Being a Cheapskate
There’s no way around it. Kids are expensive.
Before Matthew was born, my wife and I thought we had all the finances worked out. We put money away in savings. We put together a budget. We even stocked up on diapers so we had a closet full by the time the kid arrived. What we didn’t realize is that we needed to win the lottery.
I read that it costs $291,570 to raise a kid these days, but I’m pretty sure that is the low estimate. I feel like I’ve already spent that much on diapers just in the first year. Even my friend @pineapplebabble recently admitted to sewing designer labels onto her daughter’s clothes and using Jedi mind tricks to get grandparents to buy clothes. She may have forced her daughter to get a second job as well. But my point here is that everyone needs to be a cheapskate sometimes just to get by.
But here is where I draw the line…
We were grocery shopping the other day (since this was our Schwans guy’s week off) and I noticed something odd about the Stouffers “party size” lasagna. There were two boxes, both the same price, but one proudly proclaimed “Now…cooks 25% faster!” That’s amazing I thought…until I noticed the new package was a few ounces lighter than the original. I’m all for saving time, but since we’re paying the same price either way, I’ll take the bigger lasagna and somehow learn to manage with a longer cooking time.
All parents are cheap
Being a cheapskate seems to be just another part of parenthood. My parents told me about how, as a child, they were tricked into eating generic brand cereal because their own parents kept refilling the Fruit Loops box. You’d think they would have noticed that the box never emptied, or that there was never a new prize, but I digress…
What embarrassing cheap-ass tactics did your parents pull on you? Add your tragic childhood tale in the comments below.
Filed under: Tales of the cheap | 4 Comments
Tags: Cheapskate, Diapers, Matthew, Money
Clearly, you already saw my post in which I shared the shame that my mother used to sew designer labels into our generic clothing….(thanks for the pingback, BTW!
…but another ‘cheapskate shame’ is the fact that my prom dress only cost $15. When all of my friends were paying $100’s just RENT their dresses (I’m from La…hello!!), my mom took me to the sale racks at a local department store. We found a dress in the women’s XXL section – bear in mind I weighed approximately 90lbs at that time (if you ask me my weight now, I will beat you about the head and neck area so don’t push it, Dan!) so the dress was EXTRAORDINARILY large. My mom took it home, sewed it up and made me a short, black prom dress with pearl straps. I think this was a lot of effort and I often wonder how much savings are involved when you add up the time it takes to complete a project like this…hmmm…something to think about.
I’m glad you’re blogging! Looking forward to more!
My Dad used to fill out our Christmas stockings (his knee high work socks) with fruit from the fruit bowl. We just put it back in the bowl again later.
Funnily enough itemising the contents of the fruitbowl on Christmas Eve has now become a family ‘thing’.
When my parents were still together, my dad used to gamble. a LOT! His entire paycheck at times would be used in the little slot machienes in bars (i didn’t find this out until after they split). So we never had any money. I don’t know all of her little tricks, but I do know that she worked a lot of overtime to try to supplement what my dad was losing.
One year for Christmas, she re-gifted some of my siblings toys so that they would have something to open. Sure, they got a couple new toys, but she was the only one who knew most of their toys were stuff they already had. I mean, they were only 2 and 3 at the time, and really, they only cared about that awesome paper anyways!
At least that is one way of knowing you’ll get your kids presents they will like. Great story!