Nickel and Diming

When my oldest daughter started preschool this fall I paid them a pretty good chunk of money. They had an option to give us a 5% discount on tuition if we paid for the whole year up front. I had been socking away some money for a while and had enough to manage this, so I went ahead and did it. Better making 5% on the money than 2% in my savings, right?

I felt really lucky to have had the money to be able to do this. We’ve been through some tough financial times in the past, and I think we learned some really valuable lessons about debt and savings. That’s not what I want to write about today though.

What I want to write complain about today is how this preschool has been squeezing us for more and more money, and it hasn’t even been 2 months yet! Just off the top of my head, here are all the things they’ve said we need to pay for on top of tuition:

• Ice cream day
  
• Field trip
  
• School shirt to wear to field trip
  
• School pictures
  
• Yearbook
  
• Book Order
  
• Candy to throw from parade float
  
• Birthday treats to share with the class
  

I am not a stingy person. I want my daughter to have things the other kids have, and I want her to be happy and enjoy school. However, this is just completely over the top. We paid for preschool already, not to mention paying an ENROLLMENT FEE and a great big BOOK FEE. This isn’t even a fancy shmancy preschool. It’s a nice church-based program.

So what gives? ME. Hahahaha.

Ha.

Really – does a 4-year-old need a yearbook? It’s ridiculous. Matching t-shirts for a field trip? That’s what they tried to get me to buy this morning and it finally set me off.

The note says, “All students are to wear their L.S. Preschool T-shirts and/or hoodies.” I didn’t even know they had L.S. Preschool gear. And of course the field trip is tomorrow.

Did I pony up the money for the t-shirt? I know you’re wondering…

I did not. I refused. I told her teacher that it was too last minute and I didn’t have the money for it. She’s a good woman, and I caught her nodding her head when I inadvertently (I couldn’t stop them!) rolled my eyes about buying shirts for a field trip that we are chaperoning.

Later I complained to my husband about how that school is nickel and diming the heck out of us. He agreed and was very sympathetic while I ranted about how all these $5's and $10's are adding up. Even though he hasn’t been the one forking over the money on a practically weekly basis, he is dealing with preschool while he’s off work this week, and he’s the one going with her on the field trip tomorrow. So I told him it was his call.

And guess what?

He is going to buy her a t-shirt when he picks her up today. He says she can use it multiple times throughout the year and it’ll be fun for her to have a shirt with her school’s name on it. I totally bet he gets the hoodie too.

In the words of Precious Roy…. SUCKER!

Stock Market for Idiots

Politics and Finances. It's like my blog is getting a life of its own. Don't give up on me though. :) I just wanted to write about how I got started in the stock market because it's something you can do too, even if you don't have any money to invest.

I didn't have any money either!
In 2001 I had just moved from Idaho to Maryland to take a job that quickly folded when the company went under. I was stuck waiting tables and literally living day to day on the money I made in tips and the food I nicked from the kitchen.

I promised myself that if I could just get a regular job again I would invest and make sure I had a cushion, because you just never know when something like this is going to happen to you.

After about 6 months I got a new job and decided to learn about the stock market. I'd always been intrigued but intimidated by it, and I thought you had to have a lot of money to start... It turns out you don't!

I went to Yahoo Finance and made a pretend portfolio. I picked out some companies I knew a little bit about and added them to my portfolio, choosing to own 10 shares of each one. Then every day I'd check my pretend portfolio to see how they were doing.

Some were winners (Netflix), some were losers (Tiffany's) but before long I was wishing I had real money in the market.

After a while I finally had a couple hundred real dollars extra in my checking account and decided to go for it. I went to Etrade and opened up an account. It was so easy. I gave Etrade my bank account number, then waited a day for processing and I was ready to start. I bought maybe 10 shares that day - 2 each of 5 different companies. I think invested about $300 dollars and it was as easy as buying something on Ebay.

After that is where it got fun. I re-did my Yahoo portfolio to track my real stocks and I started checking it at least every hour. It's the closest I've felt to Vegas style gambling without actually being there. Some days I'm up and I feel like I hit a jackpot. Other days are gloomy, but I grit my teeth and hang in there. I'm not going to get rich overnight this way, but I usually average higher than a 7% profit and that's a lot better than my savings account.

Here are some things I've learned:

• Start small.


• Don't invest money you can't afford to lose.


• Don't sell winners. If you have a stock that is doing well, hang onto it. Chances are it will do even better.


• Buy stock in companies you know something about.


• Be tough. Don't sell because things are looking down. Grit your teeth and hang in there.


• Have fun.

I'm certainly not an expert, but leave a comment if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer.