10 Ways to Save Monday on Elementary School Aged Kids

I was reading an article over at Get Rich Slowly this week and noticed someone commented that no one ever writes about how to save money with school aged kids.  Here are some things that we do or have done with our school aged kids to keep costs down.

1. Only enroll each child in one activity and try to make sure there is an off season.



We learned quickly that dance and gymnastics classes are very expensive



Many parents I know have their child doing at least one activity for each day of the week.  Some of these activities are obviously cheaper than others. Dance classes and gymnastics seem to be of the most expensive where as team sports such as baseball and soccer seem to carry a lower price tag.  Keep in mind that you are spending money on the gas to drive your children to these activities as well.

 There are usually ways to save money on the activities you do choose.  Hit consignment shops, ebay, and thrift stores for practice gear or accessories. I've purchased soccer cleats, dance shoes and leotards, etc from consignment shops. Many music stores sell used instruments. Carpool with others in your neighborhood who are doing the same activity.  If all day events or travel are involved consider packing your own meals instead of eating out.

2. Limit exposure to commercialism.

My family and I committed one summer to a month without TV and since then have had a limit of one hour a day on the amount of TV they watch.  The TV must either be our local PBS station which has no commercials or a movie that is in our collection (generously given by the grandparents). Since they have stopped watching commercials, the only toys I've been asked for are the ones in the catalogs we get in the mail.  Most of the time these are at least a little educational.

While I would think it would go without saying, we only purchase toy items for birthdays and Christmas and even then, there is a limit on what they receive both a price limit and an item number limit. When either limit is hit, we stop purchasing for that child for that holiday.

3. Buy clothing from consignment shops, ebay, ThredUp, craigslist, yardsales and other sources of used clothing.
   My kids don't know any different even at the ages of 6 and 9.  They just know that when we are going shopping, we are going to the consignment shop. I did recently explain to my nine year old that the clothes we had just purchased had been worn by someone else previously. When I was done explaining to her that new clothing cost significantly more than preworn clothing, she was amazed that anyone would purchase new clothing.

4. Avoid school pictures and other fundraisers.
  Most of the time, the pictures that you take at home turn out better than school pictures anyway.  Amy Dacyzan wrote in the Tightwad Gazette that you would be better off making a donation to the the school than to participate in fundraisers.

5. Hang out with other frugal families.

I admit that I do discourage my kids from hanging out with families who aren't as frugal. We are still civil to the other families, but there's just something about when other kids come over and they don't understand when they see empty soda bottles sitting in our "bottle" rack rather than ones full of sodas.  We were saving them because at the time we were making a lot of our own sodas.  Kids also want what they see that others have. If other kids are sporting their iPods and cell phones then my kids wonder why they can't have one too.

6. Talk to your kids about money.

I find that around age 7, they are old enough to understand that you can not spend more money than you have coming in.  We are honest with our children about our bills. At that age, the amount of the electric bill every month will really make an impression.  We also talk to them about saving and the importance of living debt free.  Our children see  first hand how our being debt free has benefitted the entire family. If you are still trying to become debt free, involve the kids.

7. Don't buy prepackaged and processed snacks.

These are expensive and then kids will go through them very quickly.  We find that although fresh fruit,vegetables, and nuts aren't cheap, the kids will eat them because they are hungry, not because they crave the taste. A lot of times the kids will tell me they are hungry. I point out the fruit or veggie sticks and they suddenly change their minds. I am sure that if they were truly hungry, they would eat whatever was available.

We also make the kids drink water before they can have anything else to drink (if that's even an option )

8.Be creative with Christmas and Birthday presents.

Would you feel guilty about purchasing a used car or four wheeler for a teenager for their birthday? Probably not.  So if your elementary school child wants something you could just as easily purchase used. DOn't feel bad about purchasing those things used either. Could you make the item they want cheaper than you can buy it? Would another option work just as well? We get American Girl catalogs in the mail.  My daughter had picked out a doll that she wanted.  The doll alone was $100 and in addition, she had also picked out $100 in accessories. There was no way we were spending $200 on her for Christmas.  MrLivingOurWay has a hard time not getting them what they want so he did research on the knockoff (a father doing research on dolls should get the Father of the Year award!). He found that the Madame Alexander dolls were similar and well made so he consulted with her to see if this would be an exceptable alternative and purchased the doll for about 40% of the cost of an American Girl doll. We purchased the accessories from Target which has similar ones that fit both the American Girl doll and the Madame Alexander doll for much cheaper.

9. Use your local library for books, movies, and magazines.The library is a nice source of entertainment that is free!  Too many books, movies, and magazines can really clutter a house anyway.

10. Give home haircuts.
I've mentioned before, I don't have a lot of experience cutting hair but my kids loved their hair cuts and I saved the money I would have payed someone else.  I had home hair cuts growing up and never minded them a bit.

Liberated from Insurance? Part 8

This is the last post in my Liberated from Insurance series for now.

One thing I realized as I was researching life without insurance is that we really don't use our insurance now because many times we choose alternative care which is not covered by insurance.

If I add up the share costs per year for Samaritan Ministry and the cost of everyone in our 5 member family having a “discount card” at the direct pay doctor, we’d pay $6200/year and I could throw in our gym membership as preventative care and still come out well under $7600 per year. Honestly, I’m not getting everyone a discount card at the direct pay doctor though. Last year, our oldest FindingOurWay went to the doctor twice for ear infections. I did see my midwife once with bronchitis and had a chronic condition treated. However, the chronic condition isn’t something that needs to be monitored as close when I’m not pregnant so we’ll say we went to the doctor about 5 times last year as a family. At the direct pay doctor that would be $250/year plus labs.

Liberated from Insurance? Part 7- Group Buying Sites

So far in our series on being uninsured, we've talked about catastrophic situations, labwork, routine doctors visits, prescription drugs, and telemedicine. 

In this entry, I'm going to talk about group buying sites.  Often sites such as Groupon will have medical care advertised at a discount price. These sites can be helpful if you are looking for these services within the given time frame. There are eye appointments, dental care, and even doctors visits advertised. This is very controversial as you are picking a doctor based on price and not on reputation.

I admit. I bought a dentist appointment off of Groupon the other day. Actually I bought teeth whitening (which I really don't want), but it included a cleaning, exam, and x-rays in the price which was $50 cheaper than what MrLivingOurWay paid for the same thing recently.  It was a little scary when this office could schedule me a same day appointment and when I turned it down, could then schedule me a next day appointment.  However once we got there, the waiting room was full and they didn't end up being able to see me due to computer problems.  We had to reschedule the appointment so I'll update then. 

You might also visit:
Living Social

Liberated from Insurance? Part 6- Telemedicine

An option that might be even cheaper than a direct pay doctor might be a doctor which will "see" you over the computer or telephone.  These doctors request information from you about your health history, listen to your symptoms, and then provide advice and/or treatment.  If the doctor feels your history or symptoms warrant it, you will be advised to see a doctor face to face or head to the emergency room.  If your problem is as simple as a sinus infection, then the doctor might call in a prescription to your local pharmacy.  The woman I spoke to on the phone at one such company stated that they will treat people of all ages including children.  At this time, they do not treat chronic conditions.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand for MrLivingOurWay and myself, we usually know what's going on before we go to the doctor and we just need the antibiotic to fix it.  On the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel about treating my children this way since we don't really always know what is going on with them. I took a FindingOurWay to the doctor for an ear infection once and came home with a positive strep test.  However, I can see where this might prevent some unnecessary expenses we've had in the past such as when I called 911 over a busted lip when our oldest FindingOurway was just under two years old (no one told me that a busted lip could bleed so much!) or the time when I took the middle FindingOurWay to urgent care over a piece of ear wax when she was 4 months old.

This service could cost as little as $180 per year for an entire family.

How do you feel about telemedicine? Would you consider using it?

Liberated from Insurance? Part 5 Prescriptions

So far in our series on being uninsured, we have discussed how to cover catastrophic events, maintenance healthcare, and labwork.  What about prescription medications we might need?

Having a high deductible insurance plan, we are already used to getting our prescriptions, if possible, off the $4 list at Walmart.  There are also numerous companies out there that offer prescription drug cards. Many are quite reputable and very few care about pre-existing conditions.  Often these cards are free.  There are some trade offs to free prescriptions cards as many of them use your data for research just as a grocery store uses your data for research when you use their discount cards.

Some of the the cost sharing ministries also have their own discount drug cards.

Do you have a favorite prescription discount card that you like to use?

Attitudes are Changing

For the last year our conversations have gone like this.

MrsLivingOurWay: Did you plant the _________ yet?

MrLivingOurWay: When do I have time?

Feel free to add a little attitude in there since we were both pretty grouchy with other changes in our lives, our telecommuting jobs, and homeschooling our kids.  The conversation could be reversed as well.

This weekend, I saw the attitude change.  Our tractor has been "broken" for months and for months it just sat.  This weekend, MrLivingOurWay went out there and did what had to be done to actually get the piece off the tractor that needs to be fixed.  Our garden hasn't had much in it for awhile. I had a baby to take care of so not much was done. This weekend, I put the baby on my back and began weeding the garden so that we can plant what little we can still plant.



Our Overgrown Garden before I started weeding it



Because of the uncertainty of our income in the future, we've been finding all the this time we thought we didn't have.  We are planning to slow down the drain on our savings account as MrLivingOurWay looks for work.  Our jobs are still there for the moment, so it's not like we don't still have everything going on and it's more important than ever to do a good job.

Lots of ideas are floating around which include everything from cost saving measures like dropping our insurance to products we might sell through the same channels in which we sell our eggs.  We also have a plan to increase egg production since our hens have all but stopped laying this winter.

I think that rather than being a bad experience, it might be the Lord's way of pushing us further on this path to self-sufficiency (or God sufficiency).

First Home Haircut

When I was growing up, I wanted nothing more than long hair with no bangs.  When I finally got my way in high school, it was so much easier to deal with than that bob cut with bangs my mom made me have. I thought my girls would always want the same.  Nope.  They have always wanted bangs.

They needed a hair cut bad. So I called the lady that usually cuts our hair but there was a message stating that she wasn't taking new clients and she never called me back.  Since we see her about every year and a half for her cheapest service, I probably wouldn't have called back either.  I had just read about people who reading instructions for cutting hair on the Internet and doing it themselves and I decided to give it a try. 

In order to get them to allow me to cut their hair, I had to promise bangs.  The haircuts are far from professional looking but they are 6 and 9 years old so they really don't care as long as they have the long discouraged bangs.

Resources:

http://www.teachinggoodthings.com

http://shwinandshwin.blogspot.com/2010/10/girls-cuts.html

Liberated from Insurance? Part 4 Lab Work

So we have the routine medical care and the catastrophic situations covered, but what about basic lab work not included at the “direct pay” doctor? I have a solution for that as well. There are many reputable web sites which allow you to order your own labs and the prices are listed right there on the web site.

I personally used an online lab about a month ago when my doctor didn’t order a test that I wanted. It was easy. Within minutes I had the order in my e-mail which I printed out and took with me to Lab Corp. They drew the blood for me and within 24 hours, I had the results delivered electronically through their secure web site. These tests are much cheaper than when a doctor orders them and you don’t have insurance. 
Have you ever ordered your own labs online?  Would you consider it?

Liberated from Insurance? Part 3- Direct Pay Doctors

In Part 1: I told you that our family is dropping insurance and why.
In Part 2: I told you about Samaritan Ministries.

So what about all that stuff that isn’t covered by Samaritan’s Ministries? You can really pay a lot of money for doctor visits and even the high deductible insurances negotiate costs for you. Don’t worry, I have a plan for that too. There are a growing number of doctors that are getting tired of insurance. Filing insurance is a headache and when the insurance is done negotiating costs, they don’t make that much anyway. Most doctors actually have to pay someone a salary to do nothing but work with insurance companies. These doctors are finding they can offer health care cheaper by not accepting insurance and listing their prices where their patients can see them.

Once such group of practices within driving distance of our family, charges $50 per visit which is exactly what our high deductible insurance negotiated our cost down to per appointment when our oldest FindingOurWay went to the doctor for an ear infection last year. They also have a “discount card” that can be purchased for $399/person. This allows you to visit the doctor for $20/appointment and includes a lot of basic labs plus a comprehensive physical once a year. I recently had one of the labs included in this physical done and the test cost $500 before insurance negotiated it down.

If we chose to purchase the card for each member of our family we’d pay approximately $2000 per year.  We actually aren't planning to purchase a card, that's just if we did.

Liberated from Insurance? Part 2- Samaritan Ministries

Yesterday in Liberated From Insurance?, I mentioned that our family has made the decision to cancel our health insurance and told you that I would be laying out our plan in these next few entries.

Samaritan’s Ministries is a Christian Medical Sharing organization which requires that it’s members be a professing Christians according to the Bible, live a Christian lifestyle (no drugs, no sexual behavior outside of marriage, and no drinking to drunkenness), and attend church regularly. I’m actually currently doing this for myself because this was much cheaper than the maternity rider on our insurance policy and it will cover homebirths. I did not have this when the last FindingOurWay was born because the idea hadn’t occurred to me until we had some minor complications during his pregnancy.


When you join Samaritan’s Ministries, you commit to sending a share to a different family in need each month. You also commit to praying for this family’s medical situation and sending words of encouragement with your check.

Samaritan Ministries will not share cost of routine care for preventative care, routine care for chronic illnesses, pre-existing conditions, or any cost that is under $300 per incident. In theory, everything over the first $300 per incident is shared. However, there are months where the sharing is prorated and everyone whose expenses were shared that month will not have a percentage of their needs shared. The scary part is that if you end up being responsible for 20% of $250,000, that is a lot of money. The good news about this is that their plan is sustainable.  We will be trusting God to protect us from financial turmoil due to medical bills.

Members are given incentive to negotiate reductions in bills on their own and the ministry itself will attempt negotiate reductions of bills in excess of $1,000. When our youngest FindingOurWay was born, (before Samaritan Ministries was in the picture), we were required by our pediatrician to get him blood tested for Group B strep. When we got the final EOB for the test after it was run through our insurance, the test cost $50.  We were waiting for the bill when the lab called MrLivingOurWay and demanded to be paid. No problem, he explained that EOB had at first said we didn't owe anything because of the way the claim was filed and then aother had come saying that we owed $50.  The person on the phone put him on hold and reduced the bill without him outright asking.  He was surprised. He had no idea that it could be that easy to negotiate a bill.

For a family of any size the cost is $320/month (cheaper for singles and single parent households) which covers up to $250,000 in medical expenses per incident. There is an option to particpate in their Save to Share program without limit as to what might be reimbursed. When this is added in as well as the annual administrative fees, the total cost is about $350/month per family.

So our family will pay about $4,200/year to Samaritan Ministries.

If your family also chooses this route, please be sure to mention us as a referral as they have a very generous referral program.
 
 Do you have any experiences with Samaritan Ministries or the other Christian medical cost sharing ministries?

Liberated from Insurance?

I have heard all my married life about how important insurance is. At the beginning of our marriage, MrLivingOurWay wanted to save money by not putting me on his insurance policy offered through his work. My mother lectured me about how I was going to have to put my foot down and make him add me to his insurance. She was concerned about how we would pay the hospital bills should I get pregnant. A couple of days later, he added me to his insurance and we paid $365/month for just my portion of the health insurance. Six months later, we were pregnant!

As we look at the possibility of a time of low employment or unemployment in our family’s near future, we made the difficult decision to cancel our insurance. I know, there are people out there gasping as they read this sentence. Don’t worry. We aren’t going about this without having done a lot of research and coming up with a plan.

After having done research, I’ve actually come up with a list of advantages of NOT carrying insurance:

1.  As long as I can pay for it, I can see any doctor I want without worrying about whether they are in      network.
2. We will be motivated to stay healthy and safe.
3. We will be more motivated to learn about herbs and plant medicine.
4. We will most likely save money.

In the next few entries, I’m going to lay out my “no insurance” plan should we need it. For reference, we currently pay $636/month for our family of five for a high deductible insurance policy. That’s over $7600/ year in insurance premiums. I have been amazed at the services out there which cater to the “uninsured” and none of these services or options involve the government. They also don’t involve not paying our bills.

Is it possible to be liberated from insurance?  Do you think it's possible to cancel your insurance and minimize your risk of owing lot's of money to a medical establishment?  Feel free to share your experiencees of being uninsured.

Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting that anyone else cancel their insurance.  This is a personal decision for our family after much research.