The Homeschool Argument

Dear Nosey Nancy,

Yes, my Husband and I really did decide TOGETHER to homeschool the kids. No, I didn't just steamroll him into it and he decided not to argue. Nice to see what you think about our relationship.

Yes, we WILL be homeschooling for the near future at least. We have our reasons. If you'd like I could TELL them to you but I will NOT discuss them with you. Again he and I decided together.

Yes, I'm sure those homeschool kids your youngest daughters saw during the once a year mandated testing were totally awkward. You would be too if they took you from your job placed you in a different facility to test you all day long and you knew no one there. Not only that, imagine all the people there are from some small hillbilly town where everyone knows everyone, they all grew up together, have their own little cliques or circles, and have a well established pecking order that doesn't allow for outsiders.

Truth be told you've never met a homeschooled kid. Neither have your kids. They have seen them, from a distance, in a situation where the odds are highly stacked against them. They were scrutinized as an outsider and led to believe that no one there wanted to be their friend. Which from the sound of it was true. So instead of critiquing our lifestyle how about you come to a homeschool group meeting and see what really goes on there?

Until then please don't worry, we got this.

Love,
The Unworried Mom

Save money! Save health!

Ok, so that title make no grammatical sense. I couldn't think of anything better.

Since I've been posting about allergies and colds I figured this post would go right along with that. Chances are you or someone you know could save some cash. I wish this post would work for all of us but it's rather topic specific.

See, this is about cigarettes. I'm not even going to touch on the health impact. I won't mention it, not even once. I'm going for the money argument. A long time about I used to be a smoker. I know it's hard to quit but the way I eventually did quit was by checking my bank account. I added up everything I spent on cigarettes and I was not happy.

I'm going to make it quick:
Average cost of Cigarettes per pack by state varies from $4.96 in Kentucky to $14.50 in New York. (Prices from theawl.com)
I'm going to run averages a few different ways: The lowest average price per pack $5, Highest price per pack $14.50, and average price per pack $8.4622 or $8.50 for simplicity.
First how much it costs a year.
Smoking only a pack a day you spend: $1,825.00; $5,292.50; or $3,102.50.
Smoking a half pack a day: $912.50; $2646.25; or $1,551.25
Smoking a pack a week: $260.00; $754.00; or $442.00
and 2 packs a day: $3,650.00; $10,585.00; or $6,205.00

Numbers, numbers, numbers...

What does it mean?
For college students:

Average cost of a 4 year college per year for a full time undergrad $22,092. (according to NCES) So if you smoke a pack a day at the average price of $8.50 a pack you can pay 14% of your tuition out of pocket every year or $12,410.00 by the end of college. That like getting a semester free of loans!

For high school students:
Again with a pack a day.
You can buy a scooter or put a down payment on a car. You can have one very awesome prom dress or tux plus enough cash for weekly mani/pedis and possibly enough for your favorite stylist or shopping trip.

For young adults:

You can use the money to help pay off a student loan, put a down payment on a car, get your weekly mani/pedi, invest in stocks, or put it in a 401k.

So lots of things to do with it other than smoke it.

Stay green,

Yasha

My New Bag

I was shopping the clearance section of my favorite store the other day and I came across a cute little bag. Since I need something to tote around extra toys for my little girl I decided to get one. I picked out my favorite flavor and headed on to the checkout.

The bag, which I have gotten many positive comments on, is made from empty Capri Suns. The company calls it upcycling and encourages students to start a campaign at their schools to collect Capri Suns and send them to be upcycled. Schools are compensated for collecting the pouches so there really is no downside to this.

If you want to start a campaign or for more information check out Terra Cycle.

Stay green,
Yasha