The true cost of birthday parties

I have several reasons why I am not actively job hunting. One of the more immediate has been my older son's seventh birthday party.

Parties in general cause me a great deal of consternation. Who to invite, how to invite, where to have it, how to do it. I am not a natural at entertaining and whatever social hang-ups I have become amplified at the prospect of putting myself out there for rejection and criticism.Throughout my childhood my parents never entertained and I have internalized the reasons why.

Thankfully I have Fat Tony to drag me into reality (kicking and screaming). He did most of the planning,  leaving me to obsess about the house and details like napkins and plates. He came up with some fun games and I came up with cookie and cake decorating activities. We both baked and shopped at different times. On party day Fat Tony led the way and a fun time was had by all. Yay, teamwork.

In terms of money spent, my estimates on food and drink are ~$100 (we bought pizza for 15 kids and some parents). We easily spent $50 on baking goods and decorating accessories that can be used another time. Party treats amounted around $110. So, $260 out of pocket.

Now what if I were working and took time away from work for shopping, baking, cleaning, rearranging furniture, doing more shopping? Since Fat Tony stays at home, we don't really have a number to attach to his time. Let's say my hourly rate falls around $50 an hour. Let's say I spent 4 work hours during the week on this, so another $200. (I'm not counting the time I spent outside of work hours.) That brings us to $460.

Here's a link on birthday party costs.  If we had gone to Chuck E. Cheese's, for example, we would have easily spent $325 in addition and we'd still have to get party treats and a cake. So, around $475 altogether.

Hmm. It really all comes down to how we value our time. If we don't think our time is worth much, then at home parties are the way to go. However, if I had put any sort of number on Fat Tony's time (and the stress involved with preparing), then going out is a no-brainer.

However, I am going to say that I am happy we did the at-home party. Opening our home is a good thing for me psychologically. The personal growth from confronting my entertaining fears is worth at least one therapy session. (~$200/hr).

By the way, our theme was Godzilla, so a few links here on the amazing things I found on that theme:
Here's one from one amazing mom
Here's one from a very cool bakery I don't live near
This is one Godzilla and I might try

Money smarts

Tonight I am up because I have a cold and/or allergies and can't breathe very easily. I suppose I may also be up because I spent my day sitting in the car and then at work instead of moving about as I have been during my vacation. Working from home certainly does have its unseen perks.

I've been thinking about financial education and how I lack what are considered the basics. Here is a Wall Street Journal article about how most Americans are in a similar situation. It is a serious oversight in our education system that there is no curriculum for building basic financial knowledge. Aspects of this stuff should really be taught throughout K-12. One need simply look to people's ignorance of financial basics compounded with stupid human nature to see how the disastrous tech and housing bubbles happened.

Getting back to what should be fundamental knowledge as stated in the article, it says that it is better to be invested in a mutual fund than in one stock.  Ok. I get that it is better to diversify and mutual funds are a good way of doing that without you, the earner of your money putting time into research. Over time, diversified funds would be less volatile than a single stock. But then, with so many types of funds, how can one evaluate them? I see articles like this that show me money fund managers don't seem to be more responsible than an average investor and they want to blame the company for presenting an optimistic outlook. For crying out loud, these are pension funds. What are they doing investing so heavily in a highly speculative stock like Facebook? If these mutual funds are what average Americans should be investing to protect themselves from their own bad judgement we might as well not even bring home a paycheck.