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I’m proud to say that our youngest child is potty trained. He occasionally has an accident in the night time, but he hasn’t had a daytime accident in a long time. We’ve taken three children through this process and I felt it was worthwhile to share some thoughts on what products were actually necessary for potty training and which ones weren’t.

If you’re a parent of a young child, this article will be really useful for getting your kid through the toilet training process effectively and at a low price. If you don’t have a young child… this is probably one you can skip.

Here’s what we learned.

The first rule is the most important: every child is different. Some start earlier than others – our oldest child was actually the earliest to be potty trained because he’s always been strongly self-motivated, even as a one year old. When you put a challenge before him, he is insistent on conquering it. Our other children started later than him.

There are a lot of credit card offers out there that reward you for signing up by giving you a bunch of frequent flyer miles, hotel discounts, or big gift certificates. If you weren’t particularly worried about your credit in the short term, wouldn’t it make sense to sign up for a bunch of these, fulfill the terms of the programs, cash in the rewards, then cancel the cards?

It’s certainly conceivable. In fact, it’s a practice that a lot of people use, and they call it “churning.” Here’s an article from Daily Finance outlining the basics.

Two or three times a month, my family enjoys an evening meal that features pasta of some kind. We might enjoy spaghetti or lasagna or something else, depending on the mood.

However, when I go to the store to buy pasta sauce, I absolutely cringe at the prices. The “cheap” sauces are loaded with high fructose corn syrup and taste overly sweet. Some of the other sauces taste great, but you’re paying $7 (or more) for a single jar of the sauce.

Sure, such sauce is convenient, but it really adds up quick. If you buy the cheap stuff at $2 per jar, you’re adding a ton of corn syrup to your diet – even more than soda in some of the sauces.

This article first appeared at U.S. News and World Report Money.

Everyone knows about the big things that people should prepare for their loved ones in the event of their untimely passing. A will. Life insurance. A living trust. Those are the big things.

After that, there are a number of little things you can take care of that will make things much, much easier on your loved ones if you were to pass on. These things are all easy to prepare, don’t require a lawyer, and will make a huge impact on your family and friends if these documents are ever needed.

The best thing you can do is make sure that you have a safe deposit box at your local financial institution which contains these documents. Make sure that your executor and your spouse are aware of how to get into the box.