MoneySavingMom - Crystal -Has been traveling ALOT

[NothingLeftToLose]

So can you be a frugal couponing homeschooling WAHM with her travel schedule?

I admit I used to be a loyal blog reader but lately the excessive travel and "guest" posting has me confused.

So she has preached for years on frugallity and being a SAHM and yet so far this year:

1 week cruise sans kids with hubby

1 week trip to Dominican Republic sans kids with hubby

South Florida with 1 child

Chicago

California

And I think there have been more but these are just off the top of my head.

So can you homeschool if you are never with your kids? And Seriously is that not the reason she started the blog to start with - to be able to work at home?

I think we are seeing the beginning of her taste of the love for the almighty $

I know she had a huge contribution to a Dominican charity - but as we know equals nice tax write off.

And yet she brags about feeding her kids for 50 cents per meal????

[Wolfie]

Well, my idea of frugality is so that you have the money you don't spend on one thing to spend on something else.

ETA- if she'd been feeding her kids poorly, that would be one thing, but AFAIK, she's just very good with grocery shopping.

[notathumper]

I don't read MSM or anything about Crystal these days. Her "message" seemed less than genuine when she wrote her posts about saving money to buy a house in cash. When I went through the numbers, it was apparent she was leaving out crucial information.

When I read what you write, NothingLeftToLose, I feel the same. There's no way she can travel that extensively and run her household on a frugal basis. She has help...a lot of it. Her children are still quite young and homeschooling shouldn't take too long, but as I remember she had them doing workbooks and a lot of busy work. Her hired help can do that with the two older ones.

Women who try to measure up to these religious frugal goddesses will twist themselves into knots.

[starfish]

I know this past weekend she spent several days in Texas at the Mom Life boot camp. She was not too terribly far from me, and I thought seriously about attending her reader "meet up". MamaJune Bug would have totally done it. Actually, I was genuinely interested to meet her. But I couldn't get away from my evil work outside the home job. But seriously, she has traveled far more than me this year. I seriously doubt she's taking homeschooling all that seriously right now.

She's probably not even including all the trips she's taken. She keeps some of that stuff on the down-low.

[starfish]

I am also not impressed with what she feeds the kids. Like all these frugal meal planners, they tend to leave out protein, i.e. meat.

Well, also, I just don't think they feed them enough. Kids get hungry. These frugal religious moms like to control every morsel that goes into their mouths.

These moms have no control or dominion anywhere else, so by God they are controlling what their children eat. (not picking on Crystal here, I see that on other sites).

I mean, Kathrynnnnne or whatever that child's name is probably doesn't eat that much but I guarantee that boy gets hungry and wants more food. She sometimes speaks of behaviour issues, but I think they are crying because she won't feed them. She probably wants them to practice self-control until dinner time.

[silvia]

I, too, am curious how Crystal manages to homeschool adequately while traveling so often and running a high profile blog full-time. I do commend her for donating all the profits from her book to a charity called Compassion International that helps poor kids. (Though I'm curious about Compassion's motivations as well: do they proselytize to the kids they help in addition to feeding and educating them? Their website says they are "working holistically with individual children to address their spiritual, economic, social and physical needs.")

[starfish]

Crystal has this post up from the last few days where she says her target cost per person per meal is .50 cents for breakfast and lunch and $1.00 for dinner.

That is cheap, and she and Jesse could afford better.

[starfish]

In addition to the $1.00 a person meals, she also shares with us that they never go to the movies (bet she'll make "October Baby" except that it's about a girl who goes to college) and do not have cable.

I guess they just sit around the house everyday and eat their twigs.

Crystal pinches pennies so tight I think I hear Lincoln screaming.

[starfish]

She's planning to do a webcast. That might be fun. She said that she and Jessie will do a "prerecorded" Q & A session. That doesn't sound very spontaneous.