Every parent should see Waiting for “Superman”. No matter your politics, this movie will move you if you have children in school. Full disclosure, I don’t care how you choose to educate your children. You had them, your choice on how you raise them. For me, I think about my children’s education constantly. I have a daughter a year away from middle school and I’m searching for the best environment for her…one that fits her as opposed to making her the square peg trying to fit the round hole.

I’m not looking to get into the fight about unions and whether they are good or bad for schools. I don’t care about public schools vs charter schools vs private schools. In other words, I’m not trying to decide how your kids are taught. I will say that my experience with our school (this past year) was one that made me realize that I need to pay more attention to what my children are being taught. These teachers see my children more than I do. I should know who they are and what they believe. I also should know if they are going to check their beliefs at the door when it is time to teach my children the fundamentals they need in order for them to reach their own conclusions.

My child is less than two years from needing a new school to go to. When I grew up, we just went to the school that was next in line. Today, not so much. I’ve watched an entire area torpedo itself in less than four years, falling into Title 1 status that it will never recover from. Many schools are not far from that mentality even if they do not qualify. Is it time for a private school?

So I know I have to start saving for some sort of educational plan…even though I have no idea of what the answer is going to be. I don’t want to have to think about saving. I just want it done, so I set up an ING account to draw from my checking account on a regular interval. The cool thing about the ING account is that I can set up sub-accounts for savings that allows me to save money in categories. Love it.  Plan to research more, but this is a good start to save for my educational needs as well as that vacation I need to start planning.

I’ve been thinking about automated banking as a time saver and came across this guy. Automation, as well as money saving ideas, is his thing.

Helping children with homework is easy with an iPhone.

To have an iPhone is a wonderful thing during homework time. I found a great site, Math is Fun, the other night when I was fact finding my own teaching to my daughter. I had to look up array to double check my own thinking. This site is amazing and a great time saver. I’m sure there are many others out there that we will run into. Come to think of it, there has to be a app for easy math……