Monday Q&A | Food Waste, Emergency Savings, and Homeschooling
Question number one is from Jessica:
The question I have is about food waste posting. What do you consider waste? I mean if I bought it last week and it's not gone bad, and I still plan to eat it, that shouldn't count, right? It's just all the things that did go bad, or couldn't be used that you clean out on Friday. So you clean out the fridge, take a picture and blog about what went bad?
Yep, basically that's it. If something is in my fridge and it's still edible or I still plan on using it, I don't count that as waste. It's just stuff that has actually gone bad, no matter when it was purchased.
I also don't count miniscule amounts of waste...for instance, if there's a bad spot in an apple, I just cut the bad spot off and use the rest of the apple, and I don't bother taking a picture of the bit I cut off. Or if one grape tomato goes bad prematurely, I don't count that either.
The copious amounts of waste I used to have weren't from one bad grape tomato or a bad spot in an apple...that waste came from containers of food in my fridge and freezer that I just never got around to using. That's the bad habit I was trying to conquer, and so I don't feel particularly compelled to report a teaspoon of apple waste. 😉
Some readers have suggested that I not count compostable food waste, but I prefer to be harder on myself than that. If the food was edible at one point, I count it as waste even if I can compost it(remember my orange from a couple of weeks ago?)
This one is from Jessica too.
How do you handle BIG expenses? I'm finding that we are just constantly paying toward medical debt and it's the main financial thing that stresses me out.
The main way we deal with stuff like this is through an emergency savings account. While we've never managed to amass large amounts of cash in the bank, we have always had a savings account to use for unexpected expenses. While we haven't had terrible medical bills, we have had situations that required a lot of cash all at once(like when our heat pump suddenly died and we needed $4000 to buy a new one), and our emergency savings account was a godsend.
I haven't ever read a personal finance book, but I know that a lot of the financial gurus out there recommend saving $1000 in an emergency savings account first(while making minimum payments on your debt), and then working on paying down your debt. That doesn't make a lot of sense numbers-wise(it would make more sense to pay off the interest-laden debt), but I think the goal there is to change your habits. You want to get used to paying for unexpected situations with cash savings instead of with a credit card
While I don't know the details of your particular situation, I do want to enourage you to think that saving(and paying off debt) is possible! We've never had a particularly high income over the 11 years we've been married, but by spending carefully, we've always been able to squirrel away a little bit of money each month for an emergency savings.
From Elizabeth: Do you use homeschooling materials with a specifically Christian focus or a more secular or neutral focus, and how did you choose?
That depends on the subject...for things like math or handwriting, I don't feel like it's especially necessary to have a Christian textbook, but for subjects like reading or science, I like to use Christian books.
I don't use one particular curriculum; we use sort of an eclectic mix of books! For example, I use Saxon Math and Handwriting without Tears, I do my own thing with phonics(I'll post about that at some point, maybe in the fall), and I use Bob Jones science books, supplemented with lots of library material.
I chose books based on the recommendations of others and also based on my own homeschooling years as a student(I thought Saxon was the best math book I ever used, and on the flip side, I thought A Beka science and history books were the most boring books known to man).
I hope to get some posts written about homeschooling on the cheap...maybe I'll have time this summer when I'm not actually homeschooling!
Long time reader, first time commenter!
My daughter is almost 3 now and DH and I are seriously starting to think about schooling options for our little girl. I would like to home-school her but DH has shown me lots of studies etc which conclude that home-schooled children are not particularly socially adept nor excel at studies. I would love to get your opinion on this given your knowledge and experience. Thanks Kristen!
Jess-I'm glad you delurked! lol Check out this study done on homeschool graduates: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1c/1c/bb.pdf
I've never seen any studies of the sort your husband has shown you...could you provide me with some links? I'd be interested in looking at those studies. Everything I've seen has indicated that homeschool graduates do just as well or better than their counterparts that attended traditional school.
Of course, there are some homeschool graduates who are geeky and socially inept, but as you know, there are also public school graduates who are geeky and socially inept!
Anecdotally, my siblings and I(we were all homeschooled) are all married, have families, and hold good jobs. My brother-in-law(also homeschooled) went to Virginia Tech and now owns his own computer consulting business that services government contracts, my brother manages IT for all the McDonalds stores on the east coast, my sister is a critical care nurse, my other brother has his degree in business managment, and I got 4.0s in every single one of my college classes. None of us have had social issues in college or in our workplaces, and we all have plenty of friends.
I know you don't know me in real life, but I'm very not socially inhibited! lol
Not to make this an entire post, but the socialization you get in schools is quite an artificial environment. Once you graduate, you'll never spend 6 hours a day with 30 other people your own age. Homeschooled children get exposed to people of all difference ages, both in their families and as they go out and about with their moms(at the grocery store, doctor's office, playground, etc.).
Then there is the fact that the "socialization" that occurs at school often comes in the form of bullying and peer pressure. Plus, didn't your teachers always tell you you weren't at school to socialize? 😉
Anyways, go check out the link-perhaps it will make your husband feel better! I'm not worried in the SLIGHTEST that my children will be socially inept as a result of homeschooling...I think they'll be confident, well-educated individuals. 🙂
I'm new to the idea of homeschooling... We're considering trying it when our son is preschool age. (He's only 5 months old now!) May I ask why you don't homeschool during the summer? How old were your kids when you started homeschooling them? Thanks!
@Jess - For another perspective on the socialization of homeschoolers:
I was not homeschooled. I attended public school from K-12 and spent a lot of time bored out of my skull and graduated in the top 25 of a class of 400. I went on to a very good university (something like 1/3 of the students had been valedictorians at their high schools), where I met some homeschoolers for the first time. None of the students I met had any socialization issues. I had two very good friends in college who were homeschooled. One went on to become a computer programmer (computer science degree) after having taught herself calculus out of a textbook during her homeschooling experience. The other friend worked as a biochemist for a few years before her first child came along (she got married shortly after we all graduated). Out of the dozen homeschooled adults I've known in my life, only one had socialization issues, and that had more to do with the fact that his family lived on a tiny farm in the middle of nowhere in Ohio, so there weren't many people to socialize with, other than his siblings. Given his geekiness, I honestly think public school would have harmed his social development because of all the teasing he most likely would have endured, being so different from his peers. However, after a few years in college, he definitely adapted, is now married and working as a computer tech.
My husband and I are seriously considering homeschooling our son and future children. He is 9 months old right now, though, so we have 4 years to decide!
Ack, the "what about socializing?" question drives me nuts (I get it from my family and in-laws) so I have to comment. Our son is 7, he was in a specialized (gifted) private school for kindergarten and 1st grade, and I pulled him out of 2nd grade after one month because he was miserable. He is very sensitive, very un-hip, more innocent and not materialistic like the kids he encountered at school. He's always liked playing with boys or girls, and with younger kids. The boys made fun of him for playing with girls and "babies". They bullied him because he had issues with the dirty and disgusting bathroom, and one kid told my son he didn't want to be friends because my son didn't know 100 Pokemon characters. The boys all were physically rough with each other and mostly talked only about video games and how many systems they all owned. (Most had 3 - 4 different video game systems, we have none.) So in my opinion, the socialization kids get at school is mostly negative. My son is gentle and sweet and we got him out in time, because he's not afraid to hold my hand or kiss me in public, they hadn't yet convinced him that was not cool. The other kids, at ages 7 and 8, were already acting like preteens/teens and were turning away from their parents. And as far as class time went, the teacher and the other kids convinced him that he's not good at math. (He was great at math in preschool.) He was intimidated by the other kids and started to feel that he wasn't smart. Now that he's home, and not comparing himself to anyone else, he's feeling much more confident. He's able to study whatever he's interested in (we're unschooling and "deschooling" at the moment and letting him get his natural curiosity back after being spoon fed for 2 years) and has developed an interest in Romans, Incans, Aztecs, etc. I sneak as much math in as I can, and he loves science, so we look up whatever interests him. I highly recommend homeschooling! I feel like it has saved my sensitive son's life!
p.s. Also, most kids, homeschooled or not, spend time in classes, sports, or religious services with other kids. That counts as socialization time! Or, just take your kid to the park and let him/her play with whoever is around. That counts, too. But if you homeschool, you know the majority of the time, they are with you and absorbing the values and world view of your own family, and that the messages they receive about themselves will be positive ones.
Thanks for the chance to rant, Kristen! :-), hope you don't mind.
De-cloaking here to put in my two cents' worth on homeschooling. I homeschooled my son all the way through. He's in his second year of college and is a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the two year college equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa. He has friends, is well-rounded and is on the vestry at our church.
Homeschool is what you make it. Not what statistics say it is. We used an eclectic curriculum and a lot of delight-directed learning. My focus was on teaching him how to learn, not spoon-feeding him facts.
I think because he wasn't peer-segregated, he's able to get along with his classmates better, since they range from younger than him to older than me.
Going back to lurking status again....
Rachel-we take a break in the summer because all of us can use one! I need some downtime, and we like to have time to go swimming and run around outside, and just do fun stuff. I was homeschooled and we always took a summer break, so that's what I'm used to.
We do still read books and watch nature DVDs and do that sort of thing during the summer-we just don't do formal bookwork. I think that time to play is fairly important for children too, though.
Julia-rant all you want! Having been homeschooled myself, I've encountered the socialization question more times than I could possibly count. lol You made a point I forgot to make, which is that homeschoolers DO socialize with other kids at church, at the park, in the neighborhood and so on. and I also agree that a LOT of the socialization at school is negative.
Kathy-you should stay de-lurked! I love it when readers comment. 🙂 I had no trouble making friends at college either...I had friends in all of my classes, I worked in groups, and I had no difficulty handling the switch to a classroom environment.
And a big "Amen!" on teaching kids HOW to learn. I know how to teach myself how to do things, and that has helped me so, so much in college and in my adult life.
Hey Kristen 🙂
We lived in Southern California when K & R were born. I absolutely planned on homeschooling them. The area we lived in was beautiful, but the schools were just downright awful.
After what we've been through with R, I can positively say that if I could do it over again (and sadly, I cannot), I would have homeschooled.
I wish I had been homeschooled. I was so incredibly bored in K-12. Unfortunately my parents didn't make a heck of a lot (ironically they work for the school system.)
I graduated HS geeky and socially inept (nothing wrong with being Geeky, mind you) but after college I was fine. I never did the wild college thing either so I guess I'm the statistic that falls on the edge of the bell curve.