The law of diminishing returns

I am not  an statistician.  Nor am I an accountant or an economist or whoever it is that uses this concept.  When I was in college, I bought a carton of raspberry sherbet, pulled out 3 spoons, and shared it right out of the package with my roommates.  It just seemed tastier that way.  In fact, when the sherbet was about halfway gone, I said with an ooey-gooey dreamy voice, "This just keeps getting better and better with every bite."  My roommate, who was a math major, quickly informed me that what I had just said was against the law of diminishing returns.  She then proceeded to explain to me that the first time you do something or try something, it is amazing!  But each time you do it, it looses some of that first time thrill.  So the 20th spoonful of sherbet should not taste as good as the first.  Makes sense, right?

I use this concept all the time now in my parenting, especially when it comes to fast food.  There was a time when we were both working, that we would go out to eat about once a week.  After a while, we got sick of fast food and then proceeded to "fancy" restaurants.  And then we got sick of the cheap stuff and would order the more expensive stuff and before we knew it, we were spending about $30 a meal (which is now my weekly grocery budget).  You know what the problem was?  We were doing it so frequently that it wasn't nearly as satisfying as it used to be.  We ended up digging deep into our pockets to try something new because the enjoyment of eating out was gone.  When I stopped working, we stopped going out to eat.  That was an adjustment for all of us.  But you know what?  By reducing the frequency of going out to eat, we've actually increased the enjoyment of going out!  And we spend less money.  It's now a treat and much more special.  For example, my sweet seven year old had the lead in the first grade play.  He worked SOOO hard at memorizing his lines and even had a solo in one song.  It was so stinking cute.  We decided to reward him by letting him choose a restaurant to eat at before the play in recognition of his hard work.  He picked McDonalds.  The kids shared a 20 piece chicken McNugget for $5 and two small fries.  He felt special and knew that we were proud of him.  If this was something that we did every week, it wouldn't have held that same special place in his heart.  So remember that next time you're tempted to go out to eat or start feeling bad because you don't have enough money to go out to eat as often as your kids would like.  STOP IT!  There's no reason to feel bad.  It's usually not good for you anyway, and when you actually do get to go out, it's more fun and more special, and your children will have fond memories of the occasions when you do go out.

Parmesan potatoes

Back when we had more money, we used to frequent fast food restaurants a little more often than I'd like to admit.  When we moved into our new home, we did some miscalculations and ended up having to cut $800 out of our spending.   We paid off our car so we didn't have two car payments...that took up $200, but we still had to cut out $600.  We had never really paid attention to what we were spending.  We just tried to not spend too much, but it was always everything we had.   So, the first step was to obviously keep track of what we were spending.  It was really eye opening.  We were spending a ridiculous amount of money on food.   I was working and my husband was going through graduate school, so we did go out to eat much more frequently than we should have.  We purchased a lot of convenience foods at the store because we didn't have a lot of time to prepare meals.  Now that I'm not working anymore, I have more time to think through my meals and spend more time planning my shopping trips.

First issue with my children was to wean them from french fries.  Seeing as potatoes are just $3.50 for a ten pound bag, it seemed to just make sense to make my own.  While I was thinking it through, I decided to look for a more healthy version and find something baked instead of fried.  This is a recipe that my mom gave us:

Parmesan potatoes:

5-6 potatoes
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt

Peel potatoes and cut them into french fries.  I usually do this by cutting the potatoes in thirds length-wise and then cutting each third into strips.  You could actually even leave the skins on to add more nutritional value.  Rinse the potatoes and pat dry with a paper towel. 

Put the Parmesan cheese, flour and salt in a brown lunch bag and give it a shake or two.  Add the potatoes a handful or two at a time and shake until they are coated with the Parmesan mixture.

Arrange the potatoes on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  We serve this with ketchup.  We never intended these to be a full meal, but my kids devour them  and are often too full for anything else.  My husband and I don't eat as many, so we add a frozen vegetable with it or sometimes make smoothies to make it more filling. 

This recipe takes so few potatoes that in a couple of days, you can use the rest of the ones in the bag for potato soup and then in a few more days have baked potatoes.