*anj*
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Posts posted by *anj*
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Uh, yeah. More times than I'd like to remember. And I wish I could say I've triumphed over that temptation, but nope! :o
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I looked at her site, and they were using "spice" analogies all over the place, so I'll take her at her word regarding her name.
Do we really need to call people "those people" just because we don't care for their blog? I thought it was pretty funny, personally...
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Joanne,
It's so nice to hear a good report. I think of you often, and I'm glad that things are going well for you.
God bless!
--a
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Yes, we do. I usually do it to keep up the continuity. This year I will do it out of necessity because we've had a very difficult school year.
But I do think it's always a good idea to at least have school-lite.
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I don't, but there is a woman on my local Freecycle loop who periodically makes a request for any freezer burnt meat she can get. I happened to have a bunch of freezer burnt venison on hand, and she was delighted to have it for her dogs. She gets whatever meat she can, cooks it, grinds it, and I guess that's it. She didn't give me her recipe, she just told me the basics. Anyway, the reason I'm mentioning this is I thought you might like to look into that option for obtaining meat. Dogs aren't as picky about flavor as humans are and it keeps people from wasting food they wouldn't otherwise eat. :D
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In a word? No.
It's improved in the past year but it is still sub-par considering the taxes that we pay here. :mad:
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Now that's very interesting.
I've heard about surgical procedures, though I doubt they're recommend one for me. What I really need to do is lose :eek: weight. The snoring has worsened as I've gained weight over the years. Lovely.
I'm sure my mouth won't like having a piece of plastic lodged inside it all night. I hadn't considered that part. Fun-fun-fun. :(
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Don't start throwing snowballs at me but....
January 2008 goes in the record books as the least snowy in 75 years of NJ history. Can you believe it?
We haven't had a decent snowfall once this year.
One night it snowed and looked so pretty and then when we woke up the next morning it had all been rained away.
So sad.
Well, dh isn't so sad. He's actually glad because it means he hasn't had to shovel at all.
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Hey everybody,
I am finally ready to put this excellent resource to use, but I'm thinking that I could do a lot more with it if I had ideas. Does anyone use one for planning life in general and school in particular?
I'm trollin' for ideas! :D
Thanks!
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Anne,
Thanks for your response.
I was hoping to get one without going to the dentist, but maybe I'll be better off getting the "real" kind.
Just another thing to spend my mental energy mulling over! :cool:
Thanks again!
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I'm not getting why you'd use a blender. Unless maybe you had regular oats and needed to make them quick oats?
Yep, that's exactly it. I only have regular oats on hand, so the first time I made them I put them in without blending and they were beyond chewy. Still tasty, but chewychewychewy. Next time I pulverized them a bit and they were a lot better.
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Good for you, Julie!
I have a friend using Excel for budgeting and another friend who uses cash envelopes. Both are very happy with their systems! When my friend who uses cash gets paid, she writes out all the bills and then withdraws the rest of the cash from the bank! Then she allocates it all to envelopes for different categories and divides them between her and her husband the way they've agreed. This would drive me nuts, but I can definitely see the appeal -- no record keeping once the cash has been divided into envelopes and a definite end to spending when the cash is gone!
This is exactly what we do. Dh has it all set up on the Excel sheet for recordkeeping. On payday he sets up the bills for payment, and then we put cash into a series of envelopes. We have children's clothing, adult's clothing, hair care, homeschooling, groceries, food co-op, dairy (we buy our milk from a farm), medical, gifts, tithing, gas, car care, household repairs, and maybe a couple more. We don't have to write down anything because the money is all right there. It took me awhile to get used to grabbing cash whenever I go out, but it totally works. For Christmas I got the wallet that Dave sells on his site and it is helpful, although now that I see how it works I think I could've made my own. Oh well.
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Are you budgeters familiar with Laine's Letters? Laine and her husband wanted to become completely debt free, including their mortgage. When I first started reading her letters several years ago, they were just starting out on their journey. A year or so ago she announced that they were totally, 100% debt free. She homeschooled their three children and her husband doesn't earn much money (I'm pretty sure she said it was under $50,000.) Laine is exceedingly frugal. If you go looking around her site you'll find tons of frugal recipes and her letters cover various topics, many of which are connected to budgeting and frugal living.
Here's a link to one entry on budgeting: http://www.lainesletters.com/letters/thebudget.html
She is really my inspiration. :)
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Also, the butter is part solid, and the CO really is oil.
Did you run the oats through the blender first?
I wonder if you could heat the whole thing in a pot and nurse it back to health? Does that sound crazy?
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The #1 thing Dave talks about is cutting up the cards and not using them. I think I would definitely go there, and then if you have a true emergency, use money from your e-fund.
ITA with this. You won't regret it. It was really, really hard for me to do, because I liked my cards and also because so much of the conventional wisdom says that you "need" them, but I don't think you do. If you hold onto those cards you will end up using them every time you find yourself in that position. I can think of a few times in the past few months when I'd have pulled one of mine out if I could.
But I am really learning to live on all cash. We cut back on our way of living in a drastic way. When this is all done we'll have paid off $20,000 in less than a year. You can do this, but it isn't easy, as you know.
Dh put our budget onto an Excel spreadsheet as well, and we just change numbers monthly when necessary. You might want to go back over your main budget and reevaluate some of the allocations. Can you cut back on your "blow fund" to add more to the medical one? Can you put off the dentist visit for a couple of months? That way you can save up for the visit rather than paying over time and owing.
I know what you mean about being thriftier back in your "poverty days." As our income increased, we became much more generous with ourselves and eventually we reached a point where we were spending more than we earned every single month.
Oh well, that's enough of that. Press on!!
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Yes, I know the feeling. We started using Dave's plan in June and God willing, our consumer debt will be paid off by May. It's been a tough road, and yes, there are times when I wish we could just go buy whatever we like for a month. But then I remember that those were the Bad Old Days and I don't want to go back there. It's kind of like painting pictures of Egypt, you know?
Anyway, maybe it's time for you guys to add a bit more fun money into the budget. Is it possible to do that?
As Dave says "If you will live like no one else, you will live like no one else."
Keep the vision, girl!!!
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Yes! We were running out to do some errands one day this week and I called to order the pizzas. I had my children pack water bottles so I wouldn't need to buy them drinks. They ate the pizza in the car, and were really happy about it. I personally don't really care for PH pizza, but we don't eat out often, so it's a major treat for my kids.
Oh! When I called to order I mentioned that I was using Book It! coupons and the guy told me that I had to bring the children in with me to prove that they were truly getting the pizzas. YMMV.
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Does anyone here have knowledge of the mouthpieces that you can put in your mouth at night to stop snoring?
This page has pictures of a few: http://www.putanendtosnoring.com/mouthpiece.htm
As you can see, there are quite a few, and I'm not sure if one is better than another or whatever. I do have mild to moderate sleep apnea, and eventually I will probably get a c-pap, but for now I'd like to try this mouthpiece if it will work. I actually saw one on ebay that cost $149 :eek: But then I saw many others that were around $40. I'd like to try one of those.
Any advice?
Thanks!:D
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Great sites! What age, do you think, is good to start typing lessons?
I guess it depends on the child. I'd say they should already have good eye-hand coordination, or it could be very frustrating.
I think that some children start very young. My 8 yo and 10yo just started, but that wasn't because of any plan, it was more that Mom hadn't found anything she wanted to use. And it wasn't a huge priority, considering that I was 16 when I learned, and I can type 60wpm or more, depending on how well warmed up I am. :)
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I totally understand why some of you are saying that you don't give your children money for doing what is expected of a decent human being and family member. I really get that part, and it's been my own opinion pretty much throughout my parenting years.
But I'm wondering this: We as parents do our jobs around the house, and are entitled to discretionary funds. So if being part of the family unit entitles us to take some of the money for our own use, why aren't the children entitled to any of it if they contribute to the household to the extent that they are able?
I'm addressing this to the ones who said that they don't give their children an allowance of any kind, just "room and board."
And I don't mean to sound confrontational. I'm just asking it in the conversational/devil's advocate way that I would if we were sitting and chatting over coffee.
Oh, and part of the reason that we've decided to give our kids a weekly Commission is that we want them to learn how to budget starting at an early age. They don't just get money to go out and buy toys. If they have their eye on something, they can save for it. They have to split their commission up by categories: saving, spending, giving.
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My big, huge behind is the reason I'm not eating those for a very, very long time.
Sigh.
I do so loooove those things.
Sing it, Sister. I wouldn't either, except I've conveniently got a church potluck to take them to...yeah, yeah, that's it: church potluck! :p
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Pam "Teensy Tiny Crack Problem" in TN
Ummm Pam.
I have to say something. I can't hold it in.
Okay, here goes:
Those things are really addictive, which will not result in a Teensy Tiny Crack Problem, but a Big, Huge, Crack Problem.
Okay, back to your otherwise accurate conversation! :D
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Doran,
First I want to welcome you to the boards! Someone had posted that you had to go beg some computer geek kid in the back of a 7-11 to help get your computer configured so you could come here! (j/k!)
I even went over to the old board and tried to answer your question about the loud neighbors, but when I tried to post it, it bounced.
Here's the answer I wrote for you:
I hope that you'll be able to get to the new boards soon. Anyway, I just wanted to reply to you because normally you'd have gotten about a million replies by now.I like the plate of cookies idea. Maybe just stop by, all friendly-like, and mention how much you like living there, the only drawback being the thin walls. Mention that you can hear everything through those cheap things, and "If you ever hear the kids fighting or yelling or playing too loudly or whatever, please do knock on our door and let us know that we're disturbing you."
Now I know that you wouldn't be so inconsiderate as that, but if you kind of put the blame on yourself they might respond by saying "Oh yeah, thanks. Same here." Then you're all set!
Oh, and yes, go ahead and try coconut oil. I often sub it for butter, although we don't have any dairy issues here. I used it in brownies and they tasted like Mounds!
So, was cumingirl a troll?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
That's true, Karen. I guess I was responding more to the overall tone of the thread.