Blog

Security CU Blog

A school bus, waiting for happy kids to load in.

Back to School: 5 Time Saving Tips for Parents

Our blog has been very quiet lately, and in case you’re wondering why, it’s because we’ve all been very busy here at the credit union. We’ve been hard at work teaming up with a great partner to release a new mobile banking app later this year and we’re preparing for a change to how we handle our Visa credit cards in early 2019. Add those projects to the numerous other things we’re working on like planning for Bikes on the Bricks and making tons of loans to our members, and you can understand how we’ve gone so long between blog posts. But that’s not what we wanted to talk about today, who cares if we’re busy, we know that you’re busy, and we wanted to try and help.

With school starting across the great state of Michigan in the next couple of weeks, the “laziness” of summer (Editor’s Note: Who’s actually been lazy during the summer?) is about to end and the chaotic school year is about to begin. So with that said, we thought that you might be interested in hearing some ideas of how you can save time and avoid some frustration when your minions head back into the classroom.

 

Start Adjusting Now

I don’t know about your morning routines but the one in my house straddles the line between chaotic and completely insane. I’m honestly not sure how the kids manage to get to school on time some days; these are the mornings where the youngest takes 40 minutes to eat a bowl of Cheerios and her sister refuses to comb her hair. You’ve been there before, I don’t need to explain how it works. Want to know the best way to avoid this during the first couple of weeks of school? Plan ahead and start adjusting your kids’ schedules now. Start putting them to bed around their normal time and start getting them up “on time” too. The more you can adjust your schedules now, the easier your life will be when you’re trying to do it while the clock is actually ticking and the faster the kids will wake up and get moving.

 

Prep the Night Before

I’m not exactly what you’d call a morning person, so in my house, if we can do something the night before we’ll get it done twice as fast as we will in “zombie mode” the next morning. Take a couple of minutes the night before school to set out clothes for the kids to wear (this will avoid any of those “I’m not wearing that” arguments in the morning too) and either make the kids’ lunches or at least start gathering what you can. The tasks that take me five minutes the night before will take at least ten minutes in the morning. Saving five minutes might not seem like much, but it’s almost an extra whack at that snooze button.

 

Cook on the Weekend

If you’ve got kids in school and doing extracurricular activities that just seem to take all of your time (yes, I’m talking about my family’s five day a week football commitment from late July until mid-October), then you know how hard it is to figure out a way to put good dinners on the table. Have you considered making food on the weekend when you have time and then just reheating it during the week? All of us here at Security Credit Union know that leftovers aren’t anyone’s first choice, but if you’re in a time crunch and the choice is between PB&J (again) or reheated grilled chicken, isn’t that a fairly easy choice? While you’re grilling up some burgers on Saturday night, throw some chicken and brats on there as well. You can enjoy your burgers fresh off the grill and have two or three meals standing by to get you through during the week. Put that microwave to good use, it does more than make popcorn!

 

Do a Dinner Swap

You could always do a dinner swap too. What’s a dinner swap? Well, you just pair up with another parent who doesn’t have enough time and cook for each other. Let’s say that you’re really stressed out on Mondays but your neighbor doesn’t work on Monday. On Monday, your neighbor would cook two batches of dinner and bring you one. You’d then repay the favor on a day where they needed help but you had some extra time. Sounds intriguing doesn’t it? It’s a really great way to save time and explore new foods with your family. One helpful tip, you might want find friends that actually know how to cook before you try this one.

 

Pay your Bills Online

I really dislike having to pay bills and I understand that it’s an evil that must be dealt with, it’s certainly not something that I look forward to. The only thing, and I truly mean the only thing, that makes this exercise even bearable is that I don’t have to sit at the table writing out checks and addressing envelopes (and buying stamps). I pay everything through Online Bill Pay. Getting to SCU’s system is easy, just visit our website and log into Online Banking. From there, just select the Bill Pay tab, and you’re off to the races. Before Online Bill Pay, it could easily take 30-45 minutes to get this process finished. But now? Now I can have a month’s worth of bills paid in less than five minutes. Paying bills sure stinks but if I can minimize the time I waste doing it, then it’s not so bad. (If you need any help getting set up for this service, just give us a call at 810-235-2322).

Hopefully these tips will help you keep some of your sanity when the kids go back to school in the next few weeks. If you’ve got any time-saving tips that you love and that we didn’t mention here, please leave them in the comments section below.

 

Need help understanding a financial question?

Have a great idea that you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note at contactus@securitycu.org and put “AskSCU” in the subject line, or ask us on social media with the hashtag #AskSCU and we may answer your question in a future blog post.