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Browsing posts in: Kids & Money

Celebrating on a budget

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Our got to “celebration” has always been to go out to eat. It’s something that was done in my family growing up and it continued when I got married and began having kids. We celebrate birthdays with a meal out at the birthday day kid’s choice of restaurant. Great income month, let’s get steak. You get the point.

I don’t know if it’s this new stage in life where I love my home and my kitchen. (Your kitchen’s design and appliances really do make a difference in the joy it brings when cooking. I LOVE my gas stove!) Or if the continued loss of my hearing, makes being out more and more uncomfortable. Or maybe, it’s that I’m becoming such a good cook that I don’t want to eat others food…nope, it’s definitely not that. But I have been looking at other ways we could celebrate.

And the one I’ve landed on is making our meals together a bit more special…This lets us celebrate more often too.

Making meal times special on a budget

Here’s my on a budget ways I have upped the anty with our at home meals.

  1. Cloth napkins – they just feel luxurious. I have friends who use wash cloths to make them cost effective and be more green. When all the kids were at home, I would not have attempted to use cloth, paper towels or traditional napkins it was. But now that our full get togethers are few and far between, I love having a set of cloth napkins.
  2. Pour the wine & use wine glasses – nope, I still don’t drink. But Princess and I picked up some dollar store glass wine glasses and I keep a few bottles of sparkling juice on hand for those fun occasions when we can toast and celebrate together.
  3. Dessert – yes, coming right up. Cakes and ice cream can add up quickly. I’ve started keeping some of the muffin mixes on hand. I can uplevel them with a few ingredients…extra egg, butter instead of oil, an extra dash of vanilla or cinnamon and then mix together some quick cream cheese frosting. I find the small muffin mix pouches on special 4 for $5. So I can literally whip up a yummy, cost effective dessert for a few people for just a few dollars and in less than 30 minutes.
  4. Mood lighting – there is nothing that sets a mood more than lighting. And we go both directions…when we are just having a chill night, a quiet celebration, I pull out of my candles and light them up all over the place. Since I don’t use them very often, candles literally last me a whole year. Since we are typically a loud, music blaring kind of crew, we have strung up the outdoor lights we invested in during quarantine (when we turned our carport into a hang out spot) around the back deck/hot tub area. We get Siri to play the music from someone’s phone, open both the back doors and have all the lights on. It makes it immediately festive around here.

We are on the cusp of a lot of loss around here. And I refuse to focus on it. So turning meal times into celebrations is one way I am coping. Cherishing every moment I get with the ones I love.

We couldn’t have a meal with my grandmother on her 95th birthday this week, but we did go visit her in her assisted living facility while Princess was home visiting from college.

The cost of death

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I hinted in my last post about the costs associated with illness especially for the elderly and terminal illnesses which require lots of care. While those costs aren’t something I have needed to cover, thankfully, due to my dad’s excellent money management skills. The cost of death is something that has been a topic of discussion around our home quite a bit lately.

Selection of benefits

The kids and I are all aware of the end of life situation we are facing with my mom, their Gramzi. It’s also come up several times in regards to the twins. No, they are not sick. But they have both recently changed jobs and therefore had to review and select benefit options.

Sea Cadet is a full time firefighter/EMT. The job in and of itself carries a higher risk. And History Buff just started a new job involving testing transformers. It was time for them both to select some life insurance. Since neither of them is married, my advice was twofold:

  • Make sure you select enough to cover your end of life costs. (Yes, I am very blunt and matter of fact about these things, have always been this way.)
  • Keep in mind as you get older qualifying for lower rates can become more challenging. So I recommend electing for an amount your comfortable paying for rather than just the minimum – taking advantage of the “no health assessment option”.

Would you give other or additional advice to your 20-something year old kids?

When my mom dies

There have also been a lot of conversations about when my mom dies as well. I feel at peace with this because we did discuss it so frankly throughout the last decade. She wants to be cremated. She didn’t want a viewing. She always joked that she wanted a Mexican fiesta as her celebration of life with chips and queso. I realize this is not realistic, her conservative community would definitely not understand that. But frankly, I love the idea.

Anyways, we have spent time this week in Texas discussing the details and what us kids and the grand kids want and need. There will most likely be two services, one in Texas where her and my dad have lived for the last 8ish years and all of my siblings have their communities. And then one where I live, which is where my dad and she were born and raised and still have significant ties to the community. (This was my dad’s call and I support it. I told him we didn’t need to do a service where I live just because of us.)

I plan to attend both and will offer the same to my kids. My dad has indicated to all us kids (5 of us) that he will have some money available to help us and the grand kids (there are 6 in total, my 5 and one of my brothers has a son) with travel expenses. We also discussed the timing of those services as the quick trips are a lot more costly.

Memorials

Since both of my parents plan to be cremated, the idea of a burial plot went out the door. But for some of my siblings, having a “place” is important. We are reviewing options for that especially with the distance and the “significance” of the location being a factor. We have moved so many times that we don’t have roots like I feel a lot of people do have. There is no childhood home or even childhood city that encompasses all of us.

Dad recently discovered the option of “stones”. Essentially they take the ashes and create stones from them. I like this idea a bit better than an urn of ashes or even the little jars of ashes. But frankly, I will be okay with whatever is decided as I know my mom will no longer be here and she won’t care one way or another. The decisions we are making now are for those of us left behind.

We’ve also discussed jewelry and other alternative memorial pieces. I have been discussing this with my kids in preparation over the last month and I have to share a funny…

A funny take on having a memorial piece

When I asked my boys if they would want some type of memorial for Gramzi made of her ashes, more than one of them had this response…

“Mom, I love that idea. But I lose things so much. You even say I would lose my head if it wasn’t attached. What if I lose Gramzi?”

More factual words have never been uttered…keys, wallets and even jewelry. They are all terrible at keeping up with their stuff. I think it’s part boy and part their age.

Preparing now

The financial cost of death is significant. The arrangements, the “stuff” and the travel. I appreciate how prepared my parents are and how open to accommodating our needs and wants they are. (My mom is no longer here mentally, but my dad speaks for her and we had many, many discussions in advance with her so I know this is a family effort even if she can’t say so now). We are preparing now for my mom’s final send off. They are teary discussions. But, the memories and laughs we have shared are priceless. And we all recognize that we need to do this now. Because the after is going to be so much harder.