Actually it’s just outside of Paradise, PA in Lancaster. A 45 minute drive from my house…

AND

Sigh.

I like to make a trip to the PB outlets in Lancaster once a month or so. Because I can. The kids don’t mind going along because the genius engineers behind the parking lot design (my husband’s a roadway engineer so I have an affinity for these people) scattered several gated playgrounds in the midst of the parking area. One of them is directly outside of Pottery Barn.

The Rockvale outlets cover several blocks and there are only two or three playgrounds, so this is a big deal. All the better to bribe my children with.

And on the other side of the playground, just 200 yards or so from PB is a great place to stop for lunch. (Although we never eat there because Eddie’s office is right on our way home, so we go bright and early when the outlets open and meet him for lunch on our drive home.)

But are the prices that good you ask? It depends.

Sometimes the furniture is only discounted 10-20% off retail, but usually you can find one or two deals like this:

A full size headboard marked down 88% to below a hundred bucks. As a matter of fact, that’s the price we paid last year for Nick’s Catalina bed, which is currently “on sale” on the website for 4 times that price. Ours was mega-discounted because it only came with the headboard & foot board, but my in-laws had extra rails, so it was no big deal.

They also had coffee tables on sale this week for $99, and all of the outdoor furniture, which is already discounted because of the end of the season, was an extra 25% off the lowest price.

I found a red corner seat on this trip, like you would find in a sectional sofa, although this one seemed to work fine standing alone, for below $100 too.

Last time I bought this exact mirror, which is selling for $249 right now, for our bathroom remodel. I paid $49. It was $200 off because it was missing one screw. A trip to Lowes and less than $5 fixed that quickly enough.

I wasn’t in dire need of any new furniture, though. What I did snag at a pretty good deal were some Halloween costumes for the kids. They are from last year’s collection, but ask me how much I care. P.S.How is it time to start thinking about Halloween costumes already. Can you believe September starts next week??

We’re going to be the monkey and the mermaid. (That sounds like a weird fairy tale.) I hope Abby doesn’t have a huge growth spurt in the next 10 weeks because hers fits perfectly for now.

Have you seen the regular prices of the Pottery Barn Kids costumes? The cheapest one on the website this year is $54, but they go up to $89. Then you have to pay shipping.

My monkey was $15 and my mermaid was a little bit more of a splurge at $25. PB Kids always has a great resale value on ebay & Craigslist, so if we choose to resell these costumes next year, I know I will get my money back & then some. Both of these costumes are listed on ebay right now for over $50 each. (I’m pretty sure the seller just hit up the same sale I did. Maybe I should consider doing some outlet shopping, then turning a quick profit on ebay.hmmm…)

Apparently there are only a few of these outlets scattered around the country, but it might just be worth it to grab a friend, rent a U Haul, and take a day trip to the closest one you can find. 🙂

Recently I was asked to serve on the advisory board for the upcoming book The Entitlement Trap by New York Times bestselling authors Richard and Linda Eyre.

The book will be available on September 6th, but you can pre-order a copy at a 33% discount on their website by clicking here (You will pay $12 instead of $18.) or you can pre-order on Amazon.com, where the Kindle addition is available.

I’m excited that a new book is being published addressing the issue of entitlement in children because as a former private school attendee, and especially as a teacher specializing in gifted students in an upscale area, it is something I have seen frequently: spoiled kids who believe they have the God-given right to have whatever they want, regardless of the consequences.

I try very hard as a parent to get my children to accept the word “no” because it’s an important life skill they will need as an adult. No, I’m not going to buy that if I would have to put it on a credit card. No, I’m not going to eat a second piece of cake even though I want it. No, I’m not going to take out a home loan that big even if the bank says I can afford it. (We all know where that one gets us.)

It’s easy for parents to fall into the trap of trying to “keep up with the Joneses.”

I had second graders whose cell phones would go off during class and a former employer of mine had three children, drove two brand new BMW’s but was worried about his house going under foreclosure and had to close his business. Parents of children who were not even in the gifted program would come to meetings to give their peers the false impression that their children were in the gifted classes, and one family even wrote into a local magazine complaining about my class (their daughter wasn’t gifted and I never even met her, let alone taught her) just to get their picture & false story published because having a child in the gifted program was a huge status symbol in our community. When children didn’t pass the tests the school gave, parents paid hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for private psychologists to issue the tests to their children, repeatedly, until they passed, never mind that Florida was in the middle of a horrific housing crisis and many of their home were under foreclosure or short sale.

Priorities, people.

The Entitlement Trap is about having them and how to set them for ourselves and for our children.

Of course, the examples I gave were pretty extreme. It can be something as simple as always offering to buy a candy bar or a small toy as a way to keep the kids quiet and well-behaved in the store. In a surprisingly short amount of time they come to expect it and the one time you decide not to buy it, you will be met with temper tantrums & tears.

This book is about setting ourselves up for success rather than failure.

I believe it’s always easier to do the right thing in the first place, and we have a responsibility to do right by our children.

You can visit the website here for more information.

**I will be compensated via a review copy of the book before it’s publication date, but all opions in this post are 100% mine.**