Lifestyle blogger – cruises, organizing, managing money, and parenting.
Raising teens and tweens can be quite a challenge. What’s that saying? It’s like being pecked to death by a duck. As the mother of three sons – two adult and one still in those “fabulous” teen years, I can certainly testify to the truth of that. What if there was one magic truth that […] Read more…
Writing workshops always say that you should write about topics you know. Well, one thing I know a little bit about is being a Scout parent. Since I have all boys, I’ve been involved with Boy Scouts. But I’m sure the Girl Scout program has similar benefits. I actually was a Girl Scout, but […] Read more…
Raising responsible teens is definitely an on-going process, so I think you need to celebrate every possible bit of progress. I had one particular issue I had been fighting ever since we started in Jr. High – lunch money. Photo credit Neither of us likes making lunches, so we had initially decided to allow […] Read more…
This post was inspired by a mistake made a while back by my now 25 year old son. This son, in fact. Yes, I know he’s a handsome fellow, but he’s not quite perfect. Like a lot of kids (okay, young adults!), he makes mistakes sometimes, especially regarding money. His latest mistake concerned a guitar. […] Read more…
My son Blake and I had a good talk the other day. He’s a High School Sophomore and he has been slipping a bit in school lately. He needed a kick in the butt and I was definitely in the mood to give it to him. But it reminded me of how difficult it can […] Read more…
Passive-aggressive behavior is a fascinating subject. I see a lot of it with the people in my life at home and at work. One of the most frustrating varieties of it is something called Intentional Incompetence and my kids have a bad case of it! We have all experienced Intentional Incompetence at one time or […] Read more…
Why should your teen get involved in volunteer service? I’ll give you one reason. Your teen needs to feel like a hero. Not every kid can be the popular one, score the winning sports goal, or win the top prize at the science fair, but every kid can do volunteer service. [bctt tweet=”Volunteer service can make your […] Read more…
Most financial experts agree that the best way to teach kids to be a smart shopper is to actually let them TRY it. They need to learn from their own successes and failures. Since one of your biggest recurring expenses is your grocery budget, this is a great place to start. Do you realize our teen is […] Read more…
A little background – this is a reprint from a few years back, but interestingly enough, my son is now in full teenage mode at 15 and he’s still pretty awesome. Sure, he drives me crazy like any other teen and we argue a bit more than we did when he was ten (okay, a […] Read more…
I read an interesting statistic today – 18 to 25 year olds spend up to 49% more than other age groups on dining out. Doesn’t say if that’s fast food, fine dining, or drinks, but if I had my guess, I’d say 90% fast food with a smattering of fine dining. Image courtesy of [KEK064] […] Read more…
This is a great info graphic that a friend forwarded to me. It has some great tips on how to get kids to do their chores. Source: http://blog.terrysfabrics.co.uk/ Read more…
Next to your house, probably the biggest expense you will have in your life is paying for a college education for your kids. Therefore, it would only make sense to give it a LOT of thought. However, for most people, the only thought they give to college is HOW they are going to pay for […] Read more…
If you live in a house with other people, as most of my readers do, there are going to be times when you are going to have to deal with Other People’s Stuff (OPS). Unless you live with a herd of raging neatnicks, in which case I’m not sure why you’re reading my blog… Anyway, […] Read more…