With the economy in the tank and the cost of raising a child to age 18 standing at over $200,000 according the latest government studies, along the way, we’ve been seeking out each and every opportunity to cut costs in a reasonable manner while still enjoying a lifestyle we enjoy. We have two boys and a girl all 6 and under, so the spending curve has yet to pick up as they start eating more, begging for designer clothes and joining more activities, but rearing even young children is nothing to sneeze at. So, here are some routine tactics we employ to keep expenses down:

• Make Friends with Parents of Older Children – As tacky as this may sound, the reality is that these are “friends with benefits” when you’re in a parenting situation. We have a few friends who have a child our kid’s age but also older siblings. My wife is especially keen on dressing our 1 year old daughter nicely (not that the boys are slobs, but they don’t have pink shoes that they wear just once) and you wouldn’t believe the girls’ clothing we get from friends. These are clothes that have either never been worn or you can’t tell they’ve ever been worn. I guess I should have specified, “parents with good taste that waste a ton of money on their kids’ clothes”. So, at this stage, between gifts for birthdays and these clothes our friends pass on, the boys have tons of play clothes and our daughter is the best dressed kid on the block virtually for free!

• Buy on Clearance – As cliche as it might sound, buying on clearance is completely under-appreciated in today’s society. There are a lot of great stores both local and online where you can shop at clearance prices. If you’re like me and have a big family, stores and sites like Walmart, Overstock, Ebay, Lowe’s and BJ’s are great places to buy items in bulk at wholesale prices. For my family’s needs, I’ve been popping into the local Lowe’s each weekend for their clearance sales and picked up an incredible new $2800 stainless fridge for a thousand bucks! It had a dent on the side which you can’t even see since it’s up against our wood panel cabinetry. Many of the kids’ clothing stores are constantly offering coupons and clearance sales and frankly, I can’t imagine who ever pays full price for stuff there, but presumably, there are people who do. I’ve pretty much told my wife “No full price shopping…every” – it’s a giant scam and waiting for these coupons and such helps prevent impulse spending as well as it turns into targeted spending only on items we needed and planned on.

• Family Activities on the Cheap – There are myriad ways families can blow thousands of dollars on family activities ranging from little gym and amusement parks to hobbies and expensive toys for the kids. On weekends especially, the family starts to get a bit ancy and they want to do something different since we’re all together. We like to take advantage of free and cheap day trips. There are literally hundreds of opportunities within driving distance of your house – I guarantee it! We spend lots of time in parks, especially finding new ones and exploring. We might go apple or peach picking for a day and pay about the same we’d pay in bulk in a store for food we needed anyway, but the kids love it. There are some great, massive playgrounds around that the kids love. We go fishing, hiking, camping and even just roast marshmallows in the back yard. There are tons of ways to break up the monotony of a weekend with no plans without blowing a ton of dough.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, as there are thousands of ways to save costs on raising kids without living like a pauper.

What Are Some of Your Favorite Tips?

Is it something I said?

1. Yawn and tell her how tired you are - This is a classic statement that’s liable to send her into a complete frenzy – hide all objects, sharp and blunt alike, and run for cover.  What, like getting up 3 times a night while I sleep like a baby causes resentment?
2. Sleep in while she’s up with the other kids at 7am – Oh boy, when this happened, I had to live down evil stares, snarls and overt insults the rest of the day.  It sure did feel good sleeping late that day, but I paid the price.  I thought about asking her if she cared if I took a nap, (haha), but I knew she was in no mood for light humor.
3. Call a new mom at 7 in the morning for some insipid conversation on the one morning the baby’s asleep at that time and upon the obvious displeasure on the other end of the line, say, “Oh, I figured you were up already with the baby!”  While my wife’s not a spiteful person and quickly forgets such gaffes, I thought it would be fitting to pick up the phone at 1AM, 3AM, then again at 5AM to call back looking to discuss last night’s American Idol and say, “Oh, I was up with the baby, so I figured I’d give you a ring!  You know, like when you called me at 7AM the other morning?”
4. When she asks you to do a diaper, say, “Can’t you get this one? I don’t really know what I’m doing yet”.  I used this excuse once and caught hell. I’m used to boys.  We have two of them.  When the girl came a few weeks ago, I’d been using the excuse that I didn’t know what I’m doing, how stuff works down there, etc.  Well, the grace period’s over and I’m now well-versed on wiping front to back as well; it’s not rocket science.  I can “feel her pain”.  Just once in a while, it’s nice to not have to do a diaper.
5. Ask why she didn’t get an errand done during the day - or why dinner’s not ready.  This is one that’s liable to result in a trip to the ER.  With getting this one to school, that one to speech lessons, nursing 8 times a day and getting the dog to the vet, what they heck, getting my clothes to the dry-cleaner shouldn’t have been a big deal, right?  Well, OK, I shouldn’t have even asked.

So, let’s hear it Moms and Dads

What are some of your favorite stories of anger in the new mom phase?

So, following my initial post on getting started as a T Ball Assistant Coach (or Tee Ball, still haven’t figured out which is the “official” moniker) and my experience with my son peeing his pants and hunting pinecones, we’ve had canceled practices and games due to rain each week and finally got to enjoy a game last weekend. It was rather interesting and of course, amusing. We had kids playing in the dirt, picking their noses, forgetting that you need to have a glove on to catch the ball, and there was mass confusion over where to throw the ball.  Since this is all new to me and I’m sure there are some prospective T Ball coaches out there thinking the same thing I was when I signed up, here’s some Q&A for the uninitiated Assistant/Tee Ball Coach:

Is it a lot of work?

Not especially.  There’s not a lot of preparation required prior to game time.  The drills are pretty straightforward and easy to learn (more on that later).  The roster is pretty simple, and we don’t keep score.  You really just need to show up at game time and have a lot of patience.  Regarding whether you should be a T ball coach or Assistant coach, our league requires that you have some prior Assistant Coaching experience under your belt before being able to be the Head Coach.  I think this is a good idea.  Even though I played baseball as a kid, I didn’t start this young and I would make a much better coach for my next son having performed the assistant coach duties this year.

What Tee Ball Drills did we perform?

Since we only got a few practices in this year, we aren’t “hard core” like some other teams out there inevetibly are.  However, we started off with the following drills:

• Simple grounders - teaching them how to bend their knees, move to the ball, get the glove down and catch it.
• Throwing – getting them to step and throw, rather than just plant their feet and hurl it.  We had to focus on making an “L” with their arm and following through.
• Catching a thrown ball in the air – getting them to overcome their fear of being hit by the ball and moving their glove to the ball.  The coach said there are “eyes in the glove, and those eyes should always be looking at the ball”.
• Hitting - teaching them the basics of swinging.  Choking up where appropriate, how to stand, how to line up the knuckles, where to place the feet, and not to throw the bat too far after hitting!
• Throwing to first base – we started off our game telling them where to throw and trying to force the out, but since these guys don’t even understand the most basic aspects of the game just yet, it was evident this was too advanced and we switched to just having them throw to first base each time.  The key is getting the first baseman to know the balls coming and catch it!  He’s usually looking at dirt.
• Running the bases – Getting them to touch every base was pretty easy; it’s getting them to stop!  This was a good drill when it was 50 degrees out though.  Every 10 minutes we’d just tell them to run the bases 3 times so they’d stop complaining about how cold it was.
• Practice Time - Even though practices were scheduled for 2 hours each, we’d only practiced for 1 hour and called it quits.  After an hour, at 5, they’re pretty much fried.

What are some of the main Tee Ball rules that differ from typical Little League rules?

• 3 Innings only – instead of the 7, then 9 I remember playing as a kid.
• Every batter hits, no matter what happens with outs.  We just batted around each time.
• Rotate the kids each inning – we didn’t leave 1 kid in the same spot for 2 consecutive innings.
• We didn’t keep score.

Is Coaching T Ball Worth It?

Absolutely.  My son’s kind of shy and I think if I weren’t there to keep him engaged and make sure he’s paying attention, etc., he might not even want to play any more.  Being part of the practices and games keeps me in the loop on what we should work on at home too.  I usually can’t even get him to practice outside of the team practice/games since he’d rather be playing pirate or hunting insects, but tonight I was able to coax him into practicing a bit and he did a great job.  I’ve also started pitching to him a bit to prep him for next year when he’ll be up against a pitching machine.  I’m not one of those crazy competitive dads that wants my kid to be the best in the league (thankfully, I haven’t met that dad yet, but I know they’re out there, even at the T Ball level), but I’d love to see him stick with it and prosper.  Being good at something, especially a sport, breeds confidence, acts a source to make new friends and teaches him fair play, respect and team work.  Baseball was my game.  If it’s not his, well, he says he runs so fast that he “makes wind” – so track would be next!

What are your Funny Tee Ball experiences?

This is the first in a long line of frugal tips I intend on having as a cornerstone of this site.  I wanted to start off with a rather popular, yet easy to implement savings tip:

How to Save Money on Gas

1. Keep the Pedal off the Metal:  I had heard this a few times and decided to check it out myself.  According to this government site, fueleconomy.gov, once you exceed about 60 mph, your fuel efficiency starts to plummet, to the tune of $.24/gallon for every 5 mph over 60 mph you travel.  I guess it just comes down to how much of a rush you’re in and how much of a daredevil you feel like that day.  After reading this report, if I’m not running late for something (and oh yeah, I have a family in the car), I just get over in the right lane, put it on cruise and stay at about 60 mph.  What a simple, easy way to save hundreds of dollars per year!
2. Speaking of Cruise Control:By simply utilizing cruise control instead of the constant accelerator manipulation, you save gas!  It’s been estimated by Edmunds.com that you save an average of 7%. They recommend avoiding on hills though, as you lose that efficiency.
3. Compare pricing easily!  There are several gas price comparison sites out there.  As an example, gasbuddy.com has users reporting in gas prices paid and displays them on a map.  Take a look at this stark example of the spread in prices just within a small area.  Close to 20% spreads within a confined area (of course, you could always jump the bridge over to Jersey, but that’s a bit inconvenient).

Some tips:

• If you buy something right off a highway, you’ll generally pay more for that convenience.
• If you find a spot where 3 of the 4 corners have gas stations, there will generally be a bit of competition to keep the pricing down some more.

4.       Pay Yourself Back!!! The Consumer Reports Best Rated Gas Card is the Discover® Open Road Card.  Now, I   don’t recommend taking on credit card debt for the sake of cash back savings, but if you pay your bills monthly, but pay cash for gas, you’re leaving free money on the table.  This card pays you back up to 5% of your gas purchases, yielding an easy several hundred dollars per year for a family that drives a fair amount.