The value of a penny

August 20, 2009 by Momstart 2 Comments

You know the saying, “a penny saved is a penny earned” well over and over I hear that pennies now have no value. Will our children even use coins or cash. So often now I find myself just using a debit, or credit card to pay for anything and everything. My 2 year old already knows what the plastic is for. So how do we go about teaching our children how to save money?

Teaching my children now would be just in using toys, or most would think that only the pretend cash register and coins can teach them about money but I would have to say that you are wrong.

My kids are already learning the value of paper and saving change here and there. Every Sunday, I have to go get a paper. My daughter knows this. So I take her with me. We drive over to Albertsons and buy a paper on Sundays. Then I clip coupons.

You might give me an excuse and say that, I have to wait until the kids are napping or in bed. I know how children love to be under foot or want to be held when I’m not giving them my undivided attention? So the trick is to GET THEM INVOLVED.

By letting my kids look at all of the ads I can sit at the kitchen table and get my coupons clipped. They feel like they are helping because I let them look at the ads. It’s also a great way for a toddler to look at the pictures and identify the grocery list. They know which products you purchase every time you go to the grocery store.

Milk
Cheese
Bread
Fruit
Veggies
Pop Tarts

These are things my daughter looks for. Yes, she’s only two but she can find these things in the ad. Then we search for matching coupons to go with the sale ads that she identified by looking at the pictures.

I’m not saying this magic happens all the time but it does happen and it saves me time, and we’re doing something together. Even my son likes to look, he still eats and destroys but he’s growing up quickly. By doing this with my daughter, one of her first words was coupon and she likes to carry the coupons that she wants to use. Her favorites used to be for Gerber products, now they are for purple products.

All of this can be applied to going back to school and letting your children pick out what they need and finding the best sales in the Sunday paper or on-line.

This post was written in participation with Parent Bloggers Network with Capital One to get the word out about the talking to kids about budgeting and finances. Capital One and national consumer advocacy group Consumer Action sponsor the Moneywi$e eLearning tool, which includes a section all about talking to kids about money. Plus, check out @TeachingMoney on Twitter to get bite-sized family-focused financial tips.

Capital One wants to help you teach your children to save.

Looking through

May 20, 2009 by MomStart 2 Comments

PBN Blog Blast – Windex Sponsors “Great Views”

I love to participate in the Blog Blasts hosted by PBN on Fridays. It’s not every week but I have gotten a lot of free products to try and won some contests on their site.

This week the sponsor is Windex Outdoor All-In-One.

What can you win?
We’ve got a $250 VISA gift card to award at random, plus a Windex Outdoor All-in-One starter kit for the first 20 bloggers to send us a link to their post.

NO PRE-SCHEDULED POSTS. You’ve got to publish your post, copy and paste your permalink, and email it to us – anytime after 12:01am ET on Friday, May 15. Placement in the first twenty bloggers will be based on the order in which we receive your emails, not the date/time stamp on your posts.

My View:

When I first saw this request I thought, OMG. I have been some absolutely fabulous places. I have been in France and seen the best castles. I have seen the prettiest country sides. I have been to the Redwood Forest. I spent some time in London. California is beautiful and the Golden Gate Bridge is quite a site from the viewing.

But nothing compares to what I witnessed this weekend.

Looking through my eyes I saw my amazing children last week. I saw how much my husband and I have taught them to love and have fun. Their grandparents came up for a visit last week. My children latched on and to see them have fun and fall in love with their grandparents was amazing. My heart was filled with so much joy.

My dad and stepmother (second mother I should say) came up and baby sat them for one night. My husband and I were able to sneak off for a night alone. Something I have not experienced since I gave birth to my daughter Jan 3 2007. My one night off from her was to give birth to her brother on March 19 2008. Having that little break made me refreshed. I’m happy again and feel like I can go another year without a break. I love being a mom and my kids are the best view I have.

My children smile a lot, and so do I. How can you not smile when you are around such creativity and energy.They have so much more love in them and I could have ever imagined. Well, I can go on and on about my view. 😉

Thanks to my Mom

May 7, 2009 by MomStart 4 Comments

Thanks to my mom I am only 5 ft 6, I need glasses and I have a gap in my teeth. Thinking about what my mother gave me is hard because I have two moms. No, my moms aren’t gay, my parents go a divorce when I was two or three and my dad re-married.

My birth mother gave me my looks and sometimes crazy desires to do wild things without thinking them through. (I don’t have these urges very often especially now that I’m married and have my own children). When I was in high school and in college I would just drive to some destination with my best friend sitting beside me and we would go have some fun. Once we ended up in New Orleans, another time we were in Deep Elem.

My stepmom (I hate that word it has such a negative connotation to it.) gave me my motherly instincts and strength. I learned from her how to run a house. Women really are the ones that take care of the kids, keep the budget, and serve the meals. We do it all.

This blog blast was written in participation with JOHNSON’S® Brand and the Parent Bloggers Network. JOHNSON’s second annual Celebrity Hand Me Down charity auction runs from 7 pm PT on Thursday May 7 through 7 pm PT on Thursday May 14, featuring items donated by celebrity moms Gwyneth Paltrow and Jessica Alba. All proceeds will benefit the new global JOHNSON’S® NO MORE TEARS® Clean Water initiative via their well-known charitable giving site, Baby Cause.

Discovering Shadows

March 13, 2009 by Momstart Leave a Comment

Getting my kids to sleep through the night was a hard process that we did early. As soon as my kids did it once on their own, I made them do it every night. I should start with my daughter since I haven’t noticed this in my son, he is fearless so far.

After my daughter slept through the night, something would wake her up and I would go in her room to comfort her and I could tell that once I was in there holding her she was shaking. She was scared. I wasn’t sure what this was all about, until I looked around the room. My shadow was bouncing on all the walls as I was holding her and she could see it. She was afraid of my shadow. I tried to explain it to her what it was, but it was in the middle of the night and she was tired and scared. I put her back down and she would fall back asleep on her own.

Her daddy was playing with her shortly after this and they were in the hallway and she saw her shadow and she pointed at it and said wastat? Her daddy explained to her that was her shadow and she gave it a kiss. It is a sweet memory for me and her dad. She must have remembered that because she doesn’t wake up afraid of the shadows in her room.

I know she is still young and my son is really young, so we have some time and lots of things and reasons will come up for wanting to get out of bed at night. I just wanted to share this with you and enter the PBN Blog Blast for the week. The prize is 200.00 worth of Sylvania products.

You can win to by posting your own story about sleeping through the night.