How to save money (and your sanity) at a fair
Ten and a half hours. That’s how long we stayed at our provincial exhibition the other day. TEN AND A HALF HOURS. STRAIGHT.
And you know what? It was pretty great.
Even though we stayed the longest we’ve EVER stayed (I think our previous record was nine straight hours), it went smoothly thanks to a few key things …
Bring cash. So much cash.
(Wait, Heather, didn’t you say something about saving money?) It doesn’t mean you’re going to spend all of it — God no. But we’ve learned the hard way that if you don’t bring enough money, you’re going to need to pay a gazillion dollars in fees at those shady banking machines under a circus tent. They’ll charge you $3 or $4 and then your bank will likely turn around and double it, taking their cut.
Dress carefully.
Socks and sneakers for EVERYONE, people, and yes — I know they’re kind of dweeby because wouldn’t cute sandals also be comfortable? NO. Nothing is more comfortable than socks and sneakers when you’re on your feet for a million hours. We all wore baseball caps (matching, ’cause we’re cool) and Darling Husband and I wore sunglasses. We were all sunscreened, of course, and I tossed the bottle in my bag in case we needed to reapply. Which brings me to my next point …
Pack smart.
Darling Husband and I each carried a backpack but we were *really* careful not to overload them. Our backs are going to ache regardless at the end of a longgggg day at the Exhibition.
He packed granola bars, Goldfish crackers, and a bunch of small water bottles that we could toss when they were empty (less to carry). I packed sunscreen, my wallet, honey-roasted peanuts, lipstick, a notebook and pen (which I never ended up using, see below), phone charger (sadly never found a place to use that either) and earbuds.
We didn’t bring sweatshirts or jackets because it’s been crazy-hot lately, but we probably should have. It got a little chilly around 8 p.m., but it wasn’t too bad.
Make it a marathon.
We paid entrance fees ($8 each for adults, $4 for D, and C was free) but the big expense is really the ride bracelets. They’re $26 each at our exhibition, so we always designate one day as “ride day.” (Sometimes we’ll go to the Exhibition other days, to look around, but the kids know they only go on rides on ONE SUPER AWESOME DAY).
We certainly got our money’s worth this year, though. The rides opened at noon and the kids rode pretty much nonstop until we left at 10 p.m. That’s like eight cents a minute for giving them the time of their lives, if my math is correct (… it like is not).
We also shelled out an additional $20 for tickets so the two of us could join them on a few “grown-up” rides (two runs on the Tilt-a-Whirl, once on the Ferris Wheel and once on the Swizzler). Tickets, in my opinion, are a huge rip-off unless you only want to go on one or two rides. But it was worth it so the kids could experience the really cool rides.
Take breaks — both physical and mental ones!
Kids? Ha! Ours were so high on sugar and adrenaline that they couldn’t care less about sitting down. I’m talking about grown-ups here. If you’re going to make it an insanely long day, that’s hard. It’s a lot of standing around in front of the Go-Gater and the Conway Run, arms crossed, nodding and smiling as your kid passes you for the zillionth loop.
For Darling Husband, taking mental breaks meant walking over to the arena and seeing what kind of show was happening, checking out the planing demonstration, or ambling over to look at the John Deere display. Or the truck display. Or the other truck display.
My mental break? Did not involve any of that stuff. I wore earbuds and listened to podcasts, zoning out while the kids ran through the funhouse for the millionth time. A few times I left them with Darling Husband and went to sit down in the grass and close my eyes for a few minutes (sunglasses hide everything) so I could listen in peace. It helped all of the ride-watching seem FAR less tedious.
Avoid the games.
It goes without saying, but those things are a joke. I didn’t see a single person walking around with those giant emoji pillows the kids wanted, and I told them (very firmly) that we were not playing those games because no one wins. They seemed to accept that and focused on the rides.(But also I would have really liked a poo emoji pillow?)
Eat as a treat.
Fair food is amazing, obviously, but it’s also $$$$ and not at all healthy. We packed granola bars, nuts and Goldfish crackers to eat as little snacks here and there. We drank the water we packed when we were thirsty. We could have brought a cooler bag full of lunch and dinner, if we had wanted, but fair food is FUN and it’s a once-a-year thing, right?
So we bought lunch and dinner but were careful not to overbuy — the kids were too excited to eat much — so we weren’t left with a ton of cold, uneaten fries and chicken fingers. We split a cotton candy and a (very, very sticky) candy apple while we watched a horse show, and picked up a few more candy apples to take home at the end of the night. We ate those the next day, so it stretched out our enjoyment. Mmmm, candy apples for breakfast.
We had a great day and even though certainly isn’t a CHEAP day, it was less expensive than it could have been. We were all comfortable and relatively sane, even when we left, which is really saying something.
What’s your favourite family-at-the-fair tip?
Dear Primary parents
Dear first-time Primary parents,
This is a big week for you, isn’t it? The first day of school is creeping up. You’re probably alternating between thrilled — pinning healthy lunch ideas and painting a chalkboard for them to proudly hold during those first-day-of-school pictures — and completely terrified that your baby is leaving you for seven long hours.
I know, because that was me last year. I surprised myself by not crying at the bus stop — mostly because I was so focused on being really, really excited so my son didn’t get nervous — but then I walked back home and had mild panic attacks all day. What was he doing? Was he having fun? Was he scared? Before it was time to pick him up at the bus stop, I’d volunteered for a weekly gig at the school because I was so desperate to get inside that big building that had stolen my baby.
Several of my friends have little ones going off to Primary for the first time in a couple of weeks, so I have thought a lot about what to tell you during these emotional few weeks.
The first thing (and the most important thing) is that your life might feel totally overwhelming until October. I was exhausted, my son was exhausted, and it took that full first month for all of us to get the hang of this elementary school thing. A few mornings of a week of preschool is nothing compared to the day-in, day-out tedium of getting a small person to and from school five days a week. It’s like the bone-deep tiredness you feel when you start a new job. Everything is different and it takes time to adjust.
For us, the biggest thing was getting everyone to bed earlier — myself included. I’d thought 7:30 p.m. was a good bedtime for a five-year-old, but it wasn’t early enough to combat his exhaustion from a long day at school. We scaled it back to 7 p.m., and often put him to bed as early as 6:30 p.m. if he seemed tired. I forced myself to start going to bed by 9:30 p.m. so it wasn’t as painful to get up in the morning, and it helped.
There is a lot of new stuff flying at you when your oldest goes off to Primary. There’s a flurry of paper coming home — calendars, reminders, permission slips, agendas to sign — and it kicks your butt to get organized. You need to remember which days they have to wear gym clothes and which day to send back the library books. Don’t get me started on all of the “theme” days that ask them to dress in pink or as a superhero or as their favourite piece of abstract expressionist art.
Don’t worry — you’ll come up with a system. A bulletin board, a chalkboard, a calendar. You’ll start waking up on Wednesday and Thursdays and automatically think “Gym day.” You’ll flip the right page in the agenda and scrawl your name on the pen you keep by the backpack specifically for that purpose.
And yes, making lunches is just as much of a pain as you’ve feared. I’m here to assure you, though, that it does get a lot easier. Your standards drop, too, which helps. I was such a keener in September, but trust me that teachers are not going to admire your carefully-prepared bento box and take note of your spectacular parenting. They probably won’t even see it — and if they do, they’ll laugh and take bets on how long you keep it up.
By May, I was throwing a single-serve package of croutons into his lunch bag as “filler” and I’d stopped caring if the teacher judged me for packing chewy fruit snacks every day. You figure out how much food they’ll actually at school — for us, that’s a main, two snacks and a bottle of milk with a shot of Quik syrup — and packing lunches gets less daunting.
If you have an entree-loving kid like mine, go back and read my piece on “lunch pucks” so you can have frozen servings of pasta ready at all times. (My kid is thoroughly looking forward to daily thermoses of hot spaghetti after a summer of lazy lunches. “Here’s some cheese and a piece of bread and … a piece of leftover chicken?”)
As you settle into life as a Primary parent, you’ll pick up little tricks that make school easier on your family. For me, that’s setting three different alarms on my phone — one to wake up, one to make sure we’re all dressed/brushed/combed and downstairs, and one to leave for the bus stop. My kids are like Pavlov’s dogs when they hear that specific trilling noise: they drop their dishes on the counter and run for the closet to put on their shoes. They’re usually waiting for me on the porch while I fill a travel mug with tea and slap on some blush.
(I started the year in full makeup and real clothes for the bus stop, and by about December it had dwindled to PJs under my coat and sunglasses to hide my squinty morning eyes.)
You’ll miss them terribly at first, but your heart will adjust to watching them zoom away on the bus every morning. You’ll learn to ask the right questions to find out what they did for those seven long hours (“I’m not sure”) and you’ll marvel as they come home suddenly able to READ AND WRITE ACTUAL WORDS. You’ll burst with pride over report cards and clap until your hands hurt as they sing off-key in the holiday concert.
They’re going to do great, and so will you.
Sincerely yours, A first-time Grade 1 parent
P.S. I’m going to round up all of the Primary-related posts I can find here on the ol’ blog, in case you’re in the mood for a little related reading …
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| Lunch pucks for school thermoses |
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| When school kicks your butt and you’re exhausted |
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| Why you should date your child |
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| A letter to my son’s Primary teacher |
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| When your kid learns to read (and it blows your mind) |
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| Lunch hacks for busy parents |
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| Talking about your day (a.k.a. interrogation) |
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| When you JUST NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED during every moment of their day: A Nosy Parent’s Guide |
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| DIY family command centre |
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| And now, something to amuse and terrify you for the Grade 2 days down the road … |
Give a new mirror a farmhouse finish
I’m deep in the middle of a basement bathroom makeover, and one of my discarded items was a mahogany (well, faux mahogany) mirror from above the sink.
The mirror came with the house and it was completely inoffensive and in perfect condition. Ten years ago, I would have bought it and loved it.
But it just didn’t fit with the urban farmhouse vibe I’ve been going for lately. It was too shiny, too dark, and just too … new-looking.
I’d been hunting for something to hang at the top of our basement staircase, mostly to distract from my less-than-perfect stenciling job the wall. I didn’t want anything too flashy, since the focal point is the gold-and-white wall that stores our cleaning tools. The mirror was fine, size-wise, but the finish needed some work.
If you’ve been in any home decor store lately, you’ve probably noticed a huge array of pieces with what’s called “the farmhouse finish.” It’s anything that has a grey-washed or white-washed look, like it’s been repainted decade after decade. Distressed, battered, sun-baked, chipped and even scraped up — that’s the look we’re paying a lot of money for, apparently.
I may not be able to replicate a stainless steel finish (although I’ve tried), but there’s no way I’m paying $40 for an accessory that looks like it should be going for 25 cents at a flea market.
Luckily, this look is really easy (and FREE) to copycat …
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
I ordered a rug and now I’m freaking out
After what feels like years of pining after rugs and not being able to pull the trigger, I did it. I used birthday money + a healthy PayPal balance to buy this Verona Blue Area Rug on Wayfair.
DIY cookie stamp
Start by smooshing a bit of Sculpey into a circle. Use whatever colour you want, but don’t take my word for it that this is good for edible stuff. (Hashtag don’t sue?)
Mould a little handle for each stamp (a lumpy thing is fine — nothin’ fancy) and use pointy clay tools (or plain old toothpicks) to make your design in the stamp. Make sure to do a mirror image of the design you want on the cookie.
Bake the pieces as directed, let them cool, and then attach the (lumpy) handles with a bit of superglue.
Make your favourite sugar cookie recipe and stamp those suckers!
Bake the cookies as directed, and see how your designs turn out. My Cs turned out much better than my “2015 Clarke” cookies, so simple is best.
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Now, since these aren’t real cookie stamps, they tend to get gummed up between batches. I had to use a toothpick to scrap out bits of dough before re-stamping, and I ended up throwing out the stamps after I finished the last batch.
Anybody try this? Did it work better for you? Or should I just make it my mission to try again and do a better job? #deepquestions
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