Kids Ain't Cheap

But They Sure Are Worth It

Ways to Whittle Down the Cost of Raising a Child

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The cost of raising a child can be extortionate to say the least. You may feel as though you are constantly having to battle with money and that you are also finding it difficult to try and manage childcare too. If you want some help with your finances or if you want to whittle down the cost of raising a child, then the only thing that you need to do is take a look below for some solid tips and hints.

Buy Used Clothing

The first thing that you need to do is try and buy used clothing. You need to make a conscious decision to avoid buying new clothes if possible. Sometimes you will be able to swap your clothes with other families, and when you do, you can give your child a whole new wardrobe without having to worry about the cost. This is especially useful if you have more than one child, as you may find that they all end up growing at an exponential rate.

Limit Toys

Toys are quite possibly the biggest thing that you will overspend on as a parent. It’s understandable that you’ll want to make sure that your kids have all of the toys they could ever want, but you have to remember that there is a limit. You need to give your kids one toy at Christmas and then one toy on their birthday. When you do, you will soon find that you have less clutter in your home and that they appreciate the toys they have way more. When you do things like this, you will soon find that you end up being able to save and that your kids learn responsibility too. If you don’t feel as though you have enough money to pay for everything you need, then you may be able to take out a loan. Make sure your credit report looks good before applying though, or you may face rejection.

Limit Snacks

You need to make sure that your kids only have one snack time per day. The change can be very difficult for you to implement but at the end of the day, it may be worth it. If you limit snacks, then you may find that your kids end up eating all of their dinner and this can be much healthier for them.  If you do this, then you may find that you end up wasting way less food as a result and this can work in your favour.

Save on Entertainment

It’s very easy for you to overspend on fancy dinners with the kids but you need to try and keep it simple. Your kids will love renting a movie at home just as much as going to the cinema. When you do things like this you will soon find that you can save money and you can also cut down on the amount of sugar they are having by making healthy snacks. Remember that if you do want to host a family entertainment night, then you need to make sure that the kids have done their chores first and that they understand the importance of family time.

The same concept applies to you and your partner too. Don’t plan family night and then go on your phone throughout the movie. Your kids might not feel as though they have spent enough time with you and this can cause them to crave other forms of entertainment which might eat away at your budget. Believe it or not, little things like this can make a huge difference to your life, not to mention your budget.

10 Ways to Purge Toys in Your Kids Room Today

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Has your child ever sat in the middle of a room full of toys, looked you straight in the eyes, and whined, “I’m bored!”

Are there more dolls and plastic dinosaurs in your kids’ closets than there are clothes?

When your house is so overrun with toys that the only explanation is they’re multiplying in the middle of the night, then it’s time to purge toys and reclaim your home!

[Read more…]

Rock Painting Ideas for Kids

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In our area, we’ve had the pleasure of stumbling upon a painted rock more than once, to the delight of whichever one of my kids finds it.  In fact, our city has its own Facebook page where people can share the rocks they’ve found around town as well as the rocks they have painted and placed around town.  There are over 13,000 members in the Facebook group!  If your family would like to get in on this fun hobby for kids, there are many easy rock painting ideas for kids.

Painted Rock Ideas for Kids

Rock Painting Ideas for Kids

If you’re looking at rock painting ideas, I’d encourage you to first see if your town has a Facebook group.  You can simply search the name of your town and rock painting; if there’s a group, you’ll find it that way.

However, Facebook rock painting groups can be a bit intimidating because there tend to be so many fabulous artists there.  If you or your kids’ skills are a bit more elementary, I’ve found YouTube to be a good place to search.

Ideas for Those 10 and Younger

To get kids excited about rock painting, try to pick designs that are easy enough for young kids.  The best ones seem to be designs that involve painting the entire rock as something like a ladybug or a strawberry, for instance.

There are so many tutorials on YouTube that will spark your children’s creativity!

For younger kids, Missy Maker has a tutorial showing kids how to make rock ladybugs, and giving examples of rock painting bees, minions, Shrek, and Nemo.

Ideas for Tweens and Teens

For older kids, rock painting can be an even more engrossing hobby.  Once kids’ artistic talents are a bit more developed, there are so many designs to pursue.

Tweens and teen can start using more advanced supplies like acrylic paint markers for more fine-detailed work like outlining and writing phrases on the rocks.

If your teen is a beginner, this video explains the whole rock painting process as well as designs for tweens and teens.

Rock Painting Ideas for the Whole Family

If you have children of varying ages and abilities, you can use a YouTube video like this one.

This video doesn’t show specifically how to paint the rocks, but it gives ideas for many different designs for all types of abilities.  I also enjoy tutorials with painting ideas for every season and holiday!  My kids who are 10 and under love painting simple flowers.

Final Thoughts

Rock painting can be a fun, low-cost hobby for everyone in the family, especially when you take the time to hide the rocks around your city.  It’s even more fun when you join a Facebook group and look to see if anyone has found your hidden rocks.  This hobby is also easy to start using some of these fun rock painting ideas for kids.

13 Healthy Snack Ideas for Kids (Help Them Avoid the Snack Machine)

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It’s easy to allow your children to grab a snack or two when you’re busy working or tending to other adulting concerns. However, once you get in the habit of this with unhealthy snacks it starts to take a toll on their wellbeing.

Introducing better options to your children can help decrease parental guilt around snacking. Healthy snacks can help to control the addictive snacking habits of your kids.

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A Complete Guide to Discount School Supplies for Distance Learning

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As recently as just a few weeks ago, the hope was that almost all kids were going to be back in their school buildings for the upcoming school year in spite of COVID-19. But as of right now, it doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case.

Most, if not all, schools are once again going to be using remote learning or distance education. It means that teachers will have to do their best to teach kids while they’re at home until the coronavirus pandemic passes.

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Is Gabb Wireless a Good First Cell Phone?

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Though we put it off as long as we felt we could, this summer, we decided to get our child a cell phone for his birthday.  We had specific requirements for a cell phone.  Namely, we didn’t want it to have internet access, yet we wanted it to look like the phones his friends use.  We did a lot of research before we finally bought a phone from Gabb Wireless.

Is Gabb Wireless a Good First Cell Phone for Kids?

Features of a Gabb Wireless Cell Phone

While a Gabb Wireless cell phone doesn’t have all the features a typical cell phone has, it does have several important ones:

  • A 5” display,
  • 2 MP front and 5 MP rear camera,
  • 5 mm Earphone Port for headphones,
  • Battery that lasts up to three days,
  • 2GB RAM/16GB ROM,
  • Coverage on a nationwide 4G LTE network, and
  • 12 essential apps including phone, messaging, contacts, camera, video, gallery, calendar, calculator, clock, voice recorder, FM radio, and file manager.

In addition, Gabb Wireless doesn’t require a long-term contract.  You pay month by month (billed on the 15th of the month with payment on the 17th), and you can cancel at any time.

You can go to the Gabb Wireless website to see if coverage is available in your area.

Is Gabb Wireless a Good First Cell Phone?

Honestly, the answer depends on what you’re looking for.  However, there are several reasons why Gabb Wireless is a good first cell phone for our child.

Unlimited Text and Calling

We use Ting for our own cell phone service, so we were pretty sure we didn’t want to add him to our plan.  (With Ting you pay as you use, so you pay for each individual call and text, which we didn’t want to do with a teen.)

Our teen isn’t particularly chatty, but he uses his new Gabb Wireless cell phone a lot.  He is working on a political campaign, and part of his work is calling registered voters for about six to eight hours a week.  That translates to A LOT of cell phone calls.  We’re so glad he has unlimited calling!

He also likes to text his friends, so he uses that feature frequently.

No Internet Access

We specifically wanted a phone that didn’t have internet access and all of the trouble that could potentially go with the internet such as viewing inappropriate content, spending too much time playing games or using social media, or just fueling a cell phone addiction, which is so easy to do.

We wanted our teen to have a cell phone, but we didn’t want to give him too much device that he wouldn’t handle responsibly.  In a few years, he can upgrade to a regular smart phone.

Appearance

If you’ve spent any time looking for cell phones that don’t have internet access, you know that many of them look like relics from 15 years ago.  We really appreciated that the Gabb Wireless cell phone looks like any other regular smart phone.  That was an important feature for our teen.

Low Cost

Our child is forgetful and not the most gentle with his possessions, so we wanted a phone that was reasonably priced.  We bought the cell phone from Gabb Wireless for $69 on sale.  (Sometimes they have sales where the price of the phone goes as low as $49!)

Gabb Wireless has their own network, so we pay approximately $24 a month for the service, but as I mentioned, there is unlimited text and calling.  So, the total outlay between buying the phone and paying for service for a year is $357 ($69 for the phone and $288 for a year of coverage).

Basic Apps

Is Gabb Wireless a Good First Cell Phone for Kids?

Photo by Lance Anderson on Unsplash

The phone does have basic apps and features that our teen enjoys.  He listens to music on his phone when he takes walks, and he uses the alarm feature frequently.

Downsides to the Gabb Wireless as a Good First Cell Phone

If you’re a parent who wants a simpler phone for your kids that keeps away many of the dangers of a traditional smart phone, Gabb Wireless may be a good first cell phone for you.  However, there are definitely some drawbacks to this phone.

No Ability to Track

The majority of smartphones give you the ability to track your child.  You can quickly check and see exactly where they are.  This gives parents reassurance that children are where they’re supposed to be when they say they are.  In the unlikely chance that your child gets kidnapped (or if he simply gets lost), the tracking feature can also help the police find him.

Unfortunately, Gabb Wireless does not have this ability.  For some parents, that alone is a reason to not buy this phone.  I do hope that this is something Gabb Wireless is able to remedy in the future.

Can’t Send or Receive Images

While a Gabb Wireless phone does have a camera, you can’t use the camera to send photos in your texts.  Texts can only send text messages.

I completely understand why Gabb Wireless did this, but still, sometimes this feature can be annoying.  Within the first week of getting his phone, my son was chatting with his aunt who sent over some pictures of her dogs, but my son did not receive the images.  He was a bit embarrassed to tell her that his new phone doesn’t let him view images.

No Way to Monitor Texts

Since there is no Internet on this phone, there is no way to install monitoring software to monitor your child’s texts.  This seems to be a flaw in an otherwise extremely safe phone.  I would hope in future models that Gabb Wireless could address this issue.

Final Thoughts

For our family, Gabb Wireless is a good first cell phone.  It looks like other smart phones with more capabilities, and it offers basic features that are necessary for younger children.  Yet, it takes away one of the greatest sources of addiction as well as mischief—the Internet.

There are some drawbacks to this phone, but overall, Gabb Wireless is the best “safe” cell phone we found on the market.

8 Ways to Help Your Kid’s Education During COVID-19

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Many parents have been struggling to homeschool their children since the beginning of quarantine when schools closed due to COVID-19. Luckily, there are many organizations giving parents guidance on how to continue their kids’ education.

Leading education columnists, the United Nations, governments, universities and special learning and teaching groups have all come up with e-learning programs. So, you don’t have to struggle with your child’s education. Read on for 8 expert tips to help your kid’s education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Top 4 skills you must possess as an options trader 

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People can easily open a trading account and start taking trades. Having easy access to the UK investment community doesn’t give you the guarantee that you will be earning money most of the time. People become frustrated with their losing trades because they don’t have enough skills to overcome this hardship. You must acquire some special skills before you can expect to make some serious profit from this market. Thousands of traders are joining the retail trading industry each year. People who have strong analytical skills are able to change their life within a short period of time. For the benefit of traders, we will highlight the top 4 skills that you must have to trade the options market. [Read more…]