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Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

5 Best Subscription Gifts for Kids

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It’s Christmas morning.  Your kids excitedly rip open their presents, and all day long, you can barely pull them away from their new toys.  If you’re lucky, the excitement lasts a week or two.  But then, unfortunately, the new toys lose their appeal and luster.

Does this sound familiar?

If you want to avoid the kind of gifts that quickly lose their luster, consider giving your child a monthly subscription present.  Then, the joy of Christmas lasts all year long as each month your child will get a new surprise gift!

Here are some you may want to consider:

Surprise Ride

best subscription gifts for kids
Subscription Gifts for Kids

If you have kids who love books and crafts, this may be the subscription service for you (and them)!  Each Surprise Ride box includes two activities, a book and a snack, and extras.  A recent Surprise Ride with a polar bears theme included the supplies to make a polar bear habitat and a polar bear coaster, a Magic Treehouse polar bear book and ice cream snack, and polar bear bracelet and snowflake game. All activities are designed for kids 5 and up.  You can get the monthly subscription or pay for 6 months upfront for a $40 savings, or 12 months upfront for a $60 savings.

Foodstirs

Perfect for your little food enthusiast, aged 5 to 12 years.  Each month, Foodstirs will send a kit to bake a sweet treat.  The ingredients are organic and do not contain artificial dyes or flavors.  Some kits available at the holiday season include the Very Merry Gingerbread Cookie Kit and Holiday Tree Brownie Kit.  Kits are shipped for free, and when you subscribe for a 3, 6, or 12 month box, you can receive up to 28% off the retail price.

Pley

How much fun would it be to get a new toy to play with every month?  That’s the premise behind Pley.  You choose a toy for your child from 500+ toys available for children from 0-12 years old.  Your child plays with the toy for a month; then you send it back and get a new one!  Avoid toy clutter in your home, and your child won’t bore of his toys!

Little Passports

Little Passports offers four different subscriptions: Early Explorers (ages 3 to 5), World Edition (ages 6 to 10), USA Edition (ages 7 to 12), and Science Expeditions (ages 9+).  The first three subscriptions focus on geography, and the latter on science.  The geography subscriptions include stickers for your child’s passport, souvenirs, photos, letters from the travelers, and online games.  Subscriptions are available for a variety of months and are cheaper when you commit to a 12 month subscription.

Kiwi Crate

Kiwi Crate offers monthly subscriptions for five levels, from ages 0 to 16.  Choose the crate that you would like.  For instance, in the Doodle Crate, for ages 9 to 16, your child can learn how and build their own clock with the supplies given!  A Tinker Crate for ages 9 to 16 offers a STEM project like creating a hydraulic claw.  Kiwi Crate offers subscriptions monthly, for 3 months, for 6 months, and for 12 months again, with the biggest discount going to the longest subscription.

Do your kids subscribe to any subscription services?  If so, which one is your favorite?

Celebrate a Frugal Valentine’s Day with Kids

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Valentine’s Day is typically an adult holiday, but kids like to get in on the action by exchanging Valentine’s Day cards and candy with friends.  As their parent, you can also make Valentine’s Day a special holiday for kids.  Best of all, having a fun, memorable Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to cost a lot with these strategies.

Make Valentine’s Day Food

There is so much fun you could have with this one!  For a sophisticated experience, you could melt chocolate and let your kids enjoy chocolate fondue.  Even better if you have the melting pot and metal skewers.  They’ll have fun dipping soft bread and fruits in the chocolate.

Another option is to make Valentine’s Day food.  One year, the kids and I made a heart-shaped cake.  Other ideas might be making heart-shaped pancakes or cookies.  Be creative, and with the help of Pinterest, you won’t be lacking for ideas.

Frugal Valentine's Day with Kids

Make Valentine’s Day Decorations

A few days before Valentine’s Day, prepare your house.  Cut out hearts from construction paper and string them together to make garland.  Drape them around your mantle, your windows, or your door way.

Another simple idea is to get gel clings at the 99 Cent Store or the discount section of Target and decorate the windows with those.  Or, take pink, white, and red pieces of tissue paper and cut them out in heart shapes to tape to your window.

Pamper Your Girls

If you have younger girls, they’ll love getting a spa-like experience from mom.  Paint their toenails and their fingernails.  Do their hair in a pretty, elaborate style.  Go all out.  They’ll definitely remember the day.

Watch a Movie Together

There are plenty of cute Valentine’s Day shows for kids.  Take the time to watch one together.  Some fun selections could be Lady and the Tramp, Beauty and the Beast, Shrek, Enchanted, WALL-E, Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, or The Princess Bride.

Have a Fancy Dinner Together at Home

Too often we’re busy, so meals simply become whatever we can throw together quickly.  For Valentine’s Day, take the time to make something your kids love but don’t get very often.  I used to love lasagna, but my mom thought it was too much work and would only make it for my birthday.  I would have been thrilled to get it for Valentine’s Day.  Get your kids’ input for a meal that they would love to have you prepare.  What better way to show your love for them?

Give Them a Little Goody Basket

You don’t have to go overboard with the sweets on Valentine’s Day, but give them a little goody bag of their favorite treats, like candy hearts, and Hershey’s kisses.  Even more fun, turn the search for the goody bag into a scavenger hunt complete with clues.

Make Valentine’s Day Crafts Together

Pinterest to the rescue again!  Some fun ideas include making Valentine’s Day book-markers.  Simply get a paint sample strip in shades of red or pink and cut out a heart in each color.  Add a string at the top, and voila, you have a book marker.

Another cute idea is making a heart-shaped bird feeder to hang in the tree.

With a little creativity, you can design a Valentine’s Day your children will love.  Even better, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune!

What are your favorite ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your kids?

 

Do Your Kids Do Chores?

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I recently saw an article on Yahoo! that said only 28% of today’s kids do chores versus 82% of kids from our generation.

I don’t know about you, but I had chores when I was growing up.  I took care of our pets, washed the dishes, and helped clean the house ALL day on Saturdays.  (I still have nightmares about cleaning each and every slat on our huge stereo.)

My kids are definitely part of the 28% of today’s kids who have chores.  My 10 year old is responsible for doing three chores a day including things like vacuuming the living room or his bedroom, emptying the dishwasher, and cleaning the bathroom.  My younger kids are 6 and 5, and they’re responsible for two chores a day including picking up their toys, cleaning their rooms, putting away clean clothes, and feeding the cat.

Kids do ChoresWe have our kids do chores because we want them to learn to be self-sufficient, and we want them to understand that there are not always people there to do things for them.  I plan to work with my oldest this summer to teach him how to prepare some basic meals.

Repercussions for Kids Who Don’t Do Chores

But what about the other 72% of kids who don’t do chores?

One of my friends had surgery recently, and she had trouble getting up to prepare her food.  Her boys are 17 and 13, but neither of them could make her anything while her husband was at work because they hadn’t yet learned to cook.  Her son had to go to the store to buy some frozen meals for her.

And herein lies the problem.  “Too often children leave home for college unable to look after themselves adequately.  They have to rely on junk food or expensive ready-made meals” (Yahoo!).

If your children do not have the most basic of skills to care for themselves, when they’re adults their lack of skills can cost them a small fortune.  You likely know of people who don’t know how to cook, so instead they fill their grocery carts with frozen meals or go out to eat every night.

Even worse, your adult child may be so cozy at home that he never leaves!

Parents Sacrifice Now So Greater Rewards Can Come Later

My guess is that many parents don’t give their children chores because training them to do chores properly takes time, sometimes a few weeks to a few months.  It can be a painful process.

Gina Gardiner, author of the Yahoo! article, states, “Many parents I believe are suffering from the ‘It’s quicker, easier and less hassle to do it yourself syndrome.’ Of course, it takes time to teach children how to do chores and a real commitment to motivate children to do the chores and understand why it’s important—but it is well worth the investment.”

I know that is why I have neglected to teach my oldest to cook and why I’m waiting to do so until the summer when we’ll have more time.  Teaching him to cook will require patience on my end (and perhaps his, too), but it will be well worth the time and effort.

Do you require your children to do chores?  If you don’t, why not?