School holiday spending

Well, it's Day 2 of winter school holidays. 

I thought it would be interesting to post what we have planned and the cost of school holidays when we are at home.  Over the years I expect that while cheap right now, school holidays will become more expensive with each year and as TootToot becomes a teenager and is less satisfied with free (or inexpensive) activities and entertainment.

TootToot was sick last week and not at school for the whole week. Instead of being happy and content for the first week of school holidays almost immediately she gave the usual school holiday war cry of "I'm bored". The weather hasn't been co-operative and it's been so cold and miserable that outside play hasn't been an option.  Is this boredom because she was sick or is it because she's getting older and getting her grumpy pants ready to wear for adolescence?

Now, how do we entertain an already sick of being at home, bored eight year old without blowing the budget?

We allow TootToot to choose one special activity each school holidays and she can take a friend to do it with if she wants. This time she chose to go bowling with GuitarMan. Just her and Dad and that's nice. 

We are extremely lucky that Nan (my Mum) is able to look after TootToot for two days each week and that certainly cuts our school holiday costs in half. We're also fortunate to have kids a similar age to ours living on either side, and TootToot will play with them on holidays and weekends as well.

Here's our rough plan. I haven't included weekends as we'll do the usual stuff like horse riding.

Week One:

Monday - Day with Nan

Tuesday - hanging with GuitarMan. Two games of ten-pin bowling in the morning, a hot dog each, a drink and $5 of game tokens. $35

Wednesday - spend day with Nan. Collect a free Wednesday movie from the OOVIE Kiosk to watch

Thursday - Day with Mum. Go to a birthday party at lunchtime. Present is in 'present box' so nothing to be spent. TootToot's friend Rapunzel will arrive at dinner and stay over until Friday afternoon.

Friday - If weather is still horrid, will do one of the craft activities we have lying around.  I think I might get the girls to carve some apple people which they can decorate at Rapunzel's house next week. If weather not too bad we'll head off to the Botanic Gardens with a packed lunch and do a school holiday activity for $3.30 for each girl.

Total cost for week $41.60

WeekTwo:

Monday - Day with Nan

Tuesday - Day with Mum. Girls Day. We usually choose to stay in our PJs all day and just chill. Eat some chocolate and watch one of TootToot's DVDs and snuggle in my bed. GuitarMan often comes home on Girls Days to find us fast asleep in our bed.

Wednesday - Day at Nan's

Thursday - TootToot will spend the day at Rapunzel's. I think Rapunzel's Mum has promised to take them to see Shrek. I'll send along $20 for popcorn and a drink for the girls.

Friday - Day with Mum. We'll visit cousins in the morning and after lunch spend some time at the library.

Total cost for week $20

I'll post an update at the end of school holidays and compare how we really did compared with our plan.

Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

For Mothers Day I was lucky enough to get a red Kitchenaid mixer.  Well Mothers Day was just the excuse. I'm not Guitarman's mother but he knew I needed a new mixer as our 25 year old hand mixer had mixed its last batch of muffins.  I expect that this new mixer will see me through the rest of my baking days and it is so lovely to use.

Wherever I can I cook from scratch.  By cooking from scratch I know exactly what my famly are eating and we take time to sit down together and eat as part of connecting with each other at the end of the day.  I read a blog post today from overamillionorbust about her daughter's milk intolerance.  That post reminded me that I started cooking pretty much everything from scratch when TootToot was a baby. 

TootToot was a premmie and she couldn't tolerate cows milk in any form before she was two.  A lot of commercially prepared foods contain some form of milk solid, never mind all the sugar and salt.  Eight years on TootToot has very diverse tastes and none of the pickiness around food that other kids her age do - and she's a healthy weight because her diet is varied.

The other effect of cooking from scratch is that you can eat really good quality food for a hell of a lot less money.  I'll post a favourite recipe each week.

This week's recipe is Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins.  I picked this up while in the US from a Ghirardelli chocolate packet. The mix makes twelve standard size muffins and would probably make around eight Texas style muffins.

Warning: don't even think about counting the calories in these. Enjoy!

Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

100g butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk ( I use milk powder and water)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 cups flour
225g of chopped white chocolate
1/2 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C
2. Grease muffin cups or line with papers.  I use silicone and don't need to grease or use papers.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth
4. Add egg, milk and vanilla. Mix until well blended.
5. Combine the baking powder and flour.  Add to mix along with chocolate. If you don't have white chocolate you can also use milk or dark but won't be as nice.  I've even used leftover Easter eggs.
6. Mix until just combined.
7. Gently fold in your raspberries.
8. Divide between muffin cups.
9. Cook for twenty minutes (may need slightly longer if your oven isn't fan forced)
10. Cool in tin for ten minutes before turning out.  This is very important - the muffins will disintegrate if you take them out of the tin too soon.
11. Dust with icing sugar.
12. Equally yummy served warm or cold.
13. Can be served warm as a dessert with ice cream.

TootToot super saver ...

Toot Toot received a letter addressed to her yesterday - the first bank statement all of her own. 

Toot Toot "what are debits?" - I explained that is where any money you have borrowed is shown on your bank statement.

TootToot thinks for a moment and replies "I'm the best saver in the family then because I have no debits and I don't pay interest." and marches off to share this fact with GuitarMan.

TootToot and I have talked before about how the bank will pay you interest to 'rent' your money while it's in the account.  She loves the idea of making money without doing extra chores so is happy to leave her money there.

TootToot has been accessing Coinland https://coinland.com.au/ as well as her chats with me. It's a great site that teaches kids about money and saving and you don't have to be a bank customer to access it.

I wasn't sure TootToot understood that if you borrow money, such as when you buy a house then you have to pay interest until you pay it back.

Seems my TootToot understands all too well... I wonder what else she can teach me