Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Parenting: Tips for Raising Responsible, Caring and Educated Children

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Raising happy and healthy children is the goal of every parent. You also want them to develop into caring and responsible adults. It’s a tough, yet fulfilling, job many parents learn along the way. Listed below are a few tips to help prepare you for the task at hand.

Emotional Development

No parent is perfect and there will be times you lose your composure. Unfortunately, children read your emotions as early as infancy. When you’re tense or frustrated, they pick up on it. This can cause your child stress at an early age. As a result, they develop unintended emotional insecurities. However, a child that feels love at home will pass that along through their adult years having long-term relationships. Maintain a calm and caring environment that includes expressions of love and admiration. Emotional and physical affection is necessary. Shower your kids with praise, hugs and don’t forget to say “I love you” often.

Good Nutrition Early

Nutritious foods early on will allow your little ones to develop strong bones, lean muscles and brainpower. A proper diet will also stabilize mood and thwart colds and viruses. Choose meals rich in essential vitamins and minerals, protein and complex carbohydrates and low in salt and sugar. The diet will provide enrichment to sustain optimal health, proper growth, and good mental health development.

Education

The goal of all parents is to raise smart kids who are also wonderful humans. You want them to become successful and pursue their dreams. Reading to children at an early age will help them develop necessary learning skills. It’s also about treating others with respect and having acceptance. When making friends, they don’t see color. They only see another kid that they like and want to hang around. COVID-19 makes it difficult to take kids to parks to play with friends. Using apps like Nextdoor will allow parents to meet other parents with children of the same age. On Nextdoor, racial profiling is not an issue. With strict guidelines, it provides a place where people of all ethnicities feel comfortable conversing with others. Another way to introduce different ethnicities to your child is through cooking. Having a discussion while preparing meals about what country the food derives from will teach them that the world comprises humans of different colors and cultures.

Raising Caring Children

Educating children isn’t only about brainpower. Teaching kids the importance of caring for others is an essential component to becoming a decent and well-respected adult. Having a genuine concern for others is something children learn through experiences at home. Toddlers and young children spend most of their time with their parents. The way you treat them will affect the way they treat others. When they feel secure and loved at home, they develop an attachment to you. This allows you as the parent to pass on your values and skills.

Principles such as justice, fairness, and respecting others teach children to do the right thing always, regardless of influential inappropriate behavior by their peers.

Responsible

For every action, there’s a positive or negative reaction. The younger you teach good habits of responsibility to your children, the easier it is to have them become a part of their being. Children as young as 2 or 3 years can pick up their toys and help with easy chores such as folding laundry, setting the table, and helping prepare meals. Small kids enjoy helping out. In the beginning, make it fun and a joint effort involving both parent and child. If they make mistakes, don’t criticize.

Demanding perfection will only turn them away and prevent future efforts from producing a positive outcome. As they grow older, expand their responsibilities to tasks like walking the dog, cleaning their room, and doing the dishes. Developing a sense of responsibility early will make it easier to get kids to do homework and complete projects without constant oversight. One way to reinforce your efforts is to practice self-responsibility as a parent.

Every kid is a blank canvas. Shaping them as responsible, caring and educated human beings starts in the home, with mom and dad. Strive to set a good example and you’ll be well on your way.

What to Do If You Lose Your Job

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People may feel a little sad after losing a job. It feels like there’s nothing you can do, but there are some steps you need to take. The following are a few things to do if you lost your job.

Address Healthcare

Unlike most countries, America doesn’t guarantee healthcare to its citizens. Because of that, most people depend on their employer for health insurance. If you lose your job, you lose access to this coverage. Your first step should be to get healthcare quotes online. Even if you feel okay right now, healthcare emergencies come out of nowhere, so you need to prepare.

Unemployment Benefits

If you qualify for unemployment benefits, be sure to read every question on the application. Go over it as many times as you need to to ensure you don’t make a mistake. A mistake can cause delays, and you can’t afford that right now. Try to apply for this as soon as possible because it can take some time to get approved, even if you do everything right. Be sure to answer questions promptly if you’re asked to avoid delays.

Reduce Bills

Those bills are going to keep coming, and you need to do something about them. Some bills you can eliminate, like entertainment bills or subscription services. It’s easy to separate which expenses you need versus what you want. If an item doesn’t keep you alive, then you can eliminate it. The bills you can’t get rid of could be reduced. Call credit card companies and anyone else you need to call to see if you can get your bills reduced. You’ll have to be honest and tell them you lost your job.

Rework the Budget

The reality is you won’t have the same amount of money coming in, so you need to make some changes. After you reduce your bills, create a new budget. You need to include the new healthcare expense in this budget. If you can, leave enough to go into your savings since you may need it. Get stingy with your spending. One way to this would be to avoid eating out for a while and opt for home-cooked meals instead.

Start to Apply

You must start applying for jobs. If it’s been a while since you updated your resume, work on reflecting on your most recent accomplishments. Be sure to clean up your social media accounts because some jobs pay attention to that kind of stuff. Type in your name in a search engine to see what shows up. If there’s anything that doesn’t make you look good, then work on cleaning up your online presence as you begin to apply for a new job.

Gig Economy

The gig economy is here. Since you lost your job, you can join this new world. You don’t know how long it’ll take to find a job, but at least this way, you’ll be earning some cash here and there. There’s a lot you can do, from renting a room to visitors to picking up and delivering food to people in your community. The good thing about these gigs is you can stop the moment a company hires you.

Hopefully, you take these steps as soon as you can. Try to be patient as you look for a job because it can take a while sometimes, but don’t give up.

Guaranteed Ways to Go Broke

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How to Go Broke

If you look, you can find plenty of material about how to create a budget, save for retirement, and live within your means.  What you don’t find are many examples of people doing just that and living a financially solvent life.  On the other hand, you don’t find much material about guaranteed ways to go broke, but you can likely find people from all walks of life who flaunt the steps to going broke.  Ironically, those are often the people of whom we are most envious. [Read more…]