Stay-at-home mom refuses to take her 5-year-old son out of speech therapy because her husband thinks she can do it at home: 'It's costing us $700 a month.'

Can an untrained mom teach her kid how to say his "Rs" on her own?

Where can you cut corners financially while raising a family? It's pretty obvious that your growing 5-year-old doesn't need designer clothes, but where do you draw the line? Should he only have a week's worth of clothes? Is it worth it to buy him new shoes when you have a sinking feeling his feet are about to grow two inches as soon as the transaction goes through? The best thing you can do is set a clear household budget and only purchase items that fit within it. If you can afford to max out your 401 (k) and spend $200 a month on kid clothes, there's no reason why you shouldn't splurge on these light-up firetruck sneakers. 

You shouldn't cut corners regarding food and keeping the lights on, but what about therapy? If your kid desperately needs talk therapy to function in their day-to-day life, it's worth every penny. Speech therapy is one of those things that has culturally become mandatory for any little kids with a lisp or delayed speech. Long gone are the days of waiting for your kid to grow out of their talking problems, and that's probably for the best. If a professional can help a child to better communicate and connect with their peers, it's also worth the moola. 

The dad in this story is suspicious of how expensive his son's speech therapist is. He thinks his wife, who has no training in speech pathology, can teach him everything on her own. After all, how hard can it be?