children — 3/5 — Beating Broke

New Addition to the Beating Broke Family

April 28, 2014 By Shane Ede 9 Comments

Things have been a bit hectic around here over the last week or two. We had a baby! Surprise. I seriously realized after she was born that I hadn’t even mentioned the fact that we were expecting on here. I guess when it’s the third child, the excitement level and having to tell the whole world aren’t as high. 🙁 So, sorry about that.

We’re Pregnant!

Better late than never, right? Never mind that it’s close to 11 months later. Our little baby is now a little over a week old. Insert cute picture of infant here:

If there’s one thing that we’ve noticed with the third child is that it’s so much different than the first two. With the first one, we did the typical new parent thing and bought every little gadget and gizmo that all the ads tell you that you need to have. We had so many clothes, diapers, and formula that we could have opened up our own infant store. With the second one, we already had a bunch of the gadgets and furniture, so it was cheaper. Plus, we’d already done this once, and knew what we thought we needed. We only bought the stuff that we thought we needed.

The third child is a totally different thing. We’ve done this a couple times, but the last one was 5 years ago. We’d thrown out most of the furniture, car seats, and most of the toys. We’d also given away most of the other stuff we had. But, instead of going out and immediately re-buying all that stuff again, we did it the cheap way. Some friends of ours recently had a child, so we have borrowed a lot of the gadgets. Car seats, swings, etc all are from them. Another friend of ours recently had a baby that had conveniently just grown out of her newborn clothes. We had an instant closet full of clothes for our baby. There are some other things that we had to go out and buy, but our costs for new things has been pretty minimal.

Of course, there’s no level of borrowing or purchasing that will get us full nights sleep right now. 🙂

Thinking back, we were early to the baby-making game among our friends. Borrowing stuff, and receiving hand-me-downs wasn’t really possible with the first two. I’m glad it is possible here. I highly encourage you to find as much stuff to borrow if you’ve got friends that have kids. And it helps if you’ve got friends that have recently had babies too. Especially when they’re ready to get rid of the boxes of clothes that they’ve gathered.

How do you help make baby cheaper?

Would You Encourage Your Child to Try to Be an Olympic Athlete?

February 19, 2014 By MelissaB 4 Comments

The Olympics have been on for a week now, and across the world, young children are watching and finding themselves thinking of Olympic glory. Every time the Olympics air, young children are inspired. If they’re already in a sport, they may work harder, dreaming of Olympic gold. If they haven’t yet started a sport, they may want to begin to see if they, too, can be like their Olympic idols.

Yet, as parents, should we encourage these dreams?

The Financial Toll of Pursuing an Olympic Dream

Being an Olympian extracts a heavy financial toll on a family, not to mention the time commitment.

Is this a worthwhile dream for our children, or are we setting them up for failure?

When I was young, my teacher was friends with a family whose college-aged son was training to be a speed skater. His family had to hold fund raiser after fund raiser just to pay for his training. Meanwhile, because of the time commitment for training, he was unable to hold a regular job, so he also needed money for living expenses. In the end, he didn’t make it to the Olympics to compete, let alone try for a medal.

Was all that time pursuing his dream a waste of money and time?

The Financial Rewards of Being an Olympian

The glory, the fame, and the money from endorsements are only for those who receive a medal, usually a gold medal. Those who reach this pinnacle can expect a handsome return on their time and money investments. Take Michael Phelps, Olympic swimmer, who is reportedly worth $30 million thanks to endorsement deals. Shaun White, two-time Olympic gold medalist for snowboarding, brings in an estimated $7 million a year in endorsements (The Examiner). Yet, the chance of reaching the pinnacle of your sport is very rare.

Is this a worthwhile dream to pursue?

If an Olympian doesn’t win gold and reap the endorsements, she can often find herself able to create a job as a sports commentator or as a coach. These can be good jobs that keep the athletes in the field they love. But is all the money they spent to train for the Olympics worth the career choice? Can being a coach really help justify the money spent to pursue an Olympic dream?

Many people may argue that the point of the Olympics is not about the finances. The Olympics are about pushing yourself and trying to reach your goals. They’re about training to become the best athlete you can be.

This is a noble goal, but is it worth the expense and sacrifice to family, friends, and athletes?

A Better Way to Pursue an Olympic Dream?

If my child were to express an interest in being a world class athlete, I would encourage him to train as he could when he was young, but the goal for me personally would be for him to receive a full ride athletic scholarship to college. If he could reach his Olympic goals from there, wonderful. If he couldn’t, then at least he would have had the chance to compete at the collegiate level, and he would also have an education.

Would you encourage your child’s Olympic dreams? If so, how?

4 Frugal Ways to Keep Young Kids Busy During Christmas Vacation

December 14, 2013 By MelissaB 13 Comments

During a typical year, children get two weeks off school during Christmas break, often a week or so before Christmas and a week after. However, if Christmas falls on a weekend, and if your school scheduled vacation as my son’s did, you will see kids who don’t get out of school for Christmas vacation until December 23^rd. That leaves them with almost two weeks of vacation AFTER Christmas itself, a time that is pretty low on excitement. (It is so much easier to have a week off before the holiday because there are so many activities for the kids to enjoy.) You could very likely end up with bored children, especially because all of the activities of Christmas are over just a few days into vacation.

However, there are plenty of frugal ways to keep the kids, especially your preschool and elementary school kids, entertained during the Christmas vacation. Consider the following activities:

Have a family play. Take out the dress up box and let the kids come up with a play to perform for the family. If your children are old enough, you can largely stay out of the picture and let them decide on a story, props, stage directions (even if the stage is just your living room). Smaller children may need a bit more direction and assistance from parents. If the kids are stuck for story ideas, they may want to act out what happens in one of their favorite stories.
Check out your local library. Our local library has plenty of activities for kids during the holiday including a movie viewing night, family story hour, and a Lego building activity. In addition to activities, most kids will enjoy spending an hour or two at the library reading books and choosing books to check out to read at home.
Visit a public museum. Many museums put up special holiday displays such as holidays around the world and Christmas decorations throughout the years. Most kids love all of the lights and decorations that go with the holiday, so take the time to visit your local museum and enjoy the display. Afterwards, at night, take the time to drive around and view all of the colorful holiday lights and decorations on neighborhood houses. If you have a house in your area that goes all out with the decorations, make sure to visit that one.
Let kids stay up late. My kids need their sleep and have an early bed time. However, during the holidays, we relax the rules a bit and let them stay up later one or two nights a week. Perhaps they can stay up to watch a favorite show that they normally can’t view because it is past their bedtime or you could play games with them. Either way, they will be delighted to stay up later than they are usually allowed to.

There are simple things you can do to entertain your young children without spending a lot of money. Employ some of these tactics, and you will hopefully avoid the common vacation chant, “Mom, I am bored!”