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Kids Ain't Cheap

But They Sure Are Worth It

10 Eco-Friendly Actions Your Kids Can Take

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eco friendly kidsTeaching your kids to be eco-friendly is important for many parents, but talking about the benefits of recycled roofing material or laundry detergent doesn’t exactly sink in for most children. However, there are some things you can do to teach your children to be eco-friendly in a way that allows them to really get involved.

Incorporate these 10 eco-friendly actions into your child’s routine to help them understand the importance of taking care of the planet from an early age.

1. Teach your child about composting. Composting is relatively easy to understand it also teaches your children about not wasting things that can be reused, even if they seem like they’re just trash.

2. Get involved in a community cleanup project with your child. No matter where you live, there’s bound to be an area that needs to cleaned up. Community cleanup projects can also be a great way for your kids to make new friends and broaden their horizons.

3. Let your kids know about eco-friendly products. Examples of eco-friendly products include everything from bathroom tissue to toothpaste to over-the-counter alternative remedies like those found at Amoils.com. Getting your kids started looking for natural products early on will be a beneficial habit for them later in life.

4. Have your children buy recycled materials for school. Everything from recycled binders to notebook paper is widely available. Doing this will teach your children the importance of using items in their everyday life that are good for the environment – something they’ll continue to do in their adult years.

5. Get your kids in the habit of keeping items like newspapers for other projects. Examples include craft projects or even household chores like cleaning windows, which newsprint actually excels at. Children need to understand that wasting items only to buy other ones for the same job isn’t good for the environment.

6. Work with your child to have an Earth Day party at their school or at home. Doing this can help you teach your child about the environment and help them make friends at the same time. Many schools already have eco-friendly programs, so consider working with them to make them more prevalent.

7. Show your kids how to avoid products that are made to be used once and discarded. Items like paper plates aren’t good for the environment. Teach your kids that a little work on their part — things like washing a few extra dishes – can be beneficial and worthwhile.

8. Gather clothing in your neighborhood for a recycling project. Not only will less clothing have to be made, you’ll be helping less fortunate people in your area and around the world. Make sure your child understands the benefits of doing good things for people along with the planet.

9. Get your kids in the habit of using natural products around the home. Examples include baking soda for cleaning the sink instead of abrasive cleaners that pollute the earth. You’ll also have less waste when it comes to packaging.

10. Show your kids the value of nature. You can do this through all sorts of activities – including day hikes, camping or even going to the beach. A healthy respect for nature and its value is important for distilling eco-friendly beliefs in your child.

When it comes to teaching your children to be eco-friendly, the best you can do is to be a good example. As a parent, getting your child to live an eco-friendly life doesn’t have to be hard. Leading by example is essential, and by telling your child why you do what you do, they’ll see the benefits.

How to Handle a Divorce and Maintain Your Kids’ Well-Being

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divorceDivorce and separation are, without a doubt, difficult situations. This is even truer if you have children.

Divorce is a major shakeup in the lives of children because it doesn’t just dissolve a marriage but it also fundamentally changes the shape of our families. When you are going through a divorce, it is your job as a parent to guide your children through this period of their lives with the least amount of emotional scars and psychic wounds as possible. There is quite a bit that you can do, whether you have the cooperation of the other parent or not, to protect your children’s well-being.

Keep Communication Open

Don’t lie to your kids by giving them false hope or try to make your co-parent look bad. Be truthful but keep information age appropriate. Remember that as your children get older they may have new questions or concerns about their relationship with you and the other parent. Be sure that they know they can come to you at any time.

Give Lots of Reassurance

Remind your children that you love them, and that the other parent loves them, even if you can’t make a relationship work with your ex-spouse. Young children, especially, have a difficult time articulating their emotions. Help them by acknowledging their feelings even if they can’t name them.

Physical touch, such as giving hugs, relieves stress in children. Older children that receive regular physical contact are reportedly happier and have fewer behavioral problems. Everyone benefits from regular human contact, adults see the benefit of lowered blood pressure and better anxiety management. So be sure to show affection and hug your children.

Keep Routines

Routines are important for children. Predictability in their day to day life helps them understand and learn about the world around them. When children have routines, they feel safer and more in control of their lives. Managing change can be difficult for children, especially when large changes are brought on them suddenly.

Whenever possible, keep routines the same. Divorce creates tremendous change. Be consistent and stick to schedules for everyone’s sake. Having a familiar routines cuts down on stress levels.


Keep Adult Problems to Yourselves

“Don’t argue in front of the children” is pretty standard advice for any family but it has to go double when it comes to divorced families. Remember your co-parent is still your child’s family and always will be. Keep the details of the divorce between you and your ex.

Aim for Cooperation

When a divorce is contentious, it can be hard to bend. Hiring a child custody lawyer can sometimes be the most civil thing to do when your co-parent is uncooperative or determined to make life difficult. Learn how to tactfully set boundaries, but at the same time, be prepared to pick your battles.

If your ex is willing, consider attending co-parenting classes or at least trying to work past feelings of betrayal or mistrust that might follow a divorce. Put in place a parenting plan that respects the child’s relationship with each of his or her parents. Consider that the children of divorce fare better when there is cooperation between parents.


Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help

Stress and anxiety can take a toll, even on children. If you think you are experiencing symptoms of depression, or if you think your family can benefit from talking about their feelings with a professional, don’t be afraid to seek help. Sometimes an impartial third party can give you some perspective on your situation.

You may even find going to the doctor to be supportive as they might be able to prescribe you something to help you cope. However, if you prefer a more natural method, then you may want to check out websites such as https://perfectplantmarket.com/pages/thca-flower-austin, for example, to see how this can be beneficial to your health. As always, make sure that you check with a medical professional first to ensure that this is okay for you to do.

Family and friends are another source of help and support. If you need someone to talk to, someone that can help with the kids, or someone to have margaritas with, family and friends might be the ones to call. Taking care of yourself will go a long way to keeping your house harmonious and your mind at ease.

In the end, remember that children are young but they are still people. Treat them with tenderness and courtesy and even the most chaotic periods of their lives can be overcome.

Raising Money Smart Kids

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money smart kidsIn today’s tumultuous economy, it is more important than ever for parents to teach their children how to be financially responsible. Money has to be earned and budgeted before it’s spent, and let’s not forget the importance of continuously saving money for the future. Communicating this to your children is essential to helping shape the financial decisions they will make later in life.

That said here are some helpful tips for raising money-smart kids, at an early age.

 

Open Up a Savings Account

Has your child been asking for a special toy, a bicycle, a video game? Open them a savings account at your local bank. Discuss how much they will need to set aside to reach their target, on a weekly or monthly basis. You can also explain how a savings account works and how he or she can earn interest on money that is deposited. This is often a nice motivation for your child to use the savings account. You may find that your child uses the account to set and reach a financial goal, which is a great thing to watch.

 

Let them Earn Allowances

Once your child reaches an age where they can start contributing around the house, you can pay them a small amount of money for helping out. Whether it’s taking out the garbage, watering the plants, or helping with dishes, you need to show them that they have to work for their money. It doesn’t just grow on trees. This is a small amount of money that you give the child for spending on just about whatever he or she so desires. By giving your child an allowance, your child will come to realize the value of a dollar when it comes time to make decisions about what to buy.

 

Get Your Child Involved

If your child is old enough, you can teach him or her a financial lesson by sending your child on an errand to pick up some groceries. Give your child $20 or so along with a list of items that you know will cost very close to $20. Your child will then have to carefully consider how to make that money stretch to get all the groceries you need. If your child is successful, consider giving him or her some kind of reward.

In order for children to grow up to be financially responsible adults, it is important that parents begin teaching them about how to manage money as early as possible. If you have been putting this off with your own child, then it may very well be time to reconsider.

Handling Allowance With My Daughter

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daughter allowanceI didn’t grow up receiving a regular weekly allowance. I can honestly say as an adult that this has played a huge role in the financial choices I made growing up. Since no one taught me, I had no idea how about money management. Sure, I played with monopoly (play) money in grade school for pretend math class assignments, and gladly handed over my pocket change when the credit union came each week to collect our money putting it into a savings account for us, but I really had no understanding of money. Even as I grew up and got my first part-time paid job in high school, I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing with my paycheques. All I knew was that I was making my own money now and no longer needed mommy every time I wanted something.

 

The Importance of Allowance

For these reasons I personally believe allotting an allowance for kids is important. I plan on implementing a weekly allowance for our daughter when she’s old enough to understand what money is, probably around the age of six to seven. I want her to understand why she cannot  have something other than me just saying ‘no’. I want her involved in purchases that affect her and help make the decision. I need her to understand the importance of savings. All of these things cannot be fully understood with ‘play’ money.

Have you ever tried to play a poker game with fake money? The betting can get ridiculous because you have no real ‘skin in the game’ so-to-speak.

How Much?

Honestly, right now (her being seven months old) I don’t have an exact amount in mind that we’ll give her but it will be a percentage of money we plan on spending on her anyways. What I mean, is that we don’t necessarily plan on creating a whole new section of our budget for kids allowance, rather allocate money to her from money we would have spent anyway (clothing or shoes for her, school supplies etc). This way she can be involved in how her money is spent. As parents we are responsible for spending money on her for the next 18 or so years, why shouldn’t she have some involvement?

One option is giving a weekly amount (say, $3.00 a week to start) and teaching how to save a percentage and budget for things desired. When she gets older maybe we will make her  responsible for handling and helping budget for larger purchases like back-to-school shopping. Whatever option ends up working for us, the key is to have her directly involved in buying items so she can learn to respect money and understand that it is not an infinite resource.

I also don’t want to pay her only when she does household chores which is a common criteria for parents to award allowance. As a member of our family, when she gets old enough, she will have an unpaid responsibility to contribute to our household. Should she go over and above her required chores and do extra, she may be able to make some extra money, but I refuse to pay her for normal expectations.

 

Learn From My Mistakes

When we go shopping I want her to understand the importance of shopping with a list and sticking to it. This will teach her the importance of budgeting and planning. She will learn that if something is not on the list we won’t be buying it today, and if we (she) sees something while we’re out that she may want, we have to make a plan on how to buy it.

These are all tools I wish I had in my back pocket. Not that I grew up thinking money was an infinite resource, but I never appreciated the value of a dollar until I was much older and in a boat-load of debt. Everything I know about money is 100% self-taught. I still have a way to go but my hope is that through allocating a proper allowance and starting early enough my daughter can avoid the same paths I’ve already been down.

If you have kids, do you give them an allowance? How much?

Fund Your Kids with Forex

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Forex

A little extra income is always a good thing, so when you find a new way of making money, it can be very exciting. Forex for instance, can be a great way of earning money. The financial markets may seem like they are out of reach for the average person, but in fact, nearly anyone can invest. In fact, all you really need is to start a forex funded account with FTUK.

Here is some more information about forex, including how it works and who should use it.

How Forex Works

Trading on the forex market is all about speculating whether you think a currency will increase or decrease in value against another one, for instance GBP/USD. The ability to speculate on prices falling as well as rising is one of the reasons forex is so popular. Factors that influence your decision can include news reports on a country’s economic activity, fundamental analysis and complex technical analysis. If a currency looks like it’s going to strengthen, then it would be reasonable to invest money in it doing so.

There are a number of products associated with forex, and two of the most popular; spread bets and contracts for difference (CFDs) do not actually involve buying or selling currency. They are both relatively similar in that profits and losses are made by the amount to which a prediction is correct. A CFD is an agreement between buyer and seller to exchange the difference in price between the current value of a currency and its value at the end of the contract. A spread bet is simply when money is wagered on the fluctuation of a currency; with more being won the further the price moves in a favourable direction. Of course you can always follow the traditional route of actually buying currency and profiting from its increased value, or vice versa if you sell.

Forex is For Anyone

Now you’re probably thinking that this is all very well, but the financial markets are only for those with large investments to hand. This is no longer true, and you can in fact trade with hardly any money at all. This is done through leverage, whereby you only have to deposit a small amount of money in order to place orders of a much higher value. For instance, you may only need to deposit 100 units of a currency to buy or sell 10,000 units of it. This is great if you don’t have a large amount of capital to work with, but be aware that there are risks involved in forex, and you can potentially lose more than your initial deposit.

All you need to get started is some knowledge of how the system works, which is easily done by reading guides on forex trading for beginners. The ony other thing you’ll need to start is an online account with a good broker. It really is very easy to get involved. If you’re looking for some extra money and have thought about investment, then forex trading could be for you.

For More Great Kids Ain’t Cheap Articles, Read These:

Yes, Stay At Home Moms Can Get Loans

Yes, You Can Open Kids Magnetic Locks Without A Key

These Are The Best Travel Cribs For Twins

If you need Pac-Man Coloring Pages, Here Are Some Good Ideas

8 Simple Rainy Day Activities For Kids

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rainy day kid activitiesAs a resident of the beautiful – but often soggy – Pacific NW; I am quite familiar with trying to come up with fun and creative ways to keep my kids busy on rainy days. I am incredibly happy to say that I have found some really wonderful – low cost or no cost – activities that you can do with your kids, when wet weather strikes. Here are eight rainy day activities for kids that are sure to cure the dreary-day doldrums.

1. Channel your inner chef

There is nothing better than comfort food on a blustery day, so why not whip up something delicious with your kids? Cooking is not only fun but very educational as well (shhhh…don’t worry, I won’t tell). Kids love to help out and no matter what age they are, there is always something they can do. For example, little kids can dump pre-measured ingredients into the bowl, stir things around, frost cupcakes, & lick beaters. Just watch your child’s face light up as you pull out their finished masterpiece. I promise that the look you will see makes all the spilled flour and broken eggs so worth it! Check out www.kids-cooking-activities.com to find recipes, cooking videos, and food facts, as well as fun craft and science recipes.

2. Can you build it? Yes you can!

Fort building is a family favorite in our house. We strip off the couch cushions, gather all the pillows and blankets we can carry, and then we start creating. If you use your imagination; you can make a fort out of just about any space in your home. Our boys have bunk beds; so I just put blankets up to enclose the bottom bunk and poof instant fort in no time flat! Forts are a great place for your kids to embark on all kinds of amazing adventures.

3. Lights, Camera, Action

Reading is a fantastic rainy day activity for kids but you can kick it up a notch by reading then acting out your children’s favorite stories. You can make it as simple or elaborate as you would like. It’s fun getting dressed up and using props but even just acting out the story can be quite entertaining as well. This is a great activity and you can really make some fantastic (and many times silly) memories in the process.

4. Let’s play dress-up

Playing dress up is a genuine two thumbs up, kid approved rainy day activity — guaranteed! Not only will your kids have hours of fun becoming princesses, superheroes, pirates, doctors, nurses, ballerinas, and moms, and dads; you’ll be happy that you didn’t have to spend a fortune for them to do it. All you have to do is raid your closets and after that — check out the second hand stores, where you can buy costumes and some really fancy duds at super low prices. Parents should get in on the act too, in fact I encourage it.

5. Take a walk down memory lane

Rainy days are the perfect time to pop some popcorn, snuggle up on the couch and look at old photos and watch old home movies. Kids love seeing old photos of themselves and hearing stories about when they were younger. This can even stir up some memories that you may have forgotten about. This is not only a great rainy day activity; it is also fantastic bonding time for you and your kids.

6. Get Crafty

That’s right parents, get out the glue, markers, paints, pens, and glitter; then let your kids make something craftastic! There are so many wonderful things that your kids can create. Just put some things out for them and let ‘em go. Fall is also a great time to get started on homemade gifts for Christmas. Some of my favorite web sites to glean ideas from are www.amazingmoms.com, www.familyfun.com, and www.freekidcrafts.com. Once you have enough art pieces assembled; you can invite grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends over for dinner and have an art exhibit. Your kids will love it!

7. Get the heck out of dodge

Before you all go stir crazy; pack everyone up and head over to your local library. There is almost always something fun (and free) going on there and if not, you can still find lots of great books to read. Many libraries have story times, craft times, and other fun activities for kids. Trust me when I say, this is a sanity saver on rainy days. If you are looking for something else to do, call some of your friends with kids and take turns hosting play dates. This will get you some nice adult conversation and the kids will enjoy playing with their friends.

8. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

Go puddle jumping! Slap on your galoshes and rain coat, grab an umbrella and get outside. This is probably – by far – my kids’ favorite rainy day activity! They have a fabulous time getting wet and muddy and when all the fun has been had; you all can head inside, get everyone in warm dry clothes and have some hot chocolate.

Looking for more things to do with your kids? Check out these great articles.

The Importance of Reading to Your Child
The Learning Tower, a Review
7 Screen-Free Activities for Preschoolers

Whatever you decide to do when bad weather strikes — have fun and enjoy your kids.

How do you keep your kids occupied on rainy days?

Today was launch day…

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…sort of.  We still have to add a lot of content, fix a bunch of bugs and finish our coupons and shopping comparison sections but we did take the design and format live today for whatever that is worth.

The site may not look like much right now but we are going to work hard turn it into one of the best parenting resources online.  Since the site isn’t actually ready for anyone to view it and consume our content, it was a very quiet launch that only me, my wife and web designer actually participated in.  But that’s alright, you have to start somewhere!

Kids Ain't Cheap

So what do you think of the site?

Kids Ain’t Cheap But They Sure Are Worth It!

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Kids Ain't CheapWelcome to KidsAintCheap.com. This site was put together by parents, for parents. My goal is to build a web site that will allow all of us to become smarter consumers and maybe even slightly better parents.

Who runs Kids Ain’t Cheap?

My name is Robert but for the most part, I got by GiantRobo online. Why? Well for starters I am a geek. I like comic books, sci-fi, fantasy and anime so the whole giant robot thing always appealed to me. I have other hobbies but they have nothing to do with my online persona. Secondly, I am 6’6” so to most people, the giant title suits me. This is not my only site but it is the one I am most passionate about.

In addition to that, I am married to a wonderful woman named Stephanie and I have two of the most amazing boys anyone could have ever asked for. Our oldest, Harrison, is 4 ½. His brother is Sean and he is 2 ½. They are opposites in many ways but they get along well (for the most part). Nothing makes me happier than seeing those two boys play together.

I am a business man by nature and desire but not all of my ventures have been successful. One of my businesses ran for several years but ended in complete failure and left me and my family with a lot of debt. More debt than most people could ever imagine possible so it’s not really worth talking numbers. I am proud to say that despite the gargantuan amount of money I owe to unfriendly people, I have never filed bankruptcy and am working my way back to a debt free state.

It’s a long road and I didn’t want my decisions to impact my family any more than it had to. Despite our poor financial health, we have managed to provide our boys with love, a good home, healthy meals and if I do say so myself, a damn good life so far. We have had to cut a lot of corners and work the system in order to provide for our children. Our goal for this site is to help you do the same no matter what your financial predicament may be.

We all know that kids ain’t cheap but I am here to once again say they are more than worth the effort.

What kind of content would you like to see on Kids Ain’t Cheap?