Archives for March 2015

Would You Make Your Kids Pay You Back For Their Braces?

March 25, 2015 | Leave a Comment

Orthodontic treatment (aka ‘’braces’’) are expensive. The materials aren’t cheap and it’s a long process- usually 12-24 months’ worth of adjustments, fittings, elastics, retainers, it’s a lot of work. I see it every day from pre-treatment to end of treatment. It’s a big topic in dentistry for both kids and adults. Though there is a large population of adults who wear braces, most clients I see are children (or young teens) who are going through treatment, basically because their parents signed them up for it.

The dentist I work for will not place braces on a patient until they (the patient and parents) have full understanding (regardless of age) of the importance of retaining after the treatment is done. 9.5 times out of 10 a person MUST wear their retainers, at least weekly for the rest of their lives, if they want to keep teeth perfectly straight. Yes there are some miracle cases that stay even though the retainer has never been in the mouth, but there’s a slim to none chance teeth will stay straight without some retention. Teeth want to go back to their original position no matter how ‘’right’’ the corrected position is.

Given that most of the ortho people we see are young kids, who despite us reminding them constantly, rarely wear their retainers properly and end up with relapse. Sometimes it’s mild and doesn’t bother them but we see a few cases of almost 100% relapse too where the braces are removed and they simply never bother retaining the teeth.

I had one of these cases in last week. He was a 22 year old male who went through full ortho treatment six years ago. Admittedly he never bothered with the retainers and his teeth have almost totally relapsed. He was complaining because his mom made him pay her back.

His mom paid cash for his braces. Their insurance didn’t cover it so for two years his mom and step dad made monthly payments on his account for his $5,000+case. He explained that she was mad at him for allowing his teeth to relapse and because he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain by wearing his retainers and she wanted a refund now that he was working full-time.

It got me thinking, though I work in the industry so I feel like our situation may be a little different, the fact remains that if (and likely, when) our daughter gets braces, she will be 100% informed the entire process. Unless medically necessary (there are some instances and there almost a 0% chance she will fall into one) I will not put braces on her until she agrees to follow all directions, including wearing retainers. Though I will gently remind her to wear them occasionally (how could I not being a mom and dental hygienist?) I will not hound her. It’s her responsibility and if I don’t think she could handle it, I won’t do it.

If she agrees and commits 100%, but ultimately fails due to neglect, I’d be super disappointed and may come up with an ultimatum. Though certainly not for everyone, I don’t necessarily think this mom in question was wrong for asking for her son to pay her back as he had made promises to her- as a young adult.

Would you ever ask your kids to pay back for such an expense?

Three Inexpensive Spring Break Ideas

March 18, 2015 | Leave a Comment

The month of March usually means a spring break for kids, and parents. I was floored when a parent told me they were spending $1,000 for their kid to go to a specialty camp for the week. One thousand dollars. Wow. We’re three years away from our first spring break but with prices like that I’ll need to start saving now if we want her to do anything!

Neither my husband nor I have the ability to easily step away from our job so when spring break does happen we may be able to take a day or two but I already know we will need to get creative with what we do with our daughter for the week. Luckily we have a lot of amazing friends and family who we can enlist to help! If you don’t have an army of people to call upon, there are still plenty of things to do that doesn’t include a $10,000 trip out of town and contending with massive crowds.

Museums

I admit that growing up I thought museums were boring. I don’t live in a huge city but we have a few small museums that cater to kids during spring break. Most often you can spend entire days there doing day camps, for free. The most expensive camp I could find was $10 for the day per child and this included a lunch and supplies for the day, totally reasonable. Look around at different museums and see if they offer anything special during spring break and what the details are (sometimes drop off isn’t allowed and you need to provide supervision sort-of-thing).

Plan a fun day at Home

I have a memory during one of my spring breaks growing up with a day spent with my babysitter. She came over for the day and told my sister and I that we were having a movie day since it was pouring rain out. We built a massive fort with blankets, pillows and couch cushions, all hung out and watched movies and ate popcorn. It was simple and cheap! Plan a fun day at home depending on your kid’s ages and interests. Obviously if the weather is nice, getting outside is always enjoyable.

Check out a local Library

Though kids may be reluctant to go anywhere near a book during their spring break, libraries, like museums often have fun activities going on. I know our local library has everything from a ‘’meet the princess day’’ for toddlers to a computer programing class for older kids. Classes fill up fast so check them out early.

As a parent, the thought of spending a week pushing through busy crowds somewhere like Disney World does not appeal to me at all. I’d rather save my travel budget for different (and cheaper) time of year and enjoy a quite spring break at home!

Should You Save For Post Secondary or Spend it on Experience?

March 11, 2015 | Leave a Comment

I remember years ago reading about a traditionally large family (four or five kids) and how they decided early on in their marriage how many kids they would have and that they wouldn’t save a single penny for their post-secondary education.

Though it sounds like it may be a little irresponsible for a well-educated couple to actively chose to have a large family, demand post-secondary from their kids, but have no system in place to help them with a post-secondary education, but they had good reason.

Spending on Experience

They chose very early on to spend their money on experiences rather than save. Their main idea was to live a very simple farm life, homeschool the children (more freedom) and spend their money with the kids on varying travel and other experiences.

The parents worked from home and mom homeschooled the kids. Rather than just watching a movie, they would travel all over North American experiencing things they read about in their studies allowing them to gain a much better perspective on topics. They would spend time visiting university campuses too in different regions, even when their kids were young as they felt it was important for the kids to picture themselves (and give them motivation) at such an institution.

Whatever they did seemed to work as their oldest was accepted to post-secondary on a scholarship with the younger siblings close behind.

While I don’t think it is a parenting requirement (to pay for post-secondary) I am intrigued by this method.

College Education or World Experience?

There is something to be said for actually experiencing the world beyond your little bubble. When I got into dental hygiene and we studied anatomy on actual cadavers, I remember distinctly my mind being blown when I saw the aorta for the first time. At this point I had studied anatomy in text books during my undergrad, saw many pictures of the heart and all surrounding strictures but until I actually saw one it didn’t occur to me how large it actually was. The gross anatomy class I took that year was without a doubt the most challenging class I’ve ever taken, but one of my best grades because of the lab experiences we had with the class.

I’d love to be able to send my daughter on various trips for her to experience the world in a similar manner but as long we we’re stashing out extra pennies for her potential post-secondary, we can’t. Though we will travel as a family, I like the idea of her being able to capitalize on solo excursions too as she gets older and this story sits at the back of my memory. I’d rather forgo some of the things I want in life so we can save and have the resources for her to be able to if and when the opportunity arises.

I really do believe the more opportunities a child has to truly experience the world the more successful they will be in life in general. If this helps her gain scholarships and not need our savings that’s a bonus for us.

Why Your Family Budget Should Go Beyond the Month

March 4, 2015 | Leave a Comment

Most people I know budget monthly. I don’t do this. I like to have a forecasted budget at least six months in advance. With a family to care for, I feel it is especially important to budget beyond the standard one month window.

Forecasting a Family Budget

Kids have various needs. For example, I already know at the end of the summer we will be enrolling our daughter into dance class, if I waited until July to figure these how we’ll pay for this we might not be able to do it, I wouldn’t know until the time came. With a forecasted budget, I can input the classes into the budget and start making arrangements, months in advance.

You don’t have to have a set income to budget beyond a month. Both mine and my husband’s income varies each month but that doesn’t matter because regardless of how we budget we always budget worst case in terms of income and opt to use any overage for savings goals or debt repayment.

For us our daycare costs are also variable. We only pay for the days that she is actually there rather than a flat monthly rate. I know this is more unusual than most, but given the variability I need to be able to see how the difference in days affects us month to month. When our babysitter takes two weeks off in the summer, I need to figure out how to best allocate those funds. Our daycare costs can vary as much as $300 a month and I like to know before the month actually happens how the monies will be dispersed.

While some people may choose to budget these variable expenses differently, maybe but putting a set amount into an account each month for said random events, I prefer to budget the exact amount within our given monthly funds.

I also like that if I budget one amount but it ends up being more or less how that affects the line, months in advance. While spending $50 extra here and there might even out for the month, six months of doing so may leave you a few hundred short. With this in mind I can either decide to keep expenses the same or it gives me time to make more money.

When I input our family trip into our budget, along with other savings targets we set, I could see we were short a little but not until August. This gives me six months of budgeting to make up this difference and balance it. It also gives me time to look more closely at our current budget, maybe I should cut down the budgeted amount for Mother’s day and Father’s day to make up the difference or maybe I should pick up a few more shifts at work.

Financial security is so important when you have a family to care for and having a family to care for usually means your budget has the potential to be more erratic and you’ll need some flexibility. Budgeting in the future gives you much more flexibility than month-to-month.

How do you budget for your family?