Sunday, July 26, 2009

Our 3 cribs

1st -over 15 years old
2nd -less than 10
3rd -unknown, 2nd hand

*all pass the soda can test for the bars

When you have three children under 3 more cribs become essential but how many do you actually need? Our two year old rolled over at a month in a half making her bassinet unsafe for her.

With our 1st child we had 1 crib and 1 bassinet. He slept overnight in the bassinet and took naps in his crib. The problem was where to put him during the day. Son 2 rec. his own crib which he stayed in until age three. Even though we had a convertible crib, he rec. a plastic toddler bed similar to his brother. That left an extra crib. Good thing that crib did not get purged since we are now in the market for a third crib.

Now we are the happy owners of 3 cribs, 1 of which is a convertible crib. I would estimate that we spent about $550 for all 3 cribs realizing that the 1st was passed down.

Conversion beds are helpful but not always practical. I doubt many children will want to admit that their college dorm bed has the bars from their crib as the headboard. I can see using a crib as a toddler bed but beyond that I think the child probably needs an upgrade.

Next step is to find some mattresses. One of the allergist's questions for my son was how old was his mattress. So I guess that is an item that is worth buying new or fairly new.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Switching to a Cash System

1) Spend existing dollars
2) Save more because you see the dollars leaving your hands
3) Do not need to worry about interest rates and finance charges increasing
4) Some stores offer discounts for paying with cash

Downsides for a cash system
1) Harder to track because a person needs to make an effort to track cash
2) Don't have the credit card warranties
3) Can't use cash for internet transactions
4) Need to visit the bank to obtain the cash

Compromise -Debit card for your bank
1) Most establishments accept debit cards
2) Should be easy to track the transactions
3) Same benefits as the cash system # 1 and 3

Downsides for using a debit card
1) Not recommended for internet transactions
2) Hotels put a hold on a significant amount of funds if you use at registration
3) Some point of purchase sales do not have the ability to put in a pin number
4) Using at a restaurant looks questionable because your pin # might need to be disclosed

Any tips on using debit cards?