It’s amazing to me how often one part of my life is in opposition to other parts.

Last Thursday, for example, my wife stayed home with our daughter to take her to her eighteen month checkup at the doctor. I had a lot of work to do, so I went into my office, closed the door, and got to work.

After a few hours, though, I heard my daughter in the hallway. She was standing just outside the door and, quite loudly, she said “Daddy?”

My instinct, right then, was to run out in the hallway, sweep my daughter into my arms, and go play with her in the family room for an hour, reading her books and wrestling with her and playing “ring around the rosy” with her.

But right in front of me sat several work tasks, things I needed to get done. I had posts for this site that needed written. I had a contract revision that had to get printed, signed, and faxed. I had a freelance article that needed mailed. And I had fully intended to do some reading and research.

If I chose the work, I’d get the things done that I needed to do to pay the bills. I’d keep my readers happy and my publishers happy. I’d also have less on my plate to worry about for future work.

At the same time, my daughter would sadly wander away from the door, wondering why her daddy didn’t play with her. Likely she would forget it shortly, but if I make the work choice too often, it begins to establish a pattern in her mind.

On the other hand, I could let the work sit and go play with my daughter. That would be the most fun choice and it would reinforce the great bond I have not only with my daughter but with my wife. Later, though, I’d be faced with a mountain of work that would have to be dealt with – or I’d let someone seriously down.

I wound up choosing my daughter, but it wasn’t an easy choice and it left me staying up very late working on things – and left me exhausted the next day.

Why did I make that choice? I realized the reason I was working at home was so that I could spend that quality time with my family. I could have very easily made the wrong choice here, choosing work over family, but in the end, making that choice would have undone the synergy in my life.

I chose lower income and a more flexible schedule so that I could spend more time with my family. Thus, when I have a choice between work and family, the choice should be easy. Family wins. My life has synergy – everything points towards quality time with my family. Work serves to support that time, not to replace it.

Our purchases serve that purpose, too. Our biggest consideration for purchasing a car is reliability. Why? We minimize our concern about major automobile breakdowns, leading to less family disruption. Our long debate about a GPS purchase (why not just use a map?) came down to family issues as well – where’s the nearest bathroom? Where’s the nearest hospital? Where’s the nearest park? These are questions a typical map can’t answer – but they’re invaluable when you’re traveling with kids. (Since people will ask, we own a Garmin nuvi 760)

On the flip side of that coin, we also cut out a lot of unnecessary purchases to save for other things: college, retirement, a big emergency fund, and so on. We don’t buy many items for entertainment – instead, we use the library and PaperBackSwap and SwapADVD and SwapACD and SwapTree – plus our family time is entertaining. We eat at home almost exclusively because it gives us more control over healthy food choices – and it’s cheaper.

When we hit financial bottom, we didn’t have any sort of synergy to our lives. I’d go to work and work like mad, then immediately spend that earned money on frivolous things. I’d spend time with my wife and son some evenings, then choose activities that completely excluded them at other times. I’d think of long term goals, but I’d change them completely by the next day and never really work towards them.

Now, my life has synergy. Almost everything is centered around being a good parent and a good husband. Writing is my creative release, allowing me to throw out the ideas floating around in my head and giving me the mental freedom to focus on my family. The things I do that I consider “work” mostly serve to find ways to earn income from that writing to keep a roof over their heads.

Using that as a lens, it’s easy to figure out that spending less than I earn is a good move. It’s also easy to figure out the priorities when I do spend.

What’s harder is figuring out how to be the best parent I can be.

Spring is awakening here in Iowa, and for us that means getting outside, doing some yard work, and getting some early work done with our garden. With a three year old and a one year old in the house, we try to get everyone involved in the gardening process.

My wife journals extensively, so for this post, I’ve borrowed some of her writing about the garden to help describe some of the early steps for our 2009 garden. She also explains quite well how exactly we get our children involved with our gardening plans.

Sarah’s journal, March 18
Today I took the kids to do some shopping. I was just intending to get peat pellets to start the seeds in, but when I got there I saw a whole set-up with 72 peat pellets in a tray with a lid for $6. The tray is reusable, so next year I can just buy the pellets.

In addition to the pellets, I also bought a bunch of seeds. I had Joe (our son) help me with this part. His current favorite vegetable is cucumbers, so we bought a packet of those. I also had him decide whether to get muskmelons or watermelons (he chose muskmelons). Katie’s (our daughter) favorite vegetable is broccoli, but I couldn’t find any seeds for that. I will have to go to another garden store for those. In addition to the cucumbers and muskmelons, I bought pole green beans and three kinds of tomatoes –Burpee’s Big Boy Hybrid (“outstanding flavor”), Super Beefsteak (“large and disease resistant”), and Super Sweet 100 Cherry (“extra-prolific cherry”). We’re planning on turning a bunch of the bigger tomatoes into sauce, which is why I got two kinds.

Along with the vegetables, I bought a packet of marigolds. My sister, who worked at an organic flower garden for a while, claims that marigolds keep away some bugs, so I always use them for borders in my vegetable gardens.

All together, the cost before taxes for all of this was $13.50 ($6 for the tray, and $1 each for the seed packets, except the cucumbers, which were $1.50).

Here’s our peat tray and some of the seeds we selected for use this year. The almanac was a Christmas gift – it’s a pretty good guide for identifying when exactly to plant in our area. We use it hand in hand with weather forecasts to make a good guess as to when it’s safe to put plants in the ground so they won’t be destroyed by frost.

In addition, we also have a few leftover potatoes from last year’s crop:

We’ll simply cut this potato up into pieces and plant the pieces directly in the garden. The potato sprouted perfectly in a bag in the pantry, where it’s fairly warm and quite dry.

We get the kids involved by having them make several choices about what we plant. Last year, for example, our son Joe was wild about planting carrots, so we planted quite a few carrots in the garden. This year, he was much more enthusiastic about the melons, but our daughter is crazy about broccoli.

By growing things that the kids are excited about eating, they become excited (by extension) about the garden as well.

Sarah’s journal, March 19
Today I worked on clearing the garden of last year’s dead plants, and I also did some weeding. The nice thing about clearing out old dead plants is that it’s really easy to have young children help. Basically, they can’t pull up the wrong thing. If it looks dead, pull it up.

After pulling up dead plants in both the vegetable garden and the ornamental gardens in the front, I’m realizing that our one barrel composter isn’t going to be nearly big enough for all of the garden waste we generate. I’m considering starting a plain old ordinary compost heap behind the vegetable garden.

I also checked out the perennials that we planted last year. Some of the herbs seem to be coming back, and the strawberries are definitely coming up. In fact, I’m a little worried that the strawberries will try to take over the garden. I don’t see any asparagus yet, but I think it’s a little early for those.

I also set the chicken wire around the garden back up. I’d hate to have the young perennials eaten before they have a chance to get going.

In the evening, I had Trent and the kids help me add water to the peat pellets. The tray required 10½ cups of water, so Trent brought water over in measuring cups, the kids poured it in the tray, and I helped make sure Katie didn’t pour the water over herself and the kitchen floor. We couldn’t plant the seeds yet, because it takes peat pellets a while to soak up water.

Here’s our mostly-cleared garden as it sits right now.

We didn’t get the covering off the ground last fall before the first blizzard came through, dumping more than a foot of snow on us which remained for months. We hoped that the covering would be in good shape in the spring – and it is pretty good, at least usable for the coming year.

Soon, we’ll strip the covering off the garden, spread some compost, and till the whole thing just before planting. Since we do not own a tiller (and don’t have extensive need for one), we’ll either borrow a small one from a neighbor or perhaps rent one for a day from the local hardware store.

The waste headed for our barrel composter…

Our composter is a great size for catching a small amount of yard clippings and all of our vegetable table waste, but it’s not exactly big enough to deal with a huge amount of garden waste. Thus, we’re discussing getting either a second barrel composter or perhaps a small chicken wire composter.

In this picture, the compost is just beginning to work. We’re keeping it moist with very warm water and occasional spadefuls of dirt are tossed in to add microbes to continue the composting process. Our goal is to have nice, rich spreadable compost just before we begin to plant next month.

Sarah’s journal, March 20
The kids are at daycare today so that I can get a little bit of work done around the house before going back to teaching. This also lets me do some more of the time-consuming tasks that the kids would get bored with, like planting the seeds (they don’t really have the fine motor skills to help with that yet).

I started by planning how many of each kind of plant I want and deciding where to put them in the tray. I printed out a map of the tray using a spreadsheet program, which I taped to the front so that I can easily see it while I’m planting seeds. I’m saving the extra seeds that I’m not using, in case something doesn’t grow, or I just decide later that I want more of that particular plant. Some plants, like lettuce, can also be planted a second time during the year.

I also pulled out the Farmer’s Almanac that we got for Christmas and looked up when each thing that I’m growing should be moved out to the garden. I wrote those dates on our calendar in the house, as well as one that we’ve got hanging in the garage with the garden tools.

Here’s our planted tray.

We started a bit later than usual this year with our seedling prep – usually, we’re getting this started much earlier in March. However, last year we lost a lot of plants to a late frost and we’re fairly timid about it. Plants will likely go in the ground much later this year, which does push our harvest well into August and early September instead of harvesting in late July and early August as we did last year.

The sheet of paper there is a chart that shows what each spot in the tray contains.

This simply helps us keep track of the planting. Also, here’s our garden calendar – the calendar itself is actually a free bank calendar with a bunch of astrological information already on it.

Notice we’ll be planting the lettuce on Friday or Saturday. Lettuce is hardy and will survive a spring frost or two. Our April calendar has quite a few dates marked in a similar fashion.

In a month or so, we’ll offer an update discussing the planting process.

I received a heart wrenching email from a reader that I’m going to call “Peggy.” Here’s a few excerpts from that email:

[...] In short, we are going to have to be out of our house by October 24. We’re going to move in with [my brother] and his family for a while and then later try to find a place to rent.

We made bad money mistakes and we know what we did wrong. We should have never bought our house. We should have never got that mortgage. We just tried to make the best life possible for [their eight year old son].

So here’s my problem: we haven’t told [our eight year old son] about this yet. We don’t know what to tell him or where to even start. This is the only home he remembers living in.

My mother thinks we shouldn’t tell him anything. We should just say were moving to a new place and we’re going to live with [my brother] for a while.

But [he]‘s smarter than that. He knows there is something going on and he won’t fall for it.

What should I tell him?

This email (which, admittedly, I edited a fair amount to protect the privacy of Peggy, her son, and the rest of her family) caused a more painful reaction for me than anything I’ve read since I’ve started writing The Simple Dollar. I look at my almost three year old son and I can’t imagine having to explain to him in a few years why we have to move out of this house that he’s grown up in.

Needless to say, over the last few days since I received the email, I’ve spent a ton of time thinking about Peggy’s situation. It’s the first reader email I’ve brought up with my friends, and I also mentioned it on Twitter, just to try to get more angles and perspectives on it.

My first reaction was to agree with Peggy’s mother and encourage Peggy to simply not talk about it. It’s a very frightening time when you’re losing your home. I can’t imagine explaining it to a child. You’re in some ways ripping away one of their basic elements of security in the world.

Some further reflection brought me to a different conclusion, though. My thoughts actually began to turn around when I was taking my son to daycare. He’s just a bit short of three years old. We stopped at a gas station on the way because gas was clear down to $2.89 and I wanted to fill up my tank.

I told him we were going to stop at the gas station and he asked if we needed gas. I told him that we didn’t, but that I wanted to get gas now because it was really cheap – that way, we could have more money left over to buy other things. He immediately shouted, “So we can buy more pizza with wheels!” (His favorite food is a plain cheese pizza with black olives on it – pizza with wheels.)

My two year old son understood the basic idea of budgeting: sometimes you need to spend less on some things so that you can afford other things. In the end, that’s the basic reason why one would lose a house to foreclosure. Conceptually, an eight year old should be able to understand it.

I asked a few people I know who are actually parents of children between the ages of seven and nine how they would handle it, and they almost all provided passionate arguments on behalf of candor with the child, confirming my idea that candor is really the best approach here. To a certain point, of course.

If I were in Peggy’s shoes, here’s what I would do.

First, I’d spend a lot of quality time with my child right now. Even more than you do right now. You’ll need a strong bond with your child to make this go smoothly. Why? Your child needs emotional touchstones, and you need to make yourself the strongest touchstone you can during this time so that the transition is easier. It is at least somewhat likely that your child sees your current home as a touchstone, and it’ll be very hard for your child to separate, so you need to provide another rock for your child to lean on.

Spend some evenings at the park or out and about in the community doing things together, just you and your family. You can spend some evenings at home, of course, but don’t spend all of them there – try to cement that bond with your child independent of location.

Second, I’d cement the concept of a home as something you buy and sell. Point out where other houses are for sale and explain that someone is trying to sell that house. If you see a “SOLD” sign, point out that someone has bought that house from someone else that’s trying to sell it.

This firms up the idea that it’s a normal thing for people to buy and sell their houses. Be candid about it and answer the questions that your child might have. Given Peggy’s timeframe, I’d try to do this several times in the next few days.

Third, I’d use some candor to explain the situation to the child. Simply tell the child that the family needs to live in a smaller house because the house they live in now is too expensive. They don’t have enough money to keep paying for that house. Do it in a caring way – a serious talk, but without overwhelming emotion and no aggression at all.

Your child is going to have questions. Answer them as simply as you can. You don’t have to get into the nuances of ARMs. Just say that we got to make little payments on the house at first, but now the payments are bigger and we have to choose between things to spend our money on. My two year old could largely understand this and several other parents have assured me that their seven, eight, and nine year olds could get it, too.

Finally, make the changing experience seem as fun as you can. Get your child involved in packing things up. Take pictures of box contents together for easier packaging. Be there for your child if your child has a hard time with this – the child might or might not get upset during the process.

The most important thing is to be there for your child. You are that child’s constant through this difficult time of change. Take that very seriously, because your child will probably really need that emotional safety at this time.

Yesterday, I called my parents just to see how they’re doing. I usually give them a call two or three times a week and talk for most of an hour, mostly with my mother.

During the conversation, we talked about my father’s health. He’s in his mid-sixties and still in pretty good shape, but he’s lost a step or two from when I was a kid. He’s still incredibly active, but he can’t spend a whole day cutting firewood like we would do when I was a kid.

Another interesting aspect of the conversation is that since I’ve moved into parenthood, clearly establishing my own family, my parents have opened up to me about things that they previously didn’t talk about. My parents have revealed to me some minor health scares over the last few years – things they would have never told me about when I was younger. Thankfully, they’re both doing completely fine right now, but those little scares really make clear one fact.

My parents are starting to get old.

In a lot of ways, it’s hard for me to take. I think of my early childhood, when my father was in his thirties and my mother was in her twenties. I remember when I was about ten or eleven and my father would come out in the driveway, pull off his shirt, and we’d play basketball. I remember my mother rolling out of bed in the morning and not slowing down until she fell in bed in the evening, raising kids, canning vegetables, doing laundry, and countless other things. I remember when it seemed like my parents’ house was always full of kids – not just me and my brothers, but countless neighbors and other people. My parents were basically surrogate parents of a lot of kids that lived near us.

Now, it’s just the two of them. My father’s beard has turned white, as has my mother’s hair. They’re both retired and living on Social Security and a pension.

And when I see them, I realize something has happened. We’re moving from the time where they took care of me to the time when I should help take care of them.

But what does that really mean? What kind of help should I provide for my parents? What kind of help do they actually need? What does their situation really look like? Would they be happy if I took an interest, or would they not like it at all?

I know I certainly wonder about these questions, and I have for quite a while. I’ve read through It Pays to Talk multiple times along with countless other articles and materials on the issue, reflecting not only on how to talk to my own parents, but how others can talk to their parents about these issues. Here are the key tactics I’ve found for making it work.

Know where you stand
Before you even think about addressing such a conversation with your parents, spend some time really understanding exactly what you want out of this. Are you authentically expecting a piece of the estate? Will you be authentically hurt if your parents are in a lot of debt that they didn’t tell you about? Why? What if they are making unexpected choices with their estate, like leaving more to one child than another or leaving most of their money to an organization you don’t agree with? How does that make you feel? Would these things make you angry?

At an earlier point in my life, I was often frustrated when I thought about such things. It took me a while to really realize that these choices are my parents’ choices, and theirs alone. My role should just be to help them and to make sure that their wishes and choices are carried out just as they wish. If you still harbor strongly-held opinions on what you think they should be doing (not in terms of specifics, but in general direction), you’ll likely have a difficult time having a constructive conversation. Spend some time reflecting carefully on it and don’t move forward with a discussion until you can do so with a clear mind, a clean conscience, and a clean heart.

Be straightforward and thoroughly honest
Usually, such a talk with your parents isn’t a path you’ll take unless you’re harboring some concerns. You are far better off clearly stating those concerns right up front, as clearly as you can. Say exactly what’s in your mind and in your heart, even if it’s not a comfortable thing to say. If you’re worried about how they’ll pay for their retirement years, say so. If you’re worried about what they expect of you in those years, say so. If you’re worried about whether they’re in a situation where they’ll have to work forever, say so. If you’re worried about their estate planning and whether or not it’s in place at all or whether it actually reflects what they want, say so.

You are a concerned child. You love your parents and you want their final years to be as good as possible. You also want to make sure that their wishes are carried out in the event of their demise. Speak from the heart and make it clear that you love them, care for them, and want these things to happen for them.

Get appropriate people involved
This need not be just a talk between you alone and your parents. You may want to get some or all of your siblings involved with this process as well and perhaps other family friends or relatives involved. Don’t just view this as a situation between you and your parents, because it’s bigger than that – it’s about helping your parents plan their future.

If you’re involving siblings and other members, you may want to talk with them first and suggest that they read this article. They should also be on the side of helping your parents come up with strong and sensible plans for their later years.

Remember, though, that you don’t have to involve others. There may be good reason to just make this a conversation between just you and your parents. Just don’t immediately exclude people when you consider it.

Choose a pleasant and comfortable environment
You should choose an environment and situation for such conversations that makes everyone feel as comfortable as possible. If your parents are still living in the house you grew up in, this is probably the best choice. Make sure everyone involved as some basic amenities available to them – good coffee or other beverages, a simple snack, and so forth. If the place needs straightening up, do it in advance before talking.

The point is to do everything you can to maximize everyone’s comfort level. This discussion is likely to push some comfort zones a bit, so you should take every effort to reduce any other potential intrusions on comfort as well as provide little touches that help reduce inhibitions and raise everyone’s comfort. You’re much more likely to have everyone involve express some candor if everyone feels as comfortable as possible in the situation.

Check your ego (and temper) at the door
It can be tempting to believe that you know the best solution for your parents and that any talk you have about the situation should just be a matter of you telling them what they should do. That’s ego, and it should not be a part of this conversation. Similarly, you may find yourself getting angry at your parents because they aren’t following the same logical path that you would follow. That’s anger, and it shouldn’t be a part of this conversation, either.

Your role here is to be assistance for them unless they ask you to be more than that. You should have your own ideas, of course, but that does not mean your parents should immediately jump on board and follow those ideas. If you find yourself getting angry or frustrated, take a break. Excuse yourself, go to the bathroom, and just sit there for a minute and collect yourself. Remember that these are not your choices. You’re merely trying to help your parents make their own choices.

Ask what they want, not what you want
In many families, there are going to be family political angles to this talk. You might view this situation as competition with your siblings for some share of the estate or perhaps you view this as an opportunity to keep some undeserving child out of the picture.

Don’t. If you go in there with this attitude, you’re focused only on what you want. Such thoughts and goals aren’t about your parents, they’re about you. The purpose of having a talk with your parents about their situation is to help them, not help you. Ask what they want, and abide by it. Don’t tell them what they want – because, likely, that’s what you want – and they’ll know it.

Open the books together
If your parents are in a deep debt situation, they may want to just tell you what the situation is and not show you. The real truth lies in the numbers and raw facts of the situation, and you can’t actually help them without knowing the truth of their situation.

If you find yourself in this situation, suggest that you walk through all of the information together – in fact, this is always a good policy to follow. If they refuse, then you should not give them further advice, since you’d be offering ideas and suggestions based on incorrect information. You can talk about issues such as estate planning, but in terms of helping them or offering help, you can’t make a fair or reasonable offer or suggestion with incorrect or false information as a basis. Tell them that you would love to help them, but you don’t want to mislead them along the way, and leave it at that. They may choose to come around later, but that’s out of your control.

Remember, giving advice based on false data is giving extremely bad advice. You may be driven to help, but giving them advice when you suspect that the underlying information is wrong doesn’t help – it hurts. If you find yourself here, back away in the most pleasant way you can.

Look at what they’ll realistically need at retirement and after
Good topics to cover: their current budget, their current retirement savings, their target retirement date, how they’re saving for retirement, their budget after retirement, and their insurance coverage (especially health insurance and long term care insurance). These together will provide plenty of food for thought for all of you.

Be very clear on their post-retirement plans. Many parents harbor a plan to eventually live with their children, while other parents don’t have any plan at all beyond not wanting to be a bother to you. Encourage them to think about what exactly they want to do when they retire. Do they want to continue to live in their home, or do they want to downsize? What about their later years – are they planning for nursing home care? These are hard questions, but they need to be out there on the table.

Be clear about your role and how you’re willing to help – don’t waffle
Make it very clear what things you’re willing to offer to make the lives of your parents easier in their later years. If you’re open to them moving in with you, say so. If you’re able to provide some regular financial support, say so. If you’re willing to do the detail work of all of their planning, say so. Be very clear about what you can and can’t do to help them.

They may take you up on certain pieces of your offer and not others – and that’s fine. Be open to their needs and ready to help with what they want.

Walk through the necessary estate planning questions
Ask about life insurance. Ask about a will or a living trust. Clarify who the executors and/or trustees on such documents should be. Clarify where the property should be assigned to. Talk about a master information document.

Even more important, if your parents don’t have any of these, offer to help them through the process of setting it up. Quite often, people want to have such things, but they put it off because it seems like a lot of work. Having someone on hand to help you through it makes the process seem more manageable.

Offer, don’t push
When you’re talking, you’re going to have ideas and recommendations for your parents. You might even know the thing they should be doing. Don’t push. Go through the options and add what you would do, but don’t tell them which path to take. Let them make the decision.

You might find that they lean towards a different option than you’d like. Don’t fight them on it, even if you view the choice as not realistic. Instead, be consoled by the fact that they are in fact looking at the situation and making decisions and that you are aware of what those choices actually are. You can then move forward on supporting them in that choice.

Do something pleasant and unrelated afterwards
I’ve found that every time in which I’ve had to have a serious discussion with a friend or a family member on something like this, it’s been helpful to do something very pleasant and unrelated afterwards – like a family meal, for example. Don’t just walk out of the door at the end of the planning – instead, cement the bond you already share.

Follow up
Remember that this is just the first step in a long conversation. Don’t let the progress you’ve made falter. Follow up on the things you’ve pledged to do, and let your parents know that you’re concerned and are thinking about things as well. This is a process, not a one-time thing, and you need to follow up.

Good luck, especially if you’re like me and this topic has been on your mind for a while.

Recently, a young child that lives nearby (age six or so) had a large birthday party at his home for all the children on the block that were approximately the same age (four year olds to eight year olds, roughly). The party was in the family’s fenced-in backyard and included a magician, two horses, and a barbecue with a folk music band for all of the adults. To top it all off, there was a giant tarp over something in the backyard, and when the tarp was lifted (after the birthday cake), it revealed a play/tree house that must have easily cost $5,000.

As a parent, I can understand the superficial appeal of having a massively over-the-top birthday party like this for my children. It would be incredibly fun to load up house and home with parents and children, make it a very fun day for everyone with little eye toward expense, and have an amazing present at the end that all of the kids would enjoy. The sheer joy of all of those children would be quite wonderful.

But it comes with a few steep prices.

First, it sets unrealistic expectations for your children. Unless you’re equipped to spend obscene amounts of money regularly, you’ve set them up to be disappointed on some level by future birthdays. It’s fun to have a birthday party, but when it stretches the limits of what’s reasonable (and what you can reasonably afford), then it begins to stretch their expectations, often to a threshold that you won’t be able to afford in the future.

Second, it encourages consumerism. A giant birthday party with a mountain of presents is a rush of acquisition of “stuff.” No matter how well thought out the gifts are, a huge pile of gifts translates to a huge pile of stuff, and a huge pile of stuff translates into an expectation of more stuff.

Third, a big investment in a birthday party is a big investment that’s not going towards college or other long term savings. This isn’t a big deal if you’re a multimillionaire that already has college in the bag, but it’s a huge deal if you’re not there. If you drop thousands of dollars now on a party or a toy that they’ll only play with for a little while and at the same time haven’t adequately covered that child’s future, you’re making a choice that puts their future at risk for a birthday party.

With those ideas in mind, here are some suggestions for planning a memorable (but reasonable) birthday party for your child without it transforming into an incredibly expensive spectacle.

Keep the invitation list reasonable. While it’s fun to have a lot of kids in your yard, keep the list short enough so that all of the children are comfortable with and familiar with each other. This makes the party more fun for everyone and also keeps the expenses under control, as it’s easier to feed and entertain eight children than thirty.

Put a strict cap on gifts from guests – or request no gifts at all. This helps fight the “mountain of gifts” that is prevalent at large birthday parties, which just gives a home a plethora of toys and clutter that’s not necessary. Tell the guests not to bring presents at all – or, if you feel that they should, ask that the presents be very small.

Children can entertain themselves. Just come up with a few games that require minimal equipment and everything will go great. No need for an entertainer or any sort of expensive entertainment spectacle.

Cut back on the food – only serve cake. I’ve been to many birthday parties where there was a meal served, and as a guest I thought it was overkill. Keep it simple – just have a small, homemade birthday cake and a big bucket of ice cream. Total cost: less than $10.

Consider a slumber party. This enables you to dramatically reduce the guest list and at the same time create a memorable party for the child. Just invite three or four of the child’s closest friends and have them spend the night as the party.

Consider a private party. In other words, the only people invited are the people who live in the house. This keeps the party extremely simple, but also quite intimate. Many of my birthday parties as a child were like this and I remember them quite fondly.

Utilize public resources. Have a birthday party at the park, using the shelter house as a place to manage the party. This makes cleanup easy and the park is natural entertainment for the children.

Ask your child what they want – and don’t plant any ideas. You’ll often be surprised at what your child comes up with for what they want to do on their birthday. One of my nephews only wanted one thing for one of their early birthdays: to ride on their cousin’s four wheeler. Another one wanted to pull weeds out of the flower patch in the front yard and redecorate it (seriously). You might be shocked at what they want to do for their birthday, and if it’s reasonable at all, let them do it.

Remember that this party isn’t for you, it’s for the child. The party should revolve around what your child wants, not what you want. If your child wants to just have his best friend over for a sleepover and have hot dogs for supper, go for it even if it’s not what you’d envision for a birthday celebration. Let it be your child’s day, but just keep it within reason.

Prior to our financial meltdown, my wife and I simply never sat down and talked about our finances. Right after our meltdown, we talked about things almost every day, but through our recovery, our discussions have slowly reduced themselves to the point where we’re effectively already having monthly family financial meetings.

And these meetings have become a big part of the financial glue of our marriage.

These conversations keep us on the same financial page and ensure that we both are open and clear about our goals, our dreams, our mistakes, our challenges, and our shared path in life. They let us constantly be a check against one another, making sure we both stick to our better behaviors and use each other as an inspiration for making good choices. If you’re in a long-term relationship with someone, I can’t possibly recommend a monthly financial meeting more highly.

What Our Meetings Look Like

Our meetings are really pretty simple. We go through any credit card statements and bill statements that we have, talk about any changes we should make, plan for anything that’s coming up, and set some goals for the next month, mostly along the lines of limiting unnecessary spending and deciding where our budget leftovers will go for the next month.

For the most part, we don’t need any sort of specific agenda or meeting time – we just do it every once in a while on roughly a monthly schedule. Some keys:

Everything is an open book. There should be absolutely no secrets in such a meeting. If your spouse wants to know about a specific spending choice, be completely open about it, not defensive. If you’re getting defensive, that means you have something to hide – and that means there’s a problem that needs to be addressed together.

Make goals a big part of the meeting. Not only big, long-term goals, but the shorter goals over the next month that will help you get there. Set goals together, even if the goals are very individual in nature. Then, throughout the month, offer each other encouragement. It’s hard to break a bad spending habit or to make new financial choices – use the motivation of goals and the constant encouragement of a loving partner to make the changes easier.

This is a great time to work on a simple budget together. Sit down and talk in detail about your spending plan for the coming month – and also where your challenges and successes were over the last month. This discussion can provide a lot of insight into where you’re going – and where you’ve been – and that information together can help you to make better financial choices.

Love and respect each other, even if you have differences of opinion. Money brings about strong feelings – don’t let these strong feelings overshadow the more important things in life. One good way to do this is to hold your partner’s hand during the meeting.

Involving the Kids

I am a big advocate of involving children in these meetings as early as possible, by age seven at the latest. Allow them to bring their own financial picture to the table – pay them an allowance, have them budget the money, and have them talk about their own successes. Here are some thoughts on how to incorporate kids into this picture.

Keep the open book philosophy. Everything should still be wide open so that your kids can see the financial reality of being adults. They need to know how much you’re spending each month to keep the roof over their head and the food on the table – as well as giving an idea of all of the little expenses that eat away at the big pile of money.

What about privacy? Many parents like to hide behind a veil of privacy, saying that it’s none of their children’s business how they spend their money. My argument against that is twofold: first, it makes a great educational opportunity for your kids impossible and second, it says that there’s something in your spending that you’re ashamed of. If there’s shame, that means that there’s something you personally need to improve in your life.

Naturally, I see no problem eliminating a few items with black highlighter in order to hide an upcoming gift or something, but if you’re sealing away most of your spending from your children, they’re missing out on a big learning opportunity.

Let them offer input towards goals – and have them set their own. When you’re making large financial choices, let them have a voice in the decision, but don’t let them run the show, either. Where you should allow them a lot of control is in setting their own goals, both over the long term and over the next month. Help them identify good things to save for and encourage them to work towards those goals. This goes hand in hand with the idea of splitting an allowance into pieces for spending now, sharing with others, and saving for later – in effect, budgeting for kids.

Make some of the economic choices you have available to them. This is a concept heavily advocated by David Owen’s excellent book The First National Bank of Dad. In it, Owen advocates that you should create a “virtual” bank for your kids with a very high interest rate – say, 5% a month – to teach them the value of saving very early. In other words, let’s say they have $20. They have the choice of putting that $20 in the “First National Bank of Dad” where it will earn $1 in interest every month, or they can spend it immediately. All they have to do to earn that $1 each month is simply not spend it. It’s a real choice for a young child and it introduces them to the dilemma of saving versus spending – and offers plenty of encouragement to make the “good” choice.

In The End…
At its core, the idea of a monthly money meeting is really all about communication. The more we talk about money with our family and the more we encourage each other to make good choices, the more likely we are to make good choices over the long haul. Even better, it’s a splendid opportunity to use ourselves as examples for our children, teaching them how to be financially responsible adults.

I’m worried about my grandmother’s finances. She lives on Social Security and a small pension from the state, but if that were all there was to her story, it would be fine – she owns her residence and is just fine in terms of taxes and debt. The problem is that her oldest son still lives with her and is a constant drain on her financial state. He’s simply incapable of holding down a job.

My grandmother is far too caring of a person to allow one of her children to be out on the street, so she allows him to live with her and has likely agreed to leave her home to him when she passes on.

The end result of this situation is that there are two adults living on a small pension and one person’s Social Security benefits. This worries me and makes me sad on a daily basis – I think about her and really wish there were a way I could help her with her situation. The only problem is that if I do financially assist her, that assistance will translate directly into spending money for her son, who I don’t really want to help because of how he’s draining away my grandmother’s golden years.

A big part of me wants to intrude in this situation. I want to somehow be able to storm in the door and somehow make everything all right for my grandmother.

In the end, though, this intrusion would serve no real purpose. She’s a grown woman with a caring heart who has the power to make her own choices, and she chooses to spend her extra money taking care of her son. It has very little to do with how I feel about it – it’s really her choice, not mine.

I hear often from readers who are faced with a similar situation in their own lives. They see a financial mess in the life of someone they care about and they desperately want to intrude in it. Much of the time, I feel like they’re writing to me for “permission” – some sort of approval of their intrusion.

My reaction is pretty much always the same: don’t intrude unless it directly affects you and even then, only intrude in business to the extent that you need to to protect yourself. Don’t stick your nose into someone else’s business – all you’ll do is create resentment and almost always you’ll fail to solve the problem you wish to address. Often, you’ll make the problem worse.

Instead, just let the people you care about know that you’ll help them if they need it, in the form of advice or financial assistance or whatever the situation calls for. Sit down with just that person (or persons), let them know that you care for them, and let them know that you want to help them specifically, but don’t push them. Let them make the choice – it is their life, after all.

Of course, some situations demand that you protect yourself, and you should always take any measures you feel are necessary to protect yourself. Just make sure that everyone involved in that protection is on the same page – that means, if you’re married, talk over such decisions with your spouse.

As for my grandmother, I talk to her on the phone every week and I’ve had a few conversations with just her about her situation, just letting her know that if she ever needs anything at all, I’m just a phone call away and I’ll help her in any way that I can. But I won’t make her pick up that phone – it’s her life to lead and her choices to make, even if I don’t agree with the choices.

A really good discussion about personal trust and honesty developed out of the most recent reader mailbag that I thought was worth discussing on its own. First of all, I made a pretty big mistake in my answer. I made a giant assumption that the readers called me on, and it’s worth discussing further.

On a very regular basis, I give cash gifts to people I trust who need them or could, at the very least, use them. I take this out of money that I have and just give it to people that could use it. I’ll give some cash to a relative to help that person cover their power bill. This is something that’s common and normal to me.

When I do this, I am pretty picky about who I give the cash to, but if they’re someone I trust personally, I don’t hesitate to do it. If I found out my grandmother was having difficulty keeping her house, I’d be right there with a check in hand to help her. If one of my cousins that I trust was trying to start a business and needed some seed money, a check would be in the mail in a heartbeat. I almost always do this without asking, and I don’t expect a dime back from them.

Why do I do this? I don’t need any sort of written agreement to know that if I needed something, these people I trust would be there for me. When those people are in a pinch, I will help them, no questions asked. When those people are trying to reach for a dream, I will try to boost them if I can.

To me, personal trust and personal relationships like these are more valuable than money. I can’t possibly put a cash value on knowing that if I lost my home, my family, my children, my job – everything – there are people who would take me in and care for me. I was able to make the leap to being a full time writer because of the support and trust and help given to me by family and friends. I rely on this – it’s an integral part of who I am.

Here’s another way to think about it, through the eyes of charities. I tend to not donate to charities unless I know them well. I need to either be intimately involved myself or have someone I deeply trust be involved before I’ll donate. When I do build that trust, though, I’ll write checks to those charities without even thinking. I’ll evangelize for those charities. I’ll do what I can to help them, because I trust them. I don’t worry any more about whether my check is really helping – I trust the charity, so I don’t worry about it. I don’t worry about what I’ll get out of it – I just trust that they’re doing the right thing for something I care about.

Quite often, I assume the same kinds of dynamics in other families and friendships – and I did so to my own detriment earlier. My response to a reader question about what to do with extra cash was to give it away to a trusted family member or a trusted friend, which is exactly what I would do. I’d look for someone I trusted and use that money to seed something they wanted to do, and I’d be very liberal about it.

My response, which basically just assumed much of this, said to give the cash to a trusted family member and then that family member would probably help with college. I also suggested that giving this money away – because it would provide the added kicker of helping with one’s financial aid case, might be unethical to some, but I considered it completely fair because it’s within the rules – nowhere does it outlaw giving away your money. I did not advocate sheltering money – that’s against the rules entirely.

This was met with instant derision that I was advocating truly cheating the system, and looking back on it, I can see where the outrage came from. The outrage comes from the sense that you should never trust anyone when it comes to money, and that’s a sensible and safe philosophy to live by. The only drawback is that you limit yourself in how much you can trust others, and that cuts you off from some things. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It’s a personal call each person has to make.

A reader asked me:

Let’s turn the tables. If you randomly received a check for $10,000 in the mail from a relative with no note, what would you do with it? What do you think they would want you do to with it?

I’d probably call them up and ask them why they sent it. If they said, “It’s help for you getting started with your writing career” or something like that, I’d give a big “thank you” and put it in the bank. I can think of a lot of other reasons why I’d just happily accept the gift, and they’re mostly borne out of trust and long-term trusting relationships with people.

Honestly, I wouldn’t really question the gift very much, and this in itself is a demonstration of what I’m talking about.

Furthermore, I’m planning already to give my nieces and nephews some gifted financial help when they go to college. I have no obligation to do so. But their parents have helped me a lot during my young adult life.

Should that be reported on the FAFSA? I think it’s ridiculous to think so. There was no implication whatsoever that any help my brother or sister-in-law gave me, in the form of gifts or personal help or advice, was to be repaid in the form of some assistance to their children. If they had a windfall and mailed me a check right now without a note, I’d still not think of it as any sort of implication that I should assist their children with college.

This all translates directly to my advice to the earlier family. In essence, giving that money to Uncle Phil is just another kind of investment. It’s an investment in people, in trust, in a bond that can’t be quoted in dollars. If you give that money to Phil when he has a good use for it, you’ve probably cemented a bond with someone who will help you in countless ways throughout your life, in ways you see now and ways you don’t, in ways you can measure in dollars and cents and ways you can’t.

From my perspective, trust is about helping people you care for because you can and because you want to, not because you’re obligated to.

If this kind of trust seems alien to you, then you’re not alone. There are a lot of people out there who are guarded, and it’s usually because they’ve been bitten after trusting someone, or they’ve heard too many stories about trust falling apart. They call such trust “naive” or “foolish” – and maybe it is.

But when I go back to my hometown and spend an evening around people I trust that deeply, I realize I wouldn’t trade that sense of trust for anything in the world. It’s that valuable, if you can find it.

So what did I learn? First, I learned that assuming things about the relationships between others can usually get you into hot water. I assumed far too much about the trust in relationships in this family, and because of that, I gave advice that was probably not the best advice to give. I gave advice from my own heart, based on what I would do in that situation – if I had money that I was trying to get rid of in order to get in a better state for financial aid, the first place I’d look is my family, the people that I trust. In a family without that trust, my advice was horribly bad – it either implies an illegal financial agreement or it suggests just tossing your money into the breeze and watching it fly away. Trust makes all the difference, and I assumed too much of it.

Second, I learned that when you give money to others, the worst-case scenario is usually assumed by others. If I give some money to my uncle or my cousin, it’s reasonable to think that others are assuming I’m doing it for personal gain over the long haul, that I must be expecting to be paid back in some fashion. That’s not how I view the world, and viewing it that way takes a big stretch for me.

I’ve explained how I view trust, and how that view can skew things. How do you view trust? How deep does it go? How much value does it have for you? Have you ever been hurt by trusting too much? Have you ever been helped by relying on a trusting relationship?