In Search of a Less Wasteful Christmas

It's December 1^st, and if this were any other year I would've had at least one holiday prep-related mental breakdown by now. But it hasn't happened yet, and here's the beautiful reason why: my husband and I aren't getting the kids gifts this year.

Before you start penning your letters to CPS, please hear me out. It's all part of a bigger plan. In fact, it was the kids' idea.

For years now, I've had the sneaking suspicion that our Christmas season was out of control. I tried to simplify and streamline everything I could, using task management apps, jettisoning traditions that were more work than enjoyment, even paring down our holiday decor so it didn't feel like such a big job.

But I couldn't quite bring myself to re-examine our gift-giving. It was Christmas, after all: the one day a year (other than their birthdays) when the kids get presents. And Evans family tradition had it that every kid received four gifts from Mom and Dad on Christmas morning, plus another from Santa.

Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but with 6 kids that equals 30+ presents to shop for... not including stocking stuffers. 

I don't want to know how many hours I've spent poring over holiday gift lists and wracking my brain for any conceivable way to commodify my kids' interests: the 7-year-old likes basketball, what product goes with that? A new ball? A jersey? A basketball nightlight for his room? A life-sized cutout of LeBron James? 

Which, to be honest, always left me feeling vaguely uncomfortable. If my son was happily playing basketball with what we had already, wouldn't he rather have me just go outside and play with him instead of hiding inside furtively reading "52 Awesome Gifts for Kids Who Can't Get Enough of the Game"?

Not only that, I was also feeling burnt out. I was tired of the planning, the brainstorming sessions, and the shopping. I was tired of the ordering and the tracking. I had come to resent the color-coded spreadsheet of which items we'd chosen but not ordered, and which ones we'd ordered but hadn't yet arrived. 

And I don't even want to talk about the gift wrapping.

Christmas 2016. I know.

But hey, I figured, that's just the way Christmas is, and resolved that the only thing I could do was change my attitude and try to enjoy the ride.

The gift-giving question was forgotten for a few more years, until this past spring. Inspired by The Minimal Mom on YouTube, I did a massive declutter of the house.

From the attic to the basement, I was ruthless in my purging. I didn't throw out any of the kids' stuff without their knowledge, but what I did do was give them permission to get rid of absolutely anything — anything — they didn't use or love. Even (and maybe especially) if they felt like they "should" keep it for some other reason.

Perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of the stuff we'd given them for Christmas just a few months earlier sailed right out the door that spring, and it was a real eye-opener to me and my husband. All those hours we'd spent hunting down the perfect gifts... maybe it wasn't as worth it as we used to think. 

I don't care for excess and Phillip doesn't like waste, and looking at the pile of items the kids happily discarded once they had permission was hard evidence that we'd inadvertently been creating a lot of both.

So what to do with this wake-up call?

We considered having the kids start drawing up wish lists, but only briefly. I didn't like the idea of reducing gift-giving to an "I put in my order and you fill it" transaction. (Where's the magic in that?) And to be honest, I wasn't sure that shoving a toy catalog in front of my 5-year-old would be any less wasteful than what we'd already been doing. 

We posed the question to the kids at a family meeting, and they came up with a creative solution: experience gifts instead of tangible ones. In the next few weeks, they'll be giving us two or three ideas of something they'd like to do, see, or visit in the week between Christmas and New Years, and Phillip and I will either choose something from the list or surprise them.

But here's the kicker: that will be their only gift from us. Phillip and I are out of the presents-that-go-in-a-box game.

The 5- and 7-year-olds were a little concerned, but were fine once we assured them they'd still get stuff from their grandparents, and Santa will still fill their stockings and bring them one physical present. Our Christmas isn't going to be ascetic, just reasonable.

Ultimately, I realized that no matter how much time and effort we put into selecting the perfect things to put under the tree, we can never guarantee they won't end up in a pile of clutter no one uses. 

Giving experiences, however, is a different story. Even if your experience gift ends up being a dud (you got a flat tire on the way there, the tour guide was crabby, and the whole thing was not at all what you expected,) you still spent time together creating memories. It's always a net positive.

This Christmas will be much different, but in a good way. I know I won't miss waking up exhausted from present-wrapping to hunt down batteries and run tech support for new gadgets, and I don't think the kids will mind having fewer presents under the tree. Instead, we'll have a calendar full of fun things to do together, and none of us can hardly wait.

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What's It Like Being a 2-Car Family?

There's something personally satisfying to me about using all of something. I'd die before throwing away a peanut butter jar without getting out the absolute last of the contents with a spatula.

Likewise, I'm a fan of using things to their maximum capacity. We filled the bedrooms in our house with 5 children, and I was pretty satisfied that when you added Phillip and me, that took up all the space in our 7-seater minivan.

And then we got pregnant.

Of course we were thrilled about adding to our family, but it definitely made our car situation a problem. We debated for several months about what to do.

I asked my blog's Facebook page for advice, getting everything from buying an 8-seater SUV to installing a bench in the third row to add a seat. I admit spending a few months drooling over the Nissan NV in all its 12-passenger glory.

In the end, though, what we decided to do was: nothing. 

We kept the two cars we had (a commuter car for my husband, a minivan for me) and simply made them work. Our whole family can't fit in our 7-seater minivan, so we're a 2-car family and have been for two and a half years now.

I'm confused. Why wouldn't you want a vehicle that could fit your whole family?

I like to get the maximum value for my money, so going into debt to buy a car with ONE more seat seemed sort of silly to me. Especially since both the commuter car and the minivan were paid off already.

We also toyed with the idea of getting a larger full-sized van, so we'd have room to really stretch out, carry tons of luggage, or give rides to the kids' friends.

But thinking about driving a 12-passenger behemoth around all the time, even when I only had one or two kids in the car, seemed terribly inefficient to me. Also, parking would be harder. And our gas mileage would be terrible.

The convenience of being able to fit us all in one vehicle, whether in an 8-seater or a full-sized van, didn't seem to outweigh the financial and practical reasons not to.

But don't you need a bigger car?

95% of the time we drive the minivan, it's just me and the kids going somewhere while Phillip is at work, and we still fit perfectly.

Oftentimes though, we don't even fill up the minivan. The kids are involved in more extra-curricular activities now, and there are some days when all the kids aren't even home at the same time. Or they're old enough to choose to stay home while I shuttle someone to soccer practice and back.

Even before we had to, Phillip and I usually took two cars, anyway. If the whole family went to the school band concert, we still drove separately because my daughter needed to be there early to warm up. Or we took two cars to church so some of us could stay for choir practice and everyone else could go home. 

It honestly isn't much of an adjustment in day-to-day life.

Is it ever annoying to take two cars everywhere?

At first, driving caravan-style on family outings was weird. I missed sitting next to Phillip on the way there, and if we go anyplace that charges for parking we need to pay twice.

But I got used to it. Most of the places we drive as a family aren't far so driving alone isn't a big deal. Even with driving two vehicles and paying double parking fees, we still spend less in gas than if I drove around a lower-mileage vehicle 24/7.

The only time it's really annoying is when we go on longer trips. Driving an hour or more in separate cars gets boring, but I'll admit when we go camping or on vacation we need the extra space in Phillip's car to pack all our gear, anyway.

The only thing we can't do now is road trips. When the kids were younger drove 25 hours across the country to visit my parents every couple of years, and we're obviously not doing that in separate cars. We could rent a big van, but that costs as much as flying so now we fly.

A few times a year when a parent comes to visit, we have to get creative because we don't always have enough room in the car.

Would you go back and buy a bigger car if you had a do-over?

I suppose if we went WAY back to 2008 when we bought our minivan, getting one that seats 8 instead of the more conventional 7 would've saved us some trouble. But since we didn't have a definite plan for our family size and I was only pregnant with #3 then, there really was no way of knowing.

However, if I went back to a few years ago when we already had the minivan and decided not to trade it in for something bigger, I wouldn't change that decision. 

Our current car situation may not work for us 100% of the time, but it works 95% of the time. Not having a car loan and not driving around a gas-guzzler when it's not necessary is worth the 5% inconvenience to me.

Will you ever upgrade to a vehicle that fits all of you?

When our oldest gets her license, we'll probably add a third car. Most likely she'll be driving Phillip's current commuter car and he'll buy a new(er) one for himself. 

She's only 14 now, but we're already so spread out taking what feels like a million people to a million places at once, she'll need to be able to drive herself (and hopefully some siblings) to school and activities sometimes.

We plan to drive our minivan into the ground, and by the time it dies for good, our kids will have started moving out of the house (don't talk to me about it, I'm not ready) so not having enough seats won't be an issue.

We don't know of too many other 2-car families, but that's okay with us. We don't know a whole lot of other families of 8, either! 

Driving two vehicles around all the time might not be a perfect solution, but it's what we decided makes the most financial and practical sense for our big family, and we're making it work.

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We Have FOMO for Our Children and It Needs to Stop

Recently, I was reading a blog post about a family determined to pay off their mortgage early. They decided to postpone a vacation to Disney World, which the mother said was an important sacrifice to make, even though "it kills me to think that my 3-year-old is missing out on that experience."

Never mind that a 3-year-old wouldn't remember a thing about a Disney vacation a year from now.

Never mind that a 3-year-old would be equally delighted to blow bubbles in the driveway and get a pudding pop.

Of course there's nothing wrong with Disney World. But my mother antennae are starting to go up because I'm detecting that we have a serious cultural problem with FOMO.

Except the fear of missing out isn't for us, it's for our kids.

Since when did childhood become a checklist of "experiences"? We're approaching parenting as if it's some sort of accelerated enrichment course, and our grade depends on the number of "experiences" (often elaborate and expensive ones) we've furnished for our children.

I know we came to this place out of love for our kids, but it's got to stop. The goal of parenting is not to produce 18-year-olds with a fully checked-off bucket list.

We are stressing ourselves out and giving ourselves FOMO by making parenting about making sure the kids do all the things, visit all the places, and have all the fun — all before they're old enough to open their own bank account.

But we don't have to try to pack an entire lifetime of experiences into 18 years. Our job, our real job, is to make our kids feel safe and loved. That's it.

If you want to go on fancy vacations and you can afford it, then do it. It'll be fun. But please don't feel like your kid is missing out. There is no official list of things they must do or see in order to have a good childhood.

Remember that you are raising children, not building a résumé.

Orchestrating a series of once-in-a-lifetime experiences for kids in't the goal of parenting. Raising well-rounded, secure, healthy people is the goal, and there are many ways to do that — both ones that do and don't include a trip to Disney World.

Not all of the experiences that develop your child's character can be found on a list of 101 Amazing Things Your Kids Must Do Before They Grow Up.

So maybe the things that end up shaping your kids' lives will be cheaper, closer to home, and in a word, ordinary.

Maybe their "what I did over my summer vacation" essay when they go back to school in the fall will sound less impressive than their classmates'.

That's okay.

Because of money, distance, family circumstances, or a hundred other reasons, your kids are going to "miss out" on a good number of things we wish they could experience.

That really doesn't matter as much as we think it does. Because if your kids know what it feels like to grow up loved, then you're already giving them the most important experience of all.

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30 More Slightly Insane Things I Do To Save Money

I'm a real cheapskate. And if you're reading this, you probably are, too.

How do I know this? Because other people want the regular tips for saving money. But you know all those. You've done them. You're looking for the slightly insane ones.

Well, I got such a huge response when I wrote my first 30 Slightly Insane Things I Do To Save Money that I'm back again with 30 more.

This post contains affiliate links mixed with links to hilarious stories on this blog. If a link takes you to somewhere outside of Unremarkable Files, it's probably an affiliate link which means I will get a small commission for purchases you make at no extra cost to you.

1. Think one year ahead if you can. Shop for next year's school supplies in mid-September, next year's Christmas decorations in January, and next year's clothes for your kids at the end of the season when they're on clearance.
2. Repurpose clearanced holiday merchandise. Sure, it looks holiday-themed in the aisle surrounded by all the other stuff, but a lot of the time it's basically the regular product with holiday packaging. I like to buy all my wrapping paper after Christmas; even the not-Christmasey looking stuff goes on sale and I can use it all year long.
3. A lot of utility companies give early payment discounts for paying your bill early. Does yours? (Even if they don't, pay your bills right away. Procrastination sometimes ends up in a late fee, and that sucks.)
4. I used to plan a week's worth of meals and go shopping every Saturday; now I still shop once a week but I only plan 5 days of meals and on the weekends we're forced to use up stuff from the fridge and cupboards. Even if we're out of something like milk that we use all the time, I try to wait one more day before grocery shopping because something else always ends up coming home with the milk.
5. Our oldest child is 12, and we've paid for a babysitter exactly twice. Part of it is that we don't go out nearly often enough, but part of it is that we trade babysitting with another family whenever we can.
6. Our health insurance will pay $200 a year toward gym memberships or sports fees. Others give incentives for preventive medicine like yearly physicals. Does yours?
7. Speaking of health insurance, you should read the fine print of yours. On some plans, it might cost less out of pocket for you to visit urgent care instead of the emergency room for stitches, go to Minute Clinic at CVS instead of your pediatrician for your kid's ear infection, or request the generic prescription instead of the name brand.
8. If you have some money in savings but you can't invest it or put it in a CD because you might need it, consider a high-yield savings account.
9. If you have an Amazon Prime membership, you can watch a lot of movies and TV for free with Amazon Instant Video. The ones that aren't free are only a few dollars, which is still better than having to put on pants and drive to a Redbox.
10. List broken appliances on Craigslist or Freecycle with full disclosure; some people fix up bikes or lawnmowers to resell or use and will actually take yours off of your hands.
11. If you can't sell your old electronics on eBay or Craiglist, use the Best Buy electronics recycling program to get rid of them for free. No disposal fees!
12. There are a ton of workout videos on Amazon Instant or YouTube, as opposed to a gym membership. And it's more fun to work out at home with a toddler crawling on your head, anyway.
13. Learn to coupon. I will never again pay a cent for toothpaste, shampoo, or conditioner because of coupons. Even if you don't want to be an extreme couponer who gets 112 bottles of mouthwash for 50 cents, understanding the principles of couponing will help you save money regularly.
14. Use conditioner instead of shaving cream. I get my conditioner for free by couponing, but even if you pay full price, a cheap bottle of VO5 is cheaper than a bottle of shaving cream and lasts longer.
15. Sign up for online coupon sites like Checkout 51 and Ibotta. You just take pictures of your receipt and submit them, money goes into your account, and you can cash out once you reach a certain amount.
16. I grind my teeth, and a new mouthguard last spring was going to cost me $667. My dental insurance covered nothing. So instead I went to CVS and got a 2-pack of at-home moldable mouth guards for $30. They are a little clunkier than the ones the dentist will make for you, but even if each of them only last a year it will literally take me 40 years to meet that $667 price point.
17. I buy dry beans, cook large batches of them in the crockpot, the freeze bags to use in place of canned beans. Dry beans are easier to take home, are healthier for you, and most importantly, cost 1/6 as much as canned beans. You can get them super-cheap at restaurant supply stores, but there isn't one close enough to make it worth my while so I just get 1-pound bags at the grocery store.
18. If your state requires vehicle inspection stickers, wait until the first day of the next month to renew yours. They expire on the last day of the month, so if yours expires August 31 go get your inspection on September 1. Your new sticker will be good through the end of next September and you've just gotten a free month.
19. Change your default printer settings to "black only" or "grayscale." Most of the time, printing in color is a total waste. Even if you're only printing black text, your printer still uses some colored ink unless you specifically tell it not to.
20. Get a free cell phone plan. Yes, free. I currently have service with Freedom Pop which is great for my data and texting needs, but I'm not happy with the call quality. A friend who hates spending money almost as much as I do recommended a free plan with Ring Plus, so I will have to check them out.
21. A lot of drugstores have prescription loyalty rewards programs. You might get $5 in store credit for every 10 prescriptions you fill there, for example.
22. Special makeup remover pads come in an 80-count container for $4.99; I can find baby wipes for 1 cent per wipe (couponing!) and cut them into fourths to use instead of makeup remover. You don't even need to do the math. It's just way, way cheaper.
23. I carry around discounted gift cards for the stores I shop at most often. I find them on Gift Card Granny and buy at a 10-20% discount (i.e: a $100 gift card for $80 or $90.) You could actually gift these to people, or use them yourself. Either way, you win.
24. A word about credit cards: I already mentioned in my other post that we use cashback credit cards. Normally, we get 1% cash back on purchases, but every quarter you can sign up for certain categories (restaurants, groceries, gas, etc) that get 5%. But here's the important part: credit cards are only smart if you pay them off in full every month. If you are carrying a balance and paying interest on your credit card, you are wasting your money in the worst way. Treat your debt as a huge flaming emergency and get rid of it. [end rant]
25. We rarely eat out, but when we do we try to combine it with a deal. Check sites like Groupon, Restaurant.com, or even Gift Card Granny for someplace you'd like to eat. Or you can ask for gift cards to restaurants at holidays and save them for date night.
26. When something breaks, learn to fix it on YouTube. From changing oil to cleaning your dishwasher to unclogging your sink, there's a tutorial for it online for free. Phillip could get a degree in auto mechanics from YouTube for all he's learned there. He once knew nothing about cars; now he does our brakes in the garage.
27. You can throw money at your kids' wardrobes endlessly, and they'll still outgrow everything in a season. In general, we don't buy more than our kids can wear in a week, which is how often we do laundry. They each have a pair of church shoes and a pair of everyday shoes for each season, and that's it. Any more just adds clutter to our tiny mudroom.
28. Buy with price per ounce in mind. Usually stores make it really easy for you by putting it right on the tag on the shelf. Bigger boxes are often, but not always, the best deal. A bunch of regular-sized packages of store brand cereal from your grocery store is often cheaper than a huge bulk container of name brand stuff from Costco.
29. Keep a box of stocking stuffers (or Easter basket stuffers). And hide it, obviously. Whenever I run across $1 toys, cheap candy, or after-the-holiday clearanced Easter/Christmas stuff I think my kids might like, I throw them in the box.
30. Re-use large 5x7 or 8x10 envelopes you get in the mail. We buy practically everything besides groceries on Amazon, so these are in no short supply in our house. You just need to tape the flap shut when re-using, and I write the address on a separate piece of paper and tape it to the front to cover up any previous labels. 

What about you? What slightly insane shortcuts do you take to save some money? Leave your input below and don't forget to check out the original 30 Slightly Insane Things I Do To Save Money for more ideas.

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Coupons: You're Using Them Wrong

Even though I've always been a really frugal person, I didn't see the purpose in coupons for the first several years of my adult life. In fact, I thought they were stupid.

Case in point: I would see a coupon for Cheerios, but upon going to the store it was obvious that the store brand Yummy-Os (or whatever) were still cheaper, even with the coupon.

I was using them wrong.

Coupons on their own are not particularly useful, unless you're a snob brand-loyal person. Combine them with the right resources, and you will never pay for toothpaste, feminine care products, or shampoo again. You'll also get deodorant, toilet paper, and diapers for much cheaper than you could buy even the store brand.

How to Get Started Couponing

First, you need to find yourself a couponing blog. Find one for your region of the country (because deals vary from region to region.) If you live in New England, I like Krazy Coupon Lady. If you don't, you know how to Google.

Second, bookmark your blog-o-choice and check it regularly. There will be all kinds of deals: online deals and in-store deals, deals with coupons and deals without coupons.

My son, helping organize my coupons.

Third, get your hands on the coupon inserts that come with the Sunday newspaper. I used to get a subscription just for the coupons, but stopped because I don't like wasting money on a paper I don't read. You can ask family and friends for theirs, or strike up a deal where the local library saves them for you, or even peruse public recycling bins for newspaper inserts. I won't judge.

However you get your coupon inserts, organize them in a binder by the date they were delivered. You don't even have to leaf through them to know what's inside first; the couponing blog does that for you.

How Couponing Works

Like I said before, coupons by themselves aren't very useful. Coupons are great when they are stacked with an awesome sale and an in-store promotion. That's when you get stuff for free.

The beauty of the couponing blog is that it finds these 'stacked' deals for you, and tells you exactly when and where and how to take advantage of them.

For example, Maven of Savin' recently told me how I could get 4 tubes of Colgate at CVS for free:

1. They were already on sale at the store
2. I used 2 coupons from my Sunday circular binder (it told me the date of the ones I needed)
3. CVS has a loyalty program where you get coupons to use at their store on future purchases when you buy certain products, including Colgate that week 
4. I paid with a $100 CVS gift card I'd gotten for $86 on eBay, which I'd learned about earlier from Maven of Savin'.

What If I Still Think Coupons are Dumb?

Even if you have no interest in ever clipping a coupon, I still think any frugal person should be following a couponing blog.

Many of the deals are online deals that don't even need a coupon. My couponing blog alerts me all the time to good deals at Amazon (yesterday I bought a big case of Pampers for half the price of store brand diapers) and Staples (our source of almost-free printer paper and inexplicably, toilet paper.) At Christmas I took advantage of several great deals, including a Groupon for 50 photo cards for $10.

A Word About Extreme Couponing

If you've ever seen that show on TLC, forget about it: you will not be that person. Yes, that person is getting 247 bottles of mouthwash for "free" in a single shopping trip, but it wasn't really free because:

1. They had to buy bulk lots of 50 coupon inserts on eBay in order to pull off those deals.
2. They still paid sales tax on each of those bottles of mouthwash
3. How many bottles of mouthwash can one reasonably use in a lifetime, anyway?

To be clear, I'm not an extreme couponer. I am a person who uses coupons and occasionally uses the word 'coupon' as a verb. I have a modest stockpile of stuff we regularly use in our house, and I pay less for it because I follow a couponing blog.

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Babies Do Not Cost a Fortune

In a phone conversation with a friend once, she let slip the F-bomb. Not that F-bomb. The other one. She said in passing, "...and you know, babies cost a fortune."

Ha!

I'm glad she couldn't see me because I'm sure I made a face. Eleven years and 5 kids into this becoming a mom thing, I'm convinced that babies simply cost whatever we want to spend on them.

I didn't bother to correct my friend because I hear it everywhere.

Babies are so expensive. 

You have to save up for years if you're considering having a baby. 

Don't even think about having a baby until you've moved into a ginormous house and achieved financial nirvana.

Mailings from Babies 'R Us would have me believe I need to devote an entire room of my house to my baby, furnish it with a coordinating crib and dresser/diaper changing table combo in walnut or cherry (depending on my style,) and buy a thousand dollars of matchy-matchy decor to fill out the room.

But up until the late 1900s nurseries weren't even a thing, and you probably have at least one grandparent that spent his or her first few months of life sleeping in a dresser drawer.

I'm not necessarily advocating a return to dresser drawers, but I am pointing out that babies don't need a lot of space or stuff, they just need love and enough room to set up a Pack 'n Play in the corner.

I know because we've done this, when our third child joined the family and we were living in an 820-square-foot apartment.

Nowhere we've lived have we ever had a nursery. Over the years we've had babies rooming with us, with their siblings, or even temporarily in a closet, the basement, or the master bathroom. 

We've found that they don't really need a changing table (beds, couches, or the floor work just fine,) a dresser (wire dorm-room shelving from Target is $20 and holds clothes,) or a high chair (we bought a yard sale Bumbo for assisted sitters and a portable booster seat for bigger babies and toddlers.)

I've seen babies with their own personal closets full of baby-sized clothes on baby-sized hangers and 2-year-olds with more purses and shoes than I've owned in my entire lifetime, but most kids just don't need more than a week's worth of clothes and you can find them at a consignment/thrift shop, yard sale, or your friend down the street giving away her son's outgrown things.

I have to admit, the USDA's estimate that it costs an average of  $245,000 to raise a child from birth to age 18 makes me freak out a little.

But when I do the math and multiply the per-month cost by 5 for my 5 kids, I realize it's either a super-inflated number or the average parent is buying diamond-studded pacifiers on Etsy, because it's nowhere near what we spend or have ever spent on any of ours, even though we live in a stupidly expensive area of the country (Northeastern United States.)

I decided to spend a little time playing around with the USDA child cost calculator myself to see what's supposed to make little people so expensive.

It asked what region I live in, how old my kids are, and what our household income is, then told me how much each one of them cost to raise this year — broken down into housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, child care and education, and miscellaneous expenses for each one.

I know it's just a computer-generated algorithm, but there were serious problems with this thing. 

First, it added a $6,800 yearly housing allowance and a $2,100 annual transportation allowance for each child, even though I have the exact same house and car with five kids that I did when we had three. Basically, it's assuming that I'm getting more house and a bigger car for each child. (I wish, but no.)

Second, it must assume I'm exclusively formula feeding (since I'm told to budget $1,591 for baby's food for the first year) and using full-time daycare (since it projects over $5,000 in childcare costs.) In reality, we've dropped maybe a few hundred on formula to supplement and $30 for that one time we got a sitter in the spring.

Actually, I thought the numbers in every category were too high, like the estimated $45 per week on food for my 11-year-old when really, a weekly grocery trip for our entire family of 7 is about $150.

Long story short, since we're not teetering on the edge of financial ruin like the USDA calculator says we should be, I think it's wise to take the old "babies cost a fortune" adage with a grain of salt.

Possibly one of those giant blocks of salt lick they make for horses.

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30 Slightly Insane Things I Do To Save Money

I've declared before on the blog that I'm a cheapskate but never really elaborated on it.

That's partly because a big chunk of our cheapskate lifestyle is just not buying stuff — and a 500-word blog post about that would be hard for me to write and boring for you to read.

But there are plenty of frugal shortcuts I take that, when I think about them, are a little wacky. Do you do any of these, or is it just me?

This post contains affiliate links mixed with links to hilarious stories on this blog. If a link takes you to somewhere outside of Unremarkable Files, it's probably an affiliate link which means I will get a small commission for purchases you make at no extra cost to you.

1. Buy ink refill kits online instead of new printer cartridges. For our printer, a refill kit has ink enough for two refills and costs $10. A new cartridge costs $30. I still recommend refill kits in spite of the ink explosion debacle back in August (I've been doing this for 10 years and that was a fluke user error.)

2. Join a rebate program. Whenever I shop online, I check if I can get cashback from Mr. Rebates. It's only a little if you buy something small like, say, an ink refill kit, but pretty cool if you're buying airfare for your entire family.

3. Use online coupon codes. Anytime I buy anything online, I Google coupon codes for that store first and half the time I find something.

4. Pay with cashback credit cards. We also got a hotel rewards card before we were planning a family vacation and ended up staying in a one-room suite for free for 6 days in Washington, D.C.

5. Send postcards instead of letters. When my kids mail out thank-you cards for their birthday presents, I give them 4x6" rectangles of posterboard for them to decorate and send as thank-you postcards instead. We save on cards and also postage — did you know that postcards are cheaper to mail than envelopes?

6. Another word on postcards: don't ever buy them. Postcards are a 4x6" picture. Write on the back of a photo and mail it (with the cheaper stamp) instead of buying one!

7. Cut your family's hair at home. Almost a decade ago I bought this haircut kit for under $20 and my husband and sons haven't been to an actual haircut place since.

8. Keep a stash of birthday presents. When I see good deals on toys, I buy them. Between my 5 kids, someone is always going to a birthday party.

9. I stock up on staples like shelf-stable groceries, diapers, toiletries, paper towels, and toilet paper when I see good deals. (Of course, that means you need to watch prices so you know what's a good deal when you see it.) Our basement looks kind of like a grocery store, but if there's ever a zombie apocalypse you can come over because we'll share (unless you're a zombie.)

10. Don't buy pre-cut vegetables, shredded cheese, or premade food very often. This is an issue where sometimes you're willing to pay extra for convenience, but in general I live by the rule that if I wouldn't pay someone to come over to my house and do it for me it doesn't make sense to pay for it at the store.

11. Cook breakfast! Cereal is expensive and not very filling, anyway. If you can convince your kids to eat a bowl of oatmeal or an egg and toast, it's way cheaper.

12. For a parent, pre-packaged snacks are a huge money suck. Seriously, look at the price per ounce of the little snack-size 6-packs of crackers versus the family-size packages. Buy the big container and have the kids portion it out into Ziplocs at home to pack in their lunches. Even with the Ziplocs you still save money.

13. Packets of microwave popcorn are the biggest rip-off in the history of rip-offs. A bag of loose popcorn kernels will last you 6 months and costs less than a few packets of microwave popcorn, and it's not hard to make. I once almost started a fire frying an egg; if I can pop popcorn, so can you.

14. Make your own laundry soap. You probably think no one but Ma Ingalls does this. Well, possibly no one but Ma Ingalls and me. But here's the recipe I use, which I just found on a Google search. I've tried a few other recipes but this is the best I've found so far.

15. Stop paying bills by mail. I die inside every time I need to use a stamp. Really. Whenever we get a bill, I always call the 800 number at the bottom to pay it by phone (or do it online if it's free.)

16. Greeting cards are a waste of money. I hate buying them; they just seem so frivolous to me. Instead, I save the cards I receive and use the elements to make new ones when a card is necessary. I already have a bunch of scrapbooking stuff from my other life when I had less kids and more time, so it doesn't take long.

17. I follow a coupon blog. Coupon blogs are regional and you can find one in your area with Google. If you live in New England I like Maven of Savin'. (Update Oct 2016: Maven of Savin' has closed up shop. I'm currently in mourning. Don't talk to me about it.)

18. Maintain a gift list for yourself. When people ask "What do you want for your birthday/Christmas?" my mind goes completely blank, every time. So I keep an actual list of stuff I think would be cool to own (I'm told that many people call this "Pinterest.") Then I actually have a useful idea if someone asks me what I want.

19. When traveling, buy meals at the grocery store deli. A rotissiere chicken and a carton of potato salad from the deli counter is cheaper than even McDonald's for a family. (If you absolutely must do fast food, however, we've found that the best value for a lot of people is KFC.)

20. Make your own curtains. I'm the world's worst seamstress, but I can sew four straight lines and that makes a curtain. If you price out the fabric and then compare it to the cost of the two panels you need to buy at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, curtains are crazily overpriced.

21. Join the mailing list for your favorite stores. Some place bury you with coupons if you get on their mailing list: JoAnn Fabrics, JC Penney, and Kohl's come to mind. I never shop at those places without a coupon, because they show up in my mailbox almost every other week.

22. If there's a special promotion to get a gift card for less than its face value, and it's a store I shop at anyway, I buy them and use them myself.

23. I skip school photos and get the kids' pictures taken every year at JC Penney (with a coupon, of course.) Maybe it's not as good as the hoity-toity portrait studio down the road that also does weddings and graduation photo shoots, but it's good enough for me.

24. Get books/magazines/movies/music from the public library. If you know how to use inter-library loan you can get whatever you want for free. (If I ever write a book, though, then by all means please buy it.)

25. Cut up your meat when you cook. Our family does a lot of vegetarian meals now, but even when we ate meat at almost every dinner we rarely had meals that were a slab of meat with some potatoes and veggies on the side. We always used half as much meat by always cutting it up and putting it in a stir-fry or casserole.

26. Join Freecycle. It's a global network of local groups where you can give away anything, as long as it's free. This is a gold mine for kids' stuff including furniture and toys, and all kinds of other things, too. We also have a local "give and take" thrift shop where everything is free, and a swap shop at our town transfer station with the same idea.

27. Avoid buying brand-new furniture. Craigslist is usually the best deal, followed by eBay, followed by kids' consignment stores. If you have a few months to wait and watch before you need the item, periodically check Freecycle and see if it comes up.

28. Learn what a rain check is. I didn't know what a rain check was until I was 30, and even then I was scared to use them. But they're great! If something's on sale and it's not on the shelves, ask the cashier for a rain check. You can come back later and get it for the sale price, usually within 30 days. You can still use coupons if you have them.

29. Never throw away food. The beauty of having babies and small people around is that if there are two spoonfuls of mashed potatoes or 6 green beans or a quarter of a waffle left over, it's a perfectly sized snack for later. My youngest kids and I have random leftovers all the time for lunch — we call this a "choose your own adventure" meal.

30. Join diaper loyalty programs. Since we've had someone in diapers for 11 years and counting, I make it my business to belong to the Huggies and Pampers rewards programs. If nothing else, I can use the rewards for baby shower gifts. (In a few more years, I'll have earned enough points to buy some lucky mom-to-be a new minivan.)

Leave a comment below with your best money-saving tips, and check out my article 30 More Slightly Insane Ways to Save Money. I promise you this is just the tip of the cheapskate iceberg.

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The Procrastinator's Guide to Death and Taxes

Two things in life are inevitable: death and taxes. And we don't have our taxes done.

The April 15th deadline looms.

We used to be tax overachievers who finished filing our taxes by, like, the second week of February.

Don't hate us.

That was back when we had fewer kids and more time. It was also when we were a dirt poor grad school student family, so the refund waiting at the other end might've had something to do with our enthusiasm.

Now it's a completely different story. We've become the stragglers, the masters of procrastination when it comes to filing our taxes.

I think this is naturally what happens when life becomes so hectic you feel genuinely proud of yourself for remembering to apply deodorant more often than not.

If any of you haven't yet reached that magical place in your lives, allow me to share a few of my favorite strategies for procrastinating e-filing your taxes:

1. Start out by telling yourself you have plenty of time. P-l-e-n-t-y of time.
2. As W-2s and interest statements from your bank start to roll in, tuck them in a safe place. Promptly forget where that safe place is.
3. Okay, so now it really is April 14th so you'd better find them and get cracking. 
4. Sit down to your computer and internally debate whether you need something to drink while you file your taxes. No, a snack. No, both. No — just a glass of water.
5. Get back up to fix yourself some nachos. You made the wrong call about not needing a snack.
6. Stare blankly at your keyboard, then check Facebook. Look up old boyfriends to see who's gone bald.
7. Re-watch old Jimmy Kimmel skits on YouTube. 
8. Gah, what are you doing? Open up your tax software and get started.
9. Ask spouse for his social security number and end up arguing about which one of you is putting the forks and spoons in the dishwasher upside-down.
10. Check to see if anyone has emailed you since you started filing your taxes.
11. Realize your inbox is a total mess and tackle organizing it right now.
12. Tidy up your computer work area. 
13. Round up your children and clip all their toenails.
14. Pin some motivational quotes on Pinterest before you get back to work.
15. Visit a news site, but skip the important headlines and only read articles like "25 Crazy Facts About Your Favorite '80s Cartoons."
16. Okay, taxes.You're filing taxes. Consider Tweeting that you are filing your taxes.
17. Vow to get right back to work after you Google the lyrics to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." You've never understood a single word of that song and it's been bugging you since 1991.

I think you get the picture.

But like it or not, it has to be done because the only certainties in life are death and taxes. And laundry. If only I could file an extension for the "Mom, I don't have any clean underwear!" deadline.

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Should You Pay Your Kids for Doing Chores?

When my daughter was 6, she came home from school one day and announced that she wanted to start getting an allowance like her friend Molly.

Then she wanted to know what an allowance was.

A quick Google search confirmed that there are a hundred different approaches to handling allowance. I read a dozen or so articles, and the readers' comments confirmed that whichever way you choose, it's wrong and you're teaching your kids to become spoiled brats.

So I can't tell you The Right Way to do allowance, but I can tell you what I've observed through trial and error in our home and what ultimately worked for us.

Our kids do lots of chores, both paid and unpaid. But mostly unpaid. In our house, you'll never earn a dime for:

• Basic self-maintenance like getting dressed, brushing your teeth, packing your school lunch, practicing the instrument you chose to play, or (when you reach the age of 8 or so) doing your laundry. That's just something you need to do because you're a person that's alive, not a job for which you deserve compensation.
• Cleaning up after yourself. Messes in, around, or outside your room that you participated in making will be cleaned up for free. Because that's just part of not being a slob.
• Family work. The kitchen and dining room are disasters because of the dinner that was made for you, so it goes without saying that you're going to help clean it up. You'll also take your turn unloading the dishwasher, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, taking out the recycling, emptying the trash, and everyday tidying up of common areas in the house. During the summer we also have a mandatory daily 30 minutes of "outside work" in the yard, just for fun. Or because we have a lot of weeds. One of the two.

That said, I want the kids to learn about earning money, so we have paid allowance chores, too.

But I think the kind of chores they get paid for are really crucial, and here's why:

Years ago, an acquaintance who did a lot of hiring for his tree removal business told me that a lot of his younger interviewees arrived feeling entitled to a job with him just because they wanted it. One day, he shocked a particular 18-year-old by leaning across the table and interrupting him. "I really don't care about how much you need this job," he said. "What can you do for me?" It was clear that the kid had never really considered it from that angle before. I don't think he got the job.

Fast forward several years later, and I was surprised to find that my own kids apparently had the same idea.

Around the time we first started batting around the idea of giving an allowance, I asked my daughter to pick up the avalanche of stuff that had exploded out of her backpack all over the hallway. Hopefully and immediately, she asked "Can that be my allowance chore for the day?"

It was clear that she thought I would (or should?) throw cash at her for any little task she found unpleasant. The idea of providing a valuable service in exchange for other people's money wasn't yet part of her thought process. It hadn't been learned yet.

That's why at our house, allowance chores are strictly personal "favors" for me, like folding my laundry, making my bed, or doing other household chores that I'd normally do myself without expecting the kids to lift a finger.

Some may call it cruel and unusual to farm my personal work off to the kids in the form of allowance chores, but I really think it's teaching them that earning money is different than being given money. The kids are learning that if you want someone to pay you, you need to provide them with a service worth paying for. That's what I like about our allowance chore system.

That, and I also get out of folding my laundry and making my bed on a regular basis.

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Giving to Panhandlers: A Christian Dilemma

I've been thinking a lot about panhandlers lately.

Honestly, I wanted to avoid writing this. Giving or not giving to people on the street is such an emotionally-charged topic, especially among Christians who are ultra-aware of scriptures about helping the poor and needy.

When the topic of helping the poor comes up in a Sunday School class or in conversation with friends, I feel a gnawing sense of discomfort.

That's because I feel that there's a more or less common consensus on the "correct" opinion for a Christian to have, which is that it's our obligation to hand money to everyone who asks no matter what. If they use it to buy booze or drugs, that's none of my business. What's important is that I give.

But there's just one problem: I disagree.

I believe it's my duty and privilege to help the needy, but I don't give money to panhandlers. We decided a long time ago to help them in a different way.

My family was approached by people asking for money a lot when we spent 5 years living near the downtown area of Columbus, Ohio. We were your stereotypical poor grad students, only with three child-size mouths to feed in addition to our own. Our family of five lived 20% below the federal poverty limit, so getting approached by strangers asking for money as often as two or three times a week was a big deal.

Stuttering "Sorry, I don't have any cash" felt wrong, especially if I was lying. Sometimes I gave whatever change I had, but felt uneasy about it.

Was it going to help?

Was I just enabling an addiction?

Was I being conned when we had so very little ourselves?

Hard as I tried to feel good about it, handing out cash to strangers just didn't sit well with me.

I didn't doubt that it was my Christian duty to help people in need, but I was having trouble defining who was "in need," or for that matter, whether blindly throwing money at them was actually "helping."

Matthew 5: 42 says "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." 

There's a similar verse in another scripture in which I believe called the Book of Mormon that says:

And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance until him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish (Mosiah 4: 16-18.)

I looked again at the verses in Mosiah, noticing the phrases "him that standeth in need" and "turn him out to perish." Like the other scriptures I read about the poor, the author took for granted the fact that street beggars are so desperately in need that they will literally die without the kindness of strangers.

It occurred to me that likewise when Matthew in the Bible wrote about giving "to those that asketh of thee," he was living in a time and place where there were no welfare programs or soup kitchens or Toys for Tots. The poor either sat outside the temple in Jerusalem begging for money, or they starved by the side of the road.

Contrast that to today, where even though my family was technically living in poverty during our time in Columbus we were never even in danger of skipping a meal, much less starving.

According to a 2013 report from the Census Bureau, 98% of the households living in poverty had a fridge, 96% had a stove, and 93% had a microwave. 80% had cell phones and 96% had a TV.

Where I live, people can walk into any emergency room and receive treatment regardless of whether they can pay. There are food pantries SNAP and Medicaid and housing vouchers and free school lunches.

We live in a culture of such extreme privilege that even the most modest lifestyles (by today's standards) would dazzle most people who've ever lived on this planet. Sometimes I don't even think we know the difference between needs and wants anymore.

After many in-depth conversations, my husband and I finally decided what we were going to do. When someone asked us for money, we said, "Sorry, I don't give money to people I don't know, but I do want to help. What can I do for you?"

And then we would do it.

That simple decision was liberating. No more lingering icky feelings when I gave or didn't give money. I could offer my help, and have it be received.

Since then I've paid for people's bus fare, bought fast food, picked up extra groceries, and sometimes when Phillip was with me (I never felt it was safe to do as a woman driving alone) given rides, all to people who originally approached me asking for money.

picture by Dovile Cizaite

In those instances, I never felt bad about time or money spent. When I was actually helping one of my brothers or sisters on this earth meet their needs, it was always worth the sacrifice.

But those were the good experiences, and they were few and far between.

Four times out of five when I went to buy fast food for a hungry panhandler, they didn't stick around long enough for me to give it to them when I returned.

Once my kids and I saw a man at a stoplight holding a cardboard sign that read "need a sandwich" so we ducked in a corner cafe to get him one. He gave me a funny look, said thanks, set it down on the ground beside him, and kept on waving his sign.

I couldn't believe it. He wasn't even hungry.

Another time when we gave the "we don't give money to people we don't know but can we help you" line to a woman asking for money at the park, she explained she needed gas money. But when we offered to drive her to the gas station and fill up her car, she explained that actually her car was in the shop so she really just needed some money to get it out.

When we offered to drive her to the shop and pay for the repairs, she told us that the repair was going to take a while and what she really needed was money for a hotel room. When we offered to drive her to a hotel and pay for a room she tried one last time, telling us that she was diabetic and needed some money for food. This was starting to get ridiculous. After we offered to go buy her some food, she just gave up on us and walked away.

The sad thing I learned from my personal experience in Columbus was that most people who asked me for money didn't really want my help. In fact, they were often mad that I wanted to help them instead of just giving them cash and going away.

What I liked about our answer to panhandlers is that offering to do anything except give money helped us to discern what their needs really were — or whether they had any at all.

Right about now, you may be shouting at this screen, saying I'm a terrible person for suggesting panhandlers are all con artists.

I'm not saying that none of them have legitimate needs. I know some of them do — and in those cases, their needs are usually better served by getting them the things they need than by giving them money.

On a cold morning a few days before Easter, Phillip and I were driving through Columbus when a woman who was obviously mentally ill darted in front of our moving car asking for money. After we asked what she needed and she said she was hungry and cold, we drove her to McDonald's and ordered her a meal to eat while she sat inside.

Thinking back, I wish I'd given her my coat. I wish we'd thought to find a homeless shelter, drive her there, and secure her a place for the night.

I have regrets about that day, but not giving her money isn't one of them. I'm not sure she would've had the mental wherewithal to use it to meet her needs, anyway.

As it was, we made sure that she at least ate a meal and got out of the cold for a few hours, and maybe that's the best we could do.

I believe in helping people, and I believe in not giving money away to everyone who asks. And I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

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