Posted by Canadian Dream on July 23, 2010
With summer time here I’m spending a lot more time outdoors with my kids, so I thought I would share some of our favourite afternoons of fun which don’t have to cost a lot.
- The Park – My kids are currently obsessed with going to the local school play structure so we have been going at least a few times a week. We often just walk over take a drink and snack and spend a hour or two playing games like tag or how far can you go and not touch the ground. Cost $0. Cheap Add On: Slurpee run – walk to your local 7-11 or other store and pick up a treat/drink on the way home for $5 to $10.
- The Library – This is a weekly event in our house. Often I drive over since we often do this with other errands, but sometimes we walk as well. Beyond picking up our holds we also pick out a few movies for the kids, read a few books, take out a few books, play with the toys at the library and then play at the park located outside. Then come home and immediately put a movie in for the kids to watch. Cost $0. Cheap Add On: Pick up some ice cream from the grocery store $3 to $5 or 40 Timbits for $5.
- Water Fun – Now this one can be done in several grades depending on the effort/money you want to put into it. Option a) Running around in the sprinkler at home. Who knew watering the lawn can actually be fun? Cost $0. Option b) Hit up the local spray park and run around. Cost $0. Option c) Hit up the local outdoor/indoor pool. Cost $11 (at least around here).
- Museums/Galleries/Science Centers – Playing tourist in your own backyard can be fun and my kids love to see new things, so this makes for a great afternoon event for us. Cost Free to $30 depending on which one you go see.
- The Lake – Find a friend/family member with a cabin and get a invite out for the afternoon or the weekend. Be sure to ask to see if they need anything and be prepared to help out with chores. We do this fairly often over the summer as my parents literally live at the lake for the summer so if we want to get a visit in we often need to go see them. Cost $40 to $100 or more (depends on gas, what you bring out: food & drinks, etc).
So what do you do for fun over the summer? If you have an idea please share.
Posted by Dave on June 22, 2010
I had an interesting discussion with my brother about diapers on the golf course yesterday that lead to a more heated discussion between my spouse and I because she thought I was being unreasonable in my expectations of ‘other people.’ This happens fairly frequently as I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t look at things like I do. 
I had asked my brother what kind of diaper he was going to use with his new baby on the way. He didn’t even think and answered disposables.
I questioned why he made this decision, to which I received the answer “because it’s easier”.
I asked him if he had looked into the cost of cloth diapers vs. disposables or any sort of analysis beyond the simplicity factor, to which I received a negative response.
At this point, because we were at a golf course on father’s day I left the point alone – until the car ride home when I went over the conversation with my wife and noted (even though we don’t plan on having children) I couldn’t see any reason beyond the pain of cleaning the diapers to buy plastic that had to be thrown out after 1 use vs. cloth that would last for a significant period of time. I was told that most parents don’t think like that, they don’t want to deal with the messiness and inconvenience of cleaning diapers when there is a simple alternative available. These are arguments that I really dislike – I’m as lazy as the next person but like to look at the big picture on subjects like this. My arguments for diapers can be applied over many consumer products in use today, such as ziploc bags vs. reusable containers; paper towels vs. rags etc.
Tim had previously discussed his switch from cloth to disposable diapers here – rather than look at it from a quality of life stance, I’m going to look at the impact of using something disposable (in this case a diaper) to something re-usable (cloths). Most of the information I got came from here, which admittedly is a pro-cloth diaper site, however I don’t think the pro-disposable diaper conglomerate has much in the way of an argument given the following:
- Over 92% of all single-use diapers end up in the landfill.
- It’s estimated that a disposable diaper would take 250-500 years to decompose.
- Disposable diapers are the third largest consumer item in landfills, and represent approximately 4% of solid waste.
- Disposable diapers contain traces of dioxin as a by-product of the paper bleaching process, along with several other nasty toxic pollutants, which besides probably not being good for a baby’s skin is definitely not good for the land and soil during the 250-500 years this product takes to decompose.
So, rather than having to deal with some baby messes most people buy something that will have to be dealt with for maybe the next FIVE CENTURIES? Does this make sense? I’m not really sure why there’s even a product like this out there – I would have to say that in this circumstance the environmental impact isn’t being looked at, rather most people are looking at the easier choice right now, rather than the total impact that the purchase will have in the future (hundreds of years down the road).
From what I have read cost of cloth to disposable varies, but let’s say they are approximately the same on average. At the end of 2 years, approximately 6,000 diapers have been put into a landfill if you’ve been using disposable diapers. While if you had chosen cloth, you’d have some tattered rags that could be used around the house, or alternatively (because it’s made of a decomposable material) will disappear (in optimal conditions in about 2 weeks).
As a culture we have created products whose main purpose is to be thrown out in order to make things more simple for us. From a personal finance perspective longer-lasting reusable purchases tend to have a lot of up-front costs that make them undesirable to many people. What is created by the easy choice is a lot of garbage. I’m sure more trash has been created in the last 100 years than there ever has been in the past due to the invention of plastic. From an environmental perspective these products are a nightmare, but most people are not looking at the big picture.
For myself, I attempt to purchase as little as possible and when I do I tend to buy longer-lasting durable products rather than disposable goods. I will freely admit that I do own disposable products (ziploc bags, paper towels etc.) but try to limit my use of them.
I’m wondering:
- Do you think about the purchasing decisions you make beyond the initial outlay?
- If you have your child in disposable diapers did you ever think about cloth? If you chose disposable diapers, how did you come to this conclusion?
Posted by Dave on May 11, 2010
I get five weeks of vacation with my job, meaning that until I am done work, I have plans for approximately 47 weeks of the year, and have control of the rest. My idea of a great vacation includes a lot of sitting around, reading and perhaps having a few drinks. These are activities that I am normally not able to do for any length of time the rest of the year, and I look forward to them. Growing up, I really didn’t do much in the way of summer vacation because I grew up on a farm and summer meant a lot of work that was fairly time sensitive – if the weather was nice, there were things to do like harvesting hay and building fences, and if the weather was bad there really wasn’t a lot to do inside or outside and those were nice, relaxing days during which the public library got a lot of use.
This year, my wife’s family would like to do “stuff” on their family vacation (of which now, I have been told I am a part of). So far, this “stuff” includes going to Marineland in Niagara Falls as well as several other attractions in the area. For anyone who has never been to Niagara Falls, Ontario I guess the main thing you need to know is that it’s basically a money pit – especially in the summer – almost a perfect tourist trap.
My wife is very excited to go to Marineland, while I am not really at all interested in going. It’s not really my idea of a good time to go hang out where a few thousand people are milling around. I’m not terribly interested in spending the $100 to get into the park for the day to wait in lines for rides and be annoyed by other people. My wife says that it will be fun because my nephews will really enjoy themselves and it will be something fun to do as a family. My response to this is that there is probably something more interesting for them to do (as 6 and 4 years old) that would not require the money and time that will have to paid out to have this family day together.
Last year, we as a family rented a cottage on a nice quiet lake, which had a lot of up-front costs but for a week of vacation together was reasonable as a majority of meals were cooked at the cottage. There was more opportunity for visiting and hanging out than will probably be experienced with this year’s more “touristy”-based vacation which from what I can see will require a lot more driving around and general headaches.
Who knows, maybe it will be a really good time. I know there are better places I can spend money and probably receive more enjoyment from, but as it has been explained to me, this is a family vacation and my idea of fun is not the same as other peoples.
How about you, what is your ideal family vacation? Have you had any good or bad experiences in the past? Any tips for someone who will be stuck in a tourist trap?
