Well that does bring up a good point. In the past, a much higher percentage of the population spent thousands every year on cancer sticks. Now that money has been reassigned to other vices.
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Struggling financially and getting frustrated?
- Thread starter Clutt-225
- Start date
Good friend that was 1-2pks a day for ever, quit three years ago and started putting $15 away every day. That's $16,425, after tax dollars. for THREE friggin years savings.
I have my vices and issues (not a smoker) but I have a hard time taking anybody seriously about financial hardship while they are complaining, lighting a smoke and holding a XL doubledouble.
I have my vices and issues (not a smoker) but I have a hard time taking anybody seriously about financial hardship while they are complaining, lighting a smoke and holding a XL doubledouble.
I have an aunt and uncle that used to smoke. They quit and contribute the money that used to spend on smokes to a vacation fund. No inflation adjustment, just straight x dollars per day for the last 40 years. Every year is weeks to months of fun vacation and the fund has tens of thousands in it.
Trials
Well-known member
Remember when Fred Flintstone smoked Winston's and drank Busch beer. It was almost a social expectation that you would grow up to smell like the ashtray in a brewery. Vast fortunes were made selling tobacco, lard, sugar coated cereal, pills and laundry detergent. Times change what you need and want out of life, eventually you realize whatever they are selling on TV now, you likely don't want or need it, that's why they are advertising.
Oh look, there is a liquidation HST free sale on, oh goodie, they are giving us a whopping 13% discount
Oh look, there is a liquidation HST free sale on, oh goodie, they are giving us a whopping 13% discount
That's why we don't see Beta or Ossa ads. Everybody should already know they need a trials bike, why waste money on advertising.
The pill was supposed to free the women but in reality the guy said "Now we don't have to worry" and the manufacturers said "If she works for a few more years we can sell them more stuff." The couple got used to the extra income and kids became an inconvenient expense. Enter the world of later life parenting and daycare, another expense.
Daycare??? It was nanny if you were rich and granny if you were poor. Now granny is an old boomer that has better things (In her mind) that babysitting the rest of her life. Daycare it is for your most important resource but with the same price point as a can of Spaghetti.
Then there is the compensation expense. "Because I work and don't spend much time with my kids I buy them expensive stuff to make them feel important."
If the brood is asked to do menial chores like mowing the lawn or shoveling the driveway it will hurt their egos but I'm too tired myself so we'll hire a contractor.
Then there's the older parent / young kid. A 6 year old with a 45 YO dad that can't teach the kid to ride a bike because his heart can't take the stress of the run. Let's go for burgers and ice cream instead. Fat parent, fat kid.
We don't breed enough replacement stock to take care of us in our old age so we import (Immigration). Then we resent them for getting ahead because they don't do what we do.
There's a thread The USA is ******. No, us too.
I wish I had kept the old (1926) magazine someone gave me as it had an ad for Camel cigarettes.
The ad was a hand sketched day in the life of what was supposed to be a typical guy. He got up in the morning and went to work, came home and did a chore or two, had dinner and while reading the newspaper afterwards, had A Camel cigarette. A cigarette a day, not a pack or two. No problem.
The mother of a girl I dated made a similar observation. She said at a dinner party while the women cleaned up the men would gather and smoke. A man would carry a cigarette case and offer cigarettes. She said things changed over the years and now he carries a couple of packs in his pockets and the rest of the case is in the car.
Not being a smoker I don't realize the price density. A pack of smokes will be at least $20 as we adjust for CERB. With ten packs to a carton and maybe ten cartons to a case then the number of cases on a skid. Itshay, a skid load of tomorrow's ashes could buy a new car.
This one is a tough one for us. On the one hand, grandma is home but she's getting older and it's difficult to deal with 2 kids. Wife is also working a bit and we made the call to send little guy to daycare. $1300/month!
Then there's the social aspect of it....kids need to be learning and growing and there's debate on whether it's better to keep them home, or socializing and learning with other kids. I don't know the answer to that question, but our little guy is showing interest and seems to be doing well so we will keep at it.
Thankfully there's a 2 year difference b/w them, so the smallest one still has a few years before we send her off.
Current daycare accepts credit card so it generates lots of points. It will be exciting when that daycare bill gets shrunk to just before/after care. I was trying to convince my wife to fasttrack the kid so she could start school now but my wife was having none of it.
Trials
Well-known member
I could probably sell you one, I've got National Geographic magazines back to ~1924
I will have to look into this....could generate a lot of COSTCO dollars with that.
Mine happens to be Canadian Tire dollars. Everything I buy at CT is free. Last time I was in, I think there was $800+ CT dollars on the card. Honestly, it is hard to find enough good stuff to buy at CT to use up the money.
Raising a kid today is a psychological nightmare. What's worse on them long term, pampering their egos by buying them the designer rip off priced clothes so they fit in and become prima donnas or getting them utilitarian stuff and they're shut out of the crowd. Cheer up. Raising kids gets easier after 40 years.
Day care or home care? They may be the odd one out if home cared.
Actual licensed day care near our house. Looks good, he loves it, and he likes going back every day and asks why he's not going on Saturdays and Sundays. I'd take that as a good sign. Hopefully it pays off. Tough to tell this early on. But we see his interaction with other children is much better, he's learning English (we speak Polish at home) and is more keen on reading and learning.
Green Meenie
Well-known member
I sympathize with those bringing up kids these days. We struggled with many of the same issues many years ago with our daughter. Stay home and lose a salary or send her to daycare to allow her that social interaction. Then comes after school care later, cheaper but still necessary. There was that brief period of a few years where the external care expense becomes non-existent but before you know it, college or Uni. is on you with an avalanche of related expenses. A combination of scholarships, her working when she could, our contributions and student loans allowed her to complete 7 years at University ending with a Master of Science degree and a student loan of only $22k. We were lucky I suppose, or planned well or both? All this while trying to ensure your own retirement fund gets attention. There's not a lot of room for frivolous spending if you want to cover off the important stuff!
My point is, it's NOT easy and it's NOT cheap to raise your kids competently. But what parent would choose to scrimp on their child's future?
My point is, it's NOT easy and it's NOT cheap to raise your kids competently. But what parent would choose to scrimp on their child's future?
We sent both little ones to Montessori just for the experience not sure how it is going to work out oldest is 4 in JK now and can read do math etc. They are teaching the sounds of the letters now in JK he is bored AF and a **** disturber. May have to put him in private school so he has something to do.
If they start in a good education setting, rolling back to lowest common denominator public school is a nightmare. That curriculum by necessity is set for no child left behind so if your kid is ahead, they constantly bash their head against the union mentality of slow down to the speed of the slowest worker. Paid school reduces class sizes allowing more time for individual learning goals and in some cases have entry tests to only allow a certain segment to enter streamlining learning from that point forward. I went until Grade three and then the school went backrupt and I switched to public school for grade four. What a nightmare. I learned very little for two years until the lesson plans caught up to what I had been taught.
Ya...we can't afford Private Schools, especially once I leave the FIFO job (fingers crossed soon) as it's a ton of money for it. But we can do our best while we can, and we will have to see how the development continues for the little ones.
The school I got to go to was special. The owner wanted a place of learning free from the constraints imposed by the public system (they taught conversational french starting in JK, entrance exams, etc). She only accepted the best of the best teachers. She worked diligently to keep the price as low as possible so affordability wasn't a huge issue (IIRC ~$6,000/yr). Unfortunately, there were a couple moves required as land was redeveloped, an ambitious plan for construction of a new facility and not enough money coming in so the whole thing collapsed.
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