Do you think that a 4 year old is too young to get an allowance in exchange for his help aroud the house? Of course for a four year old, that would be cleaning up after himself, putting his dirty clothes in his basket, grabbing his plate/bowl/utensils/placemat for meal time, etc.
He can now count up to 30 and I'd like him to understand how money works. I read somewhere that a good allowance guide is $1 for every year. I'm thinking about it so he understands that we have an unlimited amount of money. I'd like him to understand that he has to save his money if he wants something and he needs to decide what is more important to him, that $2 hot wheel today or the $30 lego set in a few weeks. I think that I'm going to start this this week and let you know how it goes. He's already paid me back this week for something this week that he wanted from the toy store, he had some money stashed away from a few easter eggs. I hope that he learns the value of money early on in life.

I just received some unexpected money from work and we've decided to pay off 3 credit card accounts currently on a debt management plan. Wohoo! That'll be nice to see that we've completed the program and get our credit score up. Plus. The husband and I have opened up ROTH IRA accounts through ING with automatic monthly deductions. I figure it's time to finally do that. We're now in our 30s and I imagine that it will grow and grow over the next 30 years until we're ready to use it.

Back to our new place, I have been searching for drapes for some time and I finally found some last weekend that would look great in our family/nook/kitchen area. They were too much, it was going to cost $45/panel. I needed 11 panels plus the rods.
DH had mentioned the use of paper blinds for the meantime until we decide what to do. I did a little research and found them for about $5 each. I bought enough to cover all the windows in the house. DH likes them a lot and wouldn't mind having them around for a longer period of time. I spent about $200 for the paper shades instead of spending about $450 + tax for drapes and another 200 or so for rods. i'm keeping my fingers crossed that they don't fall down.

My friend offered to share her big bag of greens and suggested that I pick up some fixings at the cafe. We headed over to the company cafe to pick up some fixings for a salad. I got in line to pay and placed my container on the scale when the cashier asked me if I wanted to guess my total price after tax. She explained that my salad would be free if I guess the salad price after tax within 5 cents. I guessed $1.85 and the total was $1.83. There it is, my free lunch. My friend had some items in the refrigerator for sandwiches and some soup. I had half a sandwich and a small bowl of soup.

So far, I haven't spent any money this morning. I saved $2 b/c my co-worker let me have some of her milk, instead of buying an 16 oz jug of milk I saved $2. I'll have to grab some milk from home.
Lunch will be more of a challenge.
I've decided that I should get $50 a week to spend as I choose, whether it be food, drink or fun. I'm going to take out $50 on Sunday and hope it lasts until the following Saturday.