Are We Still Cool? | Archive for cheap is cool cheap is cool

Watch me cut my own hair – and I’m talking a major chop

August 5, 2010 | by cool mum | cheap is cool | 17 Comments

Well, I’m falling into the classic mom problem of not having much time to fix my curly/tangly hair. Uncool. On Saturday, with Cool Dad watching the boys, I went to the backyard and chopped it off. Don’t worry, I consulted Google first. I found this post which describes how to cut curly hair into a short bob. It worked really well! Thank you Sheryl Canter!

Here are some video highlights for your entertainment. (Apologies for how grouchy and sleep-deprived I am in this video. Yikes.)

Words of caution: cutting hair without being able to see anything can be difficult (surprising, right?). I made the mistake of opening the jaws of the scissors and chopping against the whole thick ponytail rather than making small snips at a time. This caused strain on my hand (took forever) and on those poor scissors.

The verdict: though I sometimes feel like an old lady with a too-tight perm, ninety-five percent of the time I am loving the cut!

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Will it cost $222,360 to raise Cool Baby?

June 18, 2010 | by cool dad | cheap is cool | 2 Comments

This recent post in NPR’s Planet Money blog points out a government report that estimates it costs $222,360 to raise a child. Some interesting quotes from the report and how they apply to us:

Housing Is the Largest Expense on a Child

One would expect families to increase their housing expenditures as they move to larger residences to accommodate children.

Yes, one would expect!

Based on expenses incurred among all age groups, housing accounted for 32 percent of child-rearing expenses for a child in the lowest income group.

We are transitioning from three people sharing one bedroom to four people sharing one bedroom, so our housing costs for raising children equals 0.

Child-Rearing Expenses Are Highest in the Urban Northeast

Overall, child-rearing expenses were highest in the Urban Northeast, followed by the Urban West and Urban Midwest. Child-rearing expenses were lowest in the urban South and rural areas.

So we moved from the sorta urban, sorta rural South to the Urban Northeast. The estimated annual expenditures for one child 3-5 years old for two regions are:

Midway between Rural South and Urban South: $10,000
Urban Northeast: $13,000

Dagnabbit.

Expenses Increase as a Child Ages

…food, transportation, clothing, and health care expenses on a child generally increased as the child grew older.

Well, food and health care we do not skimp on, which explains why Cool Baby is currently 25th percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight. That means that he is taller than only 25% of his peers, while he weighs more than 75% of his peers. Dude is thick and stocky.

Transportation expenses are minimal, since kids ride the bus and subway for free. I guess the infrequent cost of a new stroller could be rolled in there as well as the cost of pimping a kid’s ride.

And clothing is certainly not much of an expense because we just dress Cool Baby big and let him grow into his clothes.

cool_baby_big_shirt

So, in usual Cool Fam style, we are trying to live on the cheap- well, as cheap as a family living in Manhattan can pull off. We’d love to come way under that $222K mark for raising Cool Baby. NPR is more than welcome to follow us while we try!