Claudette's Blog

Stepfamilies are often in a bind when it comes to money. It's already tough to buy all that is needed when you're in a "traditional" family but when the same money that comes in needs to be divided to two different households, that's really hard and needs lots of creativitiy.

Often times, stepfamilies are starting over financially. The money that had been saved or accumulated in the past has now gone to pay for divorce bills and child support. Many times, little is left over to pay for any extras. Couples often complain about having fights and arguments about and over money. It creates lot of stress and tension not only for couples but for the children. They may feel that if they didn't ask for certain things, then the parents wouldn't fight so much.

Other times, couples buy stuff for kids out of guilt and that's not good either. Children question themselves if they are lovable, and worthy. It also teaches them that they don't need to do much if anything to get what they want in life. The real issue about money and guilt is for the parent to deal with their personal emotional baggages and talk about what is truly there. Parenting through guilt only leads to more problems down the road.

Being creative with money is a skill that you can learn and here are a few ideas that our family did to get by with money issues.

This was our game plan:

1. Sit together and look very closely at all the bills that come in. Don't hide any of them. If you do, you'll only end up in the hole eventually. Make a list of all the "MUST PAY" fixed bills, like mortgage, electricity, car payments, etc. After paying all the necessities, put a few dollars away off the top. If you don't do it then, you'll never have it in the future.

2. What is left over, put an amount for food, which we divided into a $ per person per day (as to keep it realistic). Knowing exactly how much money you have for food, start looking for specials for that week and plan your menu accordingly. I cooked and froze a lot, doing this on weekends when I wasn't working. I used that time to have the kids help me out and teach them about freezing and canning.

3. Taking a family vacation may seem impossible but it can be done on a budget. This is really tricky as this is often an expense that stepfamilies forego. It's important to create some fun around being together and there are several ways of going about it (I wrote several articles about this topic in my newsletter). One vacation our family enjoyed was camping. It's relatively inexpensive and a great way to connect with nature and the kids. It's a lot more layed back than home and gives everyone a sense of freedom. We would have the kids participate in the meal preparation (they love cooking "in the wild" ) and again creates a bonding experience. We would also visit family and friends far away. Anything simply to get out of the house for a week or even a weekend. We did family picnics in public parks, went bike riding together, go to outdoor concerts, visit museums. There are lots of free stuff to do.

4. Clothing is also a very big expense. Thrift stores are a great place to shop for really great items. More and more people are giving their clothes to these organization and many shop there too. In our family, we gave each of the children a budget of clothing that they could use each month in any way they saw fit. The catch was that once that money was they could not borrow from the following month. Clothing included winter coats and boots, school uniforms, shoes, socks - EVERYTHING. They could save it for a big item. It taught our kids to shop for bargains and to save for the big ticket items they really wanted.

There is no perfect solution but only one that works for your family. The idea here is to have everyone talk about money instead of hiding behind it. Being honest and open about what you can afford is part of being in a family and as parents, we should not be ashamed of not being able to provide everything for our kids. As long as they have the basics which is love, food and shelter, everything else is really extra.

Kids would rather be with their parents and happy than be surrounded by lots of stuff and be alone.