Scream Your Way to Exhaustion or Soothe Yourself to Sleep

After the baby had slept in his bassinet beside his mommy’s bed for the first four months of his life, my husband and I decided that it was time the baby moved into his own crib. At this point he was too long for the bassinet and had no room to move; I was having scary “what if” thoughts of him pushing his face against the side of the bassinet smothering himself. You could say the move was for baby’s comfort as much as for mom’s sanity.

After going to our weekly playgroup and talking to the moms there, the consensus I generally found was to put him in his crib and let him cry until he falls asleep; after a few days he will get into a routine and stop crying. The first night I took their advice and he cried and cried and cried until he was so exhausted that he did eventually pass out, but the next night I couldn’t do it. I was stressed, we were both miserable, and we were both crying. After doing a lot of research on the internet (I’ve never researched so much since getting pregnant) a lot of sites and books warn people not to let your child cry because he or she will stand a higher chance of SIDS. Rather than just exhausting themselves and giving up, some children have been found to actually stop breathing when constantly left on their own to “cry it out”.

I tried to think the way my child would. I put myself in his place and wondered what would comfort and relax me. We all know that when we go to the spa the one thing that relaxes us is the peaceful music. I tried listening to his Winnie the Pooh mobile but realized its song would actually get him more excited and ready to play rather than soothe and put him to sleep.

Finally I remembered the Ocean Wonders aquarium toy I had bought from my cousin when I was pregnant. What a life saver! It has a soothing light so the child isn’t in complete darkness and alone and it plays a variety of songs and nature sounds. If the song ends and your child is still awake you have a remote that can start the music again or he can push a button and make it go himself.  Well, that did it and that night he slept peacefully without exhausting himself and without me standing in the hallway crying along with him. He just played with the aquarium and ever so gently went to sleep.

Jarred Baby Food vs. Homemade

I was shopping at Wal-Mart with my sister-in-law the other day and stopped in the jarred baby food section. She looked at the price of the jar and asked what the point was in making your own food if you can conveniently purchase it at such a low price. While the cost is certainly appealing, I worry about my child’s health if I were to feed him such preservative-rich offerings.

Depending on the brand, for $0.47-$0.67 you can buy jars of chemically processed food with a shelf life of 5 to 10 years. Alternatively, you can spend 20 minutes a week making healthy chemical-free baby food. To me it is worth taking the brief time each week to make healthy food for my child food that can be frozen. In a small fridge-top freezer, fresh-made food can last for 3-4 months; in a deep freeze: up to six months.

Society has gotten lazy about their food and eating habits and there have been repercussions: children aren’t tolerating foods as much, allergies are on the rise, and babies are becoming fussier eaters. If you’ve ever tasted baby food you have my sympathies I wanted to try it before my son was due to start eating to explore the taste textures etc. As a trained chef my opinion is jarred baby food in general is totally unpalatable; the colors are off and you can’t even differentiate what the taste is. For fun I had my cousin close her eyes and sample some of the food she was going to feed her son and tell me what it was. She didn’t know what she was eating – how scary is that?

The Good News
For parents who really think they don’t have the time to cook for their child, there is now a great company (Sweet pea baby food) offering pre-measured food that is flash frozen and good for 3-6 months in your freezer. The food is made from organic vegetables and if you tell them the age of your child they can tell you which product they have for that age group. I tried their product at the baby boom show this spring and I can actually differentiate the flavors; it was like a party in my mouth. It was bland compared to what a grown up pallet is used to but to a baby exploring a flavor for the first time it would have been superb.

Bottled Doesn’t Mean Better

In today’s society, everyone is used to getting everything from the store. For example when we want a refreshing glass of cold water we no longer go to the tap and wait for the water get cold. Instead, we open the refrigerator and open a plastic bottle as if it were always there. Heaven forbid company should come over and you offer them tap water. I use to think drinking bottled water was better that drinking the tap water; that is, until I had my son.

On one of our adventurous trips to my in-laws we forgot to pack our jug of water to make the babies bottles. We knew he had some trouble tolerating water from other places so out came the bottle water which we thought would be the perfect solution. At the time we were using powdered formula so in the mornings we would boil water and keep it hot in a thermos. When it came to feeding time all we had to do was add the powder and hot water to the bottle, shake it, and let it cool. This takes much less time than heating a bottle up. After boiling the bottled water and leaving it in the thermos for his feeding we opened it and found a grainy deposit on the bottom. Whatever this stuff was, it was going into our child’s stomach. After a little bit of research and reading the label on the water bottles we realized that there was a huge amount of sodium and other minerals which was creating the deposits.

So is the bottle water better than our good old fashion tap water? If regularly tested and maintained I think not. Let’s stop using those plastic bottles and just open the tap for crying out loud.

Saving Money for New Parents

It is not uncommon to hear the phrases “new parent” and “very poor” in the same sentence. In the “traditional” pattern, baby #1 comes along at a time when mom and dad have just finished school, gotten married, bought their first house, and bought a car. The college days of partying all night are in the rear-view mirror.

It’s no secret that times are tough. If you’re both lucky enough to still have a decent paying job, your paycheque is being massacred by childcare costs. If you don’t have a strong stream of income you may be finding yourself dipping into credit just to make it to the next month.

This article is about ways for new parents (and anyone, really) to improve their financial situation.

Switch to Cash
Even kids walk around with debit cards today. Many people are so accustomed to thinking of money in terms of a bank balance sheet that the concept of cold, hard cash is becoming foreign. Since we aren’t constantly reminded of how much we have in our accounts, it is easy to swipe the stripe and forget about it until the end of the month.

Instead, figure out how much money you plan to spend in a pay period and withdraw that amount when you get paid, then put away the debit and charge cards. Without any effort you will find yourself spending less because you will be subconsciously aware of how much money remains in your wallet. When you run out of cash that’s it – you can’t buy anything else; the rest of your money remaining in your account gets shielded from impulse purchases.

Establish Limits – Spend Within It
We saw this trick on Till Debt do us Part some years back and it has become a staple in our household. Get a glass mason jar and label it for each of your recurring expenses – gas, food, children’s arena fees. If you know you will spend $200 on gas for a pay period, withdraw the cash for that and put it in the jar – ditto for the other expenses. As you need to spend money on gas or food, take the money you need from the jar.

This works similarly to the above tip with one key difference – instead of carrying around all your cash for the pay period which leaves you prone to over-spending or being robbed, you will find yourself spending only what you need. At the end of the pay period take the left-over cash and put it into savings or treat yourself to dinner. You will be surprised at how rich you really are. I actually found myself reducing my budgets because the amount I was spending became more realistic, all the extras were trimmed away.

Pay the Government
If you owe any money at all to the government pay it now, even if you have to go into debt to do so. Failure to pay taxes can result in fines of up to 100% the originally owed amount. Governments are tightening their belts just like everyone else now and will come down on you hard if you’ve made any mistakes. If you continue to dally after fines have been levied you can be looking at criminal convictions. Let your credit cards slide if you must, but pay the government first.

It isn’t uncommon for people to innocently forget to report small bits of income, but it is against the law, and it is being scrutinized more than ever. If you do your taxes yourself, consider hiring a professional to do it for you. The expense is negligible (compared to making a mistake) and if you are due for a refund many companies will issue it to you on the spot and collect it from the government on your behalf.

Claim all Tax Benefits
I suggested using a professional tax preparer (like H&R block, which conveniently places booths in Wal-Marts nationally) in order to help avoid making costly mistakes on tax returns. The other major benefit to using a professional is these people are often aware of government programs available to you that automated software may not identify in your situation. They are better suited to know which options go together best to maximize your refund and sometimes which programs to enroll in (like the GST/HST rebate) that will result in money deposited to your account throughout the year. Use a professional tax preparer.

Cut Credit Cards
Credit card debt is the most expensive debt you can hold. If you carry a balance on your credit card cut it up now. Even if you fall back on it to buy groceries or other necessities, cut it up. Circumstance is the mother of invention and I guarantee you will find a way especially in the first weeks to pinch enough money to break the cycle of credit card use. Many people do not have the willpower to pay off their cards while using them; credit issuers know this is human nature and exploit it for big profit. Deny them this profit at your expense by cutting up your cards and watching your balance head toward $0.

Snowball Debt
I read about the concept of “snowballing” credit card debt some years ago and found it to work marvelously. Financial articles generally recommend you first pay down your debt having the highest interest rate first – paying down $100 of a 20% card saves you $20 in the first year vs. $6 savings if you pay down $100 on a line of credit with a 6% interest rate. However the 6% line of credit may have a much smaller balance than the credit card. If you pay the credit card and make the minimum payment on the line of credit, you won’t see progress very quickly and will become discouraged (see: human nature). When disaster strikes you need to get at your money fast, you will pull from the credit card and be back at square one.

To snowball your debt, make the minimum monthly payments and put all the extra money available to you onto the debt with the lowest balance. That may mean paying a debt with a 6% interest rate before one with a 20% rate; but, it will disappear fast with the extra money. When that happens, you will have one less account to service, meaning one less minimum payment to make. That minimum payment now goes toward extra money that can be thrown at the debt with the next lowest balance.

The effect is similar to a snowball rolling down a hill. As debts are erased you will have more money to pay down bigger debts even faster. You will see progress which will make the effort more worthwhile. When disaster strikes you will find yourself with a better credit rating that will enable you to secure loans at more favorable rates to help you through hard times.

Relax, Have Fun, Work for a Better Future
All the time we hear the phrase “you can’t take it with you when you go” used to justify making purchases on credit. Pay it back later, they say. Enjoy life now, they say. Then “they” get rich off the interest you have to work overtime to pay off. I think the meaning of the phrase today has more to do with the family and loved ones you leave behind when you go to work. Think about this before you give into the urge to take out your credit card and buy the next gizmo you find at Best Buy: Will this item improve my life? How many hours of work will it take me to pay for this, and for the interest it will accrue? If this is a gift for someone, will they value it more than the time I could have spent with them if I didn’t have to work as much.

Our neighbours always seem to have money to do what they want to do. They go to restaurants, they go crazy for their grandchildren at Christmas, they think nothing of going on an overnight trip and staying at a hotel. But they do it all with no debt – they have never owned a credit card. They own their own house – it isn’t a huge house, but it is the right size for them and everything they have. Their secret is they don’t buy things they can’t afford. If they don’t have the money for something, they just do without. That is an old-fashioned way of living that we can all learn from – and many of us will, because as times get harder the idea of living within one’s means is going to make a comeback in the coming years.

Getting in the Mood… for Christmas

Every year we find ourselves in the same checkouts at the same stores listening to the same generic Christmas caroles while surrounded by the same disgruntled customers. Of course it will all be worth it on the big day when we finally get to exchange gifts and enjoy that much-deserved family time; but there must be a better way of getting there from here. Today I’m going to talk about some of the ways families can bring some down-to-earth joy to the holidays.

1. Be Happy
Studies show that when you are jovial, you have a 9% chance of spreading your good will to other people. Likewise, if you are angry or upset, the stress hormones have a 7% change of making those around you experience similar feelings. The moral of the story is that happiness is contagious – so make the effort to be extra nice and other people will ‘catch the bug’ and return the joy.

2. Make a Present
A close friend has an interesting Christmas tradition: every member of their family makes one present for everyone in addition to any shopping they do. The result: more personal gifts, less packaging waste on Christmas day, and less money spent.

3. Stay Home Once Per Week
In the lead-up to Christmas it is easy to find ourselves at the store almost every day picking up last-minute supplies. Instead of going to the nearest Wal-Mart, try to stay home at least one night every week. This will force the mind to relax and will actually focus your thoughts so your next trip is more productive.

4. Stay Safe
Along with the holidays come safety hazards that are not present at other times of the year. Always make sure candles are blown out and the proper lights are in use (do not put outside lights indoors). Make sure the Christmas tree is away from electrical outlets, radiators and high-traffic areas. Of all the times for tragedy to strike, this time of year always just sounds worse the normal.

5. Spread the Joy
If someone in your life has been giving you great service, now is a great time to show your appreciation with a small gift. MSN Money has an excelent article about who, and how much, to tip during the holidays. The key point here is – do not feel obligated to give or spend your money on anyone. However, if you do feel so inclined, your thoughtfulness will not go unnoticed – people remember when they are treated kindly, and you may find yourself on the receiving end of more good will (see tip #1).