Thursday, May 16, 2013

Parenting 101 - Allowance

Did you grow up getting an allowance?  Did you have to earn it, or was it just a right of passage in your household?  Did you learn money management skills through the process?  What exacly *is* the purpose of allowance, anyway?


We've been thinking and discussing this a lot over the years, but have never really settled on anything firm.  You see, we're a blended family, with kids spending some time here, some time there, and a lot in between.  My three are here throughout the school year and during the summer.  Brian's three are here every other weekend and six weeks in the summer.



With that constantly changing dynamic, it has been difficult to balance exactly what would be fair.  They don't have the same opportunities to do the same amount of chores, but that is through no fault of their own.  I never felt it was fair for the allowance opportunity to be so lop-sided, so we've just avoided it all together.  However, I think we have a new solution.

In our home, daily chores are an expected contribution of able-bodied human beings living in this household. I feel that paying the children to do daily chores makes it an option, and for us, things like taking out the trash, making beds, or emptying the dishwasher are just not options to be left undone.  There are not enough hours in the day for Brian and I to do everything involved in keeping this household managed AND have any fun in the process.  Therefore the kids have a few small regular responsibilities that have not been compensated for in the past, and will continue to be done that way.  You may call it slave labor; we call it family.

That doesn't mean, however, that we don't think that the children should not learn about all things financial as part of their upbringing as well.  Here is where that magical term, "allowance" comes in.  As I thought about it, read about it, asked other parents about it, and prayed about it, I realized that it should be just what the word implies:

 "Allowance: N. An amount or share allotted or granted."

That's right!  It's something given -- not earned, not stipulated to, not tied to any responsibilities, really.  I have hesitated in instituting free money for children earned from simply being so danged cute.  I mean, who wants to raise entitled little heathens anyway??  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I am doing the kids a disservice by NOT giving them allowance.  I'm not teaching them the value of THINGS or MONEY.  We provide everything they need, and sometimes fuss at them for being wasteful or non-appreciative.  But really, if they never have to use actual money to buy things for themselves, how could they really ever know and understand the value of the things we provide?  And if they don't learn to track their spending now, will they ever learn it as an adult?  I know I still struggle to this day with tracking and budgeting.

So here's the plan, Stan!

Brian and I are going to commit to each other and the kids to track our income and expenses alongside the kids.  We are going to use the super-fantabulous budgeting software, You Need A Budget, or YNAB for short.  I have been working on setting up our budget off and on today, and will have it ready for our Family Meeting when we get all the kids here for the summer.  We will show them a very brief overview of how it works, and how it implements the teachings of my favorite financial guru, Dave Ramsey.  We will talk about household contributions expected from all members, even asking the kids for feedback.  And we'll end the whole shindig with cold, hard cash and an individualized register for each child.  The only catch is this: present your balanced register at the next family meeting in order to get your next allowance allotment.  We will have to tweak whether this is truly done on a monthly or bi-weekly basis, so stay tuned.

For now, we have decided to start giving allowance out once per month, allotting one George Washington per year of age, per child.  I'm willing to bet that the 7-year-old might feel slightly short-changed, but I will eagerly remind him of the extras he can do to earn some more cash!




That's where these super-nifty chore jars will come in handy!  Each person will get their own personal daily responsibility jar, but there will also be a community chore jar with optional PAYING chores listed on those sticks.  After that chore is done, they exchange that stick for some more $$.  Brian or I will just verify that said chore is truly completed before paying out the cash from the CASH jar.





I'm really happy with how all of this is seeming to come together.  Receiving pay for expected duties of family members is gone, and even the likelihood of brotherly or sisterly theft is lessened  with the institution of the register.  (We have had a problem with dollars disappearing on pool days last summer).  I also think the temptation of theft is lessened when each kid knows when they're next payday will be.  I'm excited to see how this goes.









Links to my inspiration of the day:

http://www.ducksinarowblog.com/2011/09/allowance-macdougall-family-style.html

http://athomewiththehinsons.blogspot.com/2010/06/chore-jars.html

http://moneysavingmom.com/downloads/household-management-forms

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Taking Up Space

I've been on a soul-searching quest for quite some time now -- really, all of my adult life has been all about exploring who I am and what I believe to be true.  Since my last post, I've come to realize something.

Yes, I have pounds to lose.  Yes I have clothing sizes to drop.  Yes, I have muscles to grow.  But you know what else?  I'm still me.  I'm still Stacey Marie, no matter how much space I take up.  And as a general rule, I kind of like who I have become in these last 34 years.

I am a mother, a wife, a friend, an employee of a great company doing one of THE coolest jobs in the world, a volunteer, a good listener, a shower singer, a writer, a smiler, a laugher, a nurturer, and so much more.

NONE OF THOSE THINGS HAVE A THING TO DO WITH A NUMBER ON THE SCALE OR CLOTHING SIZE!!! 

It seems simple, but somehow I always enveloped my "goodness" with my size.  The bigger I was, the less worthy of good things I felt.  I dug into how some of that came into being with my last post, and have come out on the other side realizing that weight is just that.  A number.  I don't HAVE to shrink to be loved, accepted, or happy.

But now that I don't feel imprisoned by that great "I have to," a funny thing has happened.  Now I want to.  I REALLY do want to.  I even WANT to do the work.

In the past, I've run the gamut of trying different diets, fads, supplements, and anything in between.  I have enough knowledge to know what works and what doesn't.  And now that my headspace is a little more cleared out, I've also thought about what I actually HAVE been successful with in the past.

The only plan that has worked for me has been Weight Watchers.  I kept my food journals and weigh-in logs from when I lost 28lbs in a very short amount of time when Zela was near a year old.  I have often looked back to see what I did to achieve the loss, and here's what it boiled down to:  I ate all of my daily points allotted to me, and I also ate all of my weekly points allowed.  The estimated caloric range was 1600-2200 calories a day, depending on how active I was (because you bet your bottom dollar I ate my activity points I'd earn, too).  Sometimes I ate really crappy food like Mcdonald's.  Sometimes I ate dessert.  I almost always used some extra points of a few cocktails.  I added fruits and veggies to nearly every meal, but didn't feel guilty when I didn't.  I walked daily, worked out harder sometimes, and was okay with my life.  I lost quickly and easily.

I tried WW again after Aidan was born.  At that time, I was under a lot more stress.  I started a new career, and my marriage was ending.  For some reason it never really worked as well as the first time.  And the funny thing?  If you were to look at my food journals from this attempt, you would see a lot more healthy choices, a lot less fast food, and definitely less alcohol.  I was eating a lot of organic, plant-based foods, and feeling generally rather smug about how great I was treating my body and the planet, all the while hating myself for taking up too much space.  My self-worth was directly attached to what the scale told me, and as soon as I plateaued, I basically gave up.

I tried simply tracking calories and macro nutrients  I tried going vegetarian  gluten-free, paleo, primal, etc.  I tried WW a few more times, both with and without subscribing.  I found that with each of those methods, whenever I'd try REALLY hard, I'd end up at around 1200 calories a day... sometimes less.  Whoa, nelly.  I'm 5'9" and I truly believe I still have to have SOME of my muscles left under this padding.  1200 calories?  Something didn't quite compute there, and MAYBE that's why my attempts were not successful.  Maybe I was just grumpy and HUNGRY.  Maybe I didn't really have adrenal fatigue and low thyroid.  Maybe I just didn't give myself enough fuel to get through the day and through workouts.  Maybe I needed to really reconsider why and how I lost so well the first time.

Somehow I've always ended each attempt just a little heavier and a lot more miserable... until now.

I've been reading a great blog by a amazingly inspirational woman over at Go Kaleo, and it's been her musings that have lead me to really be okay with who I am, where I am, and where I'm going.  She opened up my mind to the idea that "taking up space" is just that....  taking up space.  She's a big proponent of "Eating the food" and bucking the idea that the average woman really needs to restrict herself to 1200 calories a day and work her butt off in order to be thin.  She's smart, strong, and beautiful.  She's inspired me to go back to what I know works: tracking my intake, keeping it at a suitable level to sustain daily life and activity, enjoying life and all the foods that come with it, removing guilt and other emotional labels from food -- even fast food -- and just finding balance.  It took an internet stranger to help me embrace my own "beauty," even if I have a hard time seeing it right now.  That step is what has me going in the right direction this time, instead of circular self-loathing, restrict, binge, restrict, crawl in a ball and cry, etc.

This is me, and I feel free to take up as much space as I need to.  And now that I've released the internal weight, I'm willing to bet the external will soon follow suit.