Thursday, March 5, 2009

Thinking of taking on another bill/expense.....

Update: We will NOT be enrolling her in the class. We found another group that is free and they are also in a great neighborhood. Free sounds a whole lot better than $71...LOL!

....well maybe. I am a stickler for trying to save anyway I can; my husband actually calls me a cheapskate sometimes...lol.

Anyhoo.....My husband and I have talked about different teaching methods for our only child. Since I stay home with her, I do play and read to her; we count, say our ABC's, say sentences, and other things....but after a while..she gets bored with me. How can I blame her. Children feel better and more free when around other children their age and they even learn more. And with the weather being so cold, we cannot go to the park until the weather gets warmer.

We decided that a play group or class would be a great option. This is NOT a daycare!
Rather, it's with a place/company called Gymboree ( the same company with the children's clothing store).

After thinking over it we found a couple of pros and cons.............

Pros:
~ Allows daughter interaction with other children
~Meet once a week
~Held in a church located in a GREAT neighborhood only 7min away.
~Time will be on Fridays; 11:30am-12:15pm (so NO driving in Friday rush hour traffic!)
~If we miss a class, we can reschedule for another class
~They have play gyms where she can play anytime or day FREE of charge since she attends class

Now the Cons:
~$71.00 a month; so that $17.75 a week for one 45 min class.
~Don't want her picking up bad habits from other children!
~To sign her up for more than 1 class at a time is another $78, but they'll give you a discount
~They bill your credit card automatically each month; unless you give them a written notice 2 weeks before hand.
~$35.00 initial registration fee

So..after going over both the good and the bad; we figure that it would be worth it to enroll her in a class, at least for a month and I love that it's just 1 class per week, which will allow me to teach her other things and take her to educational places.

I also LOVE that fact that parents can be in the class too but NOT participate!

I like being present but not involved, so my baby can learn to play and resolve conflict with children her own age by herself. But if she needs me or something happens, mommy is there to come to the rescue!

With this extra expense/bill, I would need to tweak my budget sheet a little but not too much. Besides, we don't mind paying for something if it will be useful, but that's with anything you pay for!

BUT First, they have a FREE Class pass for us to see if it's something good for our daughter. We'll try it FREE first and take it from there!

Any tips/advice/suggestions are welcomed!

4 comments:

Jenny said...

Good luck! I'm sure she'll love it.

Destiny said...

I was thinking about doing the same thing...over here it's Little Gym, but with two of them...I think I might go crazy and the price turned me off.
I did go a couple of times when I had just one and prego with the other. I really liked it and so did he! Either way I am sure you guys will have fun!
Playdates are a must for us! I try to do them with my neighbor once a week!

momstheword said...

For some reason,your site takes a very long time to load for me, and it takes a long time to leave a comment. I almost gave up because I thought that it wasn't working, lol!

I am sure your daughter will enjoy it. I just can't get over the price, but I'm glad you can afford it.

We took ours to a very similar thing only it was through the community so it was an indoor gym and very inexpensive.

Mommy Saves ALOT!!! said...

Thanks for the comments ladies!