Mailbag #10: Simplifying Life, Parenting Lessons, Childcare Strategies, Family Travel Tips and More

00:00:00.000 | Juggling kids, careers, and keeping life on track is no easy feat.

00:00:04.640 | With two young kids of our own, we have learned firsthand how quickly priorities shift

00:00:09.520 | and how even simple tasks can feel overwhelming.

00:00:12.720 | So today, my wife Amy and I are diving into the realities of parenting,

00:00:17.120 | from simplifying your finances and navigating child care,

00:00:20.320 | and sharing practical tips we've picked up along the way.

00:00:23.440 | Whether you have kids or not, I really hope you enjoy hearing us

00:00:26.320 | open up about our own experiences balancing family and life.

00:00:29.760 | I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoyed this episode,

00:00:31.760 | please share it with a friend or leave a comment or review.

00:00:34.640 | And if you want to keep upgrading your life, money, and travel, click follow or subscribe.

00:00:38.800 | Amy, we are back. How are you feeling?

00:00:42.320 | I'm feeling good.

00:00:43.360 | So the last time we did this, we didn't get a chance to cover all the topics about family,

00:00:47.920 | kids. And the first question here is actually even broader than that. So you want to tee it up?

00:00:52.640 | Sure. They asked a really interesting question around optimization versus simplicity.

00:00:56.560 | With two young kids, I have very little free time at the moment. And the time I have,

00:01:00.560 | I'm exhausted. Hence, I haven't opened up a new credit card in a long time,

00:01:04.320 | and I've stopped tracking my expenses and net worth monthly. I imagine I'll do it again

00:01:08.320 | down the road when I have more free time. But at this stage in life, it's not a priority.

00:01:13.040 | Can you relate to this with two young kids of your own? Would love to hear your reflections.

00:01:17.280 | I totally relate to this. Time is the newfound finite resource. And honestly, I think about

00:01:24.160 | life before children, and I think, "Oh, wow, sometimes we had weekends where we just didn't

00:01:27.920 | do anything. We just sat at home, did nothing. We have friends that don't have kids, and that's

00:01:31.600 | what they do sometimes." And I have no idea how that life must feel. It doesn't relate to me at

00:01:36.720 | all. And what this person wrote relates to me completely. So when I think about the things

00:01:41.440 | you said, the way I try to think about it, and in some cases, I think the person who wrote this

00:01:46.080 | question, in a way, I wish that I was more like them, because I haven't been as good at sometimes

00:01:51.680 | letting go of these things that are probably not as important as maybe sleep or being more present

00:01:59.600 | in some cases. But I've also tried to find easier ways to do some of them. And so if I look back to

00:02:06.640 | the way we budgeted and tracked, and you probably remember this non-pleasantly, we would go down and

00:02:12.320 | we'd categorize all our transactions at the end of the year or the end of the quarter, and we'd run

00:02:15.920 | through the spreadsheet. And now, yes, there's more flexibility when you build your own spreadsheet

00:02:21.040 | that can do everything. But when we started using Copilot, it's like in very short one,

00:02:26.080 | two-minute intervals, I can categorize transactions when I'm going to the bathroom,

00:02:30.160 | when I'm in the line somewhere. And so that's made it easy to keep budgeting on track, have

00:02:35.280 | a good sense of how much we're spending without having to put a lot of time. Shout out to Copilot.

00:02:39.680 | They've been a sponsor of the show for a while. Not as long as I've been using the app though.

00:02:43.520 | Really great product. So there are ways to do some of these things.

00:02:47.520 | But when it comes to opening up new credit cards, I am aware that there are people who manage to

00:02:52.960 | open up 10, 15 cards a year and get tremendous reward for doing that. And their credit scores

00:02:58.560 | go up, and they have millions of points. And it's been in the back of my mind, just like this

00:03:04.320 | person, that we could probably do that at more velocity than we are, more than one or two cards.

00:03:09.680 | And we talked about 524 in an episode. I was looking and both of us are at like 224. We could

00:03:15.920 | be doing more. But I think one of the challenges I have is that I want to get it right. It's like,

00:03:23.040 | I don't want to get a new card until I figure out the sequence of all the cards that makes

00:03:26.400 | sense for everything to play out in the exact perfect and optimal way. And so I've done nothing.

00:03:30.720 | Now, the good news is I'm okay with that because I just don't have the free time

00:03:34.720 | to spend on this longer project. But I probably need to come back to the middle ground a little

00:03:39.840 | bit more satisficing of, "You know what? Getting one card is not going to change my 524 status.

00:03:45.280 | I'm still going to be okay." And so maybe in the last six months that's happened, I've said,

00:03:49.280 | "Oh, here's a good opportunity." And some of it was forced. The US Bank Altitude Reserve card was

00:03:53.680 | closing, and I just had to throw it in before it went away. And so it forced my hand and I felt

00:03:58.560 | pretty good about getting forced there. Was it the best signup bonus ever? No, but I feel okay about

00:04:03.280 | it. So yes, I think I agree with a lot of this. When it comes to the simplicity side of the

00:04:09.760 | equation, that really speaks to me. I think we used to have, I don't know, seven, eight bank

00:04:15.040 | accounts, multiple brokerage accounts, lying all over the place, maybe doing bank bonuses.

00:04:19.600 | And you probably at the time were like, "This is a mess." It was overwhelming. And I love the fact

00:04:24.240 | that kids have forced us to simplify in these areas because it feels like a mental decluttering

00:04:30.160 | of having to keep track of all of these different things in addition to kids. Yeah. So now we moved

00:04:36.160 | everything to Mercury's personal account. That's great. I did a whole episode on bank accounts.

00:04:40.560 | If you want to go hear what the finalists were, the short version is Wealthfront, Fidelity,

00:04:44.960 | and Mercury. But if you want to go a deeper dive, check that out. I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:04:49.360 | But yeah, so managing everything in one central place, being okay with the fact that there are

00:04:54.640 | some people that want to do all their investment trades. They want to manage all the ETFs, manage

00:04:58.480 | all the tax loss harvesting, the rebalancing, because they want to save that 0.25% fee that

00:05:03.200 | you might pay to someone like a Wealthfront. I happily pay the 0.25% fee to Wealthfront to not

00:05:09.680 | have to think about it. It's a very small fraction of the cost of the returns of the portfolio.

00:05:14.560 | And if you look at the last, I don't know, 10 years, if I hadn't been able to make the decisions

00:05:19.200 | I did and invest like I did because I was worried about the fee or the fee kept me from tax loss

00:05:23.520 | harvesting, I would not be in a better position today, even net adjusted of all those fees.

00:05:29.280 | So those things are great. A couple other fun simplicity things that we added just as inspiration

00:05:35.680 | when it comes to food. Before kids, we used to go out all the time, we'd make our decisions

00:05:39.680 | last minute, we wouldn't plan that much. And that was fun. I love trying new restaurants.

00:05:44.960 | Now, we do Taco Tuesday, we do Pizza Friday, and it just adds a little bit of simplicity to the

00:05:50.000 | week. Yes, there are still five days of the week we have to figure out what we're doing. But there

00:05:53.360 | are two we do not. And I think that even though there's a previous version of us that would have

00:05:59.760 | rather had more variety, having a little bit of headspace back and finding recipes that aren't

00:06:06.960 | the most creative wild recipes that, you know, take three hours of prep, but are things we can

00:06:12.720 | whip up in 15 minutes and we really like that level of simplicity. I really appreciate it.

00:06:17.280 | Yeah, I completely agree. I think the word you used was "satisfying" and that couldn't be

00:06:22.880 | more accurate in the way that we are approaching life at the moment with two young kids.

00:06:29.360 | Okay, next question. Justin asked for just general parenting advice.

00:06:33.280 | I'm gonna let you start this one. This is a very interesting question because

00:06:37.120 | it's quite broad, but it also assumes that we have any area of expertise. I think most parents

00:06:43.920 | are kind of crash course testing their way through parenting just like we are. There are a few things

00:06:49.200 | that I think have worked for us that I'll call out. There have been moments where we're like,

00:06:53.840 | "Man, we have really figured out parenting. Things are just feeling really smooth and

00:06:57.600 | everything's humming along." And it feels like just as you start to really nail parenting,

00:07:02.640 | everything changes. The developmental phases, the...

00:07:05.440 | Sleep regressions.

00:07:07.600 | Sleep regressions, just variables in your external kind of kids' worlds that you can't

00:07:13.760 | control change. And now you're dealing with a whole new set of interesting challenges. So

00:07:20.240 | I think all this to say, just when you think you know it, turns out you don't know it.

00:07:25.360 | And you're having to relearn everything all over again in a very different way. And so I think

00:07:29.680 | that's very normal and something that we've learned to accept over time.

00:07:33.120 | Yeah. One thing I'll add there is that I think every time something goes wrong or doesn't go

00:07:37.760 | the way you thought, it's like, "Oh, the kids were sleeping great. And then today they didn't."

00:07:43.040 | You can ask yourself a million questions to try to figure out why.

00:07:47.280 | And the advice I've gotten from parents who've done this more than we have for longer than we have

00:07:52.160 | is that don't try to explain it. Sometimes we're like, "Oh, well, we gave them green beans. And

00:07:56.640 | then they didn't sleep well. Was it the green beans?" Or like, "What was it? What caused this

00:07:59.760 | thing? Is it that they're getting sick? Is it that she was upset that I didn't spend enough

00:08:03.360 | minutes with her this afternoon after work because I was a little distracted on this deadline?"

00:08:07.520 | And you can blame a million things for what happened. But it turns out, and we're now four

00:08:13.600 | years into this, sometimes it just happens. Sometimes your kid doesn't sleep well for no

00:08:18.800 | reason. Sometimes your kid's in a bad mood for no reason. And that's not to say there aren't

00:08:23.600 | reasons. Sometimes your kid is sick. Sometimes there are issues. But trying to explain every

00:08:30.160 | time something doesn't go correctly can send you down a path of worrying about way too much.

00:08:35.840 | And I feel like we've both experienced that a lot.

00:08:38.000 | Yeah. I would definitely say I fall victim to that more than you do.

00:08:42.880 | But you're right. Kids are kids. The answer is kids. And that's why. They're a kid. And that

00:08:48.560 | happens. One of the other things I would mention is for our kids, I found it to be really helpful

00:08:56.640 | in trying to approach some of the challenges that they're experiencing from a place of curiosity.

00:09:03.200 | One of the examples that I experienced was our four-year-old resisting going to school.

00:09:08.960 | She really just fought it. She did not want to go into the classroom. She was not excited when

00:09:13.760 | she'd wake up knowing it was a school day. So instead of trying to quickly fix the problem,

00:09:19.840 | we approached her from a place of curiosity, just trying to understand more the behavior.

00:09:23.520 | So help us understand why don't you want to go to school? What's happening right now? Tell me more.

00:09:29.600 | And I think what we realized is not that she didn't like school. She was actually

00:09:33.680 | bored. She didn't feel like she was being challenged. And that really allowed us to

00:09:38.960 | figure out ways that we could help integrate some of that into her next school year to ensure that

00:09:47.040 | she was feeling challenged in the right way. And now she loves school. So I think approaching it

00:09:51.680 | from a place of curiosity as opposed to any kind of judgment and having that open mind allows

00:09:58.400 | us and her to really collaborate and come up with a solution together.

00:10:02.880 | Yeah. And one thing that you taught me was getting down on their level. And so

00:10:07.760 | when you're having these conversations with your younger children, it's like, "Oh, we want to talk

00:10:12.880 | about how your day's going. We want to talk about what's wrong." Get down on the ground and be a

00:10:17.360 | peer of theirs instead of standing up. Sometimes just looming over them can put their defenses up

00:10:23.520 | a lot. And just getting down on their level, being calm, and talking to them can really open them up

00:10:29.760 | a lot and break that hierarchy that comes from you being the parent standing over them.

00:10:34.800 | And so I totally agree there. I think one thing that I'll add that is hard, and I think every

00:10:40.560 | parent agrees with this, and we did an episode on making time in your day, and this was a theme

00:10:46.000 | there. And it keeps coming up as just trying to have time where you're present and time where

00:10:50.800 | you're not and splitting that off. And so instead of working all day and then coming to dinner and

00:10:57.680 | working during dinner, I'd say it's probably better to be at dinner 100% there and then go

00:11:01.520 | back and work later. And so trying to make the time you spend with your kids fully on with the

00:11:07.200 | kids. And it's amazing how much we've heard comments when we haven't adhered to that,

00:11:12.640 | where they're like, "When are you going to be off your phone? What's so exciting on there?"

00:11:17.360 | And so we just have been trying to get better. I think one thing that helps is on days when we're

00:11:22.880 | not at the house all day, my phone's dead. And so when I come home, I charge it. And I notice I'm

00:11:27.840 | like, "Oh, I was really present with the kids because my phone is on the charger." And so we

00:11:31.760 | put two of those magnetic phone chargers in the kitchen as just like, "Oh, when you're in the

00:11:36.880 | kitchen, you get to charge your phone. So your battery's full and you have that going into the

00:11:41.040 | evening." And so that's kind of helped. It's like a little hack of set up two chargers in the

00:11:45.120 | kitchen so that when you're in the living area or in your living room to pay on your house is laid

00:11:49.920 | out so that you have your phones away and you can be more present with the kids. Anything else on

00:11:55.600 | your list? I also think that creating a judgment-free zone is really helpful because particularly when

00:12:02.640 | they're young, they might do something really silly and it might feel like a very small thing.

00:12:08.080 | But if you remain really open-minded and judgment-free for the small things,

00:12:13.840 | I think over time, then when big things actually come up, they'll feel a lot more open to sharing

00:12:19.280 | those things as well. And so it kind of manifests in a really progressive, strong way over time.

00:12:25.920 | So as much as we can, as parents, try to be judgment-free, I think that's a huge positive

00:12:31.200 | for the kids. Another thing that I had on my list was having time with each kid one-on-one.

00:12:36.400 | And we've instituted this recently where we'd split off and I'll take one girl for a date,

00:12:40.720 | you take another girl for a date at night. And whether that's at night for dinner,

00:12:44.720 | whether that's an activity, whether that's going to Costco, sometimes buying gold,

00:12:48.800 | things like that with your kids, I think is really important.

00:12:52.720 | And I think something we want to really keep doing regularly.

00:12:57.520 | Yeah. I think that's huge because I definitely noticed that they are a lot calmer and just have

00:13:06.800 | a better kind of mentality day after day when we spend that quality time. And if we skip it for

00:13:13.920 | several days in a row, it does feel like we start to see them act out a little bit beyond what their

00:13:19.920 | standard kind of behavior is. And another way we do it just more

00:13:23.120 | simply than even going out is we'll each take a different kid every other night and do bedtime.

00:13:28.320 | So there's just a little bit of one-on-one time. Obviously, we still go out and do tons of

00:13:32.160 | activities together as a family, but we do try to make sure we do a little one-on-one time like that.

00:13:36.480 | It's not just important to spend one-on-one time with each child. I think it's also important

00:13:42.080 | to make sure you're carving out one-on-one time for each other if you have

00:13:46.000 | a partner, because it's really valuable for your kids to see that being a huge priority.

00:13:51.440 | And I think it also helps parents go at raising children in more of a unified way.

00:13:56.640 | Yeah. I think we regularly do date nights. And when our children say, "No, don't leave. Don't

00:14:01.760 | leave." We say, "It's important for mommy and daddy to have some time together too,

00:14:05.360 | just like you get to go on dates with mommy and daddy. And just like we have mommy and

00:14:08.320 | daddy play days, we need to spend time together." And I think I often hear some parents two, three,

00:14:14.480 | four years into having children that say, "Gosh, we haven't taken a date yet." And so we'll talk

00:14:19.520 | about childcare a little bit later, but I think it's really important. And I'm glad we've made

00:14:23.520 | time for that. I agree.

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00:16:30.560 | So this next question is from Tyler. My wife is a little over three months pregnant with our first

00:16:35.520 | baby. Congrats, Tyler. And we have some time to prepare, but I still feel like I have no idea

00:16:40.560 | what to do. What are some things you both did to prepare for the baby? And maybe what are some

00:16:44.640 | things you didn't do, but now looking back, wish you had known or done? This is a really good

00:16:49.120 | question for you because I feel like you created a notion page and you just really got after it.

00:16:54.640 | Yeah. So for context, this podcast was originally potentially going to be a parenting podcast.

00:16:58.400 | Yeah, that's right.

00:16:59.120 | I went really deep down building out this new baby planning notion and registry,

00:17:04.320 | you know, childcare options, birth plan, everything. I was just really excited.

00:17:08.480 | Stroller comparisons, spreadsheets, the whole thing.

00:17:11.680 | Yeah. I wish strollers didn't change so much because I have this amazing spreadsheet. I'll

00:17:15.040 | link to it in the show notes, but I don't know how out of date it is. But I went deep on a lot

00:17:19.440 | of these things. So I'll share some of what was in there because I went back and looked at it.

00:17:24.160 | But when it comes to how to prepare, you know, as a mother being pregnant,

00:17:29.680 | I've got nothing and I'll defer to you. But one thing that I thought was really helpful,

00:17:33.520 | and this is probably broadly true anytime your partner is going into any surgery. I know when

00:17:39.040 | you had your recent surgery, it was also valuable. It's just understand what your partner wants out

00:17:45.520 | of that experience because sometimes there are decisions that have to be made and your partner

00:17:51.280 | might be on a lot of drugs and might not be in the most coherent state or be thinking the way

00:17:58.320 | they want. So have a plan in advance of what you want. Whether that's a birth plan or you just

00:18:02.000 | actually know, you don't have to formalize it in any way. That's important. I think also

00:18:07.200 | understanding what your insurance covers. Our insurance covered a doula and having a doula

00:18:11.920 | at the birth. So that was really cool. Lots of people I know have done that and didn't know

00:18:15.440 | their insurance covered it. Also, once you have your child, you have a life event and you can

00:18:20.800 | change your insurance. So not only thinking about what is your insurance cover for the birth,

00:18:25.680 | but what is your insurance cover once you have children and do you want to use having children

00:18:30.240 | as an opportunity to change your insurance plans for the year? If you have FSAs or HSAs and you

00:18:35.920 | want to use them the year you're having a birth, if there's going to be a big expense with that,

00:18:40.000 | depending on your plan, that's something to consider. Thinking about childcare,

00:18:44.560 | what are you going to do after this baby comes? You may have time off. One perspective I have,

00:18:49.440 | and I'd be curious to get your thoughts, and then I'll finish this list, is when we were

00:18:53.440 | thinking about taking time off, we originally thought about staggering it where you would

00:18:58.000 | take three months and I would take three months. That was probably from a place of saving money,

00:19:03.040 | where it was like we would maximize the number of months we would have where we didn't need

00:19:07.200 | to hire any help to take care of the kids so we could both be working. But I'm really glad

00:19:12.160 | we didn't do that because I think it was good to both have some overlapping time in those early

00:19:19.040 | months. But I'm curious what you think. I seem to recall we actually did test it

00:19:25.200 | for a very short period of time in the first few weeks. I think the takeaway from my perspective

00:19:34.080 | was as much as we wanted to optimize you going straight back to work and my spending time with

00:19:40.000 | the baby first, and then later I go back and then you take time off to be with the baby,

00:19:45.840 | it was really hard. And I think particularly early on, it's like you assume everything is just

00:19:51.040 | going to be normal life but with a baby that sleeps a lot. And the reality of it is that

00:19:57.120 | the emotional demands, you just don't expect it in the way that it actually pans out.

00:20:04.400 | And so I think what had happened is we tested it for a few weeks and I got to a point where I was

00:20:09.840 | like, "This is not working. So why don't we see if you can actually take some paid time off now?"

00:20:15.840 | And we then ended up sharing some overlap there. And that was actually really nice because it was

00:20:21.440 | really good family bonding time and allowed us both a bit of reprieve in those moments

00:20:26.160 | that we weren't expecting to need it, but we did. So I love the optimization mindset that

00:20:30.800 | we went in with. But I think the reality was just very different than what we had planned.

00:20:36.560 | I also think now that you say this, people say early parenting is kind of a blur. And now I'm

00:20:40.400 | like, "Oh yeah, actually now I remember part of this." One thing that I also realized was there

00:20:44.960 | was one week, I think, where I tested in some way, I was like 100% on. And I realized being 100% on

00:20:52.960 | is a lot. Being a full-time childcare caregiver for one child and even more if it's two the next

00:21:02.160 | time, is just a really hard thing. And so I think we both realized, you alluded to that also, but

00:21:09.360 | I would rather spend the money to be able to go back to work after three months and have the first

00:21:18.720 | three months be both of us. And so very appreciative that we even had that time off because I know not

00:21:23.840 | everyone does. But I now remember that I was like, "Wow, if I wait three months and then you go back

00:21:29.680 | to work, I'm 100% on for three months straight." And that might be harder than I thought. And I

00:21:35.200 | think the early glimpses I got at it were that it might be. So... It's hard.

00:21:38.800 | Let's see, a few other things. So figuring out that childcare once whatever parental leave you

00:21:44.160 | have is over is really important. There's both the childcare that you might want right after

00:21:49.360 | giving birth. There are a handful of options, family members, taking time off. There are

00:21:55.520 | night nurses and night nannies. There are baby nurses, which are more full-time,

00:22:00.960 | more popular on the East Coast. There is different forms of live-in help, especially a lot of

00:22:07.200 | Asian cultures have this concept of a period of time, maybe it's three weeks to 30 days or longer.

00:22:15.600 | Often the grandmother or the mother of the mother will come and take care of mom and the baby to

00:22:20.960 | give mom time to recover. We actually ended up finding a Korean agency that set up a service

00:22:27.760 | like that. And I'll put a link to it in the show notes if anyone's interested. But it was a really,

00:22:32.240 | really interesting experience. It was kind of of the ilks of us loving this cultural exchange

00:22:37.360 | of having different people and cultures in our home. So we had someone come in and live with us

00:22:41.360 | for the first, I think, three weeks. And it was a very different experience. She didn't speak

00:22:45.840 | English very well. So there was a little bit of a communication barrier. But at the end of the day,

00:22:50.560 | the baby doesn't speak English either, right? So showing someone how to wash a baby, you could just

00:22:55.280 | watch and see how that works. And so that was really, really helpful for those first few weeks.

00:22:59.840 | I realized how fortunate we were to be able to do that. But also just asking your parents what

00:23:04.400 | their intention is. Some people find out their parents are planning to come and stay with them

00:23:09.440 | for a few weeks, whether they ask for it or not. And some people might ask for it and find out

00:23:14.240 | their parents are not interested. I think both of our parents wanted to come and visit and be a

00:23:20.080 | little helpful, but neither of them had any intention on moving in and helping for any period

00:23:26.000 | of time more than a few days. And so be upfront and ask about that is important. A couple other

00:23:31.200 | quick ones. There's this thing called cord banking, where you can take the umbilical cord and kind of

00:23:35.520 | bank it for some future use case. We didn't do this. But I do remember they asked us at the

00:23:40.320 | hospital if we were going to do it. But had you not decided beforehand, you couldn't. You needed

00:23:45.440 | to come with, I don't know, some kit to put it in or something. And so if you want to do that,

00:23:49.680 | you want to figure that out in advance after your kid's born, getting their social security number,

00:23:53.200 | getting their passport. If you want to do global entry, go get their global entry appointment.

00:23:57.600 | All those things need to happen if you want to travel at any point in time. Another one is just

00:24:01.680 | figuring out what your plan is in case something happens to you or your partner. And so making sure

00:24:07.520 | you have a will, making sure you figure out who your guardian is, making sure you figure out

00:24:12.640 | if you have enough assets and you want to avoid probate, you could go for the full estate plan.

00:24:17.120 | And so shout out to Trust and Will, which is who we use to set up our will and estate plan and

00:24:24.080 | all that. And since doing that, we have brought on as a partner on the show. That's something

00:24:27.920 | important, especially because I think it's obvious to some people who the guardian of their children

00:24:33.040 | might be. And then as you start thinking about it from the perspective of, "Oh, well, who do I think

00:24:37.840 | will raise these children in the way that we want to raise these children?" That question might not

00:24:42.880 | be the person you initially thought. And so that's one that took a little bit of time.

00:24:47.120 | Couple quick ones. Updating your withholding. You can now change your withholding. You might have

00:24:51.200 | lower tax withholding because you have dependents. Life insurance. Having a child is a great time to

00:24:57.120 | think about life insurance. I am really a fan of term life insurance. I'm not a fan of all other

00:25:01.840 | life insurances. And another partner that we reached out to was Fabric, which is a great

00:25:07.040 | place to go get term life insurance. And you can do it all from home. You might not even have to

00:25:11.200 | do a doctor's appointment. So check out the show notes there. Let's see. Finding a pediatrician,

00:25:15.360 | because you usually have doctor's appointments days after the hospital. And so some people end

00:25:20.800 | up not thinking about that and then scrambling. If you want to figure out and be intentional about

00:25:25.040 | who your children's doctor will be, you can figure that out in advance. Only other thing is,

00:25:28.720 | don't go overboard on your registry. I think sometimes you can buy all this stuff and then

00:25:33.680 | either not need it. I don't know how many burp claws and bibs we had that we didn't use.

00:25:38.880 | So I would say there's an endless supply of things you can have. For most people listening,

00:25:44.160 | I imagine you can, within a 30-minute drive or Amazon same day, next day, get almost anything

00:25:50.160 | you need. So I wouldn't go too overboard there. I don't know. That was a lot. But those are all

00:25:54.640 | the things on my notion list. You have anything else to add there? Yeah. Those were all really

00:25:59.440 | great. If I think about what was on our registry and what we ended up getting versus what we used,

00:26:06.000 | we maybe used 60% to 70% of all the baby stuff we got. And we ended up giving away

00:26:13.280 | in brand new condition, in boxes, a lot of the stuff that we had purchased and/or been gifted,

00:26:18.560 | because you just don't need the things you think you might need. And every baby is kind of

00:26:24.080 | different also. So I'm definitely a huge advocate of going at it in a minimalistic nature at first.

00:26:31.280 | And then once you figure out what you need, quickly acquiring those things,

00:26:35.520 | whether it's driving to the store or getting it shipped to you overnight.

00:26:38.960 | This is a tip from you, but I don't know if you're going to remember it. So I will share it.

00:26:42.960 | Write some of these things down. I was so blown away when we had our second daughter,

00:26:48.960 | we were like, "Hmm, what did we do about writing down how often they went to the bathroom? Did

00:26:54.480 | we write those things down? What do we do about when we start feeding them certain types of food?"

00:26:58.800 | All of these things that we thought, "Well, of course, we'll remember this." We didn't remember

00:27:03.600 | any of it. It was a total blur about the dates and times these things happened.

00:27:08.320 | So anytime there's a milestone or anytime you did a little bit of research on

00:27:11.840 | how to figure out how to help with sleep, how to do really anything, I would encourage you,

00:27:16.240 | if you think you might have other children, to just set up an OceanPage, set up something,

00:27:20.080 | and start writing those things down. Yeah, that's such a good call out.

00:27:24.320 | I think the other thing that I would mention is looking back, I think one of the things I wish we

00:27:30.960 | had changed is we went deep down research rabbit holes and preparing for a baby. And I don't think

00:27:40.320 | I fully appreciated, nor did you, the idea of being able to relax, of being able to sleep in,

00:27:47.040 | of being able to do things when you wanted to. And once you have a kid, that all goes out the

00:27:52.800 | window. So I would definitely encourage any expecting parents, especially if it's your

00:27:57.120 | first one, take time for yourself. It feels maybe uncomfortable, but it is so, so valuable because

00:28:05.040 | you'll never get that time in the same way back for decades probably. And then the other thing is,

00:28:11.200 | I think we did a bunch of research up front. And I think that research was valuable. But a lot of

00:28:17.600 | the research and learnings that we did six months before the baby was born was then done at 2am in

00:28:24.640 | the morning when we were actually having the problem. And we were going down these rabbit

00:28:29.840 | holes of research trying to understand what was happening because we were desperate at that time.

00:28:34.400 | And so it was almost like we were relearning a lot of the stuff that we'd already kind of

00:28:38.400 | done the legwork around. But desperate times call for desperate measures. You're going to end up

00:28:43.600 | re-googling or re-chat GPT-ing everything that you are already learning now. So I would say just

00:28:51.280 | wait until you actually need it and then go deep down those rabbit holes because you will,

00:28:55.120 | whether you want to or not. It's funny you say chat GPT-ing and I realized chat GPT wasn't around

00:29:00.640 | when we had our first child. So kudos to you parents who now have access to this resource

00:29:06.400 | that can much more quickly give you answers to things. They might not always be the right answer,

00:29:10.480 | but it's something that I wish we had. The only other thing I'll add here is that in those early

00:29:15.360 | days, I will say as your children get older, first it gets a little harder to get around,

00:29:19.760 | then it gets easier. But those first few six months, we were right in the middle of the

00:29:23.520 | pandemic. So we didn't really get to take advantage of this. But there's a window of

00:29:27.840 | time where your kid will sleep anywhere, on your chest, sleep in a stroller, sleep in almost every

00:29:32.640 | way, shape or form. And it's a magical time that I see people post-pandemic or pre-pandemic where

00:29:39.760 | they are able to go on little adventures, whether they're local or whether they're to the beach or

00:29:44.560 | somewhere where it's just a lot easier. Because once your kids are running around and wanting to

00:29:49.200 | crawl and not napping as much, it's just a lot harder. And then it gets easier. We're seeing now

00:29:55.360 | with our kids, one's done napping, one's almost done napping, both out of diapers. It's actually

00:30:00.320 | starting to get easier again. But those first six months were actually also easy in terms of

00:30:07.040 | your kid can sleep anywhere. You're not worried about feeding them whatever you're having at the

00:30:12.240 | dinner table and whether they're throwing stuff around and not eating the food and throwing

00:30:15.920 | ketchup on their face or whatever it is. And so find a way to enjoy that time.

00:30:20.080 | Yeah, it's a great point. And it just speaks to all the different phases that the children and

00:30:27.040 | the parents need as they grow. And so actually, one of the questions that came in was around

00:30:33.360 | childcare. And that's changed from us from when the baby was three months versus when the child

00:30:39.440 | is 1, 2, 5, 10. And so someone wrote in a question and asked, "How did you think about

00:30:44.800 | childcare options? And what led you to decide on an au pair?"

00:30:48.560 | So this is an interesting one, because I had four or five au pairs as a kid. And so had I

00:30:54.240 | not had that experience, I don't even know if I would have known what an au pair was. So I've

00:30:58.640 | actually gotten some feedback from people in person that didn't know what an au pair was.

00:31:01.920 | They're like, "Gosh, it sounds so fancy. It sounds like so expensive in this very elite thing."

00:31:07.200 | I was like, "Really? Can I tell you more about it?" Because it's actually not that at all.

00:31:11.040 | Now, yes, you do need more means to have childcare. But on the spectrum of childcare

00:31:16.080 | options, it's certainly not the most expensive version of childcare. And so I think naturally,

00:31:22.880 | as we did, we were like, "Let's explore all the options." Just because I had an au pair as a child

00:31:27.520 | isn't like, "Oh, we have to have this thing." So we actually did compare all the options.

00:31:31.440 | We looked at nannies. We looked at daycare. We looked at Montessori kindergartens that start

00:31:36.640 | really young. We looked at au pairs. And we looked at multiple au pair agencies.

00:31:41.840 | We interviewed some nannies. We kind of tried to cover the entire spectrum

00:31:46.240 | and understand pros and cons of everything. And are there some tricks here?

00:31:50.800 | One fun trick for daycare was a lot of daycares are full, right? You try to get in and they're

00:31:55.520 | like, "We don't have any space." And so someone told me, "Look, sometimes they only have space

00:31:58.640 | one or two days a week. So even if you want five days a week, start with the one or two days a week.

00:32:03.920 | And then when another day opens up, they usually give it to the people who are going part-time.

00:32:07.840 | So if you want to quickly get your way into full-time, don't wait for the five-day-a-week

00:32:12.400 | option. Take a limited day." So that was one thing. So we looked at all of these. And I think

00:32:17.040 | we really settled on the au pair program because it was really interesting. So I'll let you talk a

00:32:23.440 | little bit about why. But for a little context, the way this program works is someone from another

00:32:30.000 | country spends one year and potentially up to a second year in the US on what's called a cultural

00:32:36.560 | exchange. And there's actually a Department of State-issued visa for cultural exchange similar

00:32:42.640 | to a student visa in that they're not allowed to go get jobs in the United States and be fully

00:32:47.680 | employed, but they are allowed to come. And the trade-off that is part of this cultural exchange

00:32:53.440 | is you provide room and board, and they provide childcare for up to 45 hours a week. And there

00:33:00.480 | are some very specific rules and restrictions on how that works. They can't work for more than 10

00:33:06.160 | hours straight. And you need to give them a weekend off. And I won't go through every single

00:33:10.720 | one of the rules. But it ends up being a very, very flexible program. And from a cost standpoint,

00:33:16.560 | depending on how many children you have, it's probably one of the most affordable options of

00:33:21.920 | all forms of childcare with the understanding that you're giving up a room in your house

00:33:27.120 | to someone that's living in your house. And for us, and the experiences I had as a child,

00:33:32.960 | and we've now had, I love that. I love that we get to expose our kids to people from other

00:33:37.680 | countries. But there is a cost. If you don't have an extra bedroom, it's just not an option for you.

00:33:42.480 | But we have actually talked to some friends who realized that if they're renting a place

00:33:47.680 | with two bedrooms, renting a place with a third bedroom would cost more, but would actually,

00:33:51.520 | in the long run, be cheaper than having a two-bedroom with a nanny and a three-bedroom

00:33:56.320 | with an au pair. They actually saved money in that perspective. So something to consider.

00:34:00.640 | But why don't you talk a little bit about why we ended up doing this?

00:34:03.120 | There were so many upsides to having an au pair and being part of that program that I think

00:34:09.600 | ultimately, it just made so much sense. And that's why we ended up going up that route.

00:34:14.160 | So a few things that became super interesting for me were one, the personalized care,

00:34:19.920 | and the fact that I think I had a very clear parenting or caregiving style that I wanted

00:34:28.320 | implemented with my children, and we did, is something that having an au pair live with you,

00:34:35.680 | they're not only starting to adopt the way that you like things done,

00:34:39.760 | but even when they're not working, they're experiencing the way that you interact and

00:34:45.200 | engage with your children. And so it's a lot easier for them to quickly kind of align and

00:34:51.520 | adopt some of the different parenting philosophies that we had. And I think that was really,

00:34:57.840 | really important. I think the other thing that was really helpful is obviously what we were looking

00:35:04.560 | for with a six-month-old baby was very different at the time than what we are looking for today.

00:35:12.720 | Right? And it's great that through the same program year after year, you can take a step

00:35:18.000 | back and reassess, "Okay, what do we need for our kids or our family this year?" And we can go out

00:35:23.760 | and look for those specific traits. So early on, it was good energy and someone who's able to

00:35:30.080 | verbalize and communicate and use language and music and play with our baby. And now with one

00:35:37.520 | being in school, one being very part-time, someone who is actually willing to take on more of that

00:35:43.200 | educational element and is really invested in early childhood education is really important.

00:35:48.560 | And so that's what we've been able to find through the program. We've primarily done all of our

00:35:52.400 | searching with CulturalCare, the agency we've used for all five au pairs. In the early days,

00:35:56.720 | we did explore some of the other agencies. But if we talk about features, I don't want to promise

00:36:00.960 | that they exist for all au pair agencies, but they definitely exist for CulturalCare,

00:36:05.600 | which is who we used. And one thing, we didn't talk about this process, but when you're looking

00:36:09.440 | for an au pair, you can go and browse hundreds of profiles, maybe thousands of profiles.

00:36:14.400 | And so you mentioned we were looking for these different things. So in the process,

00:36:18.880 | it's almost in a way like a dating app where you're filtering for things or a recruiting site.

00:36:24.080 | We were like, "Okay, we're looking for someone. You could choose the country." If it's really

00:36:28.000 | important for your kids to learn Portuguese, you can focus on certain places. If it's really

00:36:32.720 | important for your children to learn Spanish, you can focus on Spanish-speaking countries.

00:36:36.640 | If you really need someone who's a really strong swimmer, or you need someone who has a lot more

00:36:41.280 | experience driving, or whatever the factors you're looking for are, there's an app, you can download

00:36:47.440 | it on your phone, and you can start browsing profiles and starting to watch videos and read

00:36:52.480 | descriptions and see what kind of educational background people have, personality traits,

00:36:56.320 | those kinds of things. And so for us, over the years, we've gotten really attuned to what we're

00:37:02.160 | looking for, what's important for our family. And for some people, they might want more

00:37:06.480 | spontaneity. Some people might want someone that's very neat and organized. And those are

00:37:10.640 | all things that you can drill down on, and then interview someone and have some video calls.

00:37:15.760 | Which I'm laughing because my parents did this before video calls. And so they just had a piece

00:37:20.720 | of paper and a photo. And they're like, "Great, we'll have this person live with us for a year."

00:37:24.160 | We've been fortunate to have like four or five video calls and get to know someone and maybe

00:37:27.840 | meet their parents and all that kind of stuff. So I think throughout the process, it's not like

00:37:33.760 | we want this and someone shows up on your door, you've gotten a chance to talk to 10, 12 people,

00:37:38.000 | whatever the right number is for you, and find someone that you think is really going to be a

00:37:41.440 | good fit. The other thing that I have really appreciated about the program is the flexibility

00:37:47.120 | that you get. And so it's not like set hours, every single week, week after week, that we found

00:37:55.600 | to be asked more prevalently with nannies. We're able to change the schedule weekly,

00:38:02.240 | daily, if needed. And it's nice because you have such a close working relationship

00:38:08.560 | with the au pair because they live with you, they're integrated into your family,

00:38:12.320 | such that it becomes a lot easier to say, "Oh, hey, you know, we have this big thing coming up."

00:38:17.040 | Or, "Hey, it looks like our daughter is coming down to something. So we might need to change

00:38:22.560 | the hours for tomorrow because she might not be going to school or whatever it might be."

00:38:26.000 | And so there's an added layer of flexibility because they're just way more in tune with

00:38:31.520 | what's happening in the family. And because they may be sitting down having dinner with you the

00:38:35.680 | night before, they get a little bit of visibility into the next day. And so that's been a huge win

00:38:42.240 | for us, particularly when things become more demanding, either personally or professionally.

00:38:47.600 | Yeah. And because they're part of the family, we bring our au pair on vacations.

00:38:50.960 | So from a flexibility standpoint, when we went to Hawaii, yes, there was an added cost,

00:38:56.880 | we got another room, but we also had her with us. And so we try really hard when we're on these

00:39:02.560 | vacations to make sure that they also get to go explore. So they're not working a full week.

00:39:07.520 | So every one of our au pairs has been like, "Hawaii is the best place. We've been able to

00:39:10.880 | bring them. They love it." But then there's also been a couple days where in one case,

00:39:14.640 | I was at a conference. In one case, we wanted to just have a date and go explore. And so we've

00:39:19.040 | been able to do that. So whether it's date nights or weekends or evenings, we've been able to have

00:39:24.400 | that flexibility even while traveling, which is something that I think is really different about

00:39:30.160 | having an au pair versus a nanny or daycare, where it's a lot harder to have weekend support.

00:39:35.760 | Your daycare is not going on vacation with you. And so if you are looking for an au pair,

00:39:39.840 | obviously, we've had a great experience with Cultural Care. They're the largest agency

00:39:43.840 | in the country. I think they have the best search. I know they're doing background checks.

00:39:48.240 | They have a great mobile app. They have local coordinators called LCCs around. So one of the

00:39:53.760 | nice things is you're not the only person there to support this person in a new country. There's a

00:39:59.600 | person especially for that. And I think one of the great things about having a big agency is

00:40:03.840 | that the other au pairs in that agency are also around. And so there is a community for that

00:40:08.560 | person. So one of the biggest things that I've heard people say is, "Gosh, do we have this person

00:40:12.400 | living in our house all the time?" Well, it turns out, as most of us remember from when we were

00:40:17.840 | around 20-something years old, we didn't want to sit at home all day. We wanted to go out with

00:40:21.440 | friends and we want to go see people and do things. And so that community exists from other au pairs

00:40:26.640 | and from that local coordinator. So huge shout out to Cultural Care. We actually reached out to them

00:40:30.880 | earlier this year and said, "You guys have been a fantastic agency for us. We're going to talk

00:40:35.840 | about childcare. We have lots of parents listening. Do you guys want to be a partner?" And they said,

00:40:39.680 | "Yes." And so thank you to them for being a sponsor of this episode and of the show.

00:40:44.800 | For anyone listening, you can get $250 off if you join as a new host family,

00:40:49.680 | your first au pair experience. You can do that at allthehacks.com/culturalcare.

00:40:54.080 | And just because Cultural Care is a partner of ours now doesn't mean that an au pair is

00:41:02.160 | necessarily the right fit for every family. For us, it's been nothing short of amazing. And I can't

00:41:07.840 | imagine having to send my child to daycare or having an outside nanny to manage, but every

00:41:13.360 | family is different. So just make sure you're going through that assessment.

00:41:16.800 | Yep. Again, allthehacks.com/culturalcare. I'll put a link in the show notes.

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00:43:35.840 | All right. Next question. We've been talking about child care. Let's talk a little bit about

00:43:39.920 | school. Omar says, "With your girls going to school, you'll face the same question regarding

00:43:44.160 | public versus charter versus private. What are your thoughts there?"

00:43:47.440 | This is something that we've actually been thinking a lot about as our daughter approaches

00:43:52.480 | kindergarten next year and I think there are so many pros and cons to both and it really boils

00:43:58.320 | down to two things in my mind. One, what is the financial situation? What is our financial

00:44:03.680 | situation? And two, what are the needs of the child? Are there specific needs and/or support

00:44:11.680 | that they should have in order to accelerate or thrive in school? And those would be the two

00:44:20.000 | big ways that I think about assessing private versus public. What are some of the things you

00:44:27.120 | think about? Yeah. I didn't read the full question Omar wrote, but one of them was like, "We've been

00:44:30.880 | thinking about private and we wonder if the money can be better spent elsewhere." So I think one big

00:44:35.360 | question before you even have to consider this is, do you have the financial resources to make this

00:44:41.760 | work? I don't think the upside of a school that costs money, a private school, or if there's a

00:44:47.360 | charter school that has fees is worth putting yourself into debt and all that. So let's just

00:44:51.280 | put that aside. But then if you do have the resources, are they worth it? It would really

00:44:56.160 | come down to, well, what is the trade-off? Is this you have so much money under the sun,

00:45:00.800 | that trade-off is whether you leave more inheritance or is this you can't take vacations

00:45:06.240 | as a family? And I think that's going to be so different for every family that it's really hard

00:45:10.320 | to give a blanket statement. I think you are probably going to get more personalized education

00:45:16.720 | for your children at a private school. But I don't know, we both went to public elementary

00:45:22.640 | school as kids. I will say in some parts of the country where I grew up, there was a gifted and

00:45:27.520 | talented program. In some parts of the country, there are magnet schools and charter schools that

00:45:32.640 | are part of the public program. In California, to my knowledge, we don't have any of those things.

00:45:37.520 | And so I think another, like you mentioned, important factor is your own child's individual

00:45:42.560 | learning. And so if your child is struggling or really excelling, you might not get anything to

00:45:48.800 | support that as much at a public school. I actually would say there's probably more resources for

00:45:54.640 | people who are a little bit behind than people who are ahead, at least in our school district

00:45:59.120 | from what we've learned. But again, case-by-case basis. And I think at the end of the day,

00:46:04.400 | there are so many options for something in the middle of that.

00:46:08.720 | Yeah. I think one of the discussions I recall us having more recently was if we put our child

00:46:14.640 | into public school, you get more of that local community vibe and you really get to know your

00:46:20.720 | neighbors because everyone is going to that school. And you can support it with some of

00:46:24.880 | these supplemental programs, reading, math, language, whatever that might be. But you as

00:46:30.240 | a parent are responsible for coordinating, paying, and planning all of those extracurriculars to

00:46:36.800 | further support your child's needs. Whereas I think on the private side, you're paying upfront

00:46:43.600 | for it, but you don't have to do the same level of extracurricular research and planning because

00:46:51.200 | hopefully they're getting a little bit more of that in the classroom itself. But again, then

00:46:56.480 | it's more expensive and you don't have the same kind of tight-knit neighborhood community as you

00:47:02.640 | would sending them to public. So I don't know that there's necessarily a right answer. I think it

00:47:08.160 | really depends on what you value most. And to your point, Chris, where do those resources go

00:47:15.040 | if they're not going to public or private? And what strain would it put on your family?

00:47:19.680 | I would say if you have to take a second job to be able to afford private school, and that means

00:47:24.160 | you're not home a lot and you don't get to spend time with your kids and one of the parents isn't

00:47:28.080 | around as much, I don't know. I can't speak to every situation, but that seems to be a trade-off

00:47:33.200 | that I would really, really think twice about before making. Obviously, every child has different

00:47:37.840 | needs so I can't speak to everyone, but I think you really got to think about those trade-offs.

00:47:42.560 | And I have met people that have done amazing things in private school and public school.

00:47:49.200 | I went to public school and private school. My sister didn't. We both turned out great.

00:47:53.520 | Well, it's interesting too, because Emily Oster in one of the books that she has goes deep into

00:47:58.640 | research and data around parenting. And the single biggest factor she said that influences

00:48:05.840 | children's success is actually what happens at home and the relationship and the amount

00:48:10.560 | of time you spend with your child at home, which to me then leads me to conclude that,

00:48:16.880 | yeah, education is definitely super important, but it's not the single biggest factor to a child's

00:48:23.680 | success or failure. And so I think it's good to remember kids are super resilient and whether

00:48:30.320 | they end up in public or private, what happens at home is probably going to be one of the bigger

00:48:36.640 | determining factors of their success. If you're listening to this and you're years away from

00:48:41.040 | having children, first off, I'd be surprised if you made it this far. But if you did, I know that

00:48:45.680 | in a lot of parts of the country, there are districts that have better schools and worse

00:48:49.680 | schools. And so sometimes people pay a premium to live in a district with a good school district

00:48:55.040 | and then end up deciding they wanted to send their kids to private school. If you think you

00:48:59.040 | might be on the fence about something like that, it's not crazy to rent for a couple of years and

00:49:04.480 | see where that nets out if that's something that works with your lifestyle. Because I can say

00:49:09.600 | we have friends who have done both. They've decided to move to a school district that

00:49:16.560 | had really great public schools and took advantage of that. And then we have friends

00:49:19.760 | that have paid the premium for a house in a school district with really great public schools,

00:49:24.960 | decided to send their kid to private school, and they probably would have saved a lot of money on

00:49:28.880 | their home if they had bought a home probably even closer to that private school, but it was

00:49:33.920 | in a district that didn't have as great schools. And also, school ratings are really interesting.

00:49:38.320 | And I've learned from a few people that really understand school rating that they really come

00:49:43.680 | down to a lot of things that aren't always about the school. So it might be more related to test

00:49:49.600 | scores. And if you live in a school district with a bunch of affluent families, they might supplement

00:49:55.680 | that school as much as is necessary with outside tutoring, outside education, parent involvement,

00:50:02.880 | such that the school might look like it's incredible because the kids get great test scores,

00:50:06.800 | but maybe the school's not. And I'm sure many other factors. So my advice, and you could do

00:50:11.040 | this very early, is go tour the public school in the district you live in. A lot of public schools

00:50:15.440 | will let you go on those tours for new families even earlier. So you can just start to get a sense

00:50:19.760 | of it and start talking to parents about it and just kind of figure out what makes sense for you.

00:50:24.080 | But there's no definitive answer here. I can't tell anyone what to do because it's so circumstantial.

00:50:29.360 | And nothing is permanent either. So if you choose to go public one year and it's not working,

00:50:35.760 | assess private. Or you choose to go private and it feels like it may not be the best fit,

00:50:40.720 | you want to try public, you can do that. Nothing is permanent.

00:50:44.080 | And that's true for both kids, right? I went to private high school, and it really went well for

00:50:48.560 | me. My sister went to private high school and like six months in, she was like, "This isn't for me."

00:50:52.320 | And she went to public and thrived. And so it's very dependent on each child you have

00:50:57.040 | and what their particular personalities are and their learning needs are. Okay.

00:51:01.520 | Okay.

00:51:01.920 | We're going to wrap this up.

00:51:02.800 | Next question from Justin. He asks about tips for traveling with kids.

00:51:08.240 | Okay. I feel like we could make a whole episode out of travel with children.

00:51:11.920 | And honestly, you asked me this question, but you are really the pro here.

00:51:15.680 | So why don't we at least try to get through some of the fundamentals here and some of the

00:51:20.240 | great things we've learned. There are people that have done this much longer and better than us,

00:51:24.080 | and maybe we need one of them to join us for that fuller episode. But what are your

00:51:28.720 | goals for travel with kids? And how do you make it better?

00:51:32.640 | So a few things have saved us on the trips we've taken. One, I think going into it with

00:51:40.320 | the understanding that everything is flexible. You know me, I'm super type A. I like having a

00:51:47.040 | very clear, structured schedule. And when you're traveling, that's just not reasonable,

00:51:52.560 | and it's not realistic. And so being able to kind of put that out of your mind and say,

00:51:57.200 | "Everything is flexible. Anything kind of goes day of, and it's just survival mode,"

00:52:02.640 | it sets a low bar in the parents' mind. And I think that helps.

00:52:06.640 | But really, everything is flexible. And the more you can flex and kind of go with the flow

00:52:11.440 | during those very small travel windows, the better off I think everyone will be.

00:52:16.080 | The second thing I would say is pack less and buy more when you need it and you're traveling.

00:52:22.640 | Or rent more.

00:52:23.840 | Or rent more. BabyQuip is actually a really great site. It's global at this point. And so

00:52:28.800 | most of the countries you go to, you can rent whatever kind of baby gear, toys,

00:52:34.320 | cribs, high chairs, whatever it is that you need at the destinations. You're not having to lug

00:52:39.760 | all of this stuff in addition to a kid or kids with you. And so that makes the travel just

00:52:45.200 | so much easier in my mind. And then I think two other quick hits.

00:52:49.680 | One, if you're traveling in the car for a longer period of time or on a plane ride,

00:52:56.080 | pack snacks. Pack a lot of snacks. Pack like 5X what you think you need. And if you can find

00:53:02.080 | new snacks that your kids haven't been heavily exposed to, that's a great idea. Because it's

00:53:08.400 | odd how kids suddenly just are hungry 24/7 when they're on an airplane or traveling. And so this

00:53:14.400 | way, you're just extra prepared and no one gets hangry through the process.

00:53:18.080 | You also pack so many amazing new activities like a new watercolor book, a new set of things that

00:53:24.960 | you can stick on the seat behind you. Sorry to whoever sits in front of our children.

00:53:28.480 | All kinds of stuff like that.

00:53:30.480 | Yeah. And it can be really simple things like you can buy this really cheap colored tape.

00:53:36.160 | It's almost like painters tape, but it's smaller rolls for little kids. And it's just colored tape.

00:53:41.120 | And you just let them go wild. And they just tape wherever, seat backs, their clothes,

00:53:46.880 | whatever it might be. And then you just take it all off before the plane lands and

00:53:50.400 | killed a good 30 minutes and brought a little sanity to our lives. So that's big.

00:53:56.240 | And then the last one I think we've learned the hard way is just plan less through the days that

00:54:03.120 | you're out traveling and on vacation. I think we have a tendency to go, go, go and to try to fit

00:54:08.960 | and pack in as much as possible. And especially with younger kids, it's a lot and it can be really

00:54:15.840 | overwhelming. It can feel really overstimulating depending on where else you are in the world.

00:54:20.720 | And so I would say just plan one big thing for all of you to do in that day. And all the other

00:54:28.400 | little things can kind of fall into place as you're out and about. But to try to pack everything in

00:54:33.120 | with a full schedule is going to result in full meltdowns. Yep. We've seen those meltdowns.

00:54:38.960 | Sometimes I forget that those meltdowns exist and you have to remind me when I come up with crazy,

00:54:43.920 | ambitious ideas. But a few other things. So if you don't have an au pair that's coming with you,

00:54:48.560 | but you are in a place that's interesting, you want to see things, you can hire local child care.

00:54:53.840 | And we have lots of friends that have done this. They've reached out to the hotel usually and said,

00:54:57.920 | "Hey, do you have a recommendation for someone?" If it's an Airbnb, you could ask the host.

00:55:02.880 | And just like there are babysitters in the US that you can hire to come over,

00:55:07.040 | there are all over the world. This is a thing everyone uses. And so that's something that

00:55:11.520 | will allow you to have a little bit of time on any vacation you're on and really get to see

00:55:16.560 | and explore. On this topic, someone else actually asked how we think about flying with kids,

00:55:20.880 | whether it's in business or coach. I have a few kind of tips on in-betweens. But Amy,

00:55:25.920 | I'm curious how you think about that decision. Our kids are young enough that I don't know that

00:55:30.640 | we've had to fully land on a decision here. But it is definitely something we think about often

00:55:37.680 | because on the one hand, we don't want to fly economy overseas, especially when we have a ton

00:55:43.520 | of points that we can really optimize around finding good business class. At the same time,

00:55:48.880 | we don't want to expose our kids purely to these upgrades and this life that it's just not

00:55:54.080 | reality all the time and they need to build some grit. The way we've approached it is if it is

00:56:00.320 | crossing the ocean, particularly overnight, we will upgrade. If it is stateside, we typically

00:56:08.480 | won't upgrade. Just to be clear, since I'm like the nerd about the points and miles here,

00:56:12.240 | we're never actually really upgrading because it's always a terrible deal to upgrade with points and

00:56:15.920 | miles. We're just booking directly in business. And I think it's funny because we've tried to

00:56:20.400 | adhere to this idea of crossing an ocean overnight, book in business, but we've never actually paid

00:56:26.480 | for it. Just to be clear, we would never pay. If the choice was spend $3,000 in business class

00:56:32.640 | or fly economy, we'd be flying economy every single time. But if the choice is we found a

00:56:36.640 | great deal with our points and miles to be able to fly in business on an overnight flight where

00:56:40.800 | we're going to show up at 6am and we're otherwise going to be completely unrested, we would try to

00:56:45.520 | do that as much as possible and just really emphasize to kids, probably more like you said

00:56:51.680 | when they're older, that here's how we're doing this. When it comes to business, I think we'll

00:56:55.760 | have more conversations to have with our kids as they get older. And I certainly just don't want

00:56:59.840 | them to think that this is just a normal thing because the way we pay for it isn't normal.

00:57:04.400 | We're not paying for it with dollars. And funny enough, I was talking to a friend about

00:57:08.240 | this airline Zip Air, which is like business class, but it's like the spirit of business

00:57:14.320 | class. There's no frills. You pay for your own meal, you get to pay for your own pillow,

00:57:18.960 | but you get a lie flat bed. And ultimately, I'm like, "Well, that's what I really care about.

00:57:22.080 | I care about showing up rested and not missing a night and ruining a few days of a vacation that

00:57:26.800 | otherwise can be really expensive." Because there's a lot of costs that come to a vacation,

00:57:32.000 | which actually reminds me, you have this great idea that we haven't gotten to implement about

00:57:35.680 | how to think about planning and costs. Can you share a little about that for people who maybe

00:57:39.520 | have older kids? Yeah. So we haven't tried it because we don't have older kids yet.

00:57:43.600 | But I think one thing we're excited to do is as our kids get a little older,

00:57:48.560 | enabling them to participate more in the planning and the decision-making process of the trip.

00:57:54.080 | So helping them understand, here's how much we have allocated towards this trip, whether it's

00:57:59.840 | points, miles, dollars, whatever it may be, and helping them understand the different trade-offs

00:58:06.160 | of making these decisions, knowing that there is a limited resource to how much we are willing to

00:58:13.040 | spend to have the ideal trip we want. And so I think that becomes really interesting because

00:58:19.120 | it allows them to really start understanding the value of a point and how that's earned,

00:58:23.520 | or a dollar and how that's earned and spent. Yeah. I'm excited to give them all the award

00:58:28.160 | booking tools and be like, "You got to plan this trip." And I'm like, if they come back and say,

00:58:32.000 | "This thing is going to cost too many miles," be like, "No, go back to the drawing board. You

00:58:35.040 | didn't work hard enough. You didn't find the best deal." Or, "Oh, that restaurant is not as

00:58:38.560 | good. Keep looking." Or they'll come back at age seven and just have this perfect itinerary,

00:58:44.960 | little digital wizards. Yeah. I wonder whether they follow in those footsteps or they become

00:58:50.240 | the ultimate satisficers where we're like, "Hey, do you want to go to dinner?" And they're like,

00:58:53.040 | "Yeah, any restaurant." I'm like, "What do you mean? You don't want to pick the best restaurant?"

00:58:55.600 | They're like, "Whatever. We'll just do whatever." It's going to be really fun to see them grow up

00:59:00.480 | and travel. So obviously, we talked about there's more travel. I think we need to do some homework.

00:59:05.440 | We haven't traveled enough combo of pandemic and young kids. Honestly, an answer to how to travel

00:59:11.120 | with kids in the toddler phase might just be don't do it. I'm not going to say that having kids that

00:59:16.720 | are jumping out of your lap, running around planes, not sleeping, being tired, being great,

00:59:20.560 | that's not fun. And I think there's a period of time from six to 24 months that is probably my

00:59:29.040 | least favorite time to travel with children. And we're just coming out of that with our youngest.

00:59:33.200 | And so I think we'll have a lot more advice on this in the years to come.

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01:00:47.600 | to underwriting and health questions. Last question, Anna asked for lower stimulating

01:00:52.480 | content for kids. I think I'm gonna let you take this, but I'm amazed at the wide spectrum

01:00:59.040 | of content for children and how wild and flashing and screaming and crazy it can be

01:01:05.360 | and how little I thought about this until you brought it up and how much it might affect

01:01:10.480 | how they're thinking or what they're doing and whatnot. So what are some of your top favorites?

01:01:14.080 | So Anna asked specifically about screen time. So I'll touch on some of the shows that our kids

01:01:18.880 | watch that are low stimulation. Some of our favorites are Bluey. Bluey is great, by the way,

01:01:23.600 | for parents and kids. So I can't imagine there's a parent that hasn't checked out Bluey. But if you

01:01:28.400 | haven't, or even if you're not a parent, I think you'd enjoy it. It is so entertaining. And the

01:01:32.880 | best part is the shows are all about nine to 10 minutes. So really quick hits, which is really

01:01:38.480 | nice. So if you say one show, it's nine to 10 minutes, and that's it. A few others we love,

01:01:43.760 | Trash Truck, Lucas the Spider, and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, which is kind of a new spin on

01:01:50.240 | Mr. Rogers. Yeah, it's great. Shout out to Kevin Rose, who told us to check out Stillwater,

01:01:55.280 | which I've put in the newsletter, and I probably talked about on the show. But another really,

01:01:59.440 | really great show for kids, low stim, lots of like Buddhist principles into life. And honestly,

01:02:07.280 | I could just watch that show myself also. And I really love the song that plays in the credits.

01:02:11.360 | But just to be clear, I think these are the shows we like. We try to really limit screen time a lot.

01:02:17.520 | Go bananas on screens on an airplane. We're open the floodgates because...

01:02:22.240 | No rules.

01:02:23.040 | No rules. We're just trying to survive. But outside of that, I would say we kind of reserve

01:02:28.080 | it for a special occasion or maybe on a weekend. But it's certainly not the primary form of things.

01:02:35.520 | But I'm sure people will have various degrees of opinions on screen time. And

01:02:40.480 | granted, I agree. We did, too. I think every parent I know starts out with, "We're going to

01:02:44.480 | never have screens." And some of them make it there and some don't. But things like that are

01:02:49.200 | all things that we do when the few times we have screen time off an airplane. And then there's a

01:02:54.640 | handful of apps that we've used. I've talked about Mentava in the past, which is like an accelerated

01:02:58.960 | learning app that's kind of fun. ABC Mouse has some interesting

01:03:03.360 | content for kids. Khan Academy has a cool app, but I can't remember what it's called.

01:03:08.720 | But I think our kids are just starting to get old enough that using an app is fun.

01:03:13.360 | Honestly, early on, even a show wasn't interesting. So that was a struggle. We were on a plane ride

01:03:17.680 | once and we were trying to get our 18-month-old, "Can't you just be interested in this show and

01:03:22.000 | stop running around the airplane, please?" And she's like, "No, don't want it." But actually,

01:03:26.960 | one tip that I thought of on this show, we were trying to let our daughter watch a show on the

01:03:31.440 | plane and we put on a movie of some sort. She wasn't interested. It turns out, she just only

01:03:36.480 | had about five minutes of attention for each individual show. And then if we were willing

01:03:40.400 | to change the show to another show every five minutes, we could hold her attention for longer.

01:03:45.200 | And so that might be a little hack that someone could use. Yeah, that's a great one.

01:03:48.640 | I think we hit a lot on parents and children. I like doing these with you. And so I hope we

01:03:54.000 | can do more. So allthehacks.com/AMA. If you have questions for me, for Amy, for us, we're going to

01:04:00.160 | try to do these a bit more regularly. This is a lot of fun. Any final thoughts?

01:04:03.840 | To all the parents out there, we see you. We appreciate you. You're doing great work. Keep

01:04:08.080 | going. And to all the parents coming, it might sound hard, but it is so rewarding.

01:04:12.720 | Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next week.

Mailbag #10: Simplifying Life, Parenting Lessons, Childcare Strategies, Family Travel Tips and More

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