FORT Koffee Klatch

[Margaritaville]

P.S. -- Rosie and Gabriel -- AMEN to your above posts!!! I'm with ya

[MRD]

Which is exactly how it should be. No matter how broke you are, you've got to take care of necessities before anything else.

I rarely buy produce or meat at Walmart. Once I got some ribeye steaks there for the grill, and they tasted like liver. The fruit always looks like it fell off the truck 3 days ago, and the greens are almost always wilted.

Ah, so they are all alike then. One of the Walmarts near us is kept clean and doesn't smell, but I still won't use the restroom there. But I've been in some NASTY Walmarts and won't go back. We don't have Super Targets here with the groceries in them.

But I can't beat the prices on canned and packaged goods there which is why I buy staples there.

And I agree with you and Gabriel, take care of necessities first. I would tell my child: "we cannot afford to buy you that" and that usually put an end to it.
One time she was about 6 and asked for something and I said "no" and she kept on and I said: "no, we can't afford it" and she said: "well can't you write a check?"

Shelter (including utilities), food (including dog food), insurance comes first. Then other stuff. And we taught our child to save her allowance for stuff she wanted that was expensive. She's become pretty thrifty and a great shopper. If I trusted her taste in clothes, I'd let her shop for me.

[Margaritaville]

Ah, so they are all alike then. One of the Walmarts near us is kept clean and doesn't smell, but I still won't use the restroom there. But I've been in some NASTY Walmarts and won't go back. We don't have Super Targets here with the groceries in them.

But I can't beat the prices on canned and packaged goods there which is why I buy staples there.

And I agree with you and Gabriel, take care of necessities first. I would tell my child: "we cannot afford to buy you that" and that usually put an end to it.
One time she was about 6 and asked for something and I said "no" and she kept on and I said: "no, we can't afford it" and she said: "well can't you write a check?"

Shelter (including utilities), food (including dog food), insurance comes first. Then other stuff. And we taught our child to save her allowance for stuff she wanted that was expensive. She's become pretty thrifty and a great shopper. If I trusted her taste in clothes, I'd let her shop for me.

One thing we have always done with our son is to explain how money/checks work. He knows that every month we pay $X for the mortgage, $X for the car, $X for the truck, $X for the insurance on said vehicles, $X for utilities that allow him to have hot water, watch tv, use lights, etc. You get the point - but he is very clear that bills come first. The older he gets, the more info we share with him -- he completely gets it, and when we tell him we cannot afford something there is no argument.

We also only give him allowance based on the chores that he performs. We want him to understand the value of a dollar and what you have to do to earn said dollar. He is extremely good with his money - even money he receives for his birthday and Christmas. With these lessons, he should be prepared for real life outside mom and dad's house!

[MRD]

We have done that with our daughter too. We don't tell her EVERYTHING, but she knows enough about our finances so that she doesn't ask for outrageous stuff and she does budget her own money. But hey, I would flat out tell her we couldn't afford something and I didn't care. It didn't embarrass me, I didn't think it was none of her business, it was to some degree, and it taught her that parents are not just money trees.

When she started wrecking our budget needing things for school or this or that, we sat her down and gave her a raise in her allowance. We gave her $50 a week and this was in 7th grade, but we told her that EVERYTHING had to come out of that. Her clothes, her school supplies, school lunch, movies out with friends, birthday gifts. Everything. I would buy personal hygeine items within reason (no $10 a bottle shampoo) and if she ate out with us, we payed, but eating out with friends, she paid.

Well it worked out really well as we weren't $5 and $10 to death and she would save her money or she didn't eat lunch (she could make a PB & J sandwich at home to take if she was out of money) or go to the movies or buy a yearbook, etc.

One of her friends mom's called me up and gave me what for because giving my child $50 a week was setting a bad example. I asked her if her child had told her what my child had to pay for and no, of course not. When I explained that we were providing shelter and food and hygiene items and that was it and what her money paid for, the mom was in a hurry to get off the phone to talk to her husband about doing the same thing.

We included clothing in that $50 a week because at the time, she wasn't taking care of her clothing, leaving stuff at friends houses, or turning it pink in the wash, etc. and so we decided that if she had to buy her own clothes, she might take better care of them and it worked.

We also have never tied allowance to chores. We explained that to her early on. I don't get paid for doing my chores around here and neither does my husband. The entire family has to do chores in order to make the house run smoothly and no one gets paid to do what needs to be done anyway. Now, if chores did not get done, then she could not go off with friends, talk on the phone or use the computer and she knew that up front. I still have to nag about chores though even with my husband.

But now that she's working, we no longer give her an allowance and the money we did give her, we gave every week no matter what and if she choose to blow it, then so sorry, too bad, you don't get anymore for another week? Everyone's going to so and so's birthday and you don't have money to buy a gift? Then either stay home or make one, but you are not getting any more money until next Fri.
It did NOT take long for her to budget and save. And we did help show her how to budget.

Disclaimer: this is what works with my family. Not presuming to tell anyone what to do with yours. But my husband said he never got paid for doing chores and I thought it was a good idea and so we did that. My parents paid me to do everything including grades and looking back on it, I think it was kind of ridiculous. We told our child we expect good grades because she is capable of it. We expect chores to be done, because everyone has to do them. But like I said, this is how we chose to do it and it mostly worked for us.

[Missyboxers]

For me, also, paying the rent and utilities first is a given. Especially since rent is so expensive! I've also always been big on working.. the only semesters I didn't work during college were the two that my parents told me they didn't want me working so that I could adjust to school.

As for groceries, if I'm out at my parents' and they're driving me back to the city, I definitely take advantage of some cheaper groceries. When I'm in the city, I usually strike a balance between price, cleanliness, and appearance of the product. I routinely pay up for meat, because I prefer to buy it from a place that looks like the employees routinely clean the place. Proximity to my apartment also helps, bigtime, but the place nearest my apartment looks like it hasn't been cleaned since about 1950.

ETA:

parents are not just money trees.

My parents used to love that line! Although recently, my dad, my sister and I had an email chain going with my mom's Christmas list on there (I've been helping my dad Christmas shop ever since I can remember), and I'd searched for and priced everything out for him and the email I received in return was signed, "President -- Bank of Dad"

[AJane]

I can't afford NOT to shop at Wal-Mart. As others have mentioned, the prices for dry and canned goods are lower than anywhere else. We only have one of the "super" Wal-Marts here, but their produce seemed ok (I didn't buy meat though). $15 would nicely cover a few items for us. Mind you, I work for a very large organization that doesn't hand out Christmas gifts or bonuses to employees, so I would have been pleased had I received anything.

I do notice that many Wal-Marts are very poorly kept - items thrown here and there, dirty shelves, lack of stock - so going there is usually not a very pleasant experience. The lineups at the cash registers are so often long and full of irritable people, too. I get what's on my list and then get out as quickly as possible.

[just1paul]

We got an allowance when money was available (which believe me, wasn't too often, but that's another story) that if I recall was a buck or two a week, if that. If we wanted anything extra like a Monkees 45, we had to do something above and beyond our chores which of course went unpaid because EVERYONE does chores. When I wanted that 45 I had to "de cobweb" the basement and sweep it. Took me better part of a day, but darn it I wanted that 95 cents for that 45, I got a buck and had to give my mom the nickel change.

[Rattus]

I absolutely will not shop at Walmart, under any circumstances, and hopefully the majority of my neighbourhood feels the same way. They're trying to open one of those monstrosities nearby and fortunately they've been halted by by-laws, but their legal machine will likely be able to cut through those. I've got my fingers crossed that enough petition signatures have been gathered (and a lot have) and the many, many anti-Walmart meetings being held locally are enough to stop them.

[prhoshay]

Love it! "Mean" moms make for responsible children. I pride myself on being a "mean" mom, too. My son never got the $150 tennis shoes. I always thought that was ridiculous. I used to take him to Shoe Carnival, and tell him to bring it in for $50. Of course he'd find the $49.50 shoes. Of course, tax kicked it up over $50, but I had to eat that since I didn't specify. To this day, that boy has a shoe obsession, but that's OK since he buys his own. He was always good at staying out of my pocket byt getting little jobs, or simply doing without. I can't get him to write checks, though. He'll either deal in cash (which I think is not the best idea), or use his debit card.....and I'm talking about using it for a .76 purchase! I don't know, maybe it's a college thing. He pays his bills, like he should, usually. He has learned to priortize...thus paying his share of the rent, utilities, etc., and had to let his cell phone go. One thing he does that drives me crazy is he will work all summer, go back to school, and not work until he runs out of money. That is his dad's mentality coming out in him. Hopefully, he will get past that mindset.

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I'm not a Walmart-er too much either. We have one that is new, clean, well lit, and I never seem to get any more than 40 feet from the front door. We do have a stand-alone Walmart grocery store here, but I've never been to it.

[Mariner]

If I'm looking for bargains, I go to Costco. They actually treat their employees like humans unlike Walmart.

Otherwise, I'll go to one of two grocery chains depending when I'm shopping.