Jump to content

Menu
Giving You and Your Child a Road Map to the Best Possible Education
The Well-Trained Mind Community

dansamy

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    900

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by dansamy

    Graduation age

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I'm assessing each child individually. My oldest was 10 weeks pre-term and is definitely suffering from "wimpy white boy" delays. All of his delays are attributable to developmentally not being ready for some things when his calendar age put him there. Lat year, we called him grade 6.5. This year, we're full out calling it grade 7 and he will graduate with his cousin who is 4 months younger who was a year "behind" him in PS. His two younger siblings will graduate the same year they would had they remained in PS.

    paying off debts

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    Download it only from Cnet or OpenOffice.org. No other source. Open Office is not very resource heavy.

     

    Microsoft Windows

     

    Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7

    256 Mbytes RAM (512 MB RAM recommended)

    At least 650 Mbytes available disk space for a default install (including a JRE) via download. After installation and deletion of temporary installation files, Apache OpenOffice will use approximately 440 Mbytes disk space.

    1024 x 768 or higher resolution with at least 256 colours

    s/o Poorer thread... Adjusting budgets and expectations

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I suppose this would count as a spin-off from that thread. I commented on my own family's situation, which isn't great but it's not bad. (It's not great in that we're not homeowners even though we have a good income.)

     

    How do families adjust as their income declines or their obligations increase? Do "normal" people have 3-6 months of an emergency fund? What is "normal" anyway?

     

    I just downloaded a spreadsheet linked in another thread and built a debt snowball which revealed 2 years to pay off our unsecured revolving debt. (I didn't add cars or property into that equation.) While doing that, I also updated my family budget spreadsheet to include the snowball payment and increase our grocery budget. (I have been grossly under-reporting our food expenditures. The new figure is still less than what we have spent recently, but should be reasonable with more at home eating.) I also recalculated our income based on the average take-home pay over the course of the YTD. (Yes, I have been busy in the last few minutes!) While our amount of debt sort of surprised me, what shocked me even more was our average take-home YTD was higher than I thought it had been. Where does it all go? :001_huh: :confused1: I'm pretty sure it is all going here, there and yonder without much direction. One of my homeschool mom friends teaches Dave Ramsey's FPU. I think I need to take it. :crying:

     

    Anyway, what do other families do when their circumstances change? I know my sister has mentioned the only place they have to cut their budget is the groceries, and they already eat way cheaper than we do.

    Does anyone feel poorer lately?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted · Edited by dansamy

    I just read this whole thread. I am sooo very, very, very grateful and blessed that our situation has largely been insulated from the entire economic downturn. We moved into a tiny, paid-for mobile on family land right aboout the time the housing bubble was starting its burst/collapse. Yes, it's tiny. There's no privacy. Yes, it's a mobile. It's paid for. It's on family land that is also paid for. The roof doesn't leak and most of the floor is solid. The insulation is terrible, so we use heat or A/C only in room that we are occupying. (Portable heaters and window a/c units.)

     

    Even with its problems, we're blessed. We have multiple electronic gadgets and gizmos. We have satellite TV and DSL internet. We typically eat out 3-4 times a week. (We're going to have to cut that out though to have Christmas. Can't do both.) My husband's job hasn't had a real raise in a very long time, but the company has absorbed the rising cost of health insurance instead of passing it through. We pay less than $50 every other week for a BC/BS PPO.

     

    Now that I've said how blessed we are: I do see things getting tighter, even for us. I am having to reevaluate our grocery and miscellaneous expenditures because they're making it difficult to make sure our necessities are paid. I am finding myself in need of menu planning, when I've never really had to worry about it before. I'm fussing at my boys for going through milk too fast. I'm making my children choose in season, cheaper fruit instead of whatever they want. A hospital nearby just closed down. I have nurse friends who have been looking for work for months. Nurses! (Of course, they could take travel assignments out of town, but that's not always reliable work. It's hard to do that when you have littles at home needing their momma every night.)

     

    Milk is $3.59-$4.09/gal. Gas is $3.40/gal. Decent bread is $2-3/loaf and the loaf is smaller than the cheap stuff.

     

    It breaks my heart to hear that some of our ladies are eating the leftovers and crumbs from their children's plates and that a child has no shoes or only shoes with holes in them.

     

    Again, ladies, I am humbled and awed and just when I was fretting about my own problems, I am reminded that I am truly blessed.

×
×
  • Create New...