Beating Broke

Would You Pay $25 a Pound for Vegetables?

July 1, 2016 By MelissaB 3 Comments

My husband and I have been trying to garden for a year now. I say trying because we recently relocated to Tucson, Arizona, and gardening here has a STEEP learning curve. However, it’s something we both enjoy, so we’ve kept at it, and we’re finally starting to see some rewards. Due to our gardening failures while learning to garden in a new climate, we’re currently paying about $25 a pound for vegetables, but I’m okay with that because I know this hobby will likely pay for itself eventually.

Those Gardening Expenses

Vegetables for $25 a pound? — $25 a pound for Vegetables?

Starting our garden has not been cheap. We had to create three garden beds, which included the dirt, the pavers for the sides (they’re slightly raised garden beds), and the soil amendment.

We planted in October when the temperatures finally dropped into the 80s, but we planted the wrong vegetables for the season, and we planted in a shady spot when we should have planted in full sun.

All we ended up with last winter was one kale, one Swiss chard, and two lettuce plants.

In the spring, we planted tomatoes that were just starting to blossom when the summer hit with 100+ degree days and scorching sun. We covered the tomato plants with a homemade sun shade, but we only got 6 cherry tomatoes. All summer long they didn’t even flower.

Next, we amended the soil further and planted watermelon and cantaloupe starts. Every time a baby watermelon developed, one of the many birds in our yard ate it. This continued until September when the birds finally went away. Since then, we’ve gotten 4 watermelons.

Now, it’s fall, and we are finally getting some produce. We have baby bok choy that are growing strong, 4 Swiss chard plants, and 8 green pepper plants that have more than 20 peppers on them in various states of growth.

Hopefully our costs will drop or moderate as we learn more about how to garden in the desert. However, so far, we’ve easily spent $200 for the few veggies we’ve been able to harvest.

Sticking It Out Through the Learning Curve

For someone like me who doesn’t like to spend money frivolously, these gardening expenses bother me. But there are two reasons we keep trying to garden:

My husband really enjoys it. I think my husband has discovered his inner farmer. He loves spending weekends outdoors, puttering in the garden. Every evening, he comes home from work and waters and takes care of the garden. It’s a great hobby for him.

The costs should equalize–eventually. As we learn more about gardening here, we should be able to produce more vegetables. We won’t have to create the raised beds again. Our only expenses going forward will be soil amendment each season (so necessary with our desert soil), seeds, and water. The longer we garden, the lower our costs should be.

Even though it doesn’t feel like it now, gardening will eventually be a hobby that at least costs us only a small amount out of pocket or that pays for itself.

Do you garden? How steep was your learning curve? Do you find that the garden pays for itself eventually?

Why You May Not Want To Install A Pool This Summer

June 21, 2016 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

What better way is there to beat the heat than to take a nice, refreshing dip in a pool. Ah. It doesn’t get better than that. But if you have kids, you may find paying a fee to use the local pool and carting the kids to the pool a bit of a pain, especially when they get back in the car to go home dripping wet.

Perhaps you’ve toyed with the idea of installing a pool at your house. You may think that the kids would enjoy it, they could have friends over, you could use it for exercise, and it will increase your property value because who doesn’t want a pool at home, right?

Slow down and rethink that decision.

Here’s why you shouldn’t install a pool at home:

You may not want to install a pool this summer.

Pools are expensive. There’s the initial expensive of putting in the pool, which is quite a hefty sum. “PK Data reports that the average cost of a residential in-ground swimming pool was $39,084. . .” (Money). Depending on where you live, you’ll also need to pay for a fence around the pool as well as a lock. There may also be additional home insurance costs since a pool is a liability. But, of course, the expenses don’t stop there. There is the cost of maintaining the pool, the chemicals to treat the pool, the expense of opening and closing the pool yearly. You’ll also likely see a spike in your utilities thanks to the pump and heater.

The neighborhood kids may not hang out at your house. Many parents of teens want a pool because they think that their child will invite his friends over. While that may be true, often teens want to hang out at the community pool or the beach where there are more teens.

Your kids may tire of the pool. While your children may initially enjoy the pool and spend hours swimming and playing in it, like almost everything, their attention may wane. It’s not unusual for kids to hardly swim in the pool once they’ve had it for several years.

Other neighbors may visit frequently. You may also find yourself getting unwanted neighborly visits. My cousin’s friend, Renee, had a pool, and almost every day a neighbor boy and his mom would stop by asking if they could swim. Never mind that Renee had no children herself. Every day she was placed in the uncomfortable position of either denying them or playing reluctant host to uninvited guests.

It likely won’t add any value to your home. One reason some people get a pool is that they figure the investment will pay for itself when they sell the house. Unfortunately, that’s often not the case. “Sabine H. Schoenberg, a home improvement expert and founder of SabinesHome.com” states, “It’s not something that’s value-enhancing to a lot of people. Just as there are people with positive feeling towards pools, there are those with negative feelings” (Money).

It can be expensive to fill in. If you reach the time where you want to fill in the pool, you could be looking at $8,000 or more!

When we were in the market for a house, we looked at one that had a pool. However, after researching all of the costs, I’m so glad we decided to get a house without a pool!

Which do you prefer? A house with or without a pool? Are you considering adding a pool to your backyard?

It’s O.K. If Your Kids Are Bored This Summer

June 1, 2016 By MelissaB 4 Comments

Ah, summer. A time of relaxation, heat, and. . .boredom?

Yep, boredom. When I was a child, the big activity for the summer was to go to Vacation Bible School one week of the summer. The rest of the time, well, my days stretched wide open before me.

I might read a good book, or run through the sprinkler, or eat a popsicle, or lay on the grass looking at the clouds floating by or go bike riding with my friend or play on the swing set or play with Barbies.

Those were the days of summer.

I loved every minute that I was out of school, but by mid-July, after the excitement of the 4^th of July holiday wore off and I’d been on summer break for several weeks, I often found myself bored. I mean b.o.r.e.d.

Kids are Bored this Summer — Org. Img.: Bored by Marcus Nelson on Flickr

I was actually excited and ready to go back to school.

Do kids today feel that anymore?

The answer, typically, is no, but it’s O.K. if your kids are bored this summer!

Summer Can Hit Your Wallet Hard

If you want to keep your kid busy all summer long, you can expect to spend quite a bit of money doing so. I have a friend who is paying over $1,000 for her seven year old to attend summer day camp for a few weeks. And that is just one child!

Of course, families with two working parents must find ways to make sure that their kids are cared for, so that is part of the reason why kids are overbooked. But my friend whose paying for her daughter’s summer camp is a stay-at-home mom.

Boredom Is Not a Bad Thing

However, if the parents are in a situation where they can let their kids get bored, i.e. one parent stays home to take care of the kids, boredom might not be such a bad thing. Nancy Darling, a professor of Psychology at Oberlin College, states, “From a developmental perspective, kids have very little experience learning to find things to do FOR THEMSELVES. They have been PASSIVE. Adults shape their activities. When they get to the point where they are too old for that—or there just aren’t adults to do it—the kids are at a loss. They might know what they like to do—or what they don’t—but they have little experience figuring out how to make good things happen. Boredom is okay” (Psychology Today).

Think about times when you were bored as a kid. Those times obviously didn’t last forever. You found something to do. You may have compromised and played a board game with your younger brother even though you really didn’t like playing with him, but anything was better than boredom! You may have written a story, or created a Lego invention, or made a new imaginary game.

Alyson Jones, who is a counselor, states, “Boredom is not the enemy to be conquered by action and another planned activity. Boredom can be a vehicle to creative thinking, self-awareness, empathy and compassion. When we are bored we are often alone with our thoughts—this is a great way for children to get to know themselves” (The Huffington Post).

If you have the flexibility in your schedule, why not give the kids some time to be bored this summer? Your wallet will thank you, and someday your kids might, too.

What do your kids do for the summer? Do you give them time to be bored or are they scheduled?