A recent conversation on the Get Rich Slowly forum about finances and children caught my eye — specifically, how do you balance the desire to give your children everything they want (or everything you did or didn’t have) with the practical need to limit expenses?
This is an issue that Jak and I negotiate regularly, because we have very different natural approaches. He is a pushover susceptible to unplanned financial generosity where the children are concerned, whereas I am a tightwad firmly grounded in the practical.
For example, we recently signed up for an expensive orthodontic regime for Michaela, who is fifteen. Jak and I agreed to pay extra for the best medical treatment but for none of the short-term cosmetic-only ‘upgrades’ that were offered, like clear or colored braces.
All was fine until, at the second ortho visit, Michaela started begging Daddy for the clear braces, which instantly triggered Jak’s kid-generosity reflex and returned the intra-parental negotiations to square one.
For my part, I remain relatively unswayed by pleading children. In Round Two negotiations what I proposed to Jak was this: we tell Michaela that we aren’t going to pay for the clear braces, but that if they are really important to her, she could earn the money herself between August and December (when the braces actually go on). This would be an achievable goal, as she earns $5/hour for chores at our house, including babysitting her younger sister, and occasionally earns more for babysitting elsewhere, along with money her mother pays her. (Currently she spends money almost as fast as she makes it, mostly on movies, at coffeeshops, and on the occasional expensive trendy clothing item.)
Privately, Jak and I agreed that if Michaela were motivated to earn the entire amount, we would surprise her by paying half, leaving her with $150 of her savings. My thought was that if Michaela weren’t willing to sacrifice anything to get the more unobtrusive braces, we shouldn’t be expected to do so. But if she proved she was willing to put in the extra effort, we would reward her by helping. This plan would have the added benefit of giving her more experience at saving and making tough financial choices, something I’ve been actively looking to promote.
Jak relayed the plan to Michaela — minus the secret match — and she dropped the whole idea. I think Jak was a little nonplussed that her desperate pleading had so easily turned to nonchalance, but I was unsurprised: like most kids, I think she values her own time and money very highly but has little concept of the cost to adults of either. Eventually, she will learn … before she’s a full adult herself, if I can manage it.
Despite the fact that Michaela didn’t ‘take the bait’ and choose to save for something she wanted, I think this was a very good approach, and plan to use it often over the next three years. Eventually there will be something that she is motivated to sacrifice for, and she’ll get that experience. In the meantime, we saved $300.
Read the forum conversation for some other good thoughts from parents about balancing generosity with financial limits.
(Photo by Pingu1963.)
No posts for the last couple of days — instead I’ve been spending a lot of time in orthodontist’s offices with the kids.
Up until this year, both girls had dental coverage through their mother’s insurance, but it was an HMO situation and the care was pretty poor. Fortunately, the job that Jak got earlier this year offered not just better dental coverage, but even $1500 for orthodontia, which none of us have ever had before. So I jumped at the chance to move the kids to a better class of tooth care.
Finding a good orthodontist presented the first challenge. I started with recommendations from my dentist’s office, and then cross-checked them against Consumers Checkbook’s ratings. I came up with two orthodontists in my area (actually three, but two worked out of the same office). So I made two sets of two back-to-back appointments, and we took both girls.
Michaela is 15, and at a casual glance appears to have wonderful teeth — more straight and even than mine have ever been. Closer examination reveals a perfect left side but a messy right: one of her top permanent teeth never bothered to join the party, while — almost as if by compensation — her bottom jaw sprouted an extra. Unusually enough, the spare tooth is sitting behind (on the tongue side) of her other teeth, pushing them outward … which means that whenever the subject of teeth comes up, Jak and I affectionately call her ‘Shark Girl’.
Claire, at 9, has some typical minor crowding in her lower front teeth, but far more worrisome to me was the way that her upper front teeth have come in tilted sharply inward. Turns out this has to do with her lower jaw being set too far back; it’s also giving her a convex profile with a ‘weak chin.’ (In ortho-speak, she’s Class II, division 2.) I won’t go into all the details except to say that we’ve decided to put her on a ‘wait and see’ plan, where she goes in every six months for the doctor to measure her growth rate and decide when to intervene, with a likely start sometime in the next two or three years.
For Michaela, the two doctors’ recommendations were surprisingly different. One doctor explained that since Michaela had not just one but two molars in behind the missing upper tooth, they wouldn’t be able to make enough room to pull the impacted tooth down, and so would just move the other teeth to cover the hole. The other doctor recommended first expanding the palate slightly (still possible at 15) and then moving the other teeth and pulling the impacted tooth down. She said that if we didn’t, the only way to get a balanced mouth would be to pull three perfectly good teeth from the other three corners.
Faced with these two very different approaches, I was more glad than ever that we’d gotten multiple evaluations. Most orthodontists offer the initial consultation for free; I strongly recommend going to two or even three different doctors if you can.
The doctors had one thing in common, though: they both charged more than either Jak or I had imagined. He was apparently hoping for around $3500 per, or $2K after insurance; I was expecting in the neighborhood of $5K, or $3500 to us.
The total quote for Michaela was $6000 by the ‘cover the hole’ orthodontist and $6500 by the ‘pull the tooth down’ one. Neither covers extraction of the extra bottom tooth, which will be done by our dentist; with the latter we’ll also pay a separate $235 for out-of-house x-rays, plus an unknown amount for a surgeon to attach a ‘button and chain’ to the upper tooth so it can be maneuvered down, so the total cost will be more like $7500 when all’s said and done.
Optional upgrades included a) clear brackets on the top, for $300 extra, and b) custom wires to reduce the time in braces by around 6 months (or about 1/4 of the total) for $950 extra. But I was wincing long before we ever got to those numbers.
Despite the extra expense, though, we’ve decided to go with the ‘pull the tooth into place’ option. My opinion is that getting this right will be important for a long time to come, and dentistry is not a good place to be frugal. We are, however, skipping the cosmetic and high-tech upgrades.
Both offices offer 2-year financing at 0% interest, or a 5% discount if you pay in full up front. Right now, with our highest available savings rate at 3.65% (and falling), I considered dipping into our emergency savings to pay the full amount. After insurance, we’re left with about $5K now and another $1K of outside costs at various points. (The kids’ mother may contribute, but until that actually happens I’m running numbers from a worst-case scenario.)
What complicates things is our pretax medical savings accounts. Unfortunately, though we had planned for some orthodontic expenses this year, we were expecting a much smaller number. My account is already dry, and we’ve got around $1600 left in Jak’s for the rest of 2008. My medical FSA renews in January, so (assuming I’m still with my current employer) if we went on the payment plan we’d be maybe $600 over for the year, and I could factor the rest into 2009.
Since Jak and I are both in the 25% tax bracket, though, we’re going to be better off taking the payment plan and running as much of the cost as possible through the FSA. That’s almost 33% (once you include FICA) of every dollar we don’t have to send the government, which makes a lot more difference than a percent or two of interest.
Since we’re expecting a similarly exorbitant outlay for Claire in a couple of years, we need every last break we can get.
(Photo by Pikaluk.)
