Married Money — 3/23 — Beating Broke

4 Ways to Get Your Child a Christmas Gift If You Can’t Afford to Buy One

November 18, 2019 By MelissaB 1 Comment

My mom often tells the story of the first Christmas she and my dad had after they were married. They didn’t have any money, so they bought a sad, little Christmas tree on Christmas Eve that only cost a few dollars. It was so tilted that they had to tie it to the wall to make it stand up straight. She got my dad a warm wool pair of socks to wear when hunting, and he got her a tea kettle.

She laughs about that Christmas now. In retrospect, the story does have a poignant sweetness to it. However, that Christmas, they didn’t yet have kids.

4 Ways to Get Your Child a Christmas Gift If You Can’t Afford to Buy One

When you’re struggling financially, not being able to buy Christmas presents for your kids can be heartbreaking. If your money is stretched and you literally have nothing extra, there are ways to make sure your child has a gift under the tree.

Buy at Second Hand Shops or Thrift Stores

If you have a small bit of money to buy a gift, consider looking at thrift stores or secondhand shops. Or, you could turn in your kids’ outgrown toys and clothes for credit to purchase items at the secondhand store. Be warned, however, that secondhand stores usually pay just a pittance for items they buy, so you might not get much credit.

Exchange Used Toys with Another Family

Toy Exchange for Christmas Gifts — Photo by Shitota Yuri on Unsplash

Another idea that doesn’t cost anything is to exchange toys with family friends. You gather up the toys your children are bored with or have outgrown, and exchange them with another family who does the same. You can wrap these “new” toys and give them to your children for Christmas.

Sign Up for a Free Gift with the Salvation Army

The Salvation Army works hard to give a gift to each child whose family can’t afford to buy one. Go to the Salvation Army website, enter your zip code at the locations tab, and find a Salvation Army near you.

You’ll need to prove that you are indeed low income. You can do this easily if you’re receiving food stamps, WIC, or Medicaid. There are also other requirements you’ll need to submit, which you can find on the website or when talking to your local office. Be advised that many people sign up for this service in October, so time is of the essence.

Contact Your Local Church

Many churches run their own Christmas present giving operation. Contact local churches and tell them your situation. They may be able to help you or refer you to another church or agency that can.

Final Thoughts

If your budget is beyond stretched thin as my parents were on their very first Christmas, remember that there are 4 ways to get your child a Christmas gift if you can’t afford to buy one. There are many services available to help assist families in a bad financial situation so that every child can open a present on Christmas.

What other suggestions do you have for families who cannot afford a Christmas gift for their kids this year?

Save on Groceries by Limiting Junk Food

October 14, 2019 By MelissaB 1 Comment

Almost all kids love to eat junk food, and if they have unlimited access to it, they can plow through a surprising amount of it in very little time. This is especially true if your kids are teenagers. However, you can save on groceries by limiting junk food.

limit junk food — photo courtesy of idpinthat.com

Some people do this by simply not buying junk food. Instead, they give their kids regular meals and fruits or veggies for snacks. While this is the healthiest way to feed your kids, they may feel deprived if they don’t get some of the fun snacks that their peers get.

However, there are several strategies you can use to give your kids the snacks that they want without compromising their health or your grocery budget.

Will Work for Snacks

Recently, I learned this ingenious trick from an experienced mom. She has created a win-win situation for herself and her kids. Each time a child completes a chore, he earns a ticket. He can then use the ticket to buy snacks from mom that he enjoys such as granola bars, chips, cookies, Popsicles, etc. Once he runs out of tickets for the week, he doesn’t get these types of snacks anymore. Instead mom will give him fruit or veggies for snacks, no tickets required.

Using this technique, the kids are happy because they have some control over how many snacks they get, and mom has noticed that the snacks are lasting a lot longer in her house.

No More When They’re Gone

Another mom buys a set amount of junk food treats a week for her family to eat. When they’re gone, she doesn’t buy anymore until the next grocery shopping trip. If kids eat all the treats in one day, they have to wait six more days until the next grocery trip.

Lock Up Junk Food

Some parents have even taken the extreme route of locking up treats so that the kids don’t eat all of the stash. This is more likely to work if your kids are younger and are used to this type of system.

Hide Them Away

A similar, though less extreme, practice is when parents hide away goodies. Then, they can slowly bring them out so the kids get treats little by little. This was the technique that my mom used. She had a friend who worked at Hostess, and she could get us treats at a steep discount. My mom would buy two cases and hide them, bringing them out slowly for lunches. For many kids, out of sight means out of mind.

Make Homemade Treats

Another idea is to make homemade treats like granola bars, brownies, cookies, etc. While these taste good and are often healthier than the pre-made counterparts, kids may still feel slighted if all of their friends are eating packaged junk food. A way to avoid this is to give them some prepackaged junk food and supplement with homemade treats.

There’s nothing wrong with giving your kids a little junk food, but if they’re devouring it the minute you bring it home, you may want to save on groceries by limiting junk food consumption in your home.

Is junk food killing your grocery budget? If so, which of these strategies do you use, or do you have a different technique to keep your kids happy and your budget in line?

Teach Your Child About Finances With This Book

March 7, 2019 By MelissaB 3 Comments

As a mom and personal finance blogger, I get the opportunity to review many books. One that I just reviewed that I can’t recommend highly enough is Sunny Lee’s book, Is Your Child a Money Master or a Money Monster?

Sunny Lee is a financial advisor, and she has taken the time to teach her twin sons about money. In fact, her strategy has worked so well that she’s sharing all her techniques in this book.

Lee has a variety of strategies for teaching kids about money in a fun, incentive-filled way.

Offer rewards. Lee’s strategy of offering her children rewards helps shape their behavior in a positive direction. For instance, when her sons were in 1^st grade, Lee developed the Morning Stuff Allowance Project. Each morning, her kids had to get up when their alarms went off, tidy their rooms, get dressed, pack their backpacks, and make and eat their own breakfast and get to school on time. If they did this every day, they earned $3 a week.

While the kids were motivated by the money, they were also unknowingly developing skills that would help them through the rest of their lives. Even better, Lee didn’t have to fight with her boys in the morning to get up and get their chores done. Everyone in her household could enjoy a more peaceful morning.

Play games. As the boys got older, part of Lee’s strategy to teach them about money was to give them a safe place to experiment. She did this by finding a variety of free, money based games online. Her boys experimented online with running a coffee shop. They had to decide when to discount their coffee based on the season, how much inventory to buy, etc.

Try out your skills in the real world. Finally, Lee let her sons experiment and try their money skills in the real world. An important component of this was to let them fail in small ways. One son spent a large sum of money on a hat, which he loved, but then he didn’t have money available for a while after that. Her other son learned from his brother and bought a hat at a discounted market so he wouldn’t use all of his money on one item.

Lee’s book contains seven strategies to teach your kids about money (and as a byproduct, teach them personal responsibility). One thing I loved about the book and her strategy is that she keeps adding layers to her plan. For instance, after her kids mastered the Morning Stuff Allowance Project, that remained in place, but Lee added on the Special Incentive Project. If her boys chose to, they could earn additional money throughout the week by completing a book report, doing an art project, etc. Again, she helped her children grow academically and artistically through an incentive.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to not only give their children a strong financial footing, but also a strong work ethic.

Have you read this book? What is your favorite book to teach kids about money?