07.03.08
Posted in Kid's Responsibilities at 9:05 pm by CreditMom
Monday I posted about my twins’ quest to earn money to replace the RockBand drums they broke. They have $36 between them and need roughly $35 more. So, they decided to sell DVDs, video games and CD’s to earn the balance needed. I decided I was not going to remind them about their money making adventure and sit back and see just how motivated they are.
Well, surprise, surprise. Today on their own with no prompting from me, they gathered their items, asked me to make a sign (which I willingly did) and set up a table displaying their items outside our driveway. Since it’s a long holiday weekend I told them it probably wasn’t the best day to sell goods as many people were away and not strolling by as usual. But nevertheless they were determined to get out and sell.
Unfortunately I was correct. The streets were empty and no one stopped by but I told them not to get discouraged, they would have better luck on a non holiday weekend and they should just pack it in for tonight. I worried the lack of business would upset them but in no time they were back to their mischief, as I overheard one of them say in the kitchen, “hey, wanna play catch with this watermelon?”
Well my little bundles of mischief and menace are going to be away in camp for the next couple of weeks but when they return I’m sure they’ll be back out there again and hopefully they’ll have better results. And NO I did not allow them to play catch with a 15 lb watermelon in my kitchen. But I will continue to keep you posted on their countdown to $35.
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07.02.08
Posted in Kid's Responsibilities at 9:13 am by CreditMom
Last week my twins broke their RockBand drums. Since they’re twins we’ll never know who actually did the final damage but I’m used to that, as they have grown up in a world of “we” and “us”. A new replacement set is about $70 and I told them I refuse to pay for it and they would need to buy a new set from their own money or their allowance. I did, however search some of the RockBand posts and found this to be common problem. I mean, come on, they are drums and they are meant to be banged right?
But, nevertheless it’s their game and their responsibility and therefore, their replacement. I must say, they’re pretty resourceful. They searched for replacement drums online and of course came upon Ebay (I know this because one of them said, “Mom, what’s a bid?”). After explaining the bid process I told them the first thing to do is determine how much money they have combined. They got pretty discouraged when the total contents of their wallets came to $36, half of what they need.
It then prompted them to come up with ideas on how to earn the money. The first thing I said was, “how about do your chores so you can get an allowance?” They didn’t like that idea. Oh well, no chores, no allowance. They then decided they would work at Subway making sandwiches. I told them you need to be 16 to work at a store. To that they replied, “but we’re double digits, why can’t we work in a store?” Then they said, “We’ll sell our old sneakers!” I said, “oh sure, they’ll be lining up around the block to buy your dirty smelly sneakers.” They replied, “we’ll put those fabric softener things in them”.
After they told me I was making their lives very difficult, they decided to sell all of their old books, DVD’s, video games and CD’s. I had to coach them a bit on the pricing, as they suggested charging $20 for a 3 year old used video game, but they are determined to sell a bit every day after they return home from camp.
We’ll see how determined they are because I’m not going to push them at all. If they really want those drums, let’s see how creative they get…it’s a good lesson and I’ll keep you posted on their progress!
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06.30.08
Posted in Video Games at 1:29 pm by CreditMom
Wii, Playstation, XBox 360, kids and video games are out of control already - or are they? Video games are more sophisticated and therefore more expensive. The fully loaded average video gaming system can run in the $500 range. The games start at $50, with bundles like Rock Band going for upwards of $150.
Plus it’s an addicting time drain when your kids can be outside playing sports and socializing. But yet, many of us are falling prey. Why?
Well, I certainly do my share of yelling to shut down the video games, put them on timers and play referee to my 3 boys that all want to be on the system at the same time. I also lose my mind when a $50 game gets scratched because they “forgot” to put it back in it’s case or the drums from Rock Band break because they hit them too hard (of course we’ll never know which one of them was the culprit) . But lately I’ve backed down a bit because I must admit many of the games are quite fun, interactive and engage a team (not just solo play) of players at one time.
Take Rock Band or Guitar Hero for instance. My boys love this game, in fact I love it too. To get the most out of these games you need team participation. Believe it or not, there are times my kids actually invite me to do vocals (of course it’s a bit self serving as not one of them can remotely carry a tune, but I really don’t mind at all). Imagine a 14 year old boy “hanging out” with his friends and family? That’s just unheard of right? And the Wii sport games like tennis, golf, boxing and many more actually make them sweat and again, are best played as a team.
And I don’t believe for a minute that a child will use Rock Band as a substitute for playing the real instrument. In fact, in addition to the saxophone and trumpet my kids are now interested in taking drum and guitar lessons.
Of course like anything else video games can be used to excess. But isn’t that true of anything? Our job as parents is to exercise good judgment in the amount of time spent and the type of games played by our children. But I will say, when I have a ton of kids partying with Rock Band in the basement at least I can say I know exactly where my kids are and to me it’s worth the investment, how about you?
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06.21.08
Posted in Kids and Money at 9:50 pm by CreditMom
My 14 year old’s middle school graduation is this week. I don’t know about you but I don’t even remember my middle school graduation and my guess is that’s because there really wasn’t much pomp and circumstance. Well, fast forward a few materialistic decades later and much has changed.
So what does graduation cost in 2008?
- Year Book - $30 (that’s the base price. If you personalize it add $10 - $20 more)
- Cap and Gown - $40
- DVD of the exciting graduation event - $15
- Graduation dinner for family of 5 - $200 (add more if you’re inviting Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Mary and Uncle Lou etc.)
- Graduation Gift for your child – that’s pretty discretionary starting from a $25 American Express gift card a $1400 Mac Notebook (guess the sky is the limit on that one).
- Graduation party 50 – 75 kids (if you’re the sucker that ends up making one) - $1000+.
- Gifts for graduation parties your child attends – here is the real subjective one. After much research I found that 50% of bloggers out there feel your child does NOT need to bring a gift to a graduation party if he or she is graduating as well. However the other 50% feel the opposite and they suggest gifts of either $25 gift cards or a snack for the party. So on this one, let’s say average $25 per party. My son has 4 parties so that’s $100.
- Grand total – about $1400+++
Yes, roughly $1400 to celebrate that your child passed all his classes for 3 years (was there any other option???) and didn’t send you to an early grave as he gracefully glided through puberty. I’m feeling thankful already J
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06.14.08
Posted in Kid's Responsibilities at 11:56 pm by CreditMom
It seems like every day my husband and I are constantly drilling some sort of message about financial and social responsibility into our boys’ heads. It also seems like every day they just don’t get it. They fight, they forget to clean off the table, leave their dirty clothes on the floor, totally decimate a bathroom and ask us to buy them everything they see on TV.
Well tonight was a true test. We had torrential rain and my husband was not home. Our garage flooded all the way up to the door leading into our house. My 14 year old was down the street at a friend’s house and I was home alone with my 10 year old twins. I immediately called him and he came running home. Quickly and without panicking we worked as a team. My older son assumed the lead and heavy job of making multiple trips carrying the wet vac up the driveway to empty it. My younger boys lifted up the drains and grabbed some brooms and started pushing the water outside. In less than an hour the water was gone and the drains that were previously overflowing were clear.
After we cleaned up I told each of them how proud I was. We worked as a team and every one had different and equally good ideas on how to attack the situation. Even more importantly we all listened and respected each other’s ideas - no one fought for once! So what could have been a disastrous situation ended up being a little glitch in the day.
Later on I gave them a little test. Individually, I asked each of them how much money they felt they earned to clean up the garage. My older one immediately said, “nothing”. The twins both hesitated. One of them said, “$20 but it wouldn’t be right to ask for that so I would say $10 and then he said, well, actually nothing.” The other one said, “you owe us a lot but nah, nothing.”
So what’s the moral of the story? Drilling responsibility and kindness into your children is relentless and tiring work. And most times you don’t even get any instant gratification. But tonight we reaped the benefits of our persistent efforts and I must say not only were we proud of our children but we were also proud of ourselves.
Do you have any similar stories to share about your kids? I would love to hear them.
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05.30.08
Posted in Children's ID Theft at 12:51 am by CreditMom
This week, we may have been the victims of identity theft. We are having renovations done in our house which means there are unattended workers during the day. Last night, my 10 year old claimed to have “lost” his phone. Of course I reacted very calmly (NOT!…since it’s not even a month old) while we tore apart every inch of the house. Then, I noticed my Ipod missing from my night table. After that his twin brother noticed his Ipod missing from the computer where he had left it charging. Also missing was my old mobile phone that I left with my boys as a spare.
Of course my first reaction was to blame the kids. After all, their room tends to look like gale force winds passed through it even on a good day so it’s no wonder something could get lost….but 4 things in a row? Something wasn’t right. Well, I’ll never be 100% sure if one of the workers actually stole the items or whether they’ll turn up in a sock drawer, the dog’s crate or even the plumbing for the toilet but what I do know is lost or stolen, there was a ton of personal information on those phones.
So what was on my phone? To start, about 80 or so contact ID’s: names, phone numbers, photo ID’s and email addresses. In addition to that was my call history and uncleared text messages. It gets even better - I thought I was pretty slick and input all of my rewards point programs and passwords into my notepad - wait, it still gets better….I input all of the combination lock codes into the notepad as well. Want a bike? The code is there. My son input his 2 locker numbers and combination codes into his phone. Then there are the pictures…all with clearly labeled file names. Any one can tie the picture back to the contact list. It goes on and on.
As I write this I am beginning to feel more and more violated. If someone wants to they could pretty much piece my family’s life together. Imagine if it was a blackberry? People store physical addresses, activate auto logins to their emails, bank accounts, etc. It’s just endless and we wonder how we become victims of Identity Theft!
Has this ever happened to you? What did you learn from it and how do we protect ourselves and our families?
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05.25.08
Posted in Children's ID Theft at 7:39 am by CreditMom
I have to admit, children’s Identity theft has never been top of mind for me. In fact, when it comes to children related theft the first things that come to my mind are lockers broken into or stolen bicycles. But, kids and ID theft seem to be making the forefront of the news lately.
According to the FTC, 400,000 kids per year have their identity stolen. Who would steal a child’s ID and how would we even know it’s stolen? Unfortunately kids are the best targets for identity theft because their credit is completely clean. A care taker, relative or even a parent is typically the culprit. What’s worse is most times a child doesn’t even know their ID is stolen until they apply for their first car loan or credit card or even a student loan for college. By that time, they might have multiple credit cards with credit lines in the thousands of dollars and they might also be in major debt.
A few tips:
- Don’t carry any social security cards with you
- Beware if your child begins to receive pre approved credit card applications in the mail or cannot open up a checking or savings account
- Also beware if your child is denied car insurance or drivers license renewal
- Teach your kids not to give out their social security number to anyone without your approval and be especially aware of phishing type emails on the internet
So the next time my kids leave the house do I need to make sure they lock up their ID’s as well as their bikes? Has any one’s child ever been the victim of identity theft? Could you please share your experiences and what you have learned so others may take precaution?
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05.13.08
Posted in Kids and Money at 7:23 pm by CreditMom
Yesterday, my 14 year old and I were going shopping. He “needed” new sneakers. Of course the ones he “needed” were never destined for the sale rack. In fact, the ones he “needed” were full priced at $99.99. It took less than a minute for those $100 shoes to draw him in, like an addict in search of his fix. As he embraced those sneakers like a new puppy, he looked at me and said, “$100? That’s not bad.” And my response was, “$100? Are you kidding!!???”
So where is the problem here? Well, first, my son needs a job! Second, $100 isn’t much when it doesn’t come out of your own pocket! And third, children need to start understanding financial responsibility at a young age.
Even at 2 years old, a child can be rewarded for simple chores. As children get older, give them numerous responsibilities and credit them with allowance when the chores are completed. To make them even more independent, only offer allowance when the chores are completed without prompting or nagging. This comes in handy when you’re tired of hearing your own voice over and over again.
So did he get the sneakers? Yes he did, BUT he got them on the condition that half of the money came from his allowance. To put it in perspective it took him 5 weeks to earn those sneakers but as long as my child is holding up his end of the bargain I don’t mind meeting him halfway.
What do you think? Should I have met him halfway or should I have waited until he had the $100 on his own? Or, should I have just said NO to the $100 sneakers!?
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