While we have talked recently about the dangers of multitasking as a parent—because it makes you distracted, because it gives you conflicting priorities—that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look for efficiencies. In fact, that’s one of the secrets of this whole job: Always looking for how to get more juice for your squeeze. 

Find the restaurant that ordering out from on Saturday night gives you just enough leftovers to make something delicious for breakfast or lunch the next day. Say yes to the business trip that also lets you get a family vacation—or a trip away from the kids with your spouse—in for free. Sign up for the credit card that gives double points. Use this mistake your daughter made as a chance to have a conversation you needed to have anyway.

We are stretched so thin. We have so many responsibilities. Money remains, for most of us, as a finite resource we could usually use more of. So the key to being a better parent is to find a way to make everything go a little bit further. No one is asking you to be superhuman, no one is asking you to make something from nothing. 

On the contrary, the skill here is to make the things you have or are doing go a little bit further…which by the way is what smart parents have been doing forever, including wealthy ones (there’s a picture of one of the Rockefeller children in hand me downs).