Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Update: Saving with Sandra has moved

Hi all,

We recently moved all of our blogs over to a new platform. To keep up with Sandra's blog, find it here: http://blogs.todaysparent.com/category/saving/

Lisa
Today's Parent

Posted by Lisa, Todaysparent.com
on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 3:54:59 PM
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Friday, September 25th, 2009
RSVP

Once upon a time, I never returned anything I bought. Well, maybe the odd time, if I discovered a manufacturing defect or found dried mealworms in a bag of oatmeal. Otherwise, my mantra was, “You bought it, you’re keeping it.”

Buyer’s remorse wasn’t in my emotional vocabulary. Mostly, that was because I shopped wisely — I’ve never been an impulse buyer, or a collector of expensive shoes.

These days, though, I am feeling remorseful. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I should have begun by saying that Isobel is very, very, VERY (I can’t over-emphasize) fussy about what she wears. So hitting Old Navy on an “Everything 50% Off!” day to pick up an armful of toddler basics is simply out of the question. She has to come with me to the store to choose the items we’ll buy to replace the pieces she’s worn through. (Funny how a T-shirt that one kid left spotless after a year or so of wear can be obliterated after just a week on the daycare playground with Isobel.) Even so, getting her dressed in the morning is anything but smooth.

Me: “You said you wanted to wear a skirt. How about this one?”

Isobel: “I don’t LIKE green, Mommy.”

Hmm. That’s a new one; green was just fine last week. No point arguing, however. Let’s try something else.

Me: “Oh, what about this nice new dress we got on sale last week? Do you want to wear that?”

Isobel. “NO! I don’t LIKE it anymore.”

Me (becoming exasperated): “But you picked it. You told me in the store that you wanted it.”

Isobel. “NO!!!!”

Me: “OK, I guess we’re going to have to take it back to the store.”

I meant this as an empty threat — something to spur Isobel into wearing the doggone dress I paid $15 for on sale and that was clean and appropriately warm for the day’s weather. But she called my bluff.

Me: “Do you want me to take it back to the store?”

Isobel simply nodded, slowly and sagely.

I started to get angry, but what was the point? Kids are kids, after all. Their tastes change day to day. For example, my colleague Laura said recently that although her daughter has a drawer full of new shorts, Paige insists on wearing the same few, threadbare pairs. Why fight it?

So my new policy is to buy as few items of clothing as possible. Then I keep the tags on until Isobel is committed to wearing that item the first time. I keep the receipts filed away in my wallet, where I know I can access them easily, so returns are a cinch. And I don’t shrink away from doing them anymore.

But maybe there’s a better way of handling this issue. How do you deal with the “I won’t wear its” your house?

Posted by Sandra, Today's Parent
on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 4:11:42 PM
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Friday, September 18th, 2009
Joining the resistance

Temptation reared its head. And I resisted!

A bunch of my office mates decided to go out to lunch today, on the spur of the moment.

“I’d love to, but I brought my lunch today,” is how I responded to Natalie's kind invitation.

“So did I," she said, "but I figure I'll just eat it on the way to the cottage tonight.”

Hmm, this morning I did forget to take that meat out of the freezer to thaw for dinner, so I could.... Hey, wait a minute!

Last weekend, Matt and I invited a bunch of our co-workers to our house for an easygoing afternoon of video games (which we have owned for a good, long time) and visiting. So I’ve had a recent fix of office bonding. Do I really need to go out for lunch?

After giving myself a moment to collect myself, I made a final decision that I’m proud of — and that my bank account will be as well.

Heading to the office kitchenette now to heat up the leftover chili I brought from home. Bon appetit!

Posted by Sandra, Today's Parent
on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 12:23:27 PM
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Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
Music to my wallet

Good thing we’re getting better at this saving money business. Our kids are becoming more and more expensive!

Bronwyn has been taking ballet at a really wonderful community studio for the past three years. With a two-month summer break factored in (we don’t opt into the pricey dance camp, preferring to save the warm months of low-price municipal swimming lessons or just plain running around at the park), her lessons cost $675 a year, or under $70 a month. The studio provides all the costumes for their annual recital (I’ve heard financial horror stories from parents at other studios!), so all we have to provide are Bronwyn’s ballet slippers (about $30 a year) and a leotard of the prescribed colour and style (another $30, and they’re so stretchy they often last a couple years).

So I’d say we’ve been getting off pretty easy. Until now.

Bronwyn has been wanting to take violin lessons for a couple of years. We demurred because a) she rarely sings in tune and we worried that would translate into problems learning a difficult instrument that requires a keen ear, and b) she was young, and we didn’t want her to start with music only to stop in frustration — for good — a few months later.

The violin thing has never died. In fact, she brought it up again this summer. “Wouldn’t you rather learn the piano?” suggested Matt, who has always regretted bailing on his own childhood piano lessons. “Once you learn piano, it’s easy to learn pretty much any other instrument.”

“What about guitar?” I suggested, thinking the frets on a guitar’s neck would make it easier for a young (and possibly not-very-musical) child to master the correct fingering.

“I’ll think about it,” was all Bronwyn would allow.

To help her decide, Matt and I took her to a nearby branch of a very well-stocked Long & McQuade music store, hoping the staff would let her try all three of the instruments and come to her senses already. They were more than obliging — the young man in the guitar room even sat down and gave her a mini-lesson. “What kind of music do you like to listen to?” he asked. “Who are your favourite groups?”

Bronwyn replied: The Killers, Metric, ABBA.

“Do you hear many violins in their music?”

No. But she still wanted to learn violin, she was sure of it. “It just feels right, Mommy,” she explained.

Tough to argue with that. Matt and I decided to let the idea settle for a couple of weeks before making a final decision. Again, no change.

Now, I knew that we could pick up a nice, new child-size acoustic guitar for about $150 (I’d been doing some pricing on that first visit), but violins start at $500 and up. She’d need to change violins as she grew, making this a fairly expensive enterprise.

“I always suggest that parents rent,” said the violin specialist who fitted Bronwyn with a one-quarter size instrument. “Sometimes you can get violins cheaper when stores want to sell of some of their rental instruments. And if $500 is in your family budget, or you’re sure your other children will play as well, then fine. But renting is much more inexpensive.”

Uh, we’ll take that. Bronwyn’s violin (“a really good instrument,” according to her teacher, a lovely young woman with music degrees coming out of her metronome and who charges a very reasonable $25 for each half-hour private lesson — thanks again for the recommendation, Tricia!) cost $150 to rent for the year. For an extra $10, we’d be insured for any possible catastrophe. That seemed like a good deal, too, so we forked it over.

Now, about a month later, Bronwyn is doing better than either of us could have imagined! She rarely squeaks or screeches the strings while practising, is already learning fingering (her teacher marked the places her fingers should go with removable tape) and erupts into a fit of joyful giggles after each lesson. Is it worth the money? Yeah, we think so.

Then, just yesterday Isobel dropped her own announcement on us: “I want to take ballet too!”

Of course she deserves to have her own interests, but I worry that she’s too young to really get much out of it. Do you think “real” lessons are worth the money for a not-yet-three-year-old?

Posted by Sandra, Today's Parent
on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 11:45:07 AM
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Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
Back to school budgeting blues

When I was in primary school, back-to-school purchases were limited to a book bag, maybe a new fall jacket and shoes. If I needed a pencil to complete my classroom work, it was provided. (Some kids did get in trouble for abusing the pencil sharpener in their aim to get a fresh new pencil as soon as possible, but otherwise the supplies flowed freely.) All in all, it was a fairly low-cost venture, as far as my parents’ budget was concerned.

These days, it’s a different story. According to a recent report from Scotiabank, Canadian families will spend an average of $310 on school supplies for each kid under age 18. Plus they figure field trips, pizza lunches, book sales and the like will have them shelling out a further $406 throughout the year.

Although she is only going into grade two, Bronwyn needs to have her own pencils for school work, her own pencil crayons or markers for colouring, a pencil case to store it all in, and at least two different pairs of running shoes — one for outdoor wear, and another for indoor wear and gym.

Last year’s markers, pencils and pencil crayons are still in great shape, as are most of her lunch box supplies. So we’re off the hook on that front. I’d been hoping to get a second year out of her grade-one backpack (essential for toting gym clothes, library books, homework and her agenda). Alas, after a summer of rough, day-camp use, the zipper broke and it became so penetrated with dirt, beach sand and who knows what else that washing failed to get it clean anymore. So a new one was in order.

Here’s what we spent on Bronwyn’s supplies:

Indoor/gym shoes: $45
iCarly pencil case: $2
New pencil sharpener: $2
Backpack: $29
Fall clothes (purchased on sale throughout the summer): $60
Supplemental food containers for litterless lunch: $10
“OK, you can have something too” shoes for Isobel (who needed new shoes anyway): $28
Grand total: $176

I think we were able to keep the number reasonable by re-using as much of last year’s gear as possible, and by buying only a few fall clothing essentials that we found on sale. Bronwyn may well make it through fall 2009 in her fall 2008 school clothes, so why replace them? If I find that her tummy is hanging out of her long-sleeved tops or her pants are uncomfortable at the waist, we’ll go shopping.

Do you have any tricks for keeping your back-to-school bill in check? Share them with us here.

Posted by Sandra, Today's Parent
on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 12:23:52 PM
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