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JULIEZEEB-DAILYNEWS MantonFireChiefMarionRocksvoldandAssistantChiefBobCordsshowoffthenewestadditiontotheCalFire and Tehama County Fire station on Saturday at the 24th annual Manton Apple Festival. The type 6 quick attack rescue squad, which is a combination of engine and emergency medical vehicle, went into service in Manton on Sept. 10. It allows a larger number of volunteers to respond to the scene and has water pumping capabilities the previous rescue vehicle did not. To volunteer, call 528-5199. MANTON NEW FIRE TRUCK MAKES DEBUT AT APPLE FEST Yourmoneyislim- ited and time is short. Here is my best advice to make sure shopping for back- to-school clothes doesn't send you to the poorhouse. SET SPEND- ING LIMITS Time to get real. How much money (not credit) do you have available for school clothes? Write it down. TAKE AN INVENTORY Sort through your kids' clothes and decide which ones you want to keep and which ones they don't wear due to wear and tear or be- cause they no longer fit. This gives you a clear idea of what you have and what you need to buy. SELL THE OLD TO BUY THE NEW If you have gently used clothes in good con- dition, sell them and use the money toward the pur- chase of back-to-school clothing. You can sell on eBay or on Craigslist, at a garage sale or by taking them to a resale consign- ment shop to sell or use as trade items. ASSESS NEEDS Not ev- ery child will have the same needs when it comes to school clothes. What is reasonable? Now divvy up the money you have against the children's needs, and then move on to "wants" until all the money has been appropri- ated. START WITH NEW SHOES There's nothing like a new pair of shoes to get kids in the mood for the first day of school. Shoes are so sat- isfying; they will take the edge off the raging case of the "I wants" that your children may have picked up somewhere. And a new pair of shoes even perks up last season's clothes. KNOW THE DRESS CODE It may have changed from last year. If you're in a new school, you should definitely check the code. You don't want to be in the unfortunate posi- tion of having to re-buy to comply with set dress standards. MAKE YOUR OWN CLOTHES This is not for every- one, and I would never ad- vocate you making your kids wear weird, home- made-looking clothes. That being said, you re- ally may want to try your hand at making cloth- ing. For many of us, it is a fun and fulfilling hobby. Take a class, find a seam- stress who will mentor you, get your kids involved and have some fun creat- ing new fashions they can wear to school. Seriously. TIME YOUR SHOPPING Many sales happen before school starts during Au- gust, but the real savings begin after school starts, around October. If you can put back-to-school shop- ping on hold, definitely wait until the fall to buy new clothes. If you feel confident about predict- ing your children's growth spurts, you can also buy clothing for the following year. DON'T BUY FOR THE WHOLE YEAR It's not wise to buy a year's worth of clothing for a child for several rea- sons. First, kids grow. Sec- ond, styles change. And third, kids, like grownups, enjoy getting new things. If you get it all now, ev- erything will be old come January. But if you buy a couple of things now, sev- eral more at the after- Christmas sales and then again in the spring, it will seem like they are getting new clothes all the time. That's because they are. SHOP RESALE There are so many great bar- gains out there, including deals on uniforms. Your Costco may have the uni- forms for local schools at seriously discounted prices. Check with neigh- bors and parents in your community. Call consign- ment shops; look for ga- rage and tag sales while the weather is still nice. Venture onto eBay. As long as you know your brands, your sizes and your prices you can get some remark- able deals. Wouldyouliketosend a tip to Mary? You can email her at mary@ everydaycheapskate. com, or write to Everyday Cheapskate, 12340 Seal Beach Blvd., Ste. B-416, Seal Beach, CA 90740. EVERYDAY CHEAPSKATE Shopping for back to school clothes Mary Hunt The Job Training Cen- ter would like to invite area businesses and agen- cies to join in celebrating great service throughout October. Secret Shoppers are out and about looking for amazing customer service talent throughout Tehama County and Redding's Te- resa Alexander will be leading a customer service workshop on Oct. 14 at the Tehama County Depart- ment of Education build- ing. Nationally, Customer Service Week is an event devoted to recognizing the importance of customer service and honoring the people that provide great service. It was started by the International Customer Service Association in 1988 and is always the first full week of October, although the Job Training Center likes to celebrate service all month long. This year the customer service workshop How Do Your Customers Rate Your Service? will be presented. Instructor Teresa Alexan- der is a part-time instruc- tor in the Business Agricul- ture, Industry, Technology, & Safety (BAIT) Division at Shasta College where she teaches a customer service course along with her other business courses. Alexander also teaches business courses at En- terprise High School and has conducted customer service training for busi- nesses in and around the Redding area. Her pas- sion is to deliver enlighten- ing and interactive train- ing sessions that inspire and inform her audiences. In this session, Alexander will share the rater fac- tors so businesses can de- termine how they're doing. Attendees will get hands on practice providing ex- cellent customer service and will be able to deter- mine the pitfalls and the high notes of your busi- ness' customer service. At- tendees will leave with a clear understanding and practical know-how for providing your customers with just what they need to stay devoted to your busi- ness. The session will kick off with several secret shop- ping awards. The workshop is sched- uled for 3:30-5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14 at 1135 Lincoln St. in Red Bluff. Cost is $20 per person. Call 529-7000 to register or write to kgarcia@jobtrain- ingcenter.org. JOB TRAINING CENTER Businesses urged to celebrate great service The California Depart- ment of Transportation, Caltrans District 2, along with contractor Shames Construction will be tem- porarily closing the South Main Street on and off ramps on southbound In- terstate 5 in Red Bluff. Nightly closures will take place from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. Oct. 12-14. Beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15 the I-5 southbound South Main Street on and off ramps will be fully closed and will not be reopened until 5 a.m. Monday, Oct. 19. There will be detours available. The work is necessary in order for construction to be completed near Walmart on South Main Street. Caltrans has established a road construction hotline with information on road closures and delays. Call 225-3452 to access that hot- line 24 hours a day. You may also e-mail your comments and concerns to D2PIO@ dot.ca.gov. CALTRANS South Main ramps to close for construction Parishioners of Sacred Heart Church will pray a rosary for peace in front of the church at noon Satur- day, Oct. 10. The event will be one of more than 14,000 rosary rallies nationwide. Rosa- ries and prayer sheets will be available. For more information, call 527-1005. SACRED HEART RosaryforpeacescheduledfornoonSaturday By Tom Barnidge Bay Area News Group Do your children over- dose on social media? Are they obsessed with online video games? Are their noses buried in their cell phones? "I'm going to tell you why this is our fault," Thomas Dodson told about 100 parents in Pleasant Hill last week. "I'm going to tell you how we screwed up, where we screwed up and how we're going to dig our way out of this." Dodson, president of Sel- vage Media consultants in Sacramento, is also CEO of Above the Fray, a nonprofit program that offers advice about parenting in the digi- tal age. His appearance be- fore a packed house at the City Council chamber, co- sponsored by the Pleasant Hill Education Commis- sion and the Sequoia Mid- dle School Parent-Faculty Club, began with an anal- ogy every parent in the room could grasp. "We'd never hand over keys to the car without teaching our kids how to drive," he said, "but we hand over these devices — phones, laptops, gaming consoles — that connect them with everyone on the planet. We give them ac- cess to every piece of in- formation in the universe and tell them 'don't screw up' and 'don't go over the data plan.'€‰" Real rules and boundar- iesneedtobeestablished,he said. Parents need to be in- volved.Justassurelyasthey know which friends their kids are with and whose house they're at, parents need to know whom kids textandwhichwebsitesthey visit because "we're giving 8-, 9- and 10-year-olds the ability to access any image on the planet." Dodson said he learned a lot from focus groups and surveys with hundreds of youths: 70 percent said their parents don't moni- tor their social media use or online gaming; only 25 percent ever talk with their parents about their online activities. Another troubling discovery: 85 percent don't get enough sleep, mostly because of late-night texting and on- line activity. Quizzical expressions filled the room when he rat- tled off some apps that are popular with kids — Yik Yak, Kik Messenger, What- sApp. Know what apps your kids use, he said, and what they're sharing with whom. That 14-year-old from Fresno they met on- line might not be a 14-year- old from Fresno. He said social media no longer just means Face- book, Instagram and Twit- ter. Every website and app has a social component — comments, shares and likes — and online video games enable players to chat. This is the world in which youngsters live. "I was 20 years old when I got my first digital device in 1994," he said. "I had some life experience. I was able to ramp on to the in- formation superhighway. That's not the experience our children have today. Our children are getting tossed in." Their everyday lives get far greater exposure, too. In decades past, an em- barrassing moment caught on camera might land in a family photo album. Today, it's on the Internet for all to see. Said Dodson, "We have to start with the under- standing that our job as parents is to love, support, guide and help our kids — not to bust 'em for doing something stupid. Start a conversation with them that is ongoing." 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LIFESTYLES » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, October 9, 2015 MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A5