Ren Allen

"I"ve told my kids, "I love your friends, but my budget just won't
allow
for them to eat the stuff we have here". I just can''t afford it."

I've had to tell neighbor kids to go home to eat before, but I try
to keep affordable snacks on hand. When they stop here after school
and start snooping through my fridge, I say NO. That's what home is
for. But if we have company, I assume we feed them while they're
here.
There's a difference between kids that stop here every day and those
we invite. The invited ones I expect to feed, the stopoffs I don't
feel responsible for...though I'll put out cheap snacks for them
sometimes too. Depends on our finances at the time.

Chips, lemon/limeade, small oranges or apples, cereal, nuts or
chunks of cheese are the typical ok snacks. Lately our S'mores maker
has been popular with the neighbor friends we have....they think
it's heaven to get sick on marshmallows. Marshmallows are cheap, I
just hope their parents don't catch on!:)

I think it's a fairly cheap trade off...a few extra groceries for my
kids to have a fairly constant stream of friends through our house.

Ren