How to say no

If you have a child, invariably you will reach a point when said child will ask for something beyond what you, oh generous parent, offer them. In our current consumerist culture, it doesn’t matter if you never actually take them to a store … or let them watch a screen. They will discover things. From their friends. And they will want those things. 

Desperately.

My usual, albeit knee-jerk, response to these melodramatic pleas is, “Nope.” After all, my middle kid’s tagline is, essentially, Making Poor Choices Since 2012. Inevitably, they’ll ask scream why not, at which point I close my eyes, raise a mental glass, and toast the much-maligned and under-appreciated authoritarian form of government. 

This is where it gets tricky. Pretty much any hard and fast parenting rules I might’ve adhered to at one time (e.g. “don’t curse”) have fallen to the, umm …  effin’ wayside, but I do still believe it’s important to answer my kids’ questions as honestly as possible. Especially the ones that have to do with money. There are a lot of messages about money out there and damn it (oops) if I’m going to let America be their only instructor on the subject. 

So. “Why not, Mom?” 

I’m tempted to answer, “I don’t have enough money,” but we’re usually in the aisles of, say, Dollar Tree and, alas, they’re not stupid.

Here’s what I say instead—and maybe you need to hear it, too: kid, I don’t think (insert shiny piece of crap here) occupies a particularly good place on the two-dimensional plane formed by the intersection of price and value.

Too math-y? In other words, it’s just not worth it. 

I had a financial coaching session with a couple the other day and one of them lamented, “I just don’t know what else we can cut from our budget!” I didn’t know either—but only because I didn’t (yet) know what they value. They can give me the price of things, but everyone’s value judgments are different. Price and value are NOT the same thing.

If you set a goal this year to build an emergency fund and are mulling over a similar struggle as you look at your own expenses, here’s a suggestion. Plot your expenses on the aforementioned two-dimensional plane and turn a critical eye toward anything in the HIGH price, LOW value quadrant:

Anything sitting there will give you the most bang for the buck if you decide you can do without. Or is that buck for the bang? Ha. Or maybe you’ve already got a healthy emergency fund, and now you’re looking to tuck a bit more away for Future You or save for another goal. Regularly running your expenses through this price-value lens can help you find those opportunities. 

For sure, this, like most of LBYM, is an ongoing practice. Let me give you an example. 

My favorite quadrant is, of course, LOW price, HIGH value (e.g. everything I get at Dig & Save), closely followed by HIGH price, HIGH value (e.g. Brunhilde). Basically, I love me some value. Wouldn’t you think that, by now, I’d have purged everything from the HIGH price, LOW value quadrant?

Cue … the piano lessons. 

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Do the math. Three kids. Once a week. Fifty-two weeks a year. These wouldn’t be so bad if what they cost me was only monetary. In signing them up, though, we’ve literally also bought ourselves more work—overseeing piano practice—and less peace—arguing about piano practice. HIGH price? CHECK. I’m not surprised these are called “child enrichment” activities since someone else is indeed getting poorer.

And value? People! What are my kids getting out of this? Debatable. What am I getting out of this? See above. What is Julliard getting out of this? Definitely nobody. Yup, we’ve got some seriously LOW—quite possibly negative—value. Whose genius idea was this? 

Spoiler alert: so not the Asian parent.