A frugal way to bank your baby's cord blood

If you've read a parenting magazine targeted at expecting moms recently, you've no doubt seen page after page of ads for umbilical cord blood banks touting the benefits of storing your child's cord blood so the stem cells can be harvested later on should your kid develop a scary disease like leukemia or sickle cell disease.

Cord blood banks freeze blood remaining in the umbilical cord after the birth of a baby. Stem cells in the cord blood are then used for research and treatment of cancer and certain blood diseases. The odds are slim, however, that your child will actually need the banked blood, and the peace of mind you might get from knowing it's available 'just in case' isn't cheap.

Via Vancouver Dad:

First of all, the price tag for freezing cord blood is about $1,000 CDN, plus an extra $120 or more per year to keep it frozen in liquid nitrogen. Second, there are very few private cord blood banks in Canada. Third, there’s only a one in 20,000 chance a given child would ever need to use his own cord blood in the future.

One alternative, which I unfortunately didn't find out about until it was too late in my pregnancy, is to register with Canada's only public cord blood bank. Instead of indulging in an expensive and somewhat selfish storage plan, registering with the public bank allows your baby's cord blood to be available to any Canadian child who needs those stem cells. While the odds are slim your baby will need to use that cord blood, they're pretty good that someone's baby will benefit from you taking a minute to fill out those forms. Best of all, it's free to participate.

Despite the potential for disease treatment, cord blood is thrown away after birth unless you arrange to store it well in advance of your baby's birth. If you want to do it, you need to submit the forms by your 34th week of pregnancy. Unfortunately, I didn't learn about the existence of the program until my childbirth class instructor mentioned it, and I was already too far along to participate. I'm going to keep it in mind for any future babies though!

In my opinion, organ and cord blood donations should be on an opt-out, not an opt-in basis. I think the public good of having more donations available for those who need treatment should outweigh the squeamishness some of us have when thinking about such things. For those who are adamantly opposed to donating their organs or their baby's umbilical cord after birth, it should be no problem to fill out a form saying so.

How can you tell what work you love when you're just starting out?

There are some really good discussions going on at Get Rich Slowly and The Simple Dollar regarding money, career and meaning.

Here's the question, as framed by J.D. at Get Rich Slowly:

What sort of advice would you offer to a young person just entering the work force? What’s the most important thing to look for in a job? Is money the top priority? Job satisfaction? Is it better to be in a job you love that barely pays the rent, or to be making a fortune in a job that sucks your soul out and spits it on the floor? How can you tell what you love when you’re just starting out?

Many of the commenters at The Simple Dollar advocate taking time off after high school to figure out what you really want to do. While I'm sure that's a great solution for some people, when your problem is overthinking the decision on what to do 'next' because of feeling overwhelmed by choice, putting off taking the plunge won't necessarily help you figure it all out.

The fact is that there's a lot more variety in the job market than you're aware of at 17, and when your main work experience to date has been baby-sitting, slinging burgers and maybe some volunteer work, you really have no idea if a career that sounds good is actually something you'll love to do.

As I said in the comment thread on TSD, if I could tell my younger self one thing it would be to be less afraid to act. While the choices you make early in your career do shape what comes later, the path is much more plastic than I had assumed in high school. If you have a calling, great. If you don’t, pick something you like now and get started on that, whether it’s working, volunteering, travel or some combination of things.

I'm apparently not the only one who felt despair at the number of interests I had to choose from. A TSD reader left a comment on another post here to commiserate.

I am also that kid who had so many interests that I didn't know which one to follow. (I changed majors twice in college and lived abroad learning another language for a year.) Now I have a BA and don't know what to do for a living. I have such a hard time deciding what to do, simply because I'm afraid of it not being the 'right' choice or that I'll be sacrificing something else to my future detriment. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent pondering the issue. And now, of course, the irony is that I'm treading water and getting nowhere quickly due to this indecision.

I think that it can be problematic to set yourself up with high expectations that you'll find the 'perfect' career right out of the gate. If you're an adaptable person with varied interests, and your problem is that you can't decide what to do first or which path is best, my advice is to focus on transferable skills rather than trying to force yourself to choose a specialty right away. If you like what you do, you can always change where you do it, and then you'll never be stuck in a job you hate.

I wouldn't say I've found my calling, but I do enjoy what I do, and I do feel happy and fulfilled in my life. I still hope that one day I will find work that is a calling, but for now I'm content with interesting work that helps me further other goals, teaches me new skills, establishes connections with decent people who I enjoy working with, and has good potential for future growth and new opportunities.

Recipe: Super Beef, Bean & Veggie Chili

I make this a little differently each time, just depending on what I have in the fridge and pantry. This is a super easy meal to make, and it freezes well so I usually make a huge pot. I like it over rice, which also helps 'stretch' the meal.

I dislike kidney beans, so I don't use them. Instead, I choose mixed beans for variety and/or black beans, which I love. I am not concerned with 'authentic' ingredients - this is a quick & dirty healthy fridge-cleaner recipe. Vary the veggies as you like!

Ingredients:

• 1 package of lean ground beef (varies in size, usually a pound or so - whatever is on hand)
• 1-2 medium yellow onions, coarsely chopped
• 3 cloves of diced garlic
  
• ~3-4 cups chopped mixed veggies, i.e.: zucchini, mushrooms, cauliflower, carrots - whatever needs to be used up soon. If my cherry tomatoes are starting to get wrinkly, I add them in too.
  
• Diced tomatoes - 1 can (796 mL)
  
• Crushed tomatoes - 1 can (796 mL)
• 1 1/2 cups or so of cheap salsa, if available
  
• Mixed beans - 1 can, i.e. 'six bean blend' (540 ML)
• Black beans - 1 can (540 mL)
• Corn niblets - 1 can (341 mL)
  
• Cayenne pepper, chili powder, tex-mex spice and/or black pepper & salt to taste

Directions:

1. In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan or stew pot, brown beef over medium-high heat until no longer pink; drain fat (I usually use a metal colander so that I can rinse the cooked beef with a little water, and put the beef aside for step 2. I've also cooked the veggies with the cooked beef in the same pot, and that turned out just fine too.)
2. Saute onions, fresh veggies and garlic in the same pot as you browned the beef until veggies begin to soften
3. Add the cooked beef if you set it aside, and all remaining ingredients
4. Season to taste; simmer about 20 minutes until veggies are soft or cooked to taste. Serve alone or over rice
   

Recipe: Date Oatmeal Cake with Mocha Frosting

One of my 'old reliable' cookbooks is Great Food Fast, published by Dietitians of Canada. It's full of easy, basic recipes that taste great. The book also includes advice on substitutions and, of course, nutrition.

Here's one of the more decadent recipes. I made this a couple of weeks ago for a dinner party and got rave reviews all around. The mocha frosting is also a very good topper on a basic chocolate cake. I might post my version of the double chocolate mocha cake later.

Cake ingredients:

• Rolled oats - 1 cup
• Boiling water - 1 1/2 cups
• AP Flour - 1 cup
• Baking Soda - 1 tsp
• Salt - 1/4 tsp
• Margarine - 1/2 cup
• Brown Sugar - 1 cup
• Vanilla - 1 tsp
• Chopped Dates - 1 cup
• Walnuts - 1/2 cup

Mocha frosting:

• Margarine - 2 tbsp
• Icing Sugar (sifted) - 1 1/4 cups
• Cocoa Powder - 2 tsp
• Strong coffee, cooled - 1 tbsp
• Vanilla - 1 tsp

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F & prepare your baking dish (I like using a bundt pan for the shape, but a 9" square baking pan is what's recommended)
   
2. In a small bowl, combine oats and boiling water; let stand until cool (note: this takes a while. You might want to combine the oats and water and brew the coffee, take a break and come back to do the rest to allow time for the liquids to cool)
   
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, cream together margarine and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in vanilla, oat mixture and flour mixture. Stir in dates & walnuts.
   
5. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until cake tester inserted in middle comes out clean. Set aside to cool.
6. Prepare the frosting: in a bowl, blend together all frosting ingredients until fluffy. If icing is too thick, add a little more coffee to thin it. If too thin, add icing sugar. Spread icing over cooled cake.
   

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Banana Walnut Muffins

This recipe is a modified version of one that I've loved since I was a kid and my mom first taught me how to make muffins! The core of the technique is from the Magnificent Muffins Cookbook, which offers endless variations on basic muffin recipes. I've tried a bunch of the recipes in the book, but I just keep going back to this one as my favourite.

Yield: 12 muffins
Oven temperature: 350F (180C)
Baking time: 25 minutes for muffins, 50 for loaf

Dry mixture:

• AP flour - 1 cup
• Whole Wheat flour - 1 cup
• Baking Soda - 1 tsp
• Salt - 1 tsp
• Dark Chocolate Chips - 1 cup
• Walnuts - 1 cup

Moist mixture:

• Margarine - 1/4 cup
• Applesauce - 1/4 cup
• Sugar - 3/4 cup
• Eggs - 2 large
• Vanilla - 1 tsp
• Mashed ripe or frozen bananas - 3 or 4 bananas (=1 cup)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F and lightly grease pan (I use a little canola oil, spread around with a paper towel)
   
2. In a large bowl, mix together the first three dry ingredients
3. Stir in chocolate chips & walnuts; set dry mix aside
   
4. In a medium bowl, cream together butter, applesauce and sugar with an electric mixer
5. Beat in eggs, one at a time
6. Add mashed bananas and vanilla to moist mixture
7. Add moist mix to dry mix all at once; stir until batter is moist but still lumpy
8. Pour batter into greased loaf pan or 12-cup muffin tin (cups should be 3/4 full)
9. Bake 25 minutes for muffins, 50 minutes for loaf (or until tester inserted in the middle comes out clean)

On cooking at home

When we first started to pay attention to our finances and track our spending, we realized that one of our biggest money sinkholes was simply eating out. We would 'forget' to pack our lunches, so we ate out most days at work. We would also very frequently go out for dinner or order in. Now we eat almost all our meals at home, only occasionally splurging on a night out. While Will has a good grounding in basic cooking techniques and really enjoys experimenting with new recipes, my skills are shakier. I've found a few good things that I can make pretty well, but in the next year I am hoping to expand my recipe repertoire.

Starting today I'm going to record info on my favourite recipes, reviews of cookbooks and tidbits of technique.

To stay at home, or to return to work?

One decision that has been on my mind since I first learned I was pregnant is whether to return to work after my maternity leave, or to stay at home with the kid(s).

Many of the moms I talk to run the numbers and decide that the costs of working and daycare leave them with so little take-home pay that it's not worth it to return to the workforce. I realized today though that they're probably underestimating the impact on their lifetime earnings of being a stay-at-home mom.

While it's useful to consider the extra costs of going to work and crunch the numbers to see how much 'extra' money you'll be left with at the end, I think that this method might skew the numbers in favour of staying home in most cases, but it doesn't consider one very important factor: the anticipated increase in earnings that most of us can expect over time if we continue in the workforce.

It is true that a working parent's take-home pay takes a hit from daycare costs, and that there are many other 'hidden' costs of working such as transportation, eating out more frequently, the need to maintain a professional wardrobe, and so on. But even if those costs eat up a large chunk of your take-home salary today, by choosing not to return to work, parents risk losing out on significant increases in salary over time. Just how much depends on your age and current earning power.

Take a look at VisualCalculator's Income Growth calculator (you'll need to scroll down and look for it under 'Income & Insurance Suite') to see what I mean.

Even assuming a yearly salary increase of only 3%, opting out of working for 10 years (say until two kids, three years apart, are both in school) makes a big difference. Depending on your age, type of job and potential for career advancement, the loss could be much heavier.

For me, just a year of maternity leave drops my estimated annual income at retirement by $6,000 (I'm assuming only a 3% annual increase). Were I to take 10 years off, assuming I was able to re-enter the workforce at the same salary I have today (far from certain), I'd see a drop of over $50,000, and a drop in total income earned of $2.5 million over my working life.

According to the 'cost of raising kids' calculator, it's only going to cost me about a half million to raise two kids and my stepson to age 18. While clothes, lunches, transportation and daycare do add up over that time frame, I don't think it'll total $2.5 million.

And, of course, none of this includes annual bonuses, employer benefits, employer matching of retirement savings and company stock purchases, stock options, or, most importantly, future raises. I'm only 25, and I've doubled my earning power in the last three years through switching jobs and lobbying for a raise. While I can't expect that pace to continue, I think there are pretty good odds that I'll be able to boost my annual earnings over the next 40 years by a lot more than 3%. It also doesn't factor in any potential investments/savings allocations that would be put on hold during the time when one parent stays home, or the impact of forgoing extra mortgage payments etc. during those lean years.

Obviously there's a lot to consider, and the decision shouldn't just be an economic one. But since so many people are using income calculations to justify a choice to stay home, I think it's worth it to consider this angle as well.

Thanks to J.D. at Get Rich Slowly for pointing to the visual calculator resource page.