No, I haven’t but I’ll look into it. Thanks!!

I’ve always had large pores, but as I age (I’m 44) they seem to be getting worse. I know that you can’t really shrink pore size but I think you can minimize the appearance of pores? What type of products would I look for for this? Right now, in the morning I use an oil free face wash, toner (Thayers with witch hazel), Buffet serum by The Ordinary, and then Neutrogena oil free moisturizer. Nighttime looks similar, except I add in Granactive Retinoid 2% serum by The Ordinary. My goal is to prevent wrinkles, minimize pores, and not get acne, without breaking the bank. Those of you who are good at skincare, suggestions??

We love this recipe for instant pot carnitas. I serve them with this recipe for cilantro lime cauliflower rice. ETA: love this thread idea. I’ve already seen several recipes I’m excited to try.

Praying for your dh right now (and you too!!).

I am really, really working on meal planning. I would to find an (iPhone) app that: - can store recipes (website links or that I enter myself) - let’s me cetegorizw the recipe so I can search by ingredient - Let’s me build a menu plan - builds a grocery list Any favorites? Other cool things that these apps can do? Thanks!!

When I have a credit card transaction...this is what it looks like: I open a new transaction, put the amount ($30), Payee (for me that would typically be Kroger), the Category (groceries), and account (i would choose the credit card that I used to pay for this groceries). Let’s say I originally had $100 budgeted to be spend in my groceries category. After entering the transaction above, I would only have $70 in my groceries budget (because I spent $30). I would also see that there is now $30 in my Payment column for the credit card that I used to buy groceries. Because I import my transactions, once that $30 transaction for groceries at Kroger has gone through, I would see a new, identical, imported transaction. YNAB would recognize that it already matches a transaction that I entered manually, so it would make it so there is now only one, cleared transaction. Since I also pay my credit cards off each month, at the end of the month (or whenever I typically make my payment) I would look at the Payment column for that particular credit card to see how much I have available to pay (because anytime I used that credit card, Ynab would pull the money from the budgeted category and put it in the payment category). Assuming all transactions have cleared (nothing still pending), my Payment amount should match the balance owed on the credit card. Does it his help at all? I know you said you e already watched videos, but This video was instrumental in helping me to understand how to use c sit cards in Ynab.

yay!!! I didn’t realize they offer that now (I pay annually). That’s really cool...and I think more people would be willing to give it a shot with monthly billing too.

OP here! This thread is over two years old and dd is now 12 years old and in the 7th grade. She has been managing her eyebrows with the tiny little eyebrow razor that many of you mentioned here. Something like this. We have talked about waxing or threading, but she has a super low pain tolerance, so she wants to wait to try either of those options out. She actually has really pretty eyebrows (they are full and very much “in style”) and since she also loves makeup and general skincare, she is good about brushing her eyebrows to make them look neat.

I had a similar thing happen with an iPhone during Walmart’s Black Friday sale. I wanted to purchase the iPhone XR, which came with a $400 Walmart gift card. When I ordered it in store (had to do this, and then make an appointment to come back in to set up phone), I was told that I got the last iPhone XR That they had in stock. On the day of my set-up appointment, I received a call that they’d made a mistake and didn’t have any more iPhone XRs. I was told that I could buy an iPhone 11 instead, but it was $100 more and the gift card given with it was for $300. I asked for them to compensate me for their mistake and they did! I purchased the iPhone 11 and they gave me the $300 gift card that came with that phone, plus an additional $150 Walmart gift card. I only ended up paying an additional $50 for the iPhone 11, which was fine with me. In my situation, I didn’t even have to argue. I just asked the guy I was talking to if Walmart would compensate me for their mistake (I was very firm when asking). The guy spoke to his manager and called me back with their answer. It was great!

I’m jumping back in. I only have my menu made through Tuesday because dh leaves Wednesday morning for work (he will be gone two weeks) and it will just be the kids and me. Today (Saturday) - steak and roasted green beans Sunday - “Big MAC” salads Monday - leftovers Tuesday - Chicken carnitas tacos I’m trying to move back to a low-carb diet and meal planning will help tremendously. I’m also trying to cut down on the grocery budget.

Has anyone used the meal planning app, Mealime? I just heard of it this morning and have been looking at it. Curious to know if anyone here has experience with it. For some super-weird reason, meal planning is just something I can’t get going. I know I need to do it...for several reasons. It would help us with our budget. I spend way too much money on quick trips to Walmart or Kroger. It would also help me get back to healthier eating. With no plan I get lazy and either eat something junky or go out to eat. If I could find an app to help me meal plan, that would be bliss!!!

I have my first beginners yoga class this evening! I’m a little nervous because I’ve never done anything like yoga and also, it has been ages since I’ve done any type of exercise class I’m looking forward to it though. I’ll come back and report how it is.

Thanks for responding! Yes, the quick budget feature would likely work for you, if each month is the same. Again, I love budgeting, so I enjoy putting my money in each category on payday. 🤓 If you use Facebook, there is an awesome YNAB group that has a ton of info. You may want to check it out.

I love these two YNAB videos: YNAB for Beginners YNAB Credit Card Guide

That’s great that you signed up! On payday each month, you take your paycheck and allocate it to your envelopes. So when you get a paycheck that you want to use to put $200 toward vacation, you do it then. The idea behind Ynab is to only budget the money you have (not future money). Does that help at all? ETA: I’m a bit nerdy when it comes to budgeting, but I get so excited on dh and my paydays because I love allocating our money to the specific categories. I get that not everyone feels like me.

I use the new version of Ynab, mostly using the app on my phone. I maybe spend 5 minutes per day dealing with transactions. I try to add in my transactions as I make them, and like the poster above, I normally go online and view my pending transactions at our bank and on the credit cards we use. I also have my accounts linked, which means that the transactions come over to Ynab after they clear the bank. Because I have already listed most of the transactions myself, I only have to approve the linked transactions (they match up directly with the transactions I already entered). What helped our finances the most has been the credit card features. The idea is that you only spend money that you already have on hand. So when I make a credit card purchase (say $150 for groceries), I tell Ynab about that transaction and that I made the purchase using my credit card. YNAB automatically pulls $150 from my groceries category and puts it in my category for paying my credit card. Dh and I had tried previously to use a credit card for all purchases and pay it off monthly, but we could never seem to get it to work. Now my credit card payment category matches my credit card balance - the money is sitting there to pay it. I would definitely encourage you to try the free trial. If you look online, there are codes for a three month free trial. I have also heard others say that at the end of their one month free trial, they contacted Ynab support and requested a longer trial and it was given to them. There are many videos put out by Ynab that help to explain just how it works. Also, search “Nick True Ynab” and you will find some other awesome videos. Let me know if you have other questions!

I felt the exact same as you for years as I was looking for the perfect budget software. Seriously...I tried them all. I even created my own super-complicated spreadsheet. I couldn’t stick with any of them. Finally, at the end of 2018, I had a moment. I was looking at our finances - our income and our debt. I just couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t pay off our last little bit of credit card debt and why we weren’t saving more money. I broke down and did the two month YNAB free trial and at the end of those two months, I could already see the benefit. I happily paid the $84 for a be next year. As I mentioned, we are in a completely different financial situation today, just 14 months later. I just paid my renewal (which I had budgeted for over the past year!) and didn’t blink an eye!

I know you said Ynab doesn’t work for you, but I just have to say that after YEARS of looking, YNAB is the only budget tool that has worked for dh and me. Now our transactions do import, so that makes it much easier, but if they didn’t, I would just login to my bank/credit card each day and log the transactions from the previous day. And for anyone else reading, the $84 per year that we’ve spent on YNAB has been completely worth it. The only reason that we are (finally) in a position to buy a house this summer is because YNAB helped us to get a handle on our money. One website that I liked in the past was called Mvelopes. Have you checked that one out? I still think that YNAB is better, but I would say that that one came in a (distant) second place. 😉

Great advice. Thank you so much!!

Thanks! Does it make sense to talk with multiple lenders? When we purchased our first house, we only talked to one. And he was young, new, and a friend. Stupid of us, but we didn’t know it at the time. What are we looking for in a lender? What questions do we ask? Not sure about waiving escrow...thoughts on that? Our credit scores are over 750. Sometimes they are close to 800.

Good point and I think you’re right. Well maybe I will use my debit card some too over the next six months to keep our credit utilization low.

Dh and I have been home owners in the past, but we were very naive when we bought our first home and also when we sold. Since that time (10 years) we have been renters and working to get our finances back in shape. We hope to finally have a decent down payment ready by this summer and would like to be smarter about purchasing our next home. At what point should we start talking to lenders? I check our credit regularly and we both have good credit scores. However, one thing that hurts us (I just noticed this!) is that we put most of our purchases each month on our Amazon Chase card. That is our credit card with the best rewards and while we could certainly qualify for better ones, I know that now is not the time to be opening up new lines or credit. Even though we pay the card off in full each month (sometimes multiple times per month), it still can hurt our credit as the limit is only $9,000. So I didn’t know if talking with a lender now could maybe give us direction on things like this? Or if lenders even do this. What else should we be doing as we prepare to buy, other than saving as much as we can? Any websites worth looking at? Experiences that you’ve had and learned from? I’m super excited, yet nervous.

It’s raining today, so instead of my normal outside walk, I thought I’d do a Leslie Sansone indoor walking video. I only did a 15 min, 1 mile walk because I needed to get to work and I was curious to do know how the walk was measured on my Apple Watch. My watch says I walked 0.83 miles, which is fine. My heart rate didn’t get as high as it does on my normal outdoor walk. None of this really matters, I just enjoy comparing the info. Later today I will try to get outside of the rain stops. If not, I will do a longer walking video.

Agreed! Thank you and Happy New Year!!!

Ds 15 is in 10th grade and just started public school this school year (he was at a private Christian school previously). So far, no homework over breaks.