I loathe third-party school fundraisers.
I don’t hate raising money for schools or good causes but our kids come back with donation forms almost every single month. One involved jumping rope, another involved a race, there was one that was just collecting money.
So far it seems innocuous right? The worst part about all of them was the HEAVY emphasis on prizes. Get $25 in donations, you get a stuffed animal. If you collect $50, there’s another prize. It went all the way up to $500 and you get a drone or something.
What lessons are we teaching our kids? Ask family and friends for money so you can get toys? It wasn’t focused on raising money to help a cause, it was solely about getting a toy. It’s infuriating. I had to edit this opening like a dozen times because of all the spelling errors I had because I was so argghrhhrhfhdhdhgjoi!!111!!11! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. OK it’s out of my system.
All this is to prep you for the first article… which clearly hit a hot button for me. And probably every other parent in the world. 🙂
How to Start Saying No to School Fundraisers [The Frugal Engineers] – “The first time we encountered this type of third-party fundraising was in PRESCHOOL. We ordered an obscene amount of frozen pizza and frozen cookie dough so our daughter could earn a ticket to the coveted “private school event” for top fundraisers. The event turned out to be a glorified play date at school. Disenchanted, we vowed to say no to school fundraisers for the rest of the year.”
Incidentally, what we do is pick one fundraising event to do and we skip the rest.
The Hidden Perk of Saving Up for Big Purchases [Half Banked] – “When you save up, it gives you time to think.”
The World’s Most Luxurious “Hut-to-Hut” Hikes [AFAR] – “Not all multi-day trekking experiences are created rugged; some allow you to conquer challenging terrain by day and luxuriate in utter comfort (and maybe a hot tub) by night.” Ohhhh I like hiking but I also like a comfortable bed. Some of these look amazing. Who am I kidding… they ALL look amazing.
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