Ep. 591 — Parent Like a Millionaire Without Being One

Another Canadian here. Those were some interesting ideas especially about focusing on buying quality used items. I also appreciated reminders of “kids don’t need the expensive hockey camp” 😊. Thank you for sharing all of the ideas!

One thing I found helpful is to be minimalistic with toys and crafting supplies — the more we have, the harder it is to clean up. My 4 year old recently agreed to getting only books for his birthday, and has been really cherishing them since. I am still mind-blown that he was ok with no toys gifted, even though until now it was all about toys. And while my 10 year old got a few extras for her birthday, her main gift was rollerblades, with an explanation that I want to shift from stuff towards experiences (yes it’s still stiff but that enables adventures). She also really cherishes them.

One thing I am struggling with, and perhaps other community members have advice on, is clothes for my kids. I co-parent, with kids staying half the time with their father, so as a result, they have most clothes in doubles. I value aesthetics a lot so buying bags of clothes on Marketplace have proven very stressful (lots of poor quality things that do not look very pleasing), and my 10-year old refuses to wear many of those (and I don’t blame her). I tried to start clothes exchanges at our local school but it is difficult because I can’t volunteer time and nobody else wants to champion it, which is understandable. I also have trouble selling things they grow out of on marketplace because life is a bit too fast-paced already for me to manage sorting and photographing, and we have no storage space to keep items until sold. I’ve gifted a lot of my kids’ old clothes to friends and donated but it feels like a waste. And I’ve been recently buying stuff new because the local Salvation Army doesn’t have nice stuff and the nicer consignment stores are quite far and I don’t have a car right now. Any tips on what else I could try or maybe someone can share their experience on how to start a clothes swap (for a busy parent)?

plus the taxes. You can make 6 figures and have a negative tax liability after the child tax credits without that second income

The mom as homemaker and home-schooling educator is the best from a FI perspective in so many ways.

Housing - You don’t have to worry about school district when buying a house, so it doesn’t really matter where you live.

Childcare - self explanatory, no childcare costs needed

Education - homeschooling is significantly cheaper than any private school. States should refund part of your property taxes if you decline the local public school.

and best of all, children have a parent with them to raise them. You are replaceable at your job, you are not replaceable at your house.

As a parent, this was an interesting episode, but I was surprised how US-centric it was, especially given that they are Canadian. The topic about daycare was especially targeted around the realities of childcare in the US. While this book may have been written/edited prior to the increased funding for subsidized childcare in Canada, I had hoped that this conversation could veer into the territory of how policies can affect how individual families are able to save money.

I was lucky enough to have kids in daycare in Quebec ten years ago, when they were the first province to offer daycare subsidies; we paid $20 a day per child for an amazing daycare. While many might argue that child-free people shouldn't have their taxes go towards subsidizing someone else's childcare, many economic impact studies show by subsidizing daycare results is a net gain to the broader economy because it allows more people (typically mothers) to stay in the workforce and contribute through income tax.

Lessons from Quebec's universal low-fee childcare programme | IPPR

Powering growth: Economic benefits from Canada’s $10-per-day early learning and child care program | childcarecanada.org

While I know that shows like Money with Katie explored the overlap of policy and money, it would be interesting if the intersection between policy, money and what individuals are able to save on their own could be acknowledged in some of these episodes.

Disclaimer: not a parent, don't want kids.

Two things in this episode that I really liked hearing about were:

1) the concept of renting/leasing things for young children by utilizing the secondhand market. I'd literally never thought about this before, but it now sounds INSANE to spend thousands of dollars on brand new things that in a best case scenario will be lightly used for a few months. I know it's the norm, but it still sounds crazy. I assume a big part of it is how exhausted new parents are, it's just easier to buy new things.

2) The geo-arbitrage point really touched on one of the big things Katie from Money with Katie liked to hit on: we just do childcare wrong as a system here in the US. It's so restrictive and so expensive that, like health care, just moving to a country that has figured this stuff out is a massive savings opportunity. I know Katie moved into more systemic issues and ChooseFI likes to focus on the personal aspect, but it's worth touching on. The USA does many things well (30 year fixed-rate mortgages sounds like a dream to people from other countries), but caring for our young, elderly, and sick is not among them. We don't have to dwell on it, since other communities do that quite well, but it's worth considering how our personal strategies for dealing with life are informed by the systems we find ourselves in, if for no other reason than to financially prepare for their impacts.