Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Feed a Hungry Teenager Without Breaking Your Grocery Budget

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Feed a Hungry Teen

I’ve heard how expensive it is to feed a hungry teenager because they can eat everything in the house, and now I’m experiencing it firsthand.  My son isn’t even a teen—just 12—but over the last six months, he’s grown three inches and put on 20 pounds.  I used to think my husband could eat a lot, but our son can easily eat double or triple what his dad can eat.  Then an hour or two later, he’ll tell us he’s hungry again.  If you have a tween or teen, this may sound all too familiar.

However, we don’t really have enough room to raise the grocery budget, so we’re finding creative ways to keep him full.

Satisfying Foods to Feed a Hungry Teenager

There are several foods that can keep your hungry teen satisfied.

Protein

Meat can be expensive, but growing teens need protein to help them feel satiated.  We make sure to serve an ample serving of protein at breakfast and during every meal.  Some of our favorite breakfast proteins include homemade meat patties, eggs, or bacon.

For snacks, we like to make protein based snacks such as these Cacao Balls.  Between the pecans and protein powder, this snack keeps our teen full.

Healthy Carbs

Three staples in our teen’s diet are white potatoes, sweet potatoes, and rice.  He often eats rice with breakfast, homemade baked French fries for lunch, and baked sweet potatoes for dinner.  These carbs help fill him up and round out his meal.  After he eats an entire plateful of food and is still hungry, we give him vegetables and one of these carbs.

Fruits

These are a great way to fill up hungry teens, especially in between meals.  I find that grapefruit is my best bet.  It’s not that expensive, and it’s large and watery, so it fills him up.  Other options include apples, pears, bananas, oranges, or whatever other fruit you have on hand.  I always buy a lot of fruit when doing my weekly shopping.

Veggies

Vegetables are another choice that aren’t that expensive.  Organic carrots are .60 a pound at Costco.  We buy the ten pound bag and prepare them as raw carrot sticks or as roasted carrots.  We also frequently give the kids hummus to dip their veggies in.  Whenever a vegetable is on sale, I stock up and make extra knowing that our son will have multiple servings.

Healthy Fats

Feed a Hungry Teen
Photo by Heather Ford on Unsplash

Healthy fat can definitely help fill up a teen.  We’re big fans of avocado.  We often make guacamole to serve with our salads and soups.  We also serve it as a snack with organic corn chips.  Coconut oil, coconut cream, and coconut milk are also great ingredients to use in muffins, smoothies, and desserts to help satiate your child.  One of our go to favorites now is Chocolate Chia Pudding.  The chia and almond milk (or sub out for coconut milk) keep him full and satisfies his sweet tooth.

Foods to Avoid

Junk Food

I know, I know, teens love this stuff.  But the truth is, they can wolf down a bag of Cheetos or chips and then be hungry just a little later because they were eating empty calories.  We like to keep the junk food to a minimum and rely on healthy staples instead.  In the long run, when it comes to teen appetites, healthy food IS cheaper.  Plus, you’re helping your child maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Fast Food

The stereotype has teen boys living off fast food.  While it is temporarily filling, if your child relies on this type of food frequently, he may be facing health issues down the road.

Final Thoughts

While teen’s appetites do ramp up tremendously in the tween and teen years, feeding them healthy food without ruining the grocery budget is possible.  Our family has a number of food intolerances, so we can’t rely on other staples that will help fill kids up like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or cottage cheese, but those are also fairly nutritious options.

What are your favorite foods to help fill your growing teen’s bottomless pit?  Please share.

Read More

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Save on Groceries by Limiting Junk Food

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How to Help Your Elderly Parents Budget Their Finances

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As part of the so-called “sandwich generation,” trying to figure out how to help your aging parents manage their finances can be a unique challenge. Not only are you trying to help take care of your own children, but now you also have your mother and father to worry about.

Trying to take over your parents’ finances can be unquestionably stressful. There’s a good chance that they raised you and likely taught you about money management. And now, after all these years, they’re unexpectedly finding themselves turning to you for financial help — and even worse, they might even be resistant to it!

Fortunately, helping your senior parents manage their finances does not have to be an emotionally harrowing ordeal. In many ways, they already have the foundation of good financial planning down; they may just need a little extra assistance with some of the unexpected incidentals.

If you’re looking to help your older parents stay afloat without worrying about them going bankrupt on your watch, then look no further. Here are five handy tips to help you keep a vigilant eye on your parents’ finances without causing unnecessary tears, frustration, and anxiety in either of you.

Have Empathy

First and foremost, when taking over your parents’ finances, you need to approach it with a little bit of compassion. It’s important to remember that your parents are precisely that: mature adults who likely already know a thing or two about handling money. After all, they raised you, right?

Instead of coming in with a patronizing or infantilizing tone, instead try to imagine yourself in their shoes. They may be more than a little bit confused, especially if they’re starting to undergo mental changes that may make them more prone to forgetfulness. By approaching it with the right attitude, you can help avoid hurt feelings in the long run.

Know Where They Stand

Once you know how to talk to your parents about your goals of assisting them with their finances, your next step will be to take a closer look at their current budget and income. Before you can start earmarking money for expenses, you first need to know how much they’re making and where it’s all going.

Plan For the Day-to-Day

When you think about your own monthly budget, what comes to mind? You probably think of your mortgage, your car payment, and even your grocery bill. While your parents may not have those same expenses, it’s still important to make sure there’s enough money budgeted for the things they need in their daily and monthly life.

…But Also Plan Ahead

Nobody likes to think that something bad will happen to their beloved parents, but the sad truth is, they’re not going to live forever. Even if they’re healthy now, there could come a time that you may have to have a hard conversation about both long-term care for your parents and even funeral expenses.

Yes, this could be a very uncomfortable conversation to have, but it’s still very important to plan ahead for these things. You also need to make sure you budget enough for professional care for your parents, especially if you (or your siblings) do not feel qualified to take care of them in their advanced years.

Fortunately, there are a number of options you can turn to if you’re looking to bring a senior care provider into your parents’ home. Whether you’re looking for home care agencies in NYC, Tampa, Sacramento — or anywhere across the country — you have your option of warm, kind, and highly trained professionals to help take care of your loved ones.

Remain a Constant Presence

Finally, helping your parents with their budgets is not some one-off thing that you do just once then dust off your hands. Instead, you need to realize that your parents’ finances can change in the future. They may also grow more dependent upon you, as well. Sadly, there are also some people out there who prey upon seniors, so you always need to take the initiative to go over their finances with them.

Ideally, you should plan one day a month to go through their bills and their other expenses with them. Look for anything that may seem wrong or suspicious. You also want to make sure you don’t outright accuse your parents of frivolous spending, either. Remember, it’s their money, and you’re simply there to help them.

Taking care of your parents’ finances can be a wonderful and rewarding experience. Furthermore, there’s a high likelihood that they’ll be grateful for your help, and you can help strengthen your bond with them while doing so. By following these five tips, you can help ensure that the entire process goes smoothly for both yourself and your parents!

How to Live Like a Prince on a Pauper’s Budget

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Being financially savvy does not mean that you have to deprive yourself of the finer things in life. It simply means that you have to identify what goods and services are genuinely important to you and then find a way to get those goods and services at a great price. You should even think of these small luxuries as investments because the truth is that you are far more likely to stick to a well-thought-out financial plan if you are living a comfortable life.

Embrace small luxuries that mean a lot to you.

Obviously, I am not suggesting that you go out and buy luxury everything. In fact, I am not necessarily even suggesting that you buy luxury anything!  The key to feeling like a prince on a pauper’s budget is looking inwards and finding what those items are that you most want – those are your luxuries. Most of the time, whatever it is that you want can be purchased at a reasonable cost. The trick is to be sure to pick an item that will truly be a luxury to you and not just a passing fancy. If it is a thing, ask yourself how much you will use it; if it is an experience, ask yourself if you will get lasting enjoyment from it. Your answers to those questions will go a long way towards determining if it is a worthwhile luxury or a whim.

Here is an example of what I mean (which also just happens to be the spark that led me to write this article). I recently convinced a friend of mine to buy a turntable that he had been talking about for ages. Everyone in the world knew that it was the luxury he wanted for himself. He knew it too, but he just could not bring himself to “waste” the money. Of course, he finally bought it; and of course, he is glad he did. The two important things to notice here are that it was something that he knew he had wanted for a long time and that it was not terribly expensive. That last part is important, by the way. If you want a yacht, then you are probably out of luck – that would be living like a price on a prince’s budget!

Here are a few quick examples to help you generate some ideas of your own:

Buy a used car: Everyone knows that a new car’s value plummets the second it is driven off the lot. So why not take advantage of that price drop? The used car market has never been so liquid and accessible as it is now, so even if you live out in the country, you will have no trouble finding a high-end used car for a great price.

Shop for things during the off-season: It is astonishing that, after every holiday, stores practically give away their holiday-themed merchandise, and yet we the consumers happily wait until one week before the holiday rolls around again to pay through the nose. You know that Christmas will happen next year, right? So why not buy all your Christmas-themed gifts and ornaments right after Christmas when they are 90% off? Given that many of us can spend hundreds of dollars on holiday-related merchandise, the savings to be had from using a bit of foresight are worth the modicum of planning it takes to get your shopping done early… very early.

The same logic also applies to non-holiday-related goods. At the end of the winter, most stores will have clothes at 50% off or more as they try to make room for their spring and summer collections. In about nine months, winter will be back and you will need warm clothes, so why not buy them when they are being sold at a substantial discount?

Look for free live events: This one might be a little tricky if you do not live in a city, but if you do happen to live in a metropolitan area, you will be amazed at how many free events there are. Art museums will frequently have free live shows and/or exhibits. Local symphonies or university symphonies also will have free or discounted concerts at certain times of the year. There are food truck festivals, art festivals, beer festivals, and the list goes on. Many of these will be free and provide live music and other entertainment.

Being thrifty does not mean that you have to deprive yourself of a good life. Use your judgment to pick and choose small luxuries that will make a big difference to you. Be smart: find the best ways, times of the year, etc. to get these luxuries at a good price. You will find that you really can live a luxurious life and keep your savings intact at the same time.