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Doubling Dosage to Stay in School

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All across the United States, public schools are trying to figure out what the best ways are to include students who have special needs into mainstream classrooms. A mother in Canada says her child’s school pressured her to double his dosage of Ritalin in order to remain enrolled in school. Would you increase your child’s medication if his school demanded it? Amanda Edgett is a mother who lives in Canada. The rules and laws regarding special education in Canada might, or might not, match the ones in the United States. I’m not sure that a public school in America would … Continue reading →

How to Make Budget-Friendly Lunches

My kids like to take their own lunches because they can spend the precious little time they have eating instead of waiting in line to get their food. I like making their lunches because it saves money, and I can control the levels of nutrition and the amount of food they get (for my skinny son, the school lunch still leaves him hungry). To make our school lunches the most budget friendly that they can be, incorporate some of these frugal strategies. Reuse your lunch bags Spending lots of money on baggies can defeat the savings of making your own … Continue reading →

Prepping For the Back-to-School Blitz

Still haven’t found a Scooby-Doo backpack… C’mon people; help me out here. Time is not on my side. Where did the summer go? Year-round students in the Chicago Public School system return to class tomorrow. Meanwhile, kids in Hawaii, Seattle, Atlanta and parts of North Carolina already started the new school year. Thankfully, my daughter has two more weeks of summer vacation before reality crashes in on our blissful routine-less mornings. Oh, how I dread school day mornings. Getting back into the groove of laying out uniforms, packing lunches, filling backpacks, making breakfast (then forcing half-asleep kids to eat the … Continue reading →

Health at School: Lunch Time!

Ah, the school lunch. The cafeteria has come a long way since I was in grammar school, where you had one meal option and one “alternate” Sandwich choice. Even by the time I was in high school, the cafeteria had stepped up to compete with the local eateries in town, offering multiple hot and cold meal choices. Still, your kids might not want to chow down on cafeteria food every day — or you might want to save money and send lunch from home. Here are some tips to help ease the lunchtime battle. Set a lunch allowance. My parents … Continue reading →

A Recipe for Healthy School Snacks

We are a brown bag family. When it comes to school lunches, we prefer to send our schol-age child with a homemade lunch, and he prefers that, too. Our reasons for providing him with a home made lunch are: it is less expensive, I can better control the nutrition and steer away from colors and preservatives, there is a short amount of time to eat lunch and he doesn’t want to spend part of it waiting in line, and he is always hungry after a school lunch–complaining that there is not enough food. A typical lunch brought from home may … Continue reading →

Farm to (2) School Programs Offer Organic, Locally Grown School Lunches

Although most school districts are trying hard to offer healthy fruits and vegetables, the reality is that there are so many high-fat, nutritionally poor choices available to your student. And even when nutritionally rich choices are available, they usually aren’t free of pesticides, additives and hormones. Increasingly, farm to school programs are allowing schools to serve students with rich, healthy meals that can be organic and grown locally. Using small local farms, organic bakeries, and stores that provide locally grown food, the schools can take advantage of higher quality and less processed food, while supporting local producers. Think of pizzas … Continue reading →

Is It Cost Effective to Bring a School Lunch?

When planning out whether our eldest child will buy lunch or bring lunch to school, the cost involved is one factor. Last year, he brought lunch most of the time, and was allowed to buy a lunch for a special treat or as a reward for good behavior. With the cost of groceries increasing, I have been wondering if it still cost affective to have homemade lunches. I like the idea of packing a lunch, for a few different reasons. The first is that since my child is still young, I can have a bit more control over what he … Continue reading →

Cheap Eats for the Lunch Box

Whether you pack lunches to take to work or are gearing up for the back to school crush, you’ll want to take a look at this blog. In it, I offer some tried and true cheap eats for the lunchbox. Not all snacks are created equal when it come to the monetary cost of them. And, you can have anything from standard to gourmet on a budget when you pack it yourself. These are the following sometimes unconventional things I put in lunch boxes that help me save money. Muffins. Make them home made and in any size that is … Continue reading →

School Supplies in July 4

The stores are finally catching up with my thinking. Did you know that the first back to school sales have started. I checked out the Deals blog to find some great ones. I’ve been talking about how important it is to start getting your school supplies together early for the best way of saving money on them. I’ve already covered shopping the store sales, now let us take a look at some other places for cheap or free school supplies. Some of these sources may surprise you! Free pencils I have seen so many offers for free pencils online. Whether … Continue reading →

Frugal School Supplies in July 3

School supplies can add up, so if you want to spend between $1.75 and $5.50 instead of between $25 and $28 for all of those pencils, notebooks and more (one friend told me she spends about $45 for back to school supplies), keep reading. There are two previous articles in this series: Frugal School Supplies in July and Frugal School Supplies in July 2. Well, we have our school supply list and are now ready to use it to grab the bargains. What is the first step and where can we get school supplies for pennies or for free? Let’s … Continue reading →