Treasure Sandwiches- Family Financial Goals
It’s important to teach your kids about the family money, budgeting and saving. They need to know that you and the family in general has a finite amount of money to spend. In the words of a common idiom: “Money doesn’t grow on trees”. Setting family financial goals helps to teach kids some essentials in how to use, spend and save money.
There are several ways to do this and the kids don’t even know they are being taught a lesson about money!
Teaching about family money
1. Menus and Lists
Early on, being married, we found that preparing a menu and grocery list saved us money and time. Not only did we NOT have to go through the whole, “What do you want to eat?”/ “I don’t know” scenario (at least as frequently), but we had a plan, were a little more organized and saved money!
*My daughter, who is now an adult, said menus and lists have been incredibly helpful for her. She grew up with it and hasn’t had to learn it as an adult.
Remember to include meals besides dinner and snacks that your family likes and will eat.
My daughter, quickly learned about the grocery list. She would melt my heart when she would look at me with those big brown eyes and sweetly ask “Is this on the list?” Sometimes, I would give in and say yes, it is on the list! Since she couldn’t read yet, she didn’t know that I couldn’t say no to that sweet ask! She needed that win once in awhile and other times I would tell her not today.
I was teaching more than one lesson here. 1. money, 2. self-control, 3. flexibility, and 4. delayed gratification. She took the list seriously, because I took it seriously. She would sometimes scribble out her own list and I would ask her about her list and see if we could include things from her list on our main list.
- Make a menu- make sure you add in some lazy or easy dinners or even plan a night to eat out. Be willing to move the menu around as needed.
- Make a grocery list.
- Stick to your list.
- Check out money saving apps like ibotta
- Look up online coupons or do couponing the old fashioned way.
- Look for sales and stock up on things your family uses often.
We need:
So, my daughter understood the list at almost 3 years old. (She talked early and talked well.) She was carrying the fly swatter around and couldn’t find a fly to hit. At that point, she turned to me and said, “We need more flies. Put it on the list.” I asked why and she said because she wanted to hit them!
Another thing she thought should be on the list; trains, great big freight trains. Often when we would run errands we would see a train. She loved to see the train and her excitement took away some of the annoyance of waiting for the train to pass. If we didn’t see a train she was a little sad and wanted them on the list to get more.
Cheap Dinners
Plan some less expensive dinners. I cook a lot, since I am gluten free and make most of our stuff from scratch. Things that were cheap when we were eating gluten like: bread, pasta, and pizza aren’t as economical as they once were! Less expensive dinners for us include: breakfast for dinner with homemade pancakes, bacon or sausage and hashbrowns; Rice bowls with some stir fried veggies and a little meat or tofu; Chili with hot dogs; Mexican Ramen; and having a baked potato bar with things like chili, cheese, ham, broccoli, etc.
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Setting financial goals as a family.
Set a financial goal as a family for things you want to do or buy. It can be anything like a piano, new car, a home down payment, vacation, school clothes etc. Brainstorm as a family, the ways you can save, cut back or earn extra money. This teaches kids not only about money, but working together for a common goal. It helps them to look outside of themselves.
- Kids might want to pick up a summer job and help out with their own expenses to relieve some of the financial burden from the family, especially older kids.
- Decide to eat out less often
- Eat out at cheaper places
- Make more meals at home
- Buy fewer name brands for clothes and shoes
- Change phone and/or cable provider
- Cut back on coffee, soda or whatever you do that is a regular extra
- What are you paying for that you could do yourself?
How to set financial goals as a family
First, everyone in the family needs to understand the family finances to some degree. You don’t have to tell them how much you make, if you don’t want to. Explain it in percentages if that helps you to feel more comfortable. If children are very young, using some visual aids may be helpful.
The amount of money you make is 100%. What percentage goes to taxes and what does that leave you? What percentage are the bills that must be paid? What percentage is for consumables and has leeway? What percentage can you save?
What has to be paid
Teach them about responsibility and how you pay certain things every month: mortgage/rent, water, electricity, etc. If you have a car payment or other loans or credit cards, those need to be talked about, too. What is your debt philosophy?
What is flexible
We can decide how much to pay or put toward other things like: yard care, lessons, clothing, food, treats, etc. Cutting back or doing things differently may require a sacrifice.
Are the family financial goals worth it for everyone and how can it have meaning for everyone to participate?
This is why the family goal is made together. Everyone in the family should have a voice and an opinion. Brain storming helps everyone feel included and to see what one another is willing to do.
While brain storming, other issues, worries and concerns may arise. Address those concerns and worries. Come to agreements that all are willing to participate in.
In the Loop
Keep everyone in the loop. We made a family goal to get out of debt. We told our kids how much we have to spend on consumables. (We went over the budget and what has to be paid, but the important part is what we can spend. (That’s everything extra, including food and clothing needs.)
We keep a running tally in our kitchen, so everyone can see if we are on track. Recently, one of our daughter’s asked how we were coming on reaching our goal to get rid of this debt. They needed to see that the debt side was coming down. We had been focused on reducing spending, but hadn’t given feedback to how it was working. Everyone wants to know that their sacrifice is paying off.
Treasure Sandwiches
When our 3 oldest girls were 2, 5 and 8 we really wanted to take them to Disneyland for the first time. We set a goal and came up with a plan. One of the things we decided to do is to have a cheap dinner once a week. We would eat “treasure sandwiches”. (Of course, we did other things, too. This is just the most memorable and what we specifically did as a family.)
The name “Treasure Sandwiches” was mostly for me. Cheese sandwiches for dinner didn’t seem very appetizing. We explained to our girls that the cheese is like gold and the reward would be the trip. It gave us all a goal and a purpose. We were working together for something we all wanted.
Those dinners became fun. Treasure Sandwiches stuck. It is now a treat to have a Treasure Sandwich. The memories are now the gold!
There is no way for any doctor, even those who are specialists to know everything about everything and expect them to always give you accurate information. That sentence contains a lot of absolutes!
Yes, there is an expectation to trust that when going to a gluten free event, like an expo, that everything at that expo is going to be safe. Having put on events like an expo and participating as a vendor I know how strict the rules are. However, even with the strict rules, sometimes one vendor will slip through that shouldn’t be at the event.
Your health is in your hands!
You might say we have had our share of lemons this year! It is only April and already the year has been loaded with stress!
When life hands you lemons, sometimes you need more than lemonade. The lemon isn’t necessarily bad, it can be quite enjoyable. It just depends on how we use it. When life gives us lemons we can suck it down and pull faces or we can work on making it sweeter.
My husband and I have always believed that divorce is NOT the answer to our problems. We work out our problems and we have certainly had our share.
If you are someone who doesn’t want to get divorced and tries really hard to have a good stable marriage then worrying about divorce is a good thing. Now, I’m not talking about excessive worrying or being worried constantly that it is on the horizon. I mean worrying that if you don’t keep your end of the marriage agreement, then it could end.
If you are okay with everything then nothing will ever be off limits – that works great for the other person but you will become their doormat! It’s important to discuss what behaviors are acceptable what ones are not. Whenever possible, discuss things before there is a lot of emotion and hurt feelings. What ones can you compromise on?
These are different for everyone and some of the things can be worked on. However, if one person in the marriage is unwilling to work on things the other one will be unhappy (making marriage miserable for both of you) and it will eventually come to an end. People can only put up with so much for so long.
Reading scriptures together is a good way to grow together spiritually.
One of the most strengthening things a couple can do is to pray together. It allows your partner to hear the strength and faith that you have in God.
Another way to deepen your relationship is to do service together! I am so excited that our family will be serving as part of a live Nativity this year! (It is quite a production! 80-100 volunteers are needed each night!)
We know that the only way to make sure we don’t get sick is by always doing our own food at home! However, we need a break, want to socialize, go to events and experience new restaurants, just like everyone else does! This dietary restriction can be very isolating!
You see, this morning my daughter and I were out doing our civic duty. We have a local election coming up and we were placing fliers on doors letting people in our city know about one of the candidates. The area was very hilly and so we took the car so we wouldn’t have to go up and down the hills so many times in order to get home, again.
I expected the woman would come and restrain her dog. Any responsible dog owner would restrain the dog, however, the woman was no where to be found. It was small and so I tried to go up the driveway. Suddenly, bounding around the side of the house came a big dog at full run barking and very aggressive. Both dogs aggressively chased me into the street. (I never turned my back on them.) Once I was half way across the street the dogs stopped in the street and backed off.
Have you heard of the ripple effect? This is the effect that one thing causes and it ripples out and affects several people or situations. It is well illustrated with throwing a rock into water. There is a ripple that is caused when the rock enters the water (disrupting and displacing it) and then consequent ripples take place from there getting larger and larger as it goes outward from the initial splash. So, one thing causes a reaction that continues after the initial thing started the ripple.
Any event in a persons life has the potential of rippling outwards and affecting those around them in many different ways! It’s never isolated to just the one person it happened to!
A silver lining is the good you can find out of a bad situation. For example: a bad marriage’s silver lining may be the beautiful, wonderful children you have as a result of that marriage. Or, a difficult roommate in college helped you learn to stand up for yourself. A difficult class and unfair teacher made you work harder than you would have otherwise, etc. etc. etc.
by Nina W Brown, Ed.D., L.P.C. I started to recognize that I had a tendency to be less empathetic than I thought I was. I also started to recognize that when I felt unsatisfied or didn’t get the reaction I was hoping for, that it wasn’t me but an empathic failure from someone else.
The husband or wife complaining about their spouse to a best friend or co-worker is funny in sit-coms. It is not funny or helpful in a marriage.
If you have a problem with your spouse you should be taking it to your spouse and working it out. That’s not to say that frustrations aren’t sometimes discussed with close friends or family members in order to figure out how to handle things or to figure out if you are being unreasonable. Sometimes it helps to have a third party give you a different point of view.
He told her that he couldn’t disrespect his wife that way. He knew that other people might think he was out with a woman, on a date and that woman wasn’t his wife. He always wanted the woman he was perceived to be with, whether people knew him or her or not. . . that the woman perceived to be his date or companion always be his wife.
If you are never alone with someone from the opposite sex, then you can never be accused of doing something you didn’t do. You will never have a “he said she said” situation. You can’t be used for revenge in any way. Your morals never come into question.
My husband and I were walking through the store and passed a display of weights. He turned to me and jokingly asked, “Don’t you want some dumbbells?” I simply said no. A few minutes later he said “Thanks for just saying no and not taking that opportunity.” It hadn’t even occurred to me to take a pot shot at him and he had set it up so perfectly (not on purpose) for me to reply with, “Why, I already have you.” (He’s really good at setting himself up to be teased.)
My girls weren’t going to love, trust or respect their father if I always made him into the fool and the butt of the joke. He’s really good at setting himself up to be teased, but I don’t have to pounce on it, just because it is there. To have the family my husband and I wanted we had to model the behavior we wanted to see.
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