I’m over at Equifax’s Family Money blog talking about budget family travel—outside the United States. Yep, it’s actually possible, and our family lived to tell about it during a recent journey to England.

Our daughters are 10 and 14, which we decided was a good age for a “bigger” trip. They’re old enough to do lots of walking, and they’re actually interested in some of the history (cutting off heads at the Tower of London, the horrors of the plague in England, etc.).

We did drop some money on a few tourist attractions—a double-decker bus tour, the Tower of London, and a musical, “Matilda,” which was great fun. But we saved money by:

• Renting a London flat (we stayed in this cute place in the Islington neighborhood)
• Buying breakfast makings at a nearby grocers
• Eating simple lunches and dinners at places like Pret a Manger (which you can also find in some U.S. big cities), and
• Being strategic about buying plane tickets and other items, which I talk about in my Equifax blog post.  

We also gleaned budget travel strategies and itinerary tips from travel guide/TV host Rick Steves. His city guides and website are consistently great. We’ve used his guides on multiple European trips over the past 20 years.

We certainly can’t do trips like this one, to England, every year. But it was worth saving for. It was a real mind-opening experience for our daughters, and a fun adventure for my husband and me. We’re already arguing amongst ourselves about where to go on our next European journey!  Photo by Highways Agency.

Head here to read my entire Equifax post and to share your budget travel ideas in the comments. What money-saving strategies have made fun trips possible for your family?

For the past two weeks, we’ve been running a “chicken urgent-care clinic” in our backyard.

Well, sort of. We have three backyard chickens. Urban chickens are a huge deal here in Portland, Oregon. To our family, Lily, Ernestine and Cocoa are pets–just as if they were cats or dogs. We pet them. We carry them around. We occasionally bring them in the house for visits and snacks. (We make them stand on newspaper. They poop a lot.)

And when our pets are sick, we fuss over them. So when Ernestine, our lovely black and white Barred Rock hen, started acting under the weather a few weeks ago, we sprang into action. Visits to bird vets are expensive, so we usually get great advice from our local farm stores. (Thanks, Urban Farm Store and Linnton Feed.) We’ve tried a de-worming remedy, and are on to a broad-spectrum antibiotic. We’re just not sure what’s ailing sweet Ernestine.

I’m over at Equifax.com’s new family money blog today talking about the link between losing weight and saving money. Believe it or not, the two have lots of similarities—and not just in how hard they are to do!

I noticed the connection when I joined Weight Watchers a while back. I didn’t make a conscious effort to use my newfound WW skills with my wallet; it just happened. I noticed that when I was mindful about the way I was spending money—just as I was mindful about how I “spent” my calories—lo and behold, I made good progress. From my post:

It Works for Weight Loss: Spontaneity is out, at least for a while. Plan ahead when you eat away from home, deciding in advance how many calories or what food you’ll eat.

It Works for Your Wallet: Same deal: Spontaneous consumption of money (a.k.a. spending) is not your friend when you’re tuning up your budget. Eating out is actually is a perfect example here. Many weight-loss programs suggest checking the menu of your favorite restaurant and deciding in advance what you’ll eat so you can estimate calories.

Our family has started doing the same thing. However, instead of just checking calories on a restaurant’s menu, we check prices. Then we estimate what our family might spend on meal, and decide if we can afford that particular dinner spot on our weekly budget.

We might also do a quick advance search for online coupons (a great place to check is Restaurant.com) for the restaurant we’re considering. We often give this Internet search task to our kids—they’re getting good at it!

Head over to Equifax to read the rest and share your thoughts about weight-loss tips that also work well for managing your money. (Photo by puuikibeach.)

Right now, there’s a chore list on our refrigerator with dollar values next to each one. “Wipe down lower kitchen cabinets: $1.” “Clean lower living room windows: $1.” And so on.

What does that have to do with holiday gift-giving? Our kids are earning extra money to buy gifts for each other, us, and a few friends and relatives. They’ll be small, simple gifts—but the kids will work to raise money for them. They feel good about it. We feel good about it. It’s an easy—but important—way to teach our girls that 1) Even kids can buy and give gifts and 2) They can pay for gifts, rather than asking us for a gift-giving subsidy.

Our kids are also learning about the joys of being generous, and how to do so without spending a ton of money. (Photo by jayneandd)

Some ideas on helping kids become thoughtful gift-givers:

1. Give a gift to a needy child. Even before our kids were old enough to earn their gift-giving money, we participated in a holiday charity program at our daughter’s school. We fondly refer to it as the “shoebox gift” because the rule is that you buy only items that will fit in a single shoebox, wrapped. We get the first name, gender and age of the child, and then decide what to buy.

We’ve found it easiest to take a small cash budget (like $20-$30) to a single store (usually Target) and let our kids help decide how to fill the box. They usually start by filling the box with $1 items from the front-of-the-store bins. We always talk a little about whether those dollar items will 1) last long enough and 2) feel like nice gifts. The girls usually put back all but one or two of the dollar items, pick a few fun holiday candies, then fill out the box with one nice, small toy that’s “cool” this year—like a Littlest Pet Shop set.

The decisions our kids consider with this gift roll over into buying for friends and family: Will a lot of inexpensive items make my gift seem bigger/ stretch my budget or should I use my money for one, larger gift? Am I buying something the receiver will like or picking something I want for myself? Can I put myself in my receiver’s shoes and ask: What might really delight this person this year?

2. Discourage kids from buying for themselves while shopping for others. It dilutes their attention. We ask our kids to leave their own spending money at home while they’re shopping for others. We want their attention 100% focused on picking gifts for those special people—not filling up their own gift lists.

3. Encourage them to make coupons. Sometimes the best gift is a service, rather than a thing. And for kids on a tight budget, service coupons can be a great solution. For a sibling, your child could make and color cute little coupons like: “I’ll make your bed one morning.” Or “I’ll let you choose one TV show without arguing with you.” Or even “I’ll do your after-school chores today.” The receiver can present these coupons for “redemption” anytime from now to next Christmas.

Our kids give us, their parents, these coupons, too. I’ve gotten some great ones: “Good for one time I play a board game with you.” (They know I love board games but the kids often thing they’re boring.) Or another favorite: “Good for one time I let you win an argument with me.”

My latest project: Un-budgeting.

What does that mean? Un-complicating our family finances a little.

I happen to be a very, um, detailed person about our family budget. So over the years, I have dived into it deeper and deeper, creating categories for everything under the sun: For “Cars,” we have Car: Insurance; Car: Repairs, Car: Maintenance. And so on.

I personally feel calmer when critical expenses have a category and a budget. I worry less that I’ll forget something important and we’ll end up caught short when we need money for it.  Also, I feel less guilty spending on “fun” items when I know the critical stuff (property taxes, utilities, groceries) has a category and money sitting inside it each month.

All that is well and good, but my budgeting mania was starting to get the best of me.  (Photo by Images_of_Money)

I’m always on the lookout for good ideas on teaching kids about money. One woman who has more than a few thoughts on the subject, since she’s got the cool-sounding job of “Mom Saver-in-Chief” for RedPlum, the big coupon company, is Lisa Reynolds.

Lisa, who lives with her husband and two young sons in Northville, Mich., is also host of the online show “Viva la Value” on Diva Toolbox Radio.

Lisa thinks of teaching kids to be good money stewards as coaching them on “financial fitness.” Here’s more from Lisa.

When you say it’s important to help our kids get “financially fit,” can you tell me what you mean?

Well, just as it is important to teach kids to be healthy and physically fit, we also need to begin teaching children how to be “financially fit” when they are young. The idea is to build savings habits in them now that will become permanent and come naturally to them as adults. Involving your children in some of your financial planning and spending efforts are some of the best ways to pass on important money lessons. It may not be immediately evident, but your children and teens are paying close attention and learning from your saving ways.

That moment when one of your kids asks if you have a coupon for something they want to buy, or when they decide to wait until something is on sale before making a purchase is the day you know you are teaching them a life lesson.

If you’ve got kids in high school or college, you’re facing the same unpleasant expense we are: Buying textbooks.

As if tuition wasn’t already high enough, you also have to pay for books. Expensive books. That are used for only a few months. And get quickly dinged up. If we had bought them all new, our daughter’s high school books would have totaled $390. And that’s just high school!

So what can you do to save money on books?

Buy e-textbooks. Maybe. It seems cheaper up front to buy or rent ebooks your kid can read on a Kindle, iPad or other tablet. Amazon.com recently started offering ebook rentals (for up to 360 days). CourseSmart.com offers a similar option.

Challenges: All textbooks are not yet available digitally. And you don’t end up with a physical copy of a book to sell back once you’re done with it. (I personally like the idea of getting some money back for my books.) DealNews is lukewarm about ebook rentals for these same reasons. Someday, this may be the main way to get texts. But for now, there are still cheaper options.

At a recent holiday barbecue, a group of our friends had a “lively discussion” about college and what we expect for our kids. Collectively, our kiddos range in age from 7 to 14. Some of the main questions that came up:

Should we encourage our kids get a general liberal arts degree like history or English, if that moves them, or push them into something more practical, like accounting or computer science?

Is it money-smart to encourage our kids to go to community college or a cheap local school so they can live at home for their first two years? Would transferring into a bigger/more challenging school their junior year be OK, or will they miss out on having that quintessential four-year college experience?

Would we encourage our kids to pay for part of their college education, even if we could afford to pay for it ourselves? Does paying help kids feel like they have some “skin in the game”—in other words, give them a sense of accountability?

On the issue of how practical a degree should be: Most of our group fell into the camp of “a good education is its own reward.” However, a couple of us definitely leaned toward “It’d be nice to have a solid career track and some practical experience when you walk out of college.”

I can see both points of view. I studied communications, so I had some idea that I’d be working as a writer/ journalist/ public relations-type person. But I sure did envy the accounting majors who had recruiters coming to see them on campus, and often had job offers even before they got their diplomas. Overall, though, I’m still in favor of kids studying whatever seems like the best fit for their “career path guess.” And isn’t it really an educated guess? I mean, how many people know for sure what career path they’ll follow when they’re 18 years old?

It seems to me that college is a sorting ground: You take classes to help you decide what you enjoy and do well, and what areas of study are definitely not your cup of tea. My own bias is that if you end up finding that you’re passionate about history—even if you’re not going to teach or work at a historical society—chances are good that your history studies will somehow end up being meaningful in whatever work you do. You’ll understand historical trends, and you’ll know how to research and communicate well (as a result of the papers you write). Those aren’t bad skills to have in any job, right?

But my practical side says that if I were to do it again—and this is how I’ll counsel my own daughters—I’d take a few business courses, too. Maybe statistics and marketing. I could certainly use those skills while running my own writing business.

If your kid is paying for at least some of their college expenses—which I think they should—that will also encourage them to make their degree worthwhile. I was fortunate that my own parents paid for my tuition and room/board. However, I was expected to work during the summer to pay for books, clothes, gas/car insurance, entertainment and any extras.

And the deal was that my parents would have paid tuition and room/board for 4 years only. If I dinked around and took 5 years to graduate, that last year was on my dime. Graduate school would also have been my responsibility. I did think long and hard about it, and decided an advanced degree wasn’t really crucial in my line of work. But had someone else been paying, I might have gone to grad school, and it wouldn’t have been cheap.

Where do you stand on the concept of kids paying for part of their education, even if mom and dad can afford to pay every penny? Good life lesson or stingy parenting?

As for going to community college or a local school, then transferring—I honestly don’t know how I feel about that. I know many financial experts—including syndicated radio talk show host Clark Howard and Kiplinger’s Janet Bodnar—are heavily in favor of it.

I personally loved being at a small university for a full four years, getting to know my teachers and students really well. But I also agree that it sure would save some $$$ to have our daughters take most of their basic prerequisite classes at a cheaper school like a community college, then move on to a larger school.

If any of you transferred to a bigger college after two years, what do you say? Was it a tough transition or a smart move?

And where do you stand on the issue of your kid getting a “practical” degree like accounting, versus a more general degree like English? Are both equally worth the incredibly high price tag you’ll pay these days?

When she turned 13, our oldest daughter stopped getting an allowance. Instead, we put her “on salary.” She gets a lot more money than ever before. She loves that. She’s also responsible for more of her own expenses than ever before. Her dad and I love that.

We can’t take complete credit for this idea. Mary Hunt over at DebtProofLiving.com based a good part of her book Debt-Proof Your Kids on this exact concept. And Susan Beacham, another of my favorite family money gurus, is a huge fan of giving tweens and teens more control over their finances. I’ve  interviewed both of them for my personal finance articles, and I couldn’t wait to use this approach in our family.

Here’s how it works, in a nutshell:

- We pay our daughter once a month. No more weekly allowances. It’s time for her to practice making her money last longer, just as if she were working at a real job.

- We give her money for everything we normally would spend on her. That means:

• Clothes & shoes
• School lunch money
• Gifts for friends and relatives
• Cell phone minutes. (She has a pay-as-you-go plan; when she runs out of money, she runs out of minutes!)
• Movies, snacks and other entertainment with friends. (We pay if we go somewhere as a family.)
• iTunes songs, books and magazines

Yes, it’s a LOT more money than our daughter used to get for an allowance–more than $100 a month. But it’s not costing her dad and I any more than before. This is $$ that was already part of our family budget. We’re simply handing the money over to our daughter instead.

- There are requirements. Our daughter must set aside a % of her money for long-term savings (college) and donating (her choice where it goes) right off the top. She needs to have a 5-minute “budget meeting” with her dad and I every month before she gets paid. She fills out a little budget sheet (at left) to plan where her money will go in the upcoming month.

She’s also required to keep her receipts and jot down all of her expenses during the month, so she’s aware of where her money goes. We review those together at the end of each month. But her dad and I don’t tell her how to spend her money or criticize her choices after the fact (even when it’s tempting!). After all, we want her to make a few mistakes now, while she’s only buying little stuff like jeans and lip gloss. Hopefully, she’ll have a better handle on money when she’s ready for bigger stuff, like college loans or cars.

- The setup is simple. We use a cute notebook (see top image) with zippered sections for each spending category. She keeps her cash in these zippered compartments until she’s ready to spend it–very much like an “envelope system” for an adult budget. Her long-term savings goes to the credit union.

The result? So far, so good! We been doing the salary system for about four months now, and I keep expecting some meltdown or unexpected expense–but nothing so far.

You know who this is hardest on? Me. Every time I instinctively pick up a cute pair of jeans in my daughter’s size on sale somewhere, or see a book she might like, I have to put it down and remind myself: My daughter is in charge of her own purchases now. And she’s great at it.

Our family hasn’t been to Walt Disney World yet (since we’re on the West Coast), but when we do, we’ll be taking a copy of my friend Kate Reilly’s book with us. It’s Walt Disney World Resort Extreme Vacation Guide for Kids. Read about it here. The cool thing is that it’s a travel guide for kids, not just for parents. Kate’s sons coauthored and helped illustrate the book.

Kate and her crew offer all sorts of ideas on how to have fun and save money with Mickey. For instance, I wish we had thought of their idea to make our own spiffy autograph book (rather than buying them at the park) when we went to Disneyland. The Disney books were spendy and just meh, nothing all that special. Another idea: Having kids make no-sew water bottle carriers, then filling, freezing and taking in your own water. Simple, smart.

Kate even offers an entire chapter on how kids can earn their own money for WDW Souvenirs. Ah, a mom after my own heart.

By the way, Kate’s blog, Polka Dot Suitcase, is really fun, too–lots of crafty activities and ideas for families. Kate is a homeschooling mom and those home-schoolers just seem to come up with the best ideas. Trek on over there sometime!