Since most families are tightening their belt’s on the food budget this involves everyone in the home. Even pet’s are feeling the crunch. Just because the budget for miscellaneous items is being chopped it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice on the healthy balance of the foods.
If you have an infant in the family that is in the baby food stage this can be torture on the wallet. Those little bitty jars can add up in cost. Babies can pack away almost 600 jars of puree baby food before moving onto solid foods. With each jar ranging from seventy five cents to one dollar and twenty five cents you clearly see the expense involved.
The best part is that you can very easily create homemade baby food at home in less than thirty minutes a week. With this being said the cost of making your own puree food for the entire stage of your babies eating habits will cost less than one hundred dollars.
Just a few simple steps and you are on your way to healthy, possibly organic, baby food.
Purchase the fruits, vegetables, or whatever ingredient your baby enjoys. Fresh fruits and vegetables or frozen are the best. If they are fresh ingredients you will need to wash, peel, and dice. The healthiest way to wash fresh produce is to mix one tablespoon of baking soda in luke-warm water and scour the produce in the mixture. Once you’ve cleaned them thoroughly rinse well with cool water and continue.
You can cook the produce either in the microwave or steam them on the stove. You will want the produce cooked until the material is soft and pliable. If you can mash the produce with a fork it is thoroughly cooked.
Next, put the cooked produce into a blender or food processor and puree until it is rendered into a smooth, velvety texture. If you have saved any baby food jars from the past you can reuse them for storing the mixture temporarily. The refrigerated mix will only remain good for a few short days, but frozen it can last up to two weeks. Try spooning the mixture into ice cube trays and then storing the cubes in bags. Thaw when ready to serve and you have fresh food available all the time.
When it comes to down to it there is a certain point when a child will begin to get curious about the concept and idea of money, compensation. Some parents use allowance as a bribery tactic and this can be futile in the area of respect and chore association. The general rule of allowance is to create a system that shows them how real rewards work and how the real world gives compensation for a job well done.
When children are younger the allowance can be minuscule and small enough to simply show the concept. With age the amount will increase as well as the chore demands. The allowance system will depend highly on the guidelines of the home. Some parents do not see the need allowance, which is fine. While other parents see it as a necessity to teach proper responsibility with money.
Implementing a savings account into the allowance process can be an amazing tool. Ths will help a child to understand the concept of financial institutions at a young age. Most children become very excited when they can take their handful of change to the bank and ask to “make a deposit”. It is a good idea that can instill lifelong financial values. As well as this, most banks have begun utilizing child-friendly checking/savings accounts. These particular accounts may offer rewards, or prizes, as your child’s bank balance increases. This is always at the discretion of the parents.
It is stated that an allowance should be enough for a child to spend (squander) it, but not so much that you will be upset if they do. An allowance is generally started around the age of five or six, in which time they have found out what money is, how to count, add, and keep track of it, and what the purchasing process is all about. Children will want to have the freedom to purchase some items with their ‘own’ money so you will want to set an amount that makes you comfortable in the spending of it.
Children need to receive an amount that will can be comfortably managed.
Do not give more than their ability to control or handle it. Keep in mind that they could lose some of the money so be sure your child has a designated ‘holding’ space for the money. If a savings account is being used set up a decorated jar or piggy bank to hold the money until your weekly visit to the bank. An allowance can create lifelong financial responsibility in any child.