interest in purchasing a dog from a store or a breeder. I prefer to adopt one from a shelter or rescue organization. However, even that comes with upfront fees, and some of those fees are really expensive (particularly from some of our local rescues). While we might have a few hundred undesignated dollars, spending it on adopting a dog is probably not the most prudent use of our money. It’s better served going into savings or keeping around for another dog emergency.
  • Regular expenses. A third dog means more food, another crate, additional vet appointments, grooming, preventative meds and all the other monthly expenses that go along with responsibly adding a dog to our family. With money being a little tighter than usual due to my leave, we’re having to make cuts. Adding in more expenses every month means cutting back even farther and quite frankly, we’ve made pretty much every cut we can. 
  • We’re trying to move. Putting our house up for sale is a pretty daunting task. We’re just about done with all the repairs and cosmetic fixes and we even have our realtor lined up. And we really need to move. Bringing a new dog into the house means more chances for accidents and destruction of property like what happened to poor Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. We cannot have that happen if we want to sell our house in the next year. Our wallets just can’t take having to spend that kind of money on home repairs. 
  • Our house is just not big enough. My house is not small but it certainly isn’t big enough to accommodate 3 dogs and 3 humans. Just having the 2 dogs is a stretch sometimes. Also, if we added a third dog, we’d have to fence our backyard. Right now, with the 2, it’s not a big deal to put them on their leashes and take them for a walk. Adding a third to that mix would bring a chaos that I’m not sure I could handle on my own (or my husband could handle on his own). 
We’ve thought about fostering like my friend Erin. Financially it’s a smarter choice but emotionally, I couldn’t do it. The thought of bringing a dog into my family, socializing him with my dogs (and cat), getting him (or her) used to us and then having to let him go is more than I can take. I have so much respect for people who are strong enough to do that. If I fostered a dog, he’d be mine. Case closed.
I know that one day (hopefully sooner than later), I’ll have another dog. Although it’s hard to remind myself that now is not the right time, I know that it’s not. I have to keep telling myself that this is the most practical, responsible, adult thing I can do for me and my family.
But you know what? Being a grown-up sucks sometimes.

How to Raise Your Children to be Financial Disasters

by Jana 34 Comments

This is a guest post from Andrea, a 29 year-old Licensed Clinical Social Worker, full-time freelancer and single mom paying off over $60,000 in debt. Visit So Over Debt to follow her journey out of financial chaos.

Like any parent, I work hard every day to make sure my son is growing up with the tools he needs to become successful. I make sure his basic needs are met, along with some of his wants, and that he learns to treat others with kindness and respect. I help him with homework and try to make sure his diet is balanced (which is difficult, since he’s the pickiest eater on the planet). One of my constant worries, though, is that I will fail to prepare him to deal with money responsibly.

My concern for my son’s financial future has roots in my own childhood. I grew up lower middle class, with a father who worked a blue collar job (and always had at least one business on the side) and a mother who stayed at home with my sister and me. Looking back, I see all the ways that my parents’ financial choices affected how I would view money as an adult. Despite the fact that my mom and dad were excellent savers and frugal spenders, I ended up with an addiction to shopping and spending that will take many years to overcome.

Wait a minute, you may be thinking. If your parents did such great things with their money, how did you turn out to be so irresponsible? That’s a good question, and one I have spent a LOT of time pondering myself. While I don’t blame my parents for my choices, I do recognize the opportunities they missed to prepare me for survival in the world of first, last, and security.

Here are the top 3 ways my parents raised me to be a financial disaster:

[Read more…]

7 other things every kid should experience. And these are almost free!

by Jana 14 Comments

There have been an abundance of “every kid should” posts floating around the blogosphere lately (specifically this one. Which is what completely set me off. It’s been that kind of week). While I get that the intent of the posts is to…well, I’m not sure what the intent of the posts are. I read them and I find myself saying “Hmm. Yes. OK. That’s an interesting idea. But what about parents who don’t (fill in the blank)?” I want to say to these authors “Hey, your middle class is showing” and I really want to know how they arrived at the decision of what “every kid should do” (of course, I don’t).

Basically, I’ve been getting irritated at these posts. Mainly because they’re nothing but nonsense designed to make parents feel terrible if they don’t do those arbitrarily picked activities (you know, because parents aren’t already made to feel guilty about enough things). So I figured I’d come up with my own list of 7 things every kid should experience. The activities are just as arbitrarily picked but I can assure you that they are a bit more attainable for all parents than snow or farm life:

  • Being read to. I don’t care if it’s at the library for storytime, from a teacher, at daycare or from his own parent. Every kid needs to be read to. There is something that happens in a kid’s mind when he’s listening to a story that is just amazing to watch. Not only that, a book can inspire quality conversations. 
  • Playing in a park. When most people envision a park, they envision sprawling field, replete with fancy equipment, picnic tables and children, laughing and screaming in their own natural habitat. But it doesn’t have to be that fancy. Some of my favorite park memories are at the park next to my grandparents’ apartment building in Queens. That park was concrete and had about 4 pieces of equipment (most of which were covered in graffiti). But it was my favorite.  
  • Having a birthday party. I believe that birthdays are incredibly special and deserve to be celebrated. What’s nice is that a birthday party doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. A few dollars on cake mix and icing, some handmade signs and decorations, and family and friends. Even something that small will make a kid feel special and honored that her birthday is recognized and cause for celebration. 
  • Getting in trouble. Kids need to push boundaries, test limits and all that jazz. But they also need to get in trouble when they are wrong. Coddling and ignoring their behavior and poor choices does no good. Every child needs to experience getting into trouble. And suffering the consequences. 
  • Coloring (or any arts and crafts). Put crayons in a kid’s hand and see what she creates. It’s almost magical. In fact, if a kid in your life starts coloring, join her. See what you create. And see how relaxed you are when you’re done. Almost as relaxing as a spa, and substantially cheaper, too. 
  • Music. There is a reason VH1 is (or was) trying to save the music. It’s that important. 
  • Having a pet. I concede that pets are a huge responsibility and parents usually wind up assuming the majority of their care. But I fully believe that kids should have a pet. If you don’t want your kid to have a pet of the 4 legged variety, get him a fish. Having a fish still teaches responsibility and all that good stuff. And there’s no mess to clean up. 
Parents, what would you add to that list? Are there any must-haves for your kids?

Connect with Me

Subscribe to Jana Says

Jana Says
© 2017 by Jana Says. All Rights Reserved.
Crafted with by sasspurrella designs.