Karen writes in: I have a question I think it would be interesting for you to attempt to tackle. You approach so many decisions with a methodical and disciplined calculus that often leads you to great time and money savers…Can you address what I’ll call ” the children paradox” and maybe provide some insight that
Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance or other book of interest. Also available is a complete list of the hundreds of book reviews that have appeared on The Simple Dollar over the years. One of the most powerful books I’ve read since starting The Simple Dollar is Juliet Schor’s Born to Buy.
My five year old son is saving diligently to own a Nintendo DS Lite video game system. One of his cousins gave him a baggie with several games that would be playable on that system and he’s longing to play them, so he’s been saving. That system, new, costs $100. We can find reliable used
A few weeks ago, I put out a call on Twitter and on Facebook for detailed posts that people would like to see. I got enough great responses that I’m going to fill the entire month of July – one post per day – addressing these ideas. On Twitter, Pinco shared this thought: “I love
A few weeks ago, I put out a call on Twitter and on Facebook for detailed posts that people would like to see. I got enough great responses that I’m going to fill the entire month of July – one post per day – addressing these ideas. On Facebook, Edita asks an entertaining question: “which
A few weeks ago, I put out a call on Twitter and on Facebook for detailed posts that people would like to see. I got enough great responses that I’m going to fill the entire month of July – one post per day – addressing these ideas. On Twitter, Robert asked “How about “Family outings
Me, at approximately age two, in the kitchen of the house I grew up in This past weekend, I was cleaning out a drawer in my office when I came across a stack of photos from my early childhood. My parents, my brothers, and my cousins were constants in these pictures, all looking stunningly young,
Yesterday, my oldest son (who is about to start kindergarten in the fall) and I were looking at his portfolio from his two years of preschool work. His teachers collected quite a few of his art projects, photographs of his activities, and other materials and presented it to our family after his graduation from preschool.
This morning, as my children were waking up, I was inspecting their dresser drawers looking for clothes. I pulled out clean underwear and socks for both of them, but rather than continuing through the drawers, I started digging through their clothes hamper, inspecting the clothes right in front of them. I’d examine one garment, say
I get asked this question all the time, and I think it’s one that’s got enough cultural pressure behind it that it’s worth discussing. From a purely financial standpoint, why should a man get married? Let’s look at the reasons behind this question first. The argument against marriage for men is pretty straightforward. The most
As I’ve mentioned a few times on The Simple Dollar, we use piggy banks and allowances with our young children in our home. We have a few simple rules that go along with this, mostly allowing them to freely spend part of their allowance while they save another part of their allowance for longer-term goals
This year for Christmas, most of the items my wife and I received were small and/or served some specific utility in our lives. I received some grape juice with which to make homemade wine (pinot noir), a replacement for our small saucepan, and some books (among other things). My wife received similar small items. Our
For us, 2010 was a year of learning for both the parents and the children in our household about what allowance means, how it works, and what kinds of money lessons our children are learning. Let’s roll back the clock to November 2009, when our children each received piggy banks and the allowance adventure got
Right off the bat, let’s take a peek at this “wonderful” new commercial by Toyota: I was pointed to this ad by longtime reader Beth and the AutoAdOpolis blog. If you’ve been reading The Simple Dollar for long, you’ll know that this ad takes a swing directly at a lot of different ideas I’ve shared
Melinda writes in: My twelve year old daughter and I are having a money war of sorts. At the start of the school year last month we went shopping for clothes together. I said she could spend $250 any way she chose as long as she got a certain number of items – some underwear,
About three months ago, my four year old son saw a toy at a store. He mentioned that he had played with it at a friend’s house and that he wanted one. But rather than demanding it this minute, he asked how much it would cost. Then, he asked how many allowances he’d have to
The single biggest personal finance lesson that anyone can learn is that of delayed gratification. Delayed gratification means that you hold off buying that new cell phone for a while so that you can pay cash for your car in a few years. Delayed gratification means that you spend the evening reading a book or
Wendy writes in with an email I considered using in today’s mailbag, but my response kind of grew into a full post: When well-meaning relatives give gifts to your children, do you always allow your children to keep those gifts? My mother-in-law (who lives 20 hours away and only sees us a few times a
Anthony writes in: My wife and I have two children, ages 2 and 1. We’d like to have more; we both think that four would be a great number, although there’s no particular logical reason for that number. The problem is the expense. With daycare costs, adding each additional child will cost another $260 a