Monday Q&A-Menu Planning, Learning to Read, and Gobs of Money!
First, several people have recently emailed me to ask for advice on planning a menu. I wrote a post on this topic a while back and you can find that post right here.
Lauren sent this question.
How have you gone about teaching your children to read? Do you use any specific books or materials?
Here's a post about the way that I do kindergarten for cheap (I'm doing K for the third time this fall), so look for more details on this subject then.
Basically, though, we use homemade flashcards to learn all the letter sounds, and then we use some very, very easy reading books to start putting the letter sounds together. After we've worked through the easy readers that I own, we get I Can Read type books from the library and practice with those.
An official learn-to-read program has not been necessary for my children, at least so far. My older two have picked up on it very quickly using this method, and I'm hoping for the same good results with Sonia this year.
WilliamB sent me this very interesting question.
If you suddenly had gobs of money (you inherited $5 million, or your husband's salary increased 10x, or whatever formulation works for you), what would you do differently?
This was a really fun question to think about, and I've been pondering it over the last few days. My husband and I chatted about it over dinner the other night too, and we were pretty much entirely on the same page.
When I think about having a lot of money, the first thing that comes to mind is something like, "Oh, I could save so much money!", not "Ooooh, think of all the things I could buy!".
With some exceptions that I'll list later, I think we'd mostly continue to maintain our current spending habits so that we could use all the excess money for other purposes.
Here are some of the things we'd do with the excess, in no particular order.
1) I would put a bunch of money into our retirement fund.
2) I'd generously pad our kids' college savings funds.
3) I'd put away enough cash to replace my van when it dies. I have a Toyota van which should give us another 100K miles, but I would feel happy knowing the cash was there to replace it when necessary.
4) I'd buy a commuting car for my husband with cash. He currently drives a pickup truck that has a really bumpy ride, and I'd love to be able to buy him something more comfortable.
5) I'd pay off our house, and possibly consider buying one that I like better (I'm really not a fan of split-foyers!). I wouldn't want something huge for several reasons, but I'd love to have a colonial style or really any style other than a split-foyer. 😉 I am thankful for our house, of course, but given my druthers, I would own a different type.
Here are a few lifestyle changes that I would make if our income went up.
1) I'd buy more organic and locally grown food. I think that this is something that's very worth spending money on because it's healthier for our bodies, healthier for our planet, and good for the local economy. I'd much rather have my dollars go towards local food than towards more consumer goods or more entertainment.
2) I would give more money away. Right now we give 10% of our income to our church and we give a small monthly donation to Living Water International, but we can't afford much more than that. If we suddenly had more money, we would love to be able to support more worthy causes and to be able to help people in need.
3) I would spend more money on babysitting/date nights. My husband and I love to go out by ourselves, but date nights don't happen as often as we'd like them to because of the cost. I know that if we had more money, we'd both feel like spending a little more in this area would be a good investment into our relationship. We'd still keep our dates simple and inexpensive, but we'd be able to afford them a little more often.
4) I might spend a bit more on heating our house. I wouldn't go crazy and keep the house at 75 all winter, but I would certainly consider bumping it up to 68-70 degrees instead of 65.
I would still do most of the frugal things that I currently do, though. I'd continue to cook from scratch, bake my own bread, shop at Goodwill, give and receive things from Freecycle, keep an eye out for clearances, buy used schoolbooks, drink tap water instead of bottled water, and pack my husband's lunch, among other things.
I'd do this partly just because I'd like to keep that extra money around and partly because for every frugal thing that I do, there are usually some other benefits attached.
For instance, baking my own bread saves us money, but it also gives us tastier bread.
Tap water is cheaper than bottled, but it also produces less trash.
Used purchases are generally cheaper than new ones, but buying used keeps goods out of the landfill and reduces the demand for new products.
Cooking from scratch reduces my grocery bill, but it also requires less packaging and generally provides us with healthier food than we'd get if I used more processed foods.
So, that's what I'd do if I were rich.
Would you hire some services done, like housecleaning or lawn or tax prep? Whatever it is that you don't like doing. (Actually, if this did happen to you, you'd better get good tax advice. H&R Block won't cut it.)
One thing that always sticks in my mind, whether I'm doing something myself or hiring it done, is the employment effect. If I do it myself, someone else can't earn a living doing it for me.
This was brought forcibly to mind one day with chatting with an Indian colleague. He mentioned that back home, if a family can afford to have tasks hired out they're almost obligated to do so. If they don't, they're depriving the poor classes of a chance to earn money and be productive.
I don't know...my gut reaction is mostly no. I don't really want someone else to clean my house, for instance! lol
We would probably hire out for some stuff we hate doing, like home renovations and such.
Whereas I love having someone clean my house - it's the first thing I hired done when I started earning more than I needed for daily living - and would like to learn how to improve my home. Ideally I'd like to learn while helping someone else with his house so I don't mess up my own!
I know how to paint and spackle and do a number of other things, but I just don't enjoy it! Well, painting isn't so bad...but most other stuff I hate. I loathe spackling and esp. sanding spackle.
I'd much, much rather clean my house! lol
I love the second to last paragraph. I think that sort of conciousness of the ripple effect of our actions is so important!
GREAT post! And interesting question.
Many of my answers would be the same as yours. I would pad all savings and retirement accounts, and give much more to charity. We don't have kids, so next we would contribute to our niece and nephew's college funds, and I would probably find a way to give some money to my brothers without making it seem like charity. I would love to do something really special for my parents, maybe a great big party with all their old friends. And then a great trip for us, and a vacation fund. I love to travel!
As far as day-to-day lifestyle, pretty much the same. I would add a once-a-month massage and a once-a-month cleaning of the house. Oh, and definitely hire more renovation/repair people so my husband doesn't have to work so hard!
It's fun to think about. Even though the chances are practically nill, it lets you know where your priorities are.
I loved the question at the end....I think we would do about all the same things.
I would love a bigger house, but along with that I would love more kids...adoption costs are so outrageous that we would get as many as we could from Haiti (our favorite mission field, my husband goes every Februaury) and rejoice!
Thanks for letting me dream for a minute!
I also home school and we us "Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy lessons" You can buy it from CBD for around $20. I have used it for my first 2 children and it worked great. I was very worried about having children who were good readers b/c I have no training in teaching and I was not home schooled.
My daughter will be in 3rd grade this year and read Little Woman on her own this summer for fun.
Brian and I have discussed this exact question! The major differences in our list from yours is that we'd like to pay off our parents' mortgages for them, and pay to have some repairs done to their houses. Our parents are responsible people, and doing something like that would free them up to save more for retirement or possibly retire early (they're not the types to suddenly go on spending sprees because they have no mortgage) and there is a tangible benefit for us - parents in stable housing as they approach retirement makes them more secure, which in turn makes life more secure for us kids.
The other thing I would definitely do, after making sure my own kids' college expenses are taken care of, is to set up a scholarship fund for kids in our community to attend community college. There aren't many scholarships available for community college kids, and there aren't many gov't loans or grants, either, yet it is the community college kids who become our welders, carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, etc. By creating a community college scholarship fund, we pay to keep our community supplied with the support personnel that keep things functioning.
Jessica- Little Women was one of my first and favorite books. I read it about that age.
Kristen- I got all caught up in the last question, and forgot to say that I learned how to read from the Dr. Seuss books. Just having them around made it fun to read, instead of seeming like "school" or a "chore." They're so inventive, and funny.
My mom used "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" when she taught me to read! I loved it. After I read each story correctly, my mom let me color in the accompanying picture. It was a fun incentive. I'm an avid reader now, but hated learning!
Kristen, I definitely agree with you about buying more local, sustainable food. My husband and I do that where we can (all of our meat, eggs, milk, and butter, and as much produce as possible), but it can get prohibitively expensive (cheese and cream are particularly pricey) even just for the two of us. I can't imagine how much it would cost for a larger family.
Hmm, I'm suddenly rich, am I? Whoo-hoo! I would definitely increase my charity donations by a ton and especially to our favorite charity, our local food bank. I can't stand the idea of kids going to bed hungry. I would start my own retirement fund again (for the first time since I worked before my son was born) and put as much as I could per year in my son's college fund. Then, I'd love to take my family to Europe and show my son my favorite places, introduce him to my cousins, take him to art, science and history museums and let him see a real castle or five. Also he really wants to go to Rome and see the Colisseum. That would be the ultimate homeschool, eh? I'd also start up date night (we've never had a date night) and would let my son attend every darn summer science camp he could find. Lastly, I'd make my husband take a sabbatical so that he could enjoy life with us while our son is still young and not have to work so hard.
Sheesh, how could I forget: I'd build my green dream home with a huge fenced yard with play area for the kid! Big kitchen! Big pantry! Hot tub! Wait, those aren't very green. Solar powered hot tub! And a library filled with books.
I would donate the vast majority to a charity I believe in. I already live very happily and contently, I don't need more money 🙂
I think what is interesting about your comment on how your kids learnt to read is that YOU appear relaxed about it. Children are very adept at picking up subliminal clues from their caregivers. If you are stressed about teaching your child to read they will pick up on this and perceive that it is hard. Make reading and learning to read a pleasurable and fun experience - after all that is the intended output of learning to read - for pleasure and fun.