Making Ends Meet; Kids Extra Curricular Activities – Need or Not?

For many of us, every month is a struggle.  Making ends meet means having to ensure income and expenses at least balances out at the end of the month. That’s a hard struggle. Life is such, just when you have planned the expenses for the month, something crops up. Unexpected expenses that throw your plans into an abyss and you have to start over again.

My hardest struggle was when I was jobless for 13 months with totally no income, not even a trickle, mind you. (That’s what happens when you put all the eggs in one basket-basket falls, all eggs break!) But expenses had to be met, regardless. Housing loan, car loan, international school fees, bills, credit card bills (you tend to use more when there is no income because life has to go on), food, travel and other miscellaneous items.

Here I share a chapter from my book SINGLE^{(with a kid)}, JOBLESS AND DROWNING – Chapter 2 (as it is from the book) on how to reduce expenses when there is less or no income. Trust me, this technique, as basic as it is, is rather hard to practice. It is easy to subscribe to things in life but to unsubscribe, you have to try three times harder.  Do you know why? It is because whatever that you are trying to unsubscribe to could be something meant for a loved one!

“The first thing they teach in economics class was resources are limited, desires are unlimited. Rightly spoken, money is limited, desires are not.

Being jobless means you have to reduce unwanted expenses. Cut off whatever is not necessary. Reduce usage of anything that does not add value. In the business world, it is said that every cent saved adds to the profit.

Thus, every penny you do not spend means, you have more to last longer. I had to make some difficult decisions about Abby’s extra-curricular learning when money ran short. She has been learning violin at a music school for four years, sat for two examinations, did not pass any. Towards the second examination, her stress level was at its highest as she was placed under tremendous stress by her teacher who was known to push his students to the extreme limits, then again that is how it is with music – the more you practice, the better you become or as they say, practice makes perfect.

But the question was – at what cost? Every Saturday, it became a chore to try and coax her to get ready to sit in the car for me to drive her to the music school for a lesson that lasted one hour - one horribly stressful hour. From where I sat outside the classroom, I could hear her teacher shout and scream every time she missed a note. There were days she had come out in tears. There were days she had vengeance look as she left without even saying goodbye to her teacher.

One night, as Abby and I lay talking on her bed, I asked her whether she liked violin. Yes, mummy, she said. I liked it when I had opportunities to perform. But, the pressure my teacher had put on me makes me hate him more and more.

But she did not say she hated violin.  That was an answer that I expected but the part where she said she liked to perform was new to me. Then again, I remembered the time when Abby performed for the first time on stage at the age of seven. We had only about three weeks or three lessons to practice. When I told her teacher that Abby was invited to perform, we went into high gear mode. He chose a simple piece for her to play; spent the lesson hour for that week on that piece. Then, Abby was asked to practice at home. During the next lesson Abby, her teacher and I, all had heart ache as she did not know what was required of her though she could play the piece, but line by line. At the end of every line of music notes she would stop, then continue afresh from the next line. She did not know that she must play the whole song in one go.

Back home it was more practice and the third lesson was an hour before her performance. Abby stepped into her class, her teacher was waiting, not much enthusiasm, then Abby started to play. Total silence and when she ended, her teacher clapped as I had never seen before. He was all praise for her as he could not find any fault at all in her violin recital.

The very same Abby refused to attend classes subsequently when there wasn’t any more fun in the learning. And violin classes were very expensive. So, it was one night after talking to Abby that I decided to stop her from her violin class. Two other classes followed – art class and Indian classical dance class. She was not making much progress in any of the three classes and as trends go with children, after some time they lose interest in such activities."

Cutting off those expenses helped a lot as the amount that I spent on those three classes was quite substantial – the amount was equivalent to my one month’s grocery shopping!”

In life as we move along, we tend to accumulate expenses – online news portal subscription (though you may not read that news everyday), subscription to some online music portal or just about anything that may seem small expense but eventually could become sizeable amount to be paid each month. Kids extra- curricular activities are also like that. A child would usually be excited initially, then, after some time the enthusiasm wanes off. Time to put the plug in and stop the unnecessary waste of funds.

I have not given out of the world kind of solutions (a no brainer, actually) but I am sure in these difficult times, to be reminded to cut all unnecessary expenses would really help. Worked for me, and still does, for you?