Spoiling Your Child with Thrifty Green Living This Holiday
When my son’s eyes light up as he opens a Christmas present, I delight in his happiness. But thrifty, green living has shown me a whole new way to look at indulging him. For example, on my son’s birthday we were able to buy him a far more toys than usual because we opted for garage sale gifts. He felt spoiled, we saved money, and we embraced the “reuse” part of the green cycle instead of buying new.
But beyond the material stuff, I keep thinking of all the secondary rewards my son gets from our thrifty green lifestyle–especially during the holiday season.
- Less money stress. We are spoiling him by eliminating financial arguments and tension because we spend less and are more financially secure. We can enjoy the season without feeling pressured to be spending more money than we have.
- Organic treats. Roscoe gets to try all sorts of locally grown fruits and vegetables—some of which I’m having for the first time at 35! Hopefully they’ll help him develop healthy eating habits. We’re already finding ways to fit rutabagas into our Christmas dinner menu.
- More family time. Budget friendly, eco-friendly living has allowed us to cut back on our hours at work and enjoy every moment together. In this photo we’re just hanging out in the backyard together–which is one of our main sources of entertainment these days. When we’re all there together, Roscoe is thrilled!
- A college savings fund. I think my son won’t feel the least bit neglected for getting reused toys and a bit less stuff, considering that the extra savings will help us save for his college tuition.
- A cleaner environment. Roscoe’s corner of the landfill will be drastically reduced thanks to our efforts. Since his generation is going to have to deal with global warming, it’s nice to know that our efforts will help.
Instead of putting loads of toys on credit cards that are filled to the brink, there is a grassroots movement of American families opting to buy less, buy used, and spoil their children for years to come. How do you spoil your child with thrifty green living throughout the year and during the holiday season?
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December 15th, 2008 at 7:34 am
We’ve spent less this Christmas too. I actually got them some books from paperbackswap.com–they’ll never know the difference. I just hope I get them in time.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:38 am
We have also been buying used for Christmas. All of our kids gifts have been bought used. Our kids are 4 and 3. We have been using craigslist to get used toys that they have been wanting. I also picked up my Christmas present used, a new-to-me KitchenAid mixer!
I also wanted to share my birthday invitation for a birthday party we had. Here is the wording…
We’d love to have you here to help us celebrate Luke and Ashley’s Birthdays. Both have been learning how to recycle, reduce and reuse. We are going to try to go Eco-Friendly for this party. Here are some suggestions on how you can help with that:
• Wrap gifts in newspaper so it can be recycled after it is torn to shreds from excitement.
• Instead of toys, gift certificates to Splash Swim Park, Kick City Soccer, Gymnastics Academy…they love these places and it will cut down on packaging and plastics.
• Used clothing/toys/books would be great. It’s always new to them
This worked really well for us. We have some family who likes to buy the newest thing and they had a hard time with it. But they ended up having their kids pick toys out of their toy box to give to my kids. My kids loved it and they got rid of some of the things that haven’t been played with in a while. We had a 0 waste birthday party by composting plates and food scraps, recycling soda cans, using silverwear, and recycling wrapping paper or reusing gift bags. We also had party favors that each child made. We put together edible necklaces using licorice string, fruit loops, gummy peach rings, chocolate covered pretzels, and other stringable edibles.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am
What a great picture!
One of my favorite thrifty green benefits is that Freddie is learning to cook. Until our lifestyle overhaul, he was mostly learning how to order from the kiddie menu at a restaurant, or worse, at the drive-thru. Those days are over, and now my son loves coming home from nursery school to help me cook.
At four, his activities are somewhat limited, but he enjoys doing what he can. And he’s looking forward to starting a garden this spring, too – so he’ll really understand where food comes from. Since I couldn’t boil water or keep a cactus alive before my 30th birthday, I’m really glad he’ll have these life skills. And I’ll have great memories of Freddie making a tasty mess in the kitchen.