The past couple of years has seen my three oldest children turn into self sufficient adults. They have married, become parents, bought homes, gotten new jobs, started careers, been introduced to debt, and begun the next faze of life...
One is married with a daughter, one married no kids & buying own home, and one is a single mom. They are all handling the different twists and turns differently, but all are managing pretty well.
I noticed last year that they would go overboard on birthday gifts...or struggle to find the 'right' gift...or feel bad if they didn't remember, etc...
So I have officially started our Birthday Club. We talked about a monthly amount that is doable for every family...each family contributes this amount at the beginning of the month...then the birthday person knows in advance that they get to pick out a gift for 'X' dollar amount from the family. (so instead of several small gifts, they get a combined gift of choice) A small amount is set aside for the cake and decorations...and we have decided to 'potluck' on the birthday rather than go out to eat.
My mom is the first recipient and she asked me to find her a 'dutch oven'...which is ordered and on it's way...
The family won't be scrambling to come up with the perfect gift, the price was very affordable and money is there for the event!
...and the whole family is happy with the new Birthday Club.
Our New Birthday Club
April 4th, 2006 at 06:06 pm
April 4th, 2006 at 06:45 pm 1144176346
I have a friend that I "exchange" birthday gifts with and we decided the second year of the tradition to do it a little differently. We each buy ourselves something for our birthday that we really wanted (and normally wouldn't buy) and then we tell the other what "they" got for us. No money exchanged, but we monitor each other to see that we are taking care of ourselves. An odd arrangement, but it works for us. We each had a house full of kids when we started, and didn't want to spend money that wasn't exactly right.....so, this was our solution.
April 4th, 2006 at 08:07 pm 1144181224
April 4th, 2006 at 10:28 pm 1144189690