Canadian Personal Finance Blog

I have seen many articles posted lately in the “real” media complaining about obese kids and the implication that it is their parents fault that they are fat. I agree in some ways given that you as a parent should worry if your kid is morbidly obese, or way over weight (also knowing that some kids fill out and then shoot up in height, and there are sometimes extenuating health issues). Parents should most definitely be worried that their kids are not healthy, no argument there.

What I will write about here, is how the “real” media implies that it is a simple case of parents just not trying to get their kids healthy, and the simplest resolution to the problem is:

• Make sure the kids are active at school in sports
• Sign them up for sports at home in their spare time
• Limit their TV and Video Game access
• Limit their intake of snack foods and foods high in sugar and fat

Simple enough, and in an esoteric way, I agree, however, let’s look at this from a financial model.

The question to be answered is: is it cheaper to have healthy kids, or is it more expensive? I’ll give my opinions in the next couple of days.

New Month Coming

September is on the event horizon folks, that means we are in the final third of the year, maybe it is time to revisit your financial plans, and also start thinking about big ticket end of year items that could broadside you if you don’t think of it. What do I mean?

• Christmas, better figure out what you are doing there, or you may as well get a pile of money and burn it.
• When do your insurance policies renew?
• What other yearly payments might come due on January 1? Do you have enough money to pay them?
• How about your RRSP input goals? Reached them yet?
• RESP Goals?
• Savings in General?

A good financial plan is a living, breathing entity, that you must attend to monthly.

House Keeping

I will be out of town for a few days this week so I may miss a day or two this week, my apologies, if I could figure out how to do THIS full time and make a living, I’d gladly do it.

I was running low on ideas and asked my wife for a topic for today’s blog and she came up with the cost of our “free” education system. She had been out shopping for back to school supplies (a HUGE industry in itself) and was telling me about all the “bargains” she was going to have to find to pay for all of the unwritten educational expenses.

Not Optional

These are expenses you can’t escape from and you MUST pay:

• $45.00 yearbook & agenda/year fee which is not optional (per child). My kids in High School can’t even get their schedule before they pay this fee.
• $10.00 for the agenda at my elementary daughter’s school
• Class fees for individual classes:
  • Art fee $25.00
  • Music Fee $25.00 not to do with the instrument rental
  • Musical instrument rental or purchase which can be anywhere from $100 to $800
  • Physics Fee $10
  • Tech Fee $30
  • Music Fee $35.00

Not that much I guess around $100 - 200.00 per child all due in September.

Optional Expenses

These are the added expenses that you can try to not pay or find ways around them, but some are more optional than others. An example would be I can’t really not buy bus passes for my daughters who go to a school a 20 minute drive away, but I will include them here for the sake of fairness in the model.

• Yearbook fee of $15.00 for elementary/middle school
• $200.00 since one of my daughters plays on the school basketball team
• Food
  • Pizza $45/child/3 months
  • Juice $38/child/3 months
  • Pita Bread $40/child/3 months
• Class photos $40
• Team fees for athletics $20.00
• Team fees for football $32.00
• Team fees Curling $50.00
• Tournament fees for basketball $115.00
• Skiing $60.00 for club
• End of year camp $187.50
• Gym Fees $24.00 for self defense
• Team fee softball $45
• Monthly Bus Passes $58.00 per month Per Child
• Band shirt $25.00

The bus passes are tax deductible luckily, but a lot of the school athletics aren’t really covered under the new “active child” tax credit, and you can see these expenses can be anywhere from $100-$800.00 for a child over the year.

Now this does not really include things like:

• Pencils, pencil cases, crayons and such
• Paper, binders and the like
• Computer, and computer paper
• Clothing for the start of the year

Anybody else know why I don’t have any money in September? Just take a guess.

Not just a very good song by Green Day, but also an anthem in my personal financial life. September seems to create a “perfect storm” of debt load that appears every year and I think I can give you the list of the things that are the causes:

1. Back to school. This in itself has many parts to it:
   1. Clothing, the kids inevitably need new clothes, and that is a big ticket item.
   2. Changes in eating habits, having to purchase lunch foods
   3. FEES, which in turn breaks down to:
      • Lunch fees, the school typically runs a pizza day once a week but you have to pay for 4 months at a time, so you fork that money out right away.
      • School fees, which are not insignificant, even though my kids go to a public school? That always amazes me.
   4. Bus Passes, I have to start buying them every month (adding up to $170 a month)
2. Sports begin again, and they are typically very “front end loaded” because you have to pay:
   1. Registration fees (although those are getting a tax break, which is great)
   2. Uniform fees and or equipment replacement:
      • New running shoes for two daughters (at about $140 per pair)
      • New ankle and knee braces (might be covered by my medical, might not)
      • Mouth guards (no these are not cheap either).
   3. Traveling with the team(s)
      • Hotel rooms and meals when at away tournaments
      • Meals for long tournaments in town and you just don’t feel like cooking
3. New city programs for pre-schoolers start, and these are not cheap, and I don’t get to write them off on my taxes, because my wife does not work.
4. Planning and shopping for Christmas starts (I am not kidding, if you don’t start this in September you are really going to dig yourself a hole in December).

The fact that I can list all these expenses is a good thing, so I can try to make some kind of plan to deal with all of these added expenses, or I can include them in my big plan, and just deal with them when they come at me.

Is your September going to have new expenses? If so, better make a plan on how this is not going to tip over the apple cart and cause you to “financially panic”.