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One of the difficulties with being a parent is that you want to keep your kids as healthy as possible and at the same time cut costs in order to keep your family’s finances also as healthy as possible.
The problem is that in modern times – these two goals are often at odds with each other. For example organic food should be healthier than non-organic but it costs more money. Do you save money and potentially hurt your kids or do you spend the money, save the kids but hurt the budget? Another issue is time – eating healthy takes more time which means less time spent on other pursuits.
Of course it is unlikely that the choice between organic/non-organic grapes is the difference between life or death or even any real noticeable difference in health. But therein lies the modern twist – as parents in the here and now, we have far more information and choice than parents of previous generations.
This can be useful – there are a lot more medical options today if your child gets sick or injured. There are useful safety devices such as car seats which didn’t exist when I was a child. Sure they are a pain sometimes (especially if you want to clean the puke off your child car seat cover) but like seatbelts – I think they are a big positive.
Where this extra information isn’t as useful is when you start spending more time trying to give your kids the healthiest food possible, reduce or eliminate any kind of hazards for them. This article I just read (which is somewhat funny) deals with a couple of Moms who are well-meaning and trying to do the best they can for their kids but perhaps go a bit overboard.
The most common sources of information about food and various safety hazards is the internet (online opinions) and other Moms. This can mean some great information and it could also mean getting information that either is useless or even harmful. Unfortunately, neither source is 100% reliable.
It seems like every food out there is harmful in some way. Sometimes I wonder if starvation isn’t the healthiest diet? (Please note – I’m not serious about that last statement!). Toys will apparently be the death of us all. Plastic toys are your kid’s version of weapons of mass destruction. Wood is good, but what if it is treated? And don’t you get splinters from wood? What if my son bops his little sister over the head with a wooden toy vs a plastic toy – which is worse? :)
If you let your fears get the best of you then all your time will be spent hunting down more information to feed your fears.
My solution
I can’t claim to have any magic answer about how much time you should spend trying to be frugal or healthy but this is what I do know:
Balance Don’t spend all your time trying to isolate every single chemical (harmful or otherwise) in your kids snack food. Do you talk on the cell phone when you are driving your kids to a friend’s house? Do you take them for walks near a busy street? How many hours of video games do they play per day? As for finances – while it’s great to save every penny you can – don’t be penny wise and dollar foolish.
My point is that focusing on one part of your kid’s lives (whether it be food, toys, activities, school etc) or your family finances (coupons anyone?) and ignoring the other parts isn’t necessarily going to help much.
Don’t believe everything you hear Just because one scientist finds a tenuous connection between black pepper and cancer by feeding only black pepper to a bunch of mice – doesn’t mean you have to stop using black pepper. Use your common sense, if you hear something dramatic then wait a while before making major lifestyle changes.
Do the best you can If you make a decent effort to help your kids and your budget in a balanced fashion then you will the health of both your family and your finances and that after all, is the goal.
Photo by mikebaird.
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Great tips. We’re running into a lot of that right now, since Baby Beagle is nine months old and just getting to where he can eat non-baby foods. We’ve tried to make his food choices as healthy as possible but doing so without breaking the bank.
Thanks for running this. I love the photo! :)
Good point about balance. If you spend your money on organic grapes and skimp on getting a cheap old carseat, you are probably risking more than you gain.
My wife prefers giving our kids milk from cows that haven’t had growth hormones. At the local store, it costs $9 per gallon. But Brahms in a town 20 miles away has it for $2.50. We know a college student who goes to school in that town and she picks up milk for us whenever we need it. So we get the milk we want at the same (or sometimes lower) price than what we’d pay for normal milk locally.
We are somewhat conscientious of a healthy upbringing for our children, but we focus more on being active than on eating “pure” and good food. We like to take the kids out, have them run around, go hiking, etc., most of which are very frugal activities. We then don’t care so much whether the snack we bring along is organic/healthy/wholesome or not.
I do love it when someone says to me- I will never put that stuff in their kids mouths! Yes, eat good food, organic, high quality food. But don’t judge those (like me) who stop in mcdonalds now and again! We also have to teach kids how to consume stuff that is not so good for them so they don’t go bonkers and eat it all like crazy when they leave the house.
I disagree that eating/drinking healthier is more expensive. The most healthy beverage, water, is free in most places – much cheaper than soda or juice. Any apple, orange, pear, carrot or banana (organic or not) is cheaper and better for you than a bag of potato chips or a “gogurt”. Try to visualize the cost of eating poorly. The McDonalds dollar menu is going to “cost” you perhaps $5 of medical care or health club membership down the road. That’s not a value. As a country we spend money on expanded television channels and video games, and then spend money to lose weight and buy prescriptions for our ailments. All we need to do is eat good food, and in the right amount, in the first place. That saves money.
This week my husband told me that bicycle helmets need to be replaced every 3-5 years. I suggested that is a guideline supported by the helmet manufacturers to sell more product. We investigated it, and although there are reasons a helmet should be replaced (degradation of materials, deterioration by sweat/cosmetics/hair products, improvements in technology over time), for the sake of the budget, I proposed a well-cared for helmet that still fits properly can be used up to 7 years (my own opinion).
I do not have kids, but I’ve worked with kids and their parents and I’ve seen some very interesting things. Like parents that spend tons of money on carefully selected foods but let their kids run wild in a way that could cause them injury. Scary.
I think that the whole array of products marketed at parents should be taken with serious skepticism. In my mind, it goes right in there with marketing for funeral services and wedding services: you are emotional, you are vulnerable and there are professionals waiting to separate you from your money by capitalizing on these facts!
yes, great tips….it really is all about balance