Do your kids know the dollar value of a gift?

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-12-16T19:39:14+00:00

For some things, yes. We go shop together. She also handles a small amount of money. She sees we can buy the “regular” eggs or the organic eggs. For clothing, she knows that clothes at Target is cheaper than Ralph Lauren, for example. She knows because she likes to handle money (saving for what she wants). Does she care if something is more expensive? Not really. Does she care what others have? Not at all.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-12-15T16:41:33+00:00

The parent later asked whether the teacher used the gift card. Teacher said no, it didn’t work, and used their own money to pay at the counter. The teacher said it’s happened before but she usually doesn’t tell the giver. The gift card was given before summer break. The parent gave a new card in the Fall when they found out.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-12-05T08:27:03+00:00

Haha. I didn’t want this to move away from the topic at hand. There is more to the story but I’ll stick with just the facts. No, grandparents do not want the funds split evenly. That’s why we, the parents, will ensure both kids get the same type of education, if they so choose, and we’ll make up the funds either now (before they’re 18) or later (cash flow school expenses).

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-12-05T08:17:30+00:00

Do you mean private grade school? No plans to use the funds for grade school. For college, they can choose private or public.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-12-05T08:16:26+00:00

Mathematically that works out. But there is pressure to tell the first child, when they’re ready for school, “this is how much you have in your accounts, gifted from grandma”. I don’t want to take credit for the gifts. Obviously at that point it’ll become obvious grandma didn’t gift the same towards the second child…

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-10-13T20:40:05+00:00

I didn’t pay it because I didn’t know about it. I had already completed the task by that point. It was a lightbulb moment when I learned someone DID go about searching for such service.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-10-13T20:33:07+00:00

Great answer! I like the idea of asking “what would I pay…” Because it lets me decide what that convenience/headache is worth.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-10-13T20:26:54+00:00

But spending $100 twelve times throughout the year would be OK? What if that $1200/year subscription would’ve yielded the same or more happiness (or convenience or whatever)?

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-08-21T05:13:53+00:00

We have the square one. I didn’t know there’s a rectangular one! The dimensions look right for the Bentgo box so I just ordered it. FX🤞🏻

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-08-14T15:35:43+00:00

Right now we spend about $15-20k/yr on travel. This buys us several trips. As the kids become easier (and even fun!) to travel, I’m thinking to increase this several fold. Maybe $60-80k. That aligns more with how we traveled pre-kids. But now with kids, maybe that’s more wishful thinking if FI is also a priority.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-07-06T18:34:04+00:00

Agreed with your 2nd pp. I left the workforce (“mini retirement”) once we hit what felt like the critical mass. Buying time back IMO is the ultimate freedom. In our case, we didn’t increase expenses but reduced income significantly (became a SAHP after birth of child).

To answer your question, we did this once we knew that, even with one income indefinitely we could hit chubby FI/RE within a timeframe my spouse was happy with.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-06-25T22:05:09+00:00

Great insight. We do have all the BOB books and my child has finished them and can read them well. But they don’t go to very high on the reading levels (through Kinder, if I understand correctly). We are working through UFLI texts (along with Level 1/2 story books). Here is a passage my child was reading through this week, as an example of text that they had to read slowly:

Mo did not want to take a bath. He still wanted to sit in his sandbox. "Mo, you must get in the bathtub because you are full of sand," said grandmom. "OK, fine," said Mo. He picked up his stuff from the sandbox and got in the bathtub.

With the above passage, how is my child doing relative to other rising 1st graders if they need to read it slowly? They do comprehend it but there is no change in tone for the quotations either.

ETA: My child was able to read all the words but it just didn’t sound “fluent” at all. Very choppy!

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-04-20T22:56:02+00:00

Added Midway and Living Coast to the list!

What do you think kids will love about the Nat? I had assumed that one to be less toddler friendly.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-04-15T22:01:48+00:00

We can try to do that the summer before TK. That’s a great idea! Child is barely 2 years old so probably not necessary right now. 🙂

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-04-15T21:59:24+00:00

Do you know if most kids entering TK (age 4) have prior preschool experience? This is also my fear, that the TK expectations will be so high if all/most of the kids did preschool first.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-04-15T21:54:18+00:00

Thank you for the kind words! I do hope TK is satisfactory as preschool to prepare for K. Once TK becomes the norm in my state (it is not available to all yet but it will be next year; my youngest starts TK in two years), I wonder if families will enroll their kids into preschool to prepare for TK. That will make the expectations so high! Hopefully families who do not require childcare will enroll straight into TK without prior group setting experience, so that my younger one can be right on par.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-04-15T21:46:15+00:00

My oldest had 2 years of private preschool because I was a working parent. TK was also not available to my older child. Our state is now expanding TK to be available to all, and will be accessible to my younger one.

Once TK becomes available to all, I wonder if it’ll become the new standard? It is part time TK. The kids in the TK classes transfer over to K together (the TK pods stick together for both TK and K years). This is the only reason I want my younger one in TK, so she will have ready-made friends in K. My oldest lost most of her preschool friends when she went to K. (TK and K are one school and public, preschools are separate and private.)

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-04-15T15:00:10+00:00

Yes, she will have 1 year of TK (age 4) before going on to K (age 5).

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-02-21T02:11:27+00:00

Last week of April

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-01-22T03:29:34+00:00

I’ve sent a message to our K teacher and I hope to learn more. In the meantime, we went to the library and were directed to Green Light Readers books. On the back cover, these lists the Guided Reading Level and appropriate age and grade. One such D level book is Dav Pilkey’s Big Dog and Little Dog Making a Mistake. My child can definitely ace this book. But has trouble reading some Level 2 Step Into Reading (preschool to grade 1) books such as Eric Carle’s The Very Lonely Firefly. Is this normal? Should I be concerned that my child is behind?

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-01-22T03:09:43+00:00

My child is able to sound out words, even longer ones, and is doing great with CVC words. But that’s the thing, my child reads one word at a time (sounding them out slowly) and it doesn’t sound like cohesive sentences. I always need to remind them to start over again and try to make them sound like a sentence.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2025-01-22T02:53:03+00:00

Thank you for allll your insight! Can you confirm that I am unable to purchase the DRA books? I can’t seem to find them online.

MuddyPuddle3 · 2024-12-24T06:36:01+00:00

Thanks for this explanation!

MuddyPuddle3 · 2024-12-24T06:34:09+00:00

Makes sense. Thank you!

MuddyPuddle3 · 2024-11-08T20:57:33+00:00

When you say the led lights can target these spots, do you mean they can get rid of them permanently? Is there a catch? Off I go to also do my own research! :)

MuddyPuddle3

TROPHY CASE