Heigh Ho reminded me, laundry. Two of them have laundry included in their dorm fees, one has to pay. But all three have a few hours per week tutoring jobs for pizza/laundry money. So with just the two of us, it is amazing how far a box of dryer sheets, and a small jug of laundry detergent will go. They have print services included in their tuition too so I buy paper and toner far less often than when all of them were homeschooling for high school, and taking DE classes which didn't cover printing. Eldest ds gets his classical guitar lessons on campus through tuition cheaper than we were paying out of pocket. He can get up to 18 credit hours for the same price, so he takes 15 or 16 and then adds his guitar lessons onto that. Lots of little things like that, but it does add up. Thankfully none of the boys ended up so far away that we have to budget for plane tickets.

Our have. Our electric bill went down considerably. We suspect this is because all three boys had their own laptops for doing high school work but also for some gaming and what not, and they had those running so much of the day, and they showered every day so went through a lot of hot water. Dh and I have dry skin now that we've aged and tend to do quick wash ups as well as wash our hair in the sink so we only shower twice a week. So we noted that. Food is much lower. Dh and I simply don't eat the quantity that our thin boys need to eat - medically underweight due to a genetic thing. I can make a couple of quarts of soup or stew, and with salads, we get several meals out of it. That half gallon of soup would be gone in a single meal with the boys here and would mean we also went through something like mashed potatoes and fresh fruit in addition to soup and salad. We don't have their activities to pay for either, and our insurance did drop some because they didn't take any cars to campus with them. We also do not worry about fighting with out car insurance to pay for ds's ongoing physical therapy needs because since his campus runs a full medical school, sports medicine, physical therapy program, they work with him for free in exchange for students being able to be involved. That has been really nice, not having to pay up front and then fight to get paid back. We decided to take the budget savings and put it away in our emergency fund/savings instead of spending it. Oh, I'd like to put it towards a trip to Scotland and Ireland right now, but until they get out of college, it seems better to hang on to it because we never know very far in advance about tuition and fee hikes.

We are eating Lentils quite a bit. It is a fall here in northern USA so we get that crisp, cool air and it's nice to have a good soup around. I make red lentil soup using veggie or chicken broth. cumin, tumeric, and garlic to taste with diced carrots and slow cook. We eat it with a hearty bread - well the guys do, I can't have wheat - and salad. I make chilli once per week, and we eat that mild. Cumin with lots of garlic and very mild on chilli pepper. I use pinto and kidney beans and we top it with plain greek yogurt. I do have my mom's home canned tomatoes to use as the base so that makes it super cheap. Beef and vegetable stew. I use small amounts of beef, the bulk is pinto beans, green beans, finely diced tomatoes (my family doesn't like big chunks), small amount of peas (they do not like very many of those), diced carrots, some leeks for flavor, celery, and potatoes. Egg casserole - I brown small chucks of potatoes and a few tablespoons of sausage for flavor, layer them into a casserole dish that has been greased with butter, dump whisked eggs over top, and sprinkle parmesan cheese on top, bake until golden. I serve with fresh fruit and toast. Chicken enchilada casserole - warm corn tortillas in hot olive oil, fill with shredded chicken that has been warmed with enchilada sauce or even just salsa - add black beans, roll up, layer pan, top with some salsa, any left over filling, and a light layer of shredded cheese. Bake. While baking, I saute red peppers, onion, and thinly sliced tomatoes in a pan with garlic and salsa, and we add that to the top. When my soups are down to a small amount of leftover, I then mix in a big pan of rice and turn into a casserole that just has to be heated through. We are also eating a lot of sauted veggies with small amounts of chicken or beef over polenta. Savory polenta is a wonderful hot dish, usually pretty cheap to make, very filling. Dh and I are trying to always eat a side salad before our meals so that we fill up on the high fiber vegetables and eat smaller amounts of meat/dairy dishes. I also sometimes make steamed broccoli with an alfredo sauce (a little melted cream cheese mixed with milk or heavy whipping cream to thin it and add garlic for flavor) over the polenta.

Happy birthday, Emily! I'm in the same phase of life. Our youngest turned 18 and is in college. All three boys are in college - senior year for the eldest - and our daughter is 27, married, and we have a three year old grandson. DH and I have wandered around the house numerous times this fall muttering, "It sure is quiet here!" There are two things I like about it. It really is quiet if I have the time and inclination to take a nap. And, I have to cook so very little. I can put one chicken breast in the oven, make a salad for the two of us to share, and we can eat on that for lunch and supper. I really like the "not cooking for a horde of starving boys" thing.

Boy Joules, I don't know about the spouse A/spouse B thing with the two being in different places mentally and emotionally in the relationship within the paradigm you describe. I do know that for most of my friends love hasn't been the glue that holds their marriage together. Love went out the window a long time ago. Most are still married, mutually agreed to with spouse, for the sake of convenience. They either have kids to finish parenting, or complicated financials and it isn't yet worth the legal nightmare of dividing it up, or don't want to deal with the drama of divorce within their extended families. Now that said, none of them have found someone else they want to attach to either which makes the marriage of convenience okay. There is a certain contentedness with where they are in life. Some have a total lack of affection in their marriage, others have a modicum, sort of how you might feel toward a friend. Not your best friend, but a friend. In my own case, I still love Dh and he still loves me. If love were everything its cracked up to be, there would be no worries. Well, love as it turns out is kind of like elmer's glue. It's okay to hold some substances together after a fashion, but if you really don't want it to come apart, you need 15 hr epoxy which means one spouse provides chemical A, and the other spouse provides chemical B so when they combine and harden, you are hard pressed to rip that apart. Both of us have test tubes that have nothing but fumes left. The fumes are trying really hard to share electrons, but it is a lot of smoke under the vent-hood and not much product if that makes any sense. For the sake of our kids and the ease of dealing with finances, we could probably make a friendly roommate situation work these days. But, currently, I still feel attached to him, and he is maintaining that he still feels attached to me. In terms of transferring my love or energy or affection to a more ecumenical kind of life pursuit, I don't think that would happen. I do have children and a grandchild that I adore, but my marriage converting to one without attachment between dh and I, would not make anything different as it pertains to them. I don't think it would change my societal outlook, my view on affection or working to the benefit of others. But, since I've not been raised with this culturally, I am sure I don't understand it. Without cultural background and with so much baggage of my own cultural upbringing, I don't think I would ever understand it or put it into practice. I hope others can help you more. But, in terms of marriages without romantic, physical, or mental attachment to the partner, yes, those I've known. They go okay when both partners are willing. I suspect that at some point though they will fall apart due to someone deciding he or she can't live forever with someone who is not attached to them because we've all been raised with a different viewpoint of the marriage relationship so obviously different expectations. I don't think its wrong for Spouse B to call it quits and move on if the marriage is causing pain. I used to be of the "marriage forever" bandwagon in my younger days. Now I've seen too much to think people should remain in relationships that are slowly killing them inside.

I don't think I would have the energy. Dh and I were rock solid for 27 years, and he's been my best friend. But, I can honestly say that I've also shouldered the entire burden for relationship building and maintaining, most of the kids' stuff, the house stuff, etc. you name it; it has fallen to me. On top of that, I put on hold a very lucrative music career in order to do the homeschool mom thing, and now I'm too old to really get it back so basically cobbling together what I can. I have no intention of interrupting my attempt to get back what little I can with the constraints of another man, and the inevitable care and attention he will demand. After what my mother, father figure, and sister put us through, Dh and I are just hanging on together, purely a commitment thing, and yes we do still very much love each other, but love doesn't actually mean much when relationships have been rubbed raw and deeply wounded, so the mere thought of forging another intimate relationship with another partner makes me feel rather nauseated. No way. No thanks. I am interested in starting over with another person and especially so with the complications of the emotionalism that could be produced from 4 adult children who might not like it one little bit. I have a grandson so I'll just invest my energy there when I'm not at work. I'm the grandmother with rockets and all kinds of cool stuff, so I can fill my spare time with that and my work.

We have not been able to get around this. We have three college boys, one is currently commuting, and can't afford to insure two more cars on top of dh's car and my mini-van. So they don't have cars at school. But, our agent told us that once we insure them as drivers, if their coverage lapses for any reason, they become high risk in this state - Michigan has no-fault insurance and it is an expensive mess. We have been looking for another insurance company, but haven't really had better quotes from any company so far. We are going to drop collision coverage on the commuter, and spin him off to his own liability only policy through Geico which will save us money. The car is getting to old to be worth continuing to pay collision which is high priced. Due to being no-fault, no one gets any kind of significant discount for safe-driver/no tickets, etc. like we would in other states.

Sadly, I would not expect the school to care two hoots about my child's safety. It is easier to intimidate victims into putting up with abuse or get their parents to remove them from school, than it is to deal with bullies so they take the easy route. I would press charges, and be pretty demanding with the prosecutor about it. I would get a lawyer so that you can get your hands on the videotape evidence, and then use that to get a restraining order against the aggressor. The restraining order may then put a ton of liability on the part of the school to keep the perp away from your child. I would also tell the school that you will be taking legal action and seek monetary damages for any future incidents if the school shows any signs of negligence in dealing with the situation. I would also have the lawyer notify the parents that should there be any incidents in the future, you will be suing them. That is the number one way to get them to take action with their own child. Seriously. I wish this were not true, but so often the parents of bullies defend their child, and sometimes even promote the behavior. At least, that is the case around here. You can see it as a generational thing. The moms were nasty, bully mean girls, the dads were aggressors, and their kids go down the same path. Potentially having a judgment against them for money/restitution is the only thing that seems to count. It is a very sad state of things, but all you can do is pursue what works because you can't change family culture. Unfortunately, legal action and potential loss of money is about the only thing that motivates schools, companies, etc. to do what they should be doing. The morals and ethics just do not seem to exist anymore. There are alternative schools and online schooling for the perpetrator. He doesn't have to be in the general school population, it's just easier to get you to cave than to force the issue or make the parents of the bully take action.

I have not had that issue here. They always extend their hand and give a hearty shake. I am in the Great Lakes Region which does have some commonality with the Midwest, and yet has its own culture too. I did not notice anything different when we lived on the West Coast, but the one and only year we lived in Florida, I noticed that at the church where I had been hired as an accompanist, the men did not shake women's hands but often kind of cocked their heads in respect or something. Not sure. I never asked, and wasn't there long enough to discover the reason.

In many cases, you can go forward with the 2nd choice, but a housing deposit is normally not refundable. The issues may well be in the financial realm. It will be March for most schools before they issue financial aid award letters. Can you afford to commit to a school without knowing the financial particulars and knowing you may sacrifice the dorm deposit if first choice comes through? Also, did your student apply ED (early decision) to this 2nd choice school? If he did, he must accept or turn them down now, and schools consider it unethical to back out after accepting so if both schools are either specifically known for his major or in the same region, the student should be wary of backing out because the reputation may follow. Some schools do allow you to back out after financial aid awards are made if you plead the case that you really can't afford it because not enough aid and scholarships were awarded. But not all schools allow that because net price calculators can give you an estimate of out of pocket costs based on income and scholarship factors so they expect students to NOT apply ED to institutions they can't afford. If your student did not apply ED, then what you likely need to know is if you can afford choice 1, and if you will receive scholarship information and financial aid award before you have to commit to choice 2. As a general rule, unless a student applied ED or maybe EA, they don't need to make a decision right now to move forward. Most schools are used to waiting until that dorm deposit deadline, after financial letters have gone out, to hear from students. Also, many times their best admits are invited to scholarship competitions during the winter and admission's departments know the outcome of those weekends very much affect these students' decisions. Post this over on the the college board. Many of the moms there are in the middle of this. My youngest is now in college so I'm done with the whole business and won't be staying up to date on college admission issues. For what it is worth, none of ours made their decision until the last week of March each year. They spent two weeks mulling over the contents of their financial aid letters, adding up scholarships, looking at bottom lines, and weighing the other equally important pros and cons such as strength in their majors, internship opportunities, reputation for ease of scheduling in order to stay on track, campus culture or "fit", etc. They then informed the schools of their decision. Only one school had very tight housing, but he still got in just fine simply because most of the incoming class put off the decision until after those financial letters were issued so he wasn't late applying for a dorm room.

In terms of the organ transplant, we have that here. They have to be rationed because there are so many people on the wait-list and so few organs available on any given day. So they take into account all kinds of things...other health issues that may cause the person to not live at least five years, ability to care for self given the anti-rejection med routine is not forgiving, immune system function, etc. People die in this country all.the.time. when an organ match comes available but that organ has a better chance of saving someone else's life on the transplant list, or because the patient came down with a cold, an infection, anything that ramps up the immune system, is diagnosed with another issue, shows sign of other system failures, etc. So yes, it is unfortunate, but unless they can start growing a plethora of organs off stem tissue in labs, made to order to be perfect matches for everyone on the wait lists, people die. They aren't being cruel. The transplant team doesn't even make the choice of who gets it. That goes to a transplant committee of experts in the field who discuss and vote so that this life and death decision is not on the shoulders of a single person. The UK didn't deny grandma just because they want to kill off old people. The reality is that past 60, the chances of surviving the surgery, managing the med routine, not rejecting, etc. goes way down as other systems of the body start having issues.

Copy and pasting to relatives in the area. I don't have time for this!!!! ?

Thank you! I am tired of the rationing scare. Seriously. Thousands of people die every year because their care is rationed by insurance companies and hospitals that can't afford to dole out high end care for free. Sorry. The argument is a total non starter. And yes, some single payer systems have had issues. But not all. France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden....world class and the citizens live MUCH longer than the US. They have high "happiness" or quality of life scores, low infant and maternal death rates, low child death rates across the spectrum. While life style issues do come into play in this, the biggest reason they don't die of treatable disease and injuries is because they can get treatment and it isn't dictated by the CEO and investors of Blue Cross Blue Shield. My sister has a very expensive to treat, rather rare autoimmune disorder. She is an American citizen living in France, an EU permanent resident. She has ZERO problem getting treatment. She would die if she came back to the states. She would make too much money to get Medicaid which would cover treatment, but not enough to purchase a cadillac health plan, and even then, without the pre-existing condition law, she'd be hosed even if she could afford the damn policy. No thanks. I've seen enough death and destruction here to no longer be scared of single payer systems like much of Western Europe and the Scandinavian countries have. For what it's worth, if there ever should have been rationing, it should have been my father figure. Medicaid coughed up more than a quarter million dollars of cancer treatment because he wanted to gamble on the 1% chance (not a typo, you read that right) of getting "more time". He didn't get any extra time obviously. The tax payers could have used that money to pay for someone else's insulin or epilepsy meds, or cochlear implant, or kidney transplant, or...... I've seen the other side.

Very likely she filed a criminal assault complaint against him. The charges may very well be tossed out in court when evidence is presented. And often authorities will look at this as a problem between the two of them that does not necessarily translate to him becoming an abuser of the children. It can take A LOT for children to be removed.

My mother in law had to stay put during a mandatory hurricane evacuation many years ago. FIL was immobile, dying of cancer, on hospice, and at home. Hospitals were full or being evacuated. She had no where to take him, and couldn't have moved him by herself either. She talked to the sheriff's office, and they said they understood and would send someone over to check on them as soon as they could. The army corp of engineers showed up quite promptly after the worst was over, and tarped her house until the roof could be prepared. National Guard came also quite quickly and gave her water, MRE's, and asked if there were any medications they needed to secure for her, any meds that needed refrigeration, etc. They had portable generators and what not, and were trying to set up places where people without power could keep medications. One young guardsman was assigned to come back every few hours to check on them. We were so grateful! They were very worried about FIL dying in the home, and MIL not being able to get help. We lived 1400 miles away and couldn't get to them. It takes money to evacuate, and the assumption shouldn't be that everyone has the extra cash around to pay for gas, hotels, food on the road, etc. much less the ability. In low lying areas, often the need is to travel long distances, not just a matter of a few miles. I really think that we don't have good plans in place for the mandatory evacuation of the homeless, low income, elderly, infirm, patients, prisoners, etc. It just isn't something that there has been enough planning for, and so it seems that FEMA is always operating from a "fly by the seat of their pants" kind of situation. That's how it feels, though obviously they do have a fair amount of action plans in place or things would be exponentially worse. They do a LOT of good work, but it could be so much better if our state and federal governments cared to invest more energy into it. I am always thankful for the National Guard. They seem to be more organized and definitely mobilize more quickly. They also seem to have more resources.

Arctic has said exactly what I think. We, the Hive, would like to collectively puke on his "offer" and send it back to him. Boy I wish we could......

I am so sorry, Ottakee. I don't have personal experience with this, but an extended family member does. Not the same charges though. Her adult son was convicted of killing someone when he was high on meth. He was given 25 - life. What helped her and the younger children in the family was that they did move just to get a fresh start. They developed a stock answer for inquiries and made it clear that they would not discuss the convicted son. She and the children did not confide in anyone except in a support group they found for families of convicts. This group was lead by social workers and professional therapists with experience in the area. That support group was her life line, and helped her teens A LOT. So I highly recommend trying to find something like that. Her son was not in a prison nearby but it was in a somewhat reasonable commuting distance. He was kept out of the general prison population on a suicide watch and was not allowed phone calls, letters, or visits for quite a while. When he could finally be visited, she did make the commute to see him on the designated day. She determined that it was really not a good situation with that particular prison for any of the siblings to come visit. Some prisons have fairly nice, homey lounge type facilities for visits so that the family feels more at ease, but some do not. He was only in that facility for one year, and was transferred to a facility three states away. She has not seen him since then, and his siblings have never visited them. It is very, very sad. But that said, it has also allowed her younger kids to move forward and heal. She did tell me she was certain that her letters to him are opened and read before being given to him. I know that your adult children are special needs so I guess my recommendation would to try to find a family therapist with experience in this kind of situation in order to determine if it is appropriate for your children to continue to have any kind of contact with their dad or not. I hope you can find some time for self care, and will seek counseling.

It was Dr. Elizabeth Morgan. She spent 21 + months in jail for contempt when she refused to produce her daughter who was at that time being hidden in New Zealand with relatives. Kiwi courts ruled that the evidence of the father sexually molesting his daughter was overwhelming and refused to send the child back to the US. Here is an old article that highlights the basics of the case at the time the battle occurred. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/21/magazine/who-s-to-judge.html Here is a link to a summary of his loss of custody to his first daughter, Hilary's half sister. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1990-12-07/news/1990341075_1_foretich-daughter-new-zealand I find it interesting in the first case that experts in childhood sexual abuse had their testimony dismissed, but "experts" for Foretich who admitted in court that they were not experts, had their testimony admitted. At any rate, the loss of visitation to the first child is damaging. As for the original case, I would probably also help. Statistics bear out that it is pretty rare for these cases to be exaggerated or untrue. Abusers are just so good at what they do, and are quite effective at manipulating the legal system. It seems like someone has to end up dead before the courts and prosecutors say, "Well duh! Guess we should have done something. Who knew?" As for restraining orders, they mean nothing. Criminals, by definition, don't obey the law so making a "rule" isn't going to deter criminal behavior.

We did find out that there is a junk selling group we can hire to clean out her house. Well more to the point, we sign a contract that they get the contents of the house in exchange for cleaning it out and getting it ready for sale. I guess this group pays to have a small dumpster put on the property, sorts and tosses, and then runs an estate sale with what is left. They will do an evaluation though and if there isn't enough good stuff on the house to make it worth doing, then we'd have to pay a $1000.00 fee up front for the work. It would be worth it to me. She won't get rid of much of anything, and my father was a pack rat. But, there is also some good fishing and hunting equipment, and a few antiques. Either way, I think that when the time comes, that is what we'll do. I am not likely to ever have a job with ample paid vacation so that I can tackle it in a timely manner, and frankly, when my boys are home from college, I'd much prefer we spend time together that ISN'T wading up to our eyeballs horded stuff, and then cleaning it and running a sale or making multiple trips to the landfill or Goodwill or whatever. I recently started putting money into a savings account for that. I want that money there for this service. It is a big issue for me. I feel overwhelmed by her house, and it causes a lot of stress.

I agree, moving is expensive. The reality is that the people who are working cannot be the ones to move away from work to the elders. When one has many years of work ahead, one can't give up paying jobs because elders don't want to move. So either someone pays for it, or the elders languish alone. It is what it is. I do know one couple who simply sold out everything, got on a plane, and arrived in their new state with two suitcases a piece, having spent a few dollars on sending some boxes of photographs ahead. But, they were minimalists, and they didn't care about stuff, and did not want the expense of moving it. They wanted to be near their kids who were two thousand plus miles away and had jobs with benefits they couldn't just willy nilly give up. They rented a furnished cottage nearby. Of course, it helped that the proceeds of the sale of their house would pay that rent for many years to come.

And this is a huge problem. The government thinks somehow non-rich people should have the magic money to put their kids through college and launch them into adult life, while at the same time, funding their parents' retirements and medical bills,and saving for our own health problems and future inability to work. This is not sustainable. But, it's the government. Common sense left the capitol buildings a long, long time ago. Filial responsibility laws if enforced would put a huge number of working people on the fast track to bankruptcy and homelessness. That they cannot see this is proof of just how blind politicians have become.

Really agree here!!! I really wish I had been more practical about the cost of homeschooling, and by that, I mean the long term cost, not the dollars spent on curricula or museum memberships or whatever.

Yes, agreed. I have heard some of this pollyanna kind of crap before. LOL, it is often from parents who are "homeschooling" a pre-schooler, and telling this stuff to parents about to pull an older child out of PS. It kind of makes my head spin, but I don't like to engage in the conversation. I have become cranky in the past few years about being a free education consultant. I don't have the energy for it, and need to work to pay college tuition and expenses. So I lay low, and wage the internal war to overcome the urge to speak.

I think that depends on the state. So much of these things are not a matter of federal rules. In Michigan, one cannot be directly held responsible for one's spouses medical bills IF the spouse refuses to sign any of the paperwork in which you consent to be responsible for the bill. We made sure my mom refused to sign any of that for my DNA donor. He was determined to accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills fighting for the 1% chance of getting a couple more years. What he got was a few months of abject pain and misery, and making everyone else so miserable and anxiety riddled that we all are on meds to deal with the fall out. But, for every hospitalization, I went along or my sister did - she took a couple of leaves of absence from her doctoral studies in France to come home for two or three months at a time. When paperwork was handed to mom by a member of hospital staff, we grabbed all the financial stuff and said, "Nope. She's got no assets. Nothing to tap. If you treat him and he doesn't pay, that's your problem not hers." Since the house had been signed over to her after he was arrested the year before, they apparently couldn't go after the house. It isn't much of house, but at the time, the only roof over her head that she could count on. After he died, when the first hospital bill came rolling through with the laundry list of things they had done to him or provided for him that either was subject to deductible, co-pay, or simply put Medicare was refusing to pay for, she just sent a copy of the death certificate and a note reminding them that she had NEVER signed to be financially responsible for his bills, and that was the end. Never heard another word. We did the same thing with the credit cards he ran up. We made sure her name was off his accounts while he was still competent to do it, so when those tens of thousands of balances came due, we sent them his death certificate - didn't have mom do a thing "Our dad passed away, here is the certificate, he left no estate and died a pauper as you will see since these credit card bills are all payments to the medical providers." They left everyone alone after about three attempts to collect. But, when it came to his legal woes, there was no such protection. She still ended up being legally responsible for his lawyer bill, and since his court fines came due before he died, there was absolutely no way to refrain from paying them. The court threatened to take her car, her TV and computer, etc. Apparently in this state they can seize anything they think is of value from the spouse to pay the legal fees. It took all of his social security for three months to pay that which left them living on $779.00 a month which is what she drew from SS. Even with a house paid off, that isn't enough to pay for utilities, home owner's insurance, food, prescription and doctor's office co-pays, etc. So you can guess who had to empty all of their emergency savings for that. Be careful in the state of PA. There is a filial support law on the books. Here is a link. Basically, you can be forced to pay for your parent's medical bills, particularly nursing home bill. https://www.paelderlaw.net/pennsylvanias-filial-support-law-children-can-be-held-responsible-for-parents-unpaid-nursing-home-bill/

We drive used vehicles here and do a lot of repairs because insuring newer ones is very expensive. But at 145K, $3500.00 would be more than we'd be willing to put in the vehicle.