A few days ago, I took my son to get a haircut (mostly because he got a piece of gum in his hair in the park, we had to cut it out, and his hair looked disastrous afterwards, beyond our ability to fix unless we shaved his head). He’s a bright and observant two year

I hear from a lot of expectant parents and parents of newborns who ask lots of interesting questions about what we actually do to save money with our infants. Though I’ve written lists before of the things worth doing to trim spending on babies, many of the people who write in are skeptical. Cloth diapers?

One of the absolute best frugal ways to have fun with your kids is to pick up an “end roll” of paper from the offices of your local newspaper. When a newspaper is printed, the paper that it’s printed on comes in a large spool – imagine your toilet paper roll, except the size of

Each Friday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book of interest. Writing about kids and money is a fairly sticky topic. I’ve read several books on the topic and only bothered to review a few on here. The best one I had read so far, David Owen’s First National Bank of Dad, was really

One of the biggest assumptions I read about in books and articles about financial planning for your children is the outright assumption that your child must attend a college or university of some sort after graduating from high school, so you’d better financially plan for it. To me, this assumption is one that needs to

This is an extremely challenging article for me to write because it hits very close to home. Guardianship. Who will take care of my children were my wife and I to both pass away suddenly? It’s a question that’s so painful to think about that many parents simply don’t think about it – and that

Almost every time I read an article about funding your child’s education, it turns into a discussion about saving for college. Coverdell plans, 529 plans, how to handle the FAFSA – all of this stuff is standard personal finance fare. But all of it overlooks the first eighteen years of your child’s life – the

A few weeks ago, I posted an article written by Carrie, a close friend of my wife who has been using cloth diapers for her daughter, Elizabeth, since the baby was born. The analysis of cost that Carrie provided was a huge hit (67 comments as of my writing) and convincing enough that it got

One of the most controversial subjects that I often touch upon is that of daycare. Some people are adamantly opposed to even suggesting the topic, stating unequivocally that taking your child to a daycare is a detriment to them. Others speak very positively about it, looking at it as a way to balance a child’s

Several readers wanted a real-world analysis of the costs and benefits of cloth diapering. Luckily, my wife’s closest friend, Carrie, is cloth diapering her daughter Elizabeth and has contributed this lengthy analysis of cloth diapering. Carrie writes some notes about parenting and art at her personal blog, Dangerous Crayon. I have some notes in response

When I was young, I dreamed about a lot of things. I wanted to be a writer, writing things that genuinely changed people’s lives. I wanted to have children and be a father to them like Ted Arroway without the collapse. I wanted to visit lots of different parts of the world and see how

Both of my children have received a pair of savings bonds as Christmas gifts this year. While the gift is wonderful and very much appreciated, I am considering cashing them in and putting that money straight into their college 529 account. Let’s look at the pros and cons of the choices. Why I Should Cash

Now that life has settled down with two children in our home, my wife and I are starting to look at the decision to have a third child. Our plan always has been to have our children close together in age so that they can be peers to each other (roughly) during their school years,

Until recently, I viewed the choice of being a stay at home parent solely as a loss of income in a couple’s life. If both adults are working and one chooses not to pursue professional employment, then the incime at that house is going to go down. Over time, though, I began to realize that

Yesterday, I wrote about the idea of an “it” toy for Christmas, including tips for how to find a hard-to-get toy and how to talk to your child about it if you don’t get them their most desired item. This brought up a bevy of comments criticizing the post. I thought Elizabeth summed it up

If you check your calendar, you’ll note that Christmas is just five weeks away, which for many of us means that planning has already begun. This year happens to be the first year that my son is old enough to really begin to understand and participate in Christmas-related activities. He can open his own gifts

Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to have a chat about parenting with an extremely bright friend of mine from my high school days. He and his wife have three children and, though they both work full time jobs, don’t have a significantly large income in their home. I asked them how they do

Recently, I reviewed the book Born to Buy and, almost simultaneously, Get Rich Slowly posted an article about the challenge of unbranded children. Both the book and the article focus on almost the same issue: the challenge of minimizing marketing to very young children. Many times in the past, I’ve encouraged parents to consider turning

This weekend, I’m visiting my parents, and I’ve seen a small army of nieces and nephews and cousins floating through the house. One of the most popular items sitting around is a toy catalog, where my parents have encouraged the various young folks to put their initials very clearly next to items they want. The