Money, Love, and Change

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Is it karma?  I mentioned that I had a shiny degree in yesterday’s post.  Today, when I checked my mail with my son, we discovered a mailing tube from my (now) alma mater.  I also received a letter from the registrar.  Here are my observations:

1.  They print doctoral degrees on larger paper than bachelor’s degrees.  I wonder if this is a plot by framing companies, since I would have to pay more money if I want to frame it.  I also realized today that I have no idea where my bachelor’s degree or high school diploma are.

2.  For the first time, I received something that was signed in ink from the registrar.

3.  The letter from the registrar assured that the ribbon for use in framing my diploma would be in the mailing tube with the diploma.  I was really worried about that!

4.  There was no ribbon in the mailing tube with my diploma.

Having a kid changes everything.  Before our son was born, we altered our financial plan.  Currently, we are still saving for retirement.  We have an emergency savings, but our debt hasn’t been dissolving at a fast pace.  Until now, we have been ok with this.

That’s because of the plan.  The plan was for me to get a job when our son started school.  With my shiny degree, we figured that I could find something.   That salary would be used to pay down debt and then accelerate our savings.  Good stuff.

Now we are thinking of homeschooling.  Big change in plans.  We’re also considering moving again in a couple of years.  It’s really exciting, but pretty scary at the same time.

I’m still wrapping my head around this whole thing.  We’ve been thinking of it for awhile, but solidified our plans over the weekend.  Any thoughts?

Until I had a kid of my own, I never realized what a great resource craft stores could be for toys.  Not only do they have some great hands-on gifts and crafts for kids, but most of the larger craft store chains will print coupons in the Sunday paper for 40%-50% off  of a single regular priced item.

Here are just a couple of things I have found:

1.  Christmas gifts for my niece:  She is creative, and always loves the things we send - I have been able to purchase the large art kits (with pens, markers, crayons, etc.), little sewing kits, and some cool stuff from Crayola.

2.  Every Mother’s Day, I purchase 3 (for the gramas and great-grandma) of the clay kits to make a handprint of my son.  The ones I get are really nice - they have a 2-piece frame (one side for a picture, and one side for the clay imprint).  They are great bridal shower gifts.  After a 50% off coupon, they are under $10 each.

3.  Melissa and Doug toys - Melissa and Doug make a lot of natural wood toys.  I also am a big fan of their cardboard blocks.  Our local AC Moore store has quite a large selection of their toys.

4.  All things Crayola - With a 50% off coupon, I don’t feel so bad replacing broken crayons and dried up markers!

Do you have a good craft store/kid find that you would like to share?

We are regular visitors to our local library.  A month or so ago, I was a little surprised to see Dolly Parton’s smiling face on a brochure at the children’s desk.  After a moment of wondering how Dolly manages to look exactly the same as she did 25 years ago, curiosity got the best of me and I picked up the brochure.

Dolly, bless her soul, has started a program called the Imagination Library.  This program partners with local communities to provide free books (1 per month) for any child under the age of 5 who signs up.  Here is an excerpt from her website:

Here’s how it works:

A community must make the program accessible to all preschool children in their area. The community pays for the books and mailing, promotes the program, registers the children, and enters the information into the database.

From there The Dollywood Foundation takes over and manages the system to deliver the books to the home.

The books are already selected based on the age of the child - each kid receives 1 free book per month until the age of 5.  To see if your community participates, you can check out the affiliates link here.

We filled out the form on our brochure (our community does not allow online registration), and received a confirmation letter.  We are still waiting for our first book, but I wanted to share this information now so that others can sign up.  Happy reading!

“Follow the three R’s: Respect for self, respect for others and responsibility for all your actions.”

Author: Dalai Lama