Some parents have their entire house baby proofed before they even leave for the hospital. That is not us. We take a lazier one step at a time approach. Maybe, just maybe our baby will overlook some dangers. Inevitably, that parenting style lands us into situations like the one below, where a very curious Frugal Boy explores his surroundings. We just keep a constant eye on him in ‘unsafe’ rooms.
When he reaches new milestones, we do another round of baby proofing. Our refrigerator once had magnets and pictures all the way down to the floor, now it serves as an impromptu growth chart with everything below three feet cleared off.
A trip to Menards and $5 later, we had a package of safety latches.
It was pretty obvious that someone else had installed a similar product in the past as there were already holes drilled into our kitchen cabinets.
Growing up, I remember the sink cabinet having the same style of latch installed. Eventually I figured it out, but by then I was also smart enough not to drink bleach.
With the cabinets secured our home is a little more baby resistant.
I couldn’t resist making a spoof infomercial about the safety latches. Frugal Boy was just too gosh darn cute poking his head into the cabinets to check everything out.
Santa was in town today visiting Shae’s place of employment, as well as several other simultaneous locations around town. What a guy, eh?
We showed up at our appointed time and enjoyed watching all of the cute kiddies gleefully jump into Santa’s lap or cower in terror behind their parents/siblings.
Frugal Boy had just woken up from a nap and hadn’t had a snack yet, so he was a bit distracted by thoughts of filling his belly.
Off to the side was a room with some props set up so parents could take more pictures.
Not Amused Face
Frugal Boy will probably get coal this year, especially after attempted grand theft sleigh.
Grand Theft Sleigh
As the caboose of six kids, I find these types of events novel and I also feel myself turning into my own father quite a bit. I remember visiting Santa only once, in my kindergarten class. I was that kid who tried to convince my classmates he was a sham. That notion along with my lunchroom argument that negative numbers existed were a bit too radical and edgy for my peers. Shae on the other hand has fond Santa memories.
Oh, and in case you are wondering, despite attempted sleigh theft, Santa gave our naughty little monkey a $10 gift card to a well known big box store for kids. Geez, what a guy! Thanks Santa, next year bring the coal (that’s what my father would have said).
Hello December! It is about that time of the year where I start to roam about the house looking for drafts. The colder and windier it is outside, the easier it is to find them, and with a 1905 built house, there are always plenty of holes.
Today I sealed up our big living room picture window.
This window along with several others need to be refurbished. Until I find time or an experienced handyman, we’ll just have to make do with the ‘old school’ way of sealing up windows.
These kits are really easy to use. Just measure out your window size, add a couple of inches of margin/wiggle room and cut the plastic. Apply the double sided tape and then very carefully stick the plastic on.
In the above picture you can also see another project I just finished, planting a tree in our front yard. I planted a Japanese “Kousa” Dogwood in the front and a silver linden in the backyard.
The final optional step of plastic’ing up a window is to use a hair dryer to remove the wrinkles and ripples in the plastic.
Now you can enjoy a less drafty room!
Go Green!
You may be asking yourself why we don’t replace our leaky windows with a high efficiency thermal paned unit and the answer to that is that the dollars and cents don’t necessarily add up. Searching for the cost to replace vs repair old growth double sash wood windows turns up articles like this one (link).
Statistically, it is virtually impossible to recoup, in energy savings, the amount of money spent on replacing historic wood windows with new windows before the new windows need to be replaced.
Then there is the aesthetic concern. I love old houses, Shae ADORES old houses, so with any home improvement project that we tackle, preservation is always a factor that is considered.
Old House Lovers, Stop Reading Now
Living in an older neighborhood, we are no strangers to modern times trampling over history. For example, this house that is a part of our neighborhood was recently purchased for $300k. It was designed and built by a prominent architect around the turn of the century during the peak of his career.
Five months later, the house looks like this:
What happened? Did it burn? No. Was it a safety hazard? No. Was it dilapidated and beyond repair? No.
Here are some of the inside pictures taken from the realtors website.
So why on earth is this charming house being torn down? It was purchased by an individual so they could make themselves a private putting green and pretend they are putting for a green jacket.
Not every old house can be saved from idiocy, but by golly we will preserve ours for future generations.
Shae’s annual employee benefits enrollment period is up and we must make decisions on what kinds of medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and flex spending that we want to participate in for the 2015 year. Most of these we just stuck with our current status quo, but we did make changes and have started to contribute to a childcare flexible spending account starting in January of 2015.
Flexible Spending Account
An FSA is a tax advantaged account that some employers offer, you cannot set one up on your own. Some of your paycheck is diverted to this special account and you can be reimbursed for qualified expenses. At the end of the year, any remaining money in the account is forfeited, so it is critically important to plan ahead and know how much you will be spending for that year at the time of enrollment.
Advantages
The big advantage of an FSA, is that it is tax free money. If you are in the 15% tax bracket and don’t use a childcare FSA (we weren’t for 2014) then for every $1 you earn only $0.85 of that dollar is available to be spent on childcare. The rest goes to Uncle Sammy. You can also think of it as a 15% discount on childcare, something unheard of for single children.
Requirements
To use an FSA you must adhere to these requirements:
$5,000 cap for married filing jointly couples
OR the lower of $5,000 and the lowest spouse’s income (if one spouse makes $3000, you are capped at $3000)
Any left over money is forfeited
Both spouses must work and have earned income
Exception: One spouse was a student for at least five months
Employer must offer a FSA
Some employers have lower contribution caps
Qualified Expenses only
You must fill out a claim form
Provide receipts
Include signature of care provider
Childcare Tax Credit
A more accessible way of reducing the cost of childcare is to claim the childcare tax credit. This tax credit has many of the same conditions as the FSA. Namely,
Both spouses must work and have earned income
Qualified expenses only
No double dipping with FSA
$3k cap for single child, $6k cap for 2+ children
AGI, taxable income, must be below $110k for married filing jointly
The tax credit operates on a sliding scale based off your adjusted gross income. Families with AGI of less than $15k, receive the full amount of qualifying expenses up to the cap. For example a student that has a $10k stipend and paid $3k in childcare would be fully reimbursed by Uncle Sam. If your AGI is over $43k, then the reimbursement drops to 20% of expenses. For a single child with the cap of $3k in qualifying expenses, the credit with return 0.2*3000 = $600.
Why Not Both?
Because the caps for each of these offerings is lower than the average cost of childcare ($11,600/year) chances are good that you could combine the two to maximize your savings. For example, in our situation, we could use the FSA for the first $5k in expenses and save 15% on childcare. Expenses between $5-8k would be covered by the tax credit and be marked 20% off. Expenses beyond $8k wouldn’t be eligible.
The nice thing about the FSA is that it reduces your taxable income (AGI). That could put you into a lower tax bracket, it will save you on state income taxes (5% for Illinois), and it gets you out of Social Security and Medicaid taxes.
By using these strategies we anticipate saving around $1000 a year in childcare expenses. Our childcare provider gets paid the same amount as before and the only difference on her end will be signing some reimbursement forms a few times a year for the FSA and signing a W-10 form once a year for the tax credit.
