Posts Tagged ‘kidtivities’
“Summer Brains” Out; Saving Money In
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Today I thought I would talk about some fun ways to get kids to use their heads in the summer by helping the family save money without wasting time!
Throughout my book I have “Kid-tivities” that help get kids involved and making it easy and fun at the same time.
I thought I would share a couple with you:
The “Getting Rid of Debt” Game: If you are one of the many American families with problem debt, don’t try to hide the situation from your children, because they are smart enough to realize that something is wrong. Instead, sit down with them and explain that in the past you have spent more than you made but you are trying to fix it, and if the whole family works together to make it better, everyone will be happy. Then brainstorm with your children what you can do as a family to bring in extra money and pay down that debt. Whether it is through a yard sale or two (or seven!), or having them help you sell items on eBay or whatever, include them in the process and make it a game, rather than a drag!
Playing “House Detective”: This is a game that can work on those rainy days (like the Northeast has been having for the past 2 months!) when your kids are bored and stuck in the house. If your circuit breaker box has never been labeled, you have your kids run around the house every time you shut off a breaker so you know which room(s) corresponds to what fuse. Then you can show your kids how to shut down the breaker box in the event of an emergency. You can also play house detective to find the source of leaky pipes, since kids are particularly good at crawling in places (such as under sinks) that are hard for us adults to reach!
Copyright 2008-2009 Kristin Delfau, author of Turbo-Mom's Guide to Saving Money Without Wasting Time a womens' personal finance book, and Aji Publishing.
Tags: debt, home improvement, kidtivities, saving money
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Those Pesky Users Manuals
Monday, January 12th, 2009
Last night, the washer wasn’t working quite right so I knew I needed to take a peek at the user’s manual to see what was going on. Problem was, I normally store all of my user’s manuals for inside appliances in one place…but I had taken the washer manual out and neglected to put it back. Instead of wasting a bunch of time tearing apart the house looking for it, I remembered a website that I had used in the past and boom! there was my manual, in my hands, in 5 minutes.
This particular website is quite handy: www.managemyhome.com. You create a user account and then search for your user manuals for all of the different appliances and gadgets in your home. Then, in a stroke of brilliance, you can save them to your account. This way, the next time you have a problem with something–just log on, click on “Home Profile” under the “Home Management” section, and your user’s manual is at your fingertips in PDF form. For free! This is a great time and money saver!
Getting all of these manuals in one “virtual” place could also be a good rainy day activity for the 6+ age group. Give your kid(s) a blank piece of paper and have them run around and play “detective” to find all of the brands and model numbers…and give a prize to the child who collects the most or the most correct information. It will keep them occupied for a little while and you’ll get all of this handy information all in one place!
The only complaint I have about www.managemyhome.com is that once I saved my users’ manuals, it was tricky to try to find them again–which is why I told you how to do so in an earlier paragraph. 
Still, it is a great, free way to save time and money!
Copyright 2008-2009 Kristin Delfau, author of Turbo-Mom's Guide to Saving Money Without Wasting Time a womens' personal finance book, and Aji Publishing.
Tags: appliances, kidtivities, user manuals
Posted in Turbo-Mom's Guide to Saving Money Without Wasting Time | No Comments »
