Green Your Personal Finances and Cut the Hassle

I don’t know about you, but I hate getting both bills and bank statements in the mail. Even when they’re relatively good news, they probably come with various ads or inserts that do nothing more than add to the recycle bin.

Not to mention, you know, having to keep track of when everything’s due. There are many other things I’d rather think about. With so many companies having websites, there are few companies where I can’t avoid getting statements in the mail.

Go Electronic!

Getting electronic statements is much nicer than getting paper ones. Sure, they still throw ads in, but they’re easier to ignore, even if you have to click past.

But my favorite part about electronic bills is that most companies will let you schedule your payments. You don’t have to remember the due date; just make sure the bill is reasonable and the funds to pay it are available in your bank account. You can have an automatic payment take care of the rest.

More and more companies are either simply stopping paper statements once you go electronic or repeatedly requesting you to go all electronic until you do so that they can stop sending paper statements. They like saving money, both in terms of not having to print and send all that paper mail, and by not having to pay people to process payments that come in through the mail.

Support Women’s Education Worldwide to Help Fight Overpopulation

The size of the human population on this planet has much to do with how much damage our species does. There’s a lot of us, and while in some countries the population is shrinking, in others it’s still growing.

There are a lot of reasons for this. In many areas, a large family is still needed to ensure that the parents will have enough support. In many areas, too many children still die at young ages.

I’m no fan of telling people how many kids they should have. That’s a very personal decision. But I am a firm believer in doing what we can to help people choose to have smaller families.

Educated Women Choose to Have Fewer Women on Average

This isn’t a blanket statement saying that all educated women choose to have a small family. Some choose larger ones. But there are a number of studies that show that giving women more education results in smaller average family sizes.

Other factors have an impact too, of course. Women who marry young have larger average family sizes. Some cultures push much harder for large family sizes. Access to any sort of family planning effects family size. And you can’t forget the many who believe that having as many children as God gives them is the right way to live.

Is a Smaller Family Size Good for Everyone?

I hope the answer to that question is as obvious to you as it is to me. Of course it isn’t the best solution for everyone. Different situations mean people have different needs.

But it is a good thing for many. Fewer children means the parents have fewer expenses related to raising them. It may be easier to educate them. The mother has more chances to earn money, whether at home or at a job.

It also is easier on the mother’s body. Pregnancy has its risks, and these are higher in poorer countries. It may be a wonderful risk in many ways, and most women undertake those risks willingly, but the risk is still there.

How Does Education Help?

The more education a woman gets, the more likely she is to know what resources are available to help her control how many children she bears. She’s also more likely goals beyond bearing children, and more likely to be able to work toward those goals.

It’s not all easy, of course. If the culture she’s in is not accepting of smaller family sizes or of contraception, she’s going to face pressure. But in most cases acceptance increases over time.

Women who get an education marry later on average.  I don’t mean “get a college education,” I mean even a few years of school. This means they’re more likely to start their families a little later, and so probably have fewer children.

She may also be better able to provide educational opportunities for her children. Much depends on what is available, but also an educated mother is better able to help in her children’s education.

More educated women also have more options open to them in how they can contribute to the economy. They can speak out for their community.

How Do We Help?

The best way to help women worldwide get more access to education is to support organizations that help make schools that are open to girls. Central Asia Institute for example, works to create community-based education in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, with a focus on girls.

Wanna Go Camping Sooner?

Well, you don’t have to go camping necessarily. I suppose you could just make a day trip of it. From April 17-25, 2010, all National Parks are offering free admission. Sounds like a lot of fun to me, and visit the link to get all the details.

The various parks may have different activities. Saturday April 24 is for kids to learn to be Junior Rangers at certain locations. There are a variety of projects for volunteers and other events. you’ll have to check to see what’s happening in parks in your range.

Even if you don’t decide to go camping, this is a great chance to head out to one National Park or another. For some parks this is a pretty significant savings; others are normally pretty inexpensive to visit, but free is free!

How Well Do You Combine Your Errands?

As a mom, I generally have a ton of stuff to get done, both at home and elsewhere. It can be pretty chaotic some days. Tuesdays are the worst for me, as my son has speech therapy in the morning, both older kids have karate in the evening, not to mention trying to get my youngest down for her nap and my oldest home from school.

That nap’s the real challenge. First speech therapy interferes with its usual schedule, but picking my oldest up from school means it has to wait even longer.

On the plus side, it’s a great day for me to combine errands.

Tuesdays are also the days that I do the grocery shopping most weeks. Why not? I have a significant part of an hour to kill while my son’s in speech therapy. Sitting and waiting for the class to end is no good; neither is going home and suddenly having to pack up to go get him with less than an hour at home.

I love combining errands like that. It’s both time and fuel efficient.

Using my minivan as efficiently as possible is important to me. It’s much more environmentally friendly that way. A warmed up vehicle uses fuel more efficiently. It can save miles of driving.

Other errands can be combined too. Where I live, there are grocery stores near enough, but for just about anything else, it’s a minimum 20 minutes driving each way. We try to combine every trip we can. I even try to have my husband stop off and do some types of errands on his way home from work if he’s not too tired. It’s just much more efficient.

Try to think about how you can combine errands before you head out. Make a list if it helps you to remember everything you need to buy or do. You’ll save time, gas and wear and tear on your vehicle. Not a bad deal for being eco friendly to boot.

Spring Means it’s Time to Send The Kids Outside to Play More

Things are heating up around here. We’re getting more sunny days and fewer rainy ones. It’s a great time of year to send the kids outside to play.

I know that it’s sometimes hard to send the kids out to play when you don’t want to follow them. But once they’re old enough, you should be starting to have them play outside without you anyhow. Just think of how much you probably played outside without adult participation as a child. I hope it was a lot.

Both outdoor play and playing without adults setting the rules or watching too carefully is good for kids, so long as conditions are safe. In some neighborhoods, kids can be safe playing on their own at very young ages. In other places, you need to wait for them to have better judgement. It comes down to your judgement as a parent.

Just remember that if you don’t let them learn to figure out what’s safe on their own, your kids will have a very hard time learning to do that on their own. They need to make little mistakes, get hurt in various ways so that they learn to avoid bigger injuries and to be more independent.

Outdoor play is generally healthy for kids. While their everyday play may be in your front or back yard, or at a local playground if you have one close enough, don’t forget to take your kids to see nature in its most natural forms. Take them hiking. Go camping. Go to the beach, a lake, a river, whatever you have available to you.

I know parents have a lot of fears these days about letting their kids play outside without an adult right there, even as they get older. It’s very important for your kids that you learn to keep your concerns realistic. The fears about child snatching and such are greatly overblown in most situations by the media.

If you’re not too comfortable about having your kids play outside without you, try to find some friends for them and have them play in a group. Kids are safer in a group and they’ll have loads of fun together. Set appropriate rules about where they can go and when to be back home, and try to relax.

You don’t have to keep them inside entirely on rainy days either. Soaking wet, possibly muddy kids aren’t too much fun for you to clean up after, but many kids will appreciate the chance to play in the rain. Just so long as it’s not too serious a storm, and have hot chocolate or another treat ready to warm them back up.

They don’t always have to be outside without you. Spring is one of the best times of year for showing kids the wonders of nature. Show them the leaves coming back on the trees, the flowers blooming, animals coming back out, whatever you can find for them in your area. You could even decide to start gardening together.

When the kids come back messy or tired from having fun, just remind yourself that they’re doing things that are good for them on many levels. Playing outside is a way to help kids be healthier, do better in school, be more creative and so much more.

If you’re concerned about letting your kids play outside, there are two books I would recommend reading. One is Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy. The other is Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.

I love both those books. I was given each of them as review copies some time back, and I’ve mentioned them at various times because I really and truly enjoyed them. They’re great references for parents.