You see a man or woman and think Wow. Very put-together. Is it the hair? The clothes? Possibly, but look down. Chances are, the shoes are tidy, shiny and clean. The secret is out, and I have had 2 shoe shines in a week – one the old fashioned way, with a corpulent woman flicking towels at my feet, and one with an electronic device that left a brilliant shine. My calves were sort of massaged in the process (I was in boots) and it was a heck of a lot cheaper than a manicure – yet I left with that happy feeling that I had been cared for. So if you’re short on time, and want a treat, head to a cobbler and get a bit of yourself put back together.
Adding a baby is expensive, and doing so while going through emotional and physical change can be even harder. The stress that comes with managing your family finances shouldn’t take away from your memories and bliss. We’re not going to preach about the percentage you should spend on housing or food, just give you a few ideas on how to be fiscally smart and learn some family budgeting basics.
1. Take advantage of Canada’s Benefits. The Canada Child Tax Benefit is based on your family income, and all may apply. Whether you qualify for this or not, the Universal Child Care Benefit, which totals $100 per month, (per child under six) is available to everyone. It is a taxable benefit, but still more than worth the quick application. If you are having a baby in BC, the hospital will provide you with forms upon discharge.
Canada Child Tax Benefit
Universal Child Care Benefit
2. Set up an RESP if you can. Even if you can afford to only deposit their cash birthday and Christmas presents, it will have 18 years to grow, and especially in today’s market climate, by then surely the stock market will be on the upswing… Go into your bank, set up an appointment with a banker, and choose the best options together. The RESP is much more flexible than it used to be, so even if little Aidan chooses a community college over Queen’s University, your money isn’t lost.
3. List what is important to your lifestyle. Is missing date night going to kill your spirit and make you a grumpy parent? Why not cut out the coffee shop and choose a more frugal date option to cover the cost of the sitter?
4. Figure out your unnecessary spending. Could you take a lunch to work? Do your kids really need all of those paid activities? Could you replace one dinner a week with a simple sandwich night?
5. Credit cards. Yikes. If you pay a fee, is it worth it? Do you know what benefits you get from your card and actively use them (or are you one of the people at the car rental counter who still gets the optional insurance because you’re just not sure…)? Just like the gift cards that stores count on people losing, credit card companies know that most consumers won’t take advantage of the purchase protection on that new TV or the double warranty on your precious espresso machine.
6. Know your health benefits. If massage is covered, maybe that is just as good as treating yourself to a pedicure. When traveling, many families will buy extra insurance although the company already covers it.
7. Demand excellence. If your sippy cup’s valve doesn’t work, or the zipper on your baby’s jacket gets stuck, let the company responsible know. You are helping future consumers, and you may get a replacement.
8. Reconsider your relationship to charity. Others always need us. Instead of cutting your charities out of your life as the budget shrinks, why not donate your time? You and your kids may just receive the reality check you’ve been waiting for.
9. Shop smarter. We’re not exactly coupon clippers – who can find them in a full diaper bag? – but shopping at a well-priced store, and buying sales items while there can save you a bundle, plus help to create some variety in your diet.
10. Pay your bills on time. OK. Another one we’re not great on, but many companies offer debit directly out of your bank account or payment to your credit card. Just make sure all of your payments come out or are due around the same day so you can stay organized.
11. Think community. Finding a dentist, doctor and hairdresser in your neighbourhood could not only save time and stress, but also gas and greenhouse emissions.
12. Think big. Don’t blow a gasket about the small stuff. Paying too much for grapes or being a day late on the bills is nothing compared to not doing good research on buying a car, a house, or a new computer. Investigate your options, and in today’s economy, a little negotiation could go far. Getting a slightly better mortgage rate can save you thousands.
For great ways to save on spending, check out some Sample Sales.
Nanny Salaries: Salaries for Live-in Caregivers.
The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 classics you need to read in your lifetime. How do your reading habits stack up? Note… when you’re travelling is a great time to crack open one of these tomes and start ticking off these 100 classics. Feel free to comment on this article and add some of your own selections.
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Graham
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Q – My husband and I were so excited to have children together, and he seemed to be really looking forward to being a father. Now that our little boy is here, however, he has all but disappeared. He spends long hours at work, sleeps all night while I feed the baby every 3 hours, and even when at home would rather be checking emails or mowing the lawn than spending time with him.
Q – My mother-in-law is driving me crazy! She has an opinion about Everything, and I feel like I can’t do anything right. I am a new mother of a 6 month old baby girl, and I’m having trouble finding confidence in myself with her around all the time. Avoiding her phone calls is only making it worse. Help!
Q – I need help. I’m completely overwhelmed with trying to balance my work with mothering my two boys (ages 2 and 4) and managing the household. I don’t know how to make it all work, and it feels like i’m not doing any of them well. I look at friends and it seems as though they are somehow balancing it all.
Sick in bed, trying to entertain a toddler, and holiday gold fell onto our laps. We discovered the most amazing website. You can write a great letter to Santa, filling in the blanks and checking boxes for the most sought-after gifts (Santa will email back within 2 days). Decorate a tree, create a personalized story, digitally paint a Santa, listen to elves tell stories, or print off a good deed calendar. There are also parent and teacher sections to assist with learning. With free entertainment like this, we want the holidays to come around more often.
I remember being in Europe and asking for warm milk for my baby. It was scalding hot and the poor screaming child had to wait an hour for it to cool. Not the case at Sun Peaks Resort. Not only is the hot chocolate from Cafe Soleil lukewarm and perfect for kids (they asked), but it was covered in coloured sprinkles and whipped cream. This family resort, designed after a Tyrolean village, is 40 minutes north of Kamloops, and easily accessible from Vancouver, Calgary and Seattle by plane, shuttle and train. Not only is the resort friendly for families, but it has tons of terrain too. 122 runs (including 12 glade areas) will keep every member of your group happy. (At there’s a hot terrain park if you have a shredder in your midst).
I think it’s been a while since the heyday of travel – when hopping on a plane was an experience in itself. I know my mom always looked forward to being able to just sit for a few hours and have someone bring her a hot meal and a glass of wine (obviously I was older by this point!) while she thumbed a book or napped. Unless you’re flying first class or by private jet, it’s safe to say those days are long gone, and now the “fun” of air travel begins before you’ve even hit the departure lounge.
I’m really not much of a spa person. I can’t relax, I get bored, and I just want my nails to dry already. I have to turn my cell phone off, and most estheticians make me feel like my skin is dry (not enough water) and I have cellulite (too much coffee). Thanks. Needless to say, I didn’t enter the Miraj Hammam Spa expecting to feel much better about myself upon departure. They proved me wrong. I entered (late) into the gorgeous space and was made to feel instantly at ease – not ostracized at all for the tardiness or for not knowing where to put my shoes when I donned the slippers one wears to the ‘baths’.