Jana Says

Living life from cover to cover

My dog ate toys. I paid. Literally.

by Jana 21 Comments

You might have noticed some deficiencies in my posting schedule last week. There were a couple of reasons for that. For starters, due to some events in my personal life, my depression and anxiety ramped up big time rendering me unable to do anything except cry. Forming coherent thoughts and writing them down became as impossible as me playing in the NBA. It was at that point I was left kicking myself for not having a queue of posts that can serve as a sort of blog emergency fund for times like that (which, sadly, are becoming more and more common). Needless to say, that didn’t help the depression. Or anxiety. Or crying.

Then Thursday happened.

What he's thinking "I haven't eaten a toy in 8 hours. I think it's time. But which one should I choose?"

I’ve mentioned before that I have two dogs. What I don’t think I’ve mentioned is that one of my dogs, Dobie, has an affinity for eating everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. His most recent obsession is my daughter’s toys. Especially Barbie’s shoes and purses (and that bitch has a lot). Despite the fact that we try clean up every tiny little piece, it is inevitable that we miss one or two. But Dobie? Does not.

That dog is able to find even the tiniest toy that was left out of the storage boxes. I don’t know how he does it but I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve found that dog chewing on a boot or a purse or even a head (or foot or arm. One time, he ate a plastic table). We’re typically able to wrestle the toy away from him before he does anything bad and, even if he does consume a bit of a toy, it’s been nothing to worry about.

Until Thursday.

[Read more…]

What to expect when you’re done expecting

by Jana 12 Comments

Last week I wrote a guest post on The Dog Ate My Wallet about financially preparing for a baby. It’s important to be financially prepared for a baby. But guess what? Babies? Get older!

I know this comes as a shock but sadly, it’s true. Babies become toddlers and preschoolers and so on. And with each stage of their lives comes new adventures, experiences and financial obligations. We know about the big expenses–driving, college, proms and school dances, field trips, cell phones…those kinds of expenses. We’re mentally, if not financially, prepared for those. What no one tells you about are those little expenses that slowly chip away at the funds in your wallet. Well, prepare to be prepared because I’m going to share some of those expenses with you. I don’t want you to have the sticker shock that I’ve had lately.

Kids’ shoes

Holy crap are these things expensive! My daughter’s first pair of shoes cost about $45 (fortunately, my grandmother paid for them), and the price really hasn’t dropped over the last 4 years she’s been wearing sneakers. Now, $45 doesn’t seem like a lot of money especially for good, quality supportive shoes that the kid will wear almost every day. But since their feet grow faster than the national debt, you have to buy these about every 3-4 months. Which adds up to a pretty penny over the course of a year, especially if you need to buy 2 pairs at a time (one for school, one for home).

How to curb the expense: I’ve come up with two ways. One, for her non-everyday shoes, I will purchase them at Target or Payless (last summer, I scored flip flops for $4!). Two, I will take her to a shoe store to have her foot measured and buy the shoes via Zappos. Much bigger variety, which often means more options at a lower price.

School pictures

School pictures are a scam. Sadly, it’s a scam that I’ve bought into. Figuratively and literally. It’s so hard to pass up those pictures of my daughter all dressed up and looking cute with the fancy, professional background. And of course, I have to buy them for the whole family as well. I can’t have anyone miss out on the adorableness of my little girl. But don’t be fooled like I was. The photographer tries to make you think you’re getting a good deal the more you buy but really, you wind up just spending more money that you probably don’t need to (although I have used her fall pictures as Christmas and Hanukkah presents).

How to curb the expense: Commit to buying only one picture rather than the whole package. It’s nice, as the child’s parents, to have documentation from every school year via professional pictures. But to placate the rest of the family, take some pictures on the first day of school and use either photo editing software or a website like Snapfish to order some pictures. Give those out in nice picture frames or in wallet sizes and for a fraction of the cost, you’ve made everyone happy.

Activities

Now I know that music lessons, sports, arts and crafts classes, Girl Scouts or Cub Scouts, and the rest of their ilk are not a necessity for raising a healthy, smart child. But most parents do try to engage their kids in at least one or two activities during the year, particularly the school year. Overall, the cost of joining the activities isn’t too bad, especially once they enter the higher grades and can participate in after school activities for free. But are they really free? Hell no. There may not be a joiner fee but there’s fees like uniforms and equipment, travel tournaments, tickets to games, plays and concerts, and a host of other hidden fees (not to mention the horror of having to hawk cookies, candy or whatever product the team/club is selling to raise money).

How to curb the expense: The easiest solution is to limit activities. The less activities there are, the less money coming out of your budget. This works a lot better with younger kids, like my daughter, who don’t have the exposure to as many activities as older kids. If you have a kid who is participates in a variety of clubs, teams, etc., talk to the coach or supervising teacher ahead of time to try to get a handle on the costs. Make those costs a line item in your budget for the duration of the season. I think this is one of those situations where I would just pay whatever I needed to for my kid, especially for the tickets. Because even if the kid won’t admit it, having mom and/or dad at games or plays or concerts is really, really important.

While I don’t agree with the estimates that say it costs $250,000 for a middle class family to raise a child through age 18, kids aren’t necessarily cheap. And they come with costs we don’t plan for when we’re expecting. Actually, that should be a book. “What To Expect After You’re Done Expecting”. Maybe I’ll write it.

The profits can help me afford the music lessons and swim meets I know are in my future.

 

 

It turns on a dime

by Jana 12 Comments

As I’ve mentioned here on numerous occasions, I am the proud mother of one beautiful daughter. She’s smart and funny and creative and imaginative and talkative and lovable and all of the other wonderful adjectives that you can use to describe a child. And she really is all of those. I’m blessed to have her. Except there’s one little problem.

That child has the biggest attitude problem I have ever encountered in my life.

Unfortunately, what happens when you raise a smart, fiercely independent little girl, you also have the side effect of a child who a) likes to think for herself; b) speaks her mind; and c) refuses to cooperate with any direction until she decides its time to cooperate. I get told no more often than you can imagine and, when I tell her something, I get the hands-on-the-hips, snotty voiced “Mommy, I know that already”. She corrects the way I speak (my New York accent is extremely difficult to get rid of and it drives her crazy). It makes my blood boil. Especially the “nos”. Over everything from cleaning up her toys to brushing her teeth to…well, you name it, my child will say no. In the meanest, rudest way possible. Even the simplest task request turns into an drama filled tantrum of epic proportions. And really, I’ve had it.

Taking away toys and TV time had no effect. Threatening to not take her to birthday parties didn’t work. Yelling, ignoring her, time outs…absolutely nothing was working to correct this child’s defiant and nasty behavior. So I decided to hit her where it really hurts. Her piggy bank.

Like her mommy, my daughter loves to read about money, learn about money and collecting loose change in her piggy bank provides her endless amounts of job. So, what better punishment than, when she tells me no over a simple (or complicated or whatever) direction or speaks to me in that horrible manner, to tell her she owes me a dime. Ten cents. Every time she says no. I think this is brilliant. Mainly because it’s the only punishment that means something to her.

We had the first installment of this punishment the other night. And she freaked out. Like, seriously freaked out. Which is good, because I know that it actually means something. I didn’t move right to taking the money. I told her to clean up her toys, she looked at me and, with all seriousness and in that voice, said “What do you think I’m doing, Mommy?” At first, I was shocked that she spoke to me like that (although, I was shocked that I was shocked). I gave her a warning about her attitude and let her know what would happen if it didn’t stop. And then…she did it again! So I let her know that she owed me ten cents. Then, I made her come into her room and watch me take it from her bank (I wanted her to understand that I was serious).

I will spare you the details of what happened next but let’s just say it was ugly (but, in a small victory for me, I didn’t have to listen to “Jake and The Neverland Pirates” for the next two days). However, the next morning she did say to me “Mommy, I’m going to make better choices today”, so that’s encouraging. We’ll see how this continues, and if need be, I’ll up the ante and take a quarter. I’m not above it.

As far as what I’m doing with the money, I’m putting it in a jar in the kitchen where she can see it. I want her to have a visual of all the time she’s said no and what it literally cost her. With my daughter, it’s easier to explain things that she can see instead of just giving an abstract concept (it’s also why we have a chore chart on the fridge and sort her toys in specific ways). Having it in the kitchen is also a reminder to her of her need to watch her mouth and her behavior.

I haven’t fully decided what I’m going to do with the money once her behavior improves enough that I can stop making her pay me. Knowing me, I’ll probably take her to lunch or buy her a book. But I know that the most practical choice is to put it back in her bank and add it to her savings. So maybe I should do that instead.

Dimes may be small but they are powerful. To a 5 year old, anyway.

My husband and I don’t fight about money. Here’s why.

by Jana 24 Comments

My husband and I rarely fight about money. I swear that’s entirely true.

It used to not be this way. We used to have pretty severe battles over it. You know those fights? The ones where you start trying to rationally talk about money until one of you says something that makes the other angry and the conversation spirals out of control until you’re not fighting about money anymore but something completely unrelated and you can’t stop screaming? Yeah, we’ve had one or two of those. They occurred primarily because we just were not on the same page about a) how we balanced our checkbook; b) what our goals were; and c) we had absolutely no wiggle room at all. The last one was mainly due to poor planning. The rest were simply due to the fact that we operate in completely different ways (and I must point out, my way is logical. His is not. I swear that’s entirely true).

avoid money fights

Then I couldn’t take it anymore. I was tired of fighting. Tired of being confused, frustrated and broke. We had to get in same book, never mind the same page. So, one day, using my rules for a peaceful budget meeting, we sat down and figured things out. Here’s what we did:

  • I showed him how much money we were wasting on small $3 and $4 purchases. One month, it added up to over $300 or so. It was disturbing, actually. He finally got the point that small purchases make big differences and agreed to stop making them if…
  • …I agreed to figure out how to give us each an “allowance” every payday. Part of why he was spending that money was because he didn’t feel like he had any freedom in our money. He also felt that since we work our asses off, we deserve a little bit of it. I told him I understood and conceded that perhaps an allowance of some sorts every payday wouldn’t hurt.
  • We set goals and target dates (or rough estimates of target dates) for paying off our debt. We also agreed on a plan for paying off our debt. One that we formulated together, not one of us dictating to the other how it would get done. Having mutually agreed upon goals and dates prevented both of us from feeling that we had no control.
  • We agreed that I would be completely responsible for handling our day to day expenses and he was responsible for more long-term stuff like investing (since I don’t understand it at all). Neither one would make unilateral decisions but the bulk of the heavy lifting in each area was designated to one person.
  • We developed a budget. It wasn’t perfect but it was a start. And it was better than the abstract nonsense we had been using prior.
  • We decided that having a his, hers and ours system was going to be best for us. We had a joint account that was used for everything but my husband felt like he was being lorded over and I was tired of asking him for receipts (remember how I said we had totally different styles? Well, mine involves balancing my account whenever I make a purchase or withdrawal and his involves doing what he wants and hoping for the best). Neither one of us had ever let our individual accounts close but we decided that our allowances would be deposited into our personal accounts and that would be our no questions asked money. Whatever we wanted to do with the money in our individual accounts was just fine.

 
I think the last point is what really prevents the arguments. We know that our joint bills and expenses are met and the fact that we each have some cash to use how we want gives us that feeling of freedom and independence. It’s nice to buy nail polish or books or lunch with friends without having to be accountable or feel like I’m wasting our money. I know he feels the same way.

Working together is a huge relief. There are no surprises in our budget or our expenses; everything is open and up for discussion. We’re meeting our goals. We don’t hide money or purchases from each other, and there’s never any lying about paychecks (I know people who lie to their spouses about how much money they make. I find this disturbing on so many levels). It nice to know that when it comes to financial matters, the arguments we do have are few and far between. And never involve tangential craziness.

Most of the time…

My childhood DID affect my finances

by Jana 30 Comments

There is one topic I hate talking about more than any other. This topic, although extremely influential in shaping my attitudes and beliefs towards money, is one that makes me squeamish and uncomfortable. I’m not necessarily embarrassed by it, because it’s not something that I could have prevented (or caused) but it’s not something I wave a banner about. What the heck am I talking about?

I’m talking about my childhood.

After almost 10 months of blogging about personal finance, I’ve successfully managed to avoid talking in depth about my childhood. I’ve offered glimpses of it (see here and here for examples) but I haven’t gone into too much detail. On purpose. Because unlike a lot of personal finance bloggers, I did not grow up lower middle class or poor. My upbringing was quite the opposite. It was decidedly upper middle class, with all the trappings that go with it.  I’m not saying this to brag or show off; I’m merely stating this because, as Ashley from Money Talks Coaching points out, your childhood affects your money habits. And she’s absolutely right.

A little background

I grew up in a predominately upper middle class suburb on Long Island.  I had friends that lived in million dollar homes and my parents’ house, although no mansion, wasn’t small. My siblings and I had our own bedrooms and we had a pool in our backyard, which was pretty damn big for the suburbs. I had one of those lavish bat mitzvahs you read about (because that’s what everyone else did).  Family vacations to Aruba happened every year, as did sending my siblings and me to camp. [Read more…]

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