Ug I NEED some nice weather. Unfortunately the sledding hill is icey so we can't even push the kids outside to play lots. I SO want to be able to go outside and play with the kids, go for walks/runs/bike rides. Take the kids to the park. Actually I am really looking forward to biking with Cody on his new bike and the 2 youngest in the trailor. I am hoping to be able to bike to some nearby parks and maybe the Dairy Queen. The other winter events are SO expensive. Tubing is $12 a person for 2 hours ($48 for the 4 of us for 2 hours is a little steep!), skiing is crazy especially with the additional cost of renting equiptment. $26 for adults for an evening and $21 for kids with the equiptment being $19 times two. Yeah sorry don't have $115-$145 to spend on one evening not to mention who watches the little ones.
So it looks like we may have a copay EVERY time Shea goes to Therapy, that is an additional $225-$250 a MONTH YIKES! Man I am irritated Matt's work changed insurance plans, his other one would have covered the whole dang thing after the initial copay as an ungoing condition. Gotta love cost saving measures NOT. Plus I think the supplemental insurance we can get with him having a disability will be too expensive. Although if we get it and they will cover this and RDI it may make sense to have it for a short period of time. Hoping for a family grant to come through in a timely manner to help with these costs. I am also looking into RDI, but of course insurance doesn't cover it since they are training the parents to do the therapy and we don't take him to someone for it. So if we do that the cost is $3000 for 6 months of $5000 for a year. We won't go into the fact that we will probably need a fence and that will be an additional expense. Let's hope I get some deals this year or make some money in Real Estate.
Calgon Take me Away!
On a good note Matt and I have decided (okay I decided and Matt is going along) starting this spring to teach the boys how to save. Matthew wants to spend his money as soon as he gets it and Cody worships his big brother thus copies him. So we will have the kids put a minimun 30% of all earnings/gift money into long term savings. At some point we should have them add in giving to charity but not right away. (They can pick the charity). A great book I read on finances and kids is "The Financially Intellegent Parent" by a couple (I believe and not brother/sister) with the last name of Gallo.
I already talk with Cody when we are shopping about why we don't buy everything we want. I don't use the phrase "we can't afford it." Instead I tell him that we choose not to purchase it since we only have a certain amount of money and we need it to do many things. So we are choosing not to buy X so we can save for Y. I also talk with him about the toys we see and the quality/cost. Some toys are cheaply made and don't last, this can be okay if the toy's cost is minimal but if it costs a lot obviously we want to get our money's worth out of it. So I guess I am trying to get him to set his expectations accordingly.
Speaking of costs do you know how irritating it is when his school doesn't send home 1 flyer for books, they send FOUR plus one for computer games. Seriously we do buy books every month but could they limit the number of flyers to reasonable number? The boy LOVES books and I want to encourage this but we cannot go broke buying $50 worth of books each month!
