Great to hear that you are taking action to back up your belief in steem.
I was thinking about your comment. "I don't have money, I have kids" there might be some hidden assumptions behind that statement you need to check.
I know kids can be expensive and you can't give them back to the store or put them on craigslist.
But I also know that kids' products are marketed with the most conniving manipulative marketing imaginable. Much of it is manipulating parent's emotions to make them think you can't deny your kids certain things or you are a bad parent.
I'd try an experiment to see if the money you spend on them really is necessary.
Before you try it, it seems ridiculous but asking yourself the question "What if I did the opposite for a while?", can be eye opening.
The trick is that you only experiment for a reasonably short time so you always feel you can go back... Also keep the experiments small in the beginning, too drastic at once and it will be upsetting...
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You are right to a great extent. I mostly like to spend money on doing stuff with them rather than having things for them. Their dad and the grandparents collect more than enugh kids junk to clutter up the house. But, what you said made me think of a big display of bouncing balls that my boy just had to have one of when he was about 6. At first, I was impressed too. Then I asked him why it was better than the bouncing balls he already had taking up space in his room. He didnt know, but he was sure it was. So I explained about the marketing and contrasting colors and how once he had it home with the rest of his stuff it wouldn't be any better than the ones he already had. He didnt believe me that that wasnt the bestist bouncing ball in the whole wide world. So I bought it for him, and let a couple days go by. Then before I needed to go back to the same store I made a point to play with several of his balls in the yard first, including that one with him. At the store, when we got to that display, I stopped and he stopped. I knew he was thinking about it and he knew I was too. Then he admitted, it was the presentation and not so much the ball it's self. Not exactly the same thing. My bigger problem is I spend all my time on them and not much time where I could be making more cash. But then again, I did pay twice what a Fidget Spinner was worth, in BTC, to be sure to get them before school let out. So, there's that and you probably have a good point.
Hehe the second bouncing ball was probably money well spent if it made him think...
Don't get me wrong I get just as obsessed by my toys too (too bad they're even more expensive) but lately I have more and more bought second hand previous gen gadgets. Work almost the same for -40% -60% discount.
Need to post about how good / evil the whole marketing game has become. Check out "the minimalists" documentary on Netflix! Will make you think... at one point they said that the marketing budget targeted at kids has gone from 7 Billion a year in the 80's to over 100 billions a year in 2012 ( probably more now)
I am not in any position to give parenting advice, but my guess is that there are a lot of assumptions behind raising kids that should be critically looked at...
The assumptions, for sure. I did so much better with the 1st one when I didnt know what I was "supposta " be doing, than this last one now that I've had so much more help and advice. Been thinking a lot about that the last couple days. As for the documentary, I dumped Netflix a while back when they opted to put all their efforts into their orignal content instead of variety. Its been a while now, maybe they've improved since then.