Personally, I'd put the amount for vacation into your emergency fund at least until your emergency fund covers 6 months of expenses (including the rent that may never be rent). At 5200/mo, six months = $31,200; at a savings rate of $600/mo., it will still take you nearly 4.5 YEARS to amass that much money. Plan on staycations until you're stable. Aside from starting the IRA that a PP mentioned, I'd throw nearly everything extra into emergency funds.

I'm so sorry, reefgazer. It's so hard. :grouphug:

By third grade, everyone else will catch up and he'll be fine.

It would be a big deal if my husband went to a club, but I wouldn't "require" him to leave a bachelor party (not that he would go to any party without me in the first place). As for my son, once he is of age he can do as he wishes. The most I might say to him would be to warn him of the prevalence of drugs and the potential for violence. As for friends going, that's not my business at all.

I'm so sorry. But it seems that the most important people - your daughters - are NOT ignoring you. Reach out to one of them, not mentioning the current state of things, but just to say good morning or I hope you have a great day or whatever.

This is how I do it, and it seems to work fine for us.

My son (15) has had a savings account since he was about 8 or so, because I wanted to teach him the value of saving. Unfortunately, that's really hard to do when the state of the economy means the account earns one cent per month! I plan to have him open a checking account whenever he gets his first real job (not just cash for chores and odd jobs).

I happened across this article today and thought folks here would be interested. http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2016/06/talent-trap-why-try-try-and-trying-again-isn-t-key-success

This has been very interesting and informative. Thank you all.

Why do colleges want ALL of their students (or so it seems) to have had "leadership experience" in high school - such as captain of a team or officer of a club? I would think that would lead to a "too many cooks" situation. If everyone is clamoring to be the head of a group, who will be left to participate in the group? Is it really that important? Maybe this only applies to top colleges ... I don't know. Any ideas?

Wait ... you're in Italy and didn't have tomatoes?! Isn't that some kind of crime? At the very least, a national crisis.... :leaving:

Now what? ... That's easy. Start second-guessing. It doesn't really count until you've changed your mind twice and then ended up back where you started. ;)

This is the first time I've required school over the summer. We're redoing Spanish I because I just don't think he has it solid enough to progress confidently to Spanish II. Had you asked me last week if he worked willingly, I'd have said yes. We've been doing it together, and it seemed to be working well that way. But then there was yesterday.... I am so tired of the whining and complaining and lack of effort. I am almost to the point of letting it drop and having him repeat next year at his own expense - but he doesn't have that much money. :( Sorry. I'm just a bit down about it. It's so disheartening.

So lovely, Chris. Have you shared it with them?

What great news! You're just unstoppable, SWB, and for that I am very grateful. :001_wub: Texasmom, the link worked fine for me; maybe pasting or retyping the URL in your browser will work for you?

You may want to cross-post on the High School/Self-Education board. Some people who post there but don't read the Chat board could give you great information.

I'm not sure either of these links will have what you're looking for, but maybe one of them will lead you further: MLA, Works Cited form: https://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/mla-format/how-to-cite-a-chapter-mla/ APA, In-Text form: http://askus.baker.edu/a.php?qid=269560

Even if he had life insurance, the company may not pay out if the coroner rules the death a suicide. Also, someone else mentioned that the parents would inherit; I think it may vary by state, but in my state, the estate of a person without a will is divided per stirpes among the surviving relatives - so parents and siblings would get equal shares (including the children of a deceased sibling). I think my mom paid for my brother's cremation. His "estate" consisted of roughly $700. If I remember correctly, it covered income taxes (the first payee in line) and that's it.

I have no experience with ADHD etc. so I have no business commenting, really, but I did have some thoughts ... feel free to ignore. I don't think you should be the one setting the alarm and nudging him. But I do think he may need a bajillion reminders to set the alarm himself. I might sit down with him and work out a plan both of you can live with for getting those last 4 subjects done. How close is he to finishing them? One option might be to block-schedule in a Dave Ramsey kind of way - do the one closest to finished first, then when that's done move to the next. If he can commit to, say, 4 hours a day (broken up or straight through, however he wishes), maybe he can barrel through, and as each one wraps up he may retain motivation to knock out the others as well because the end is in sight. Obviously not ideal, of course, and you'd probably want to insist on at least an hour a day of geometry rather than letting that lie fallow until its turn in the closest-to-finished queue. But it seems to me that establishing a fairly stringent routine (that you both can live with) may be the most important factor. [ETA: just read your follow-up post about having a schedule. I think the open-door policy will be a good one - but you will definitely have to check up on him.] I think it may be important too to impress on him very clearly the down-the-road consequence of an extra semester or year if he won't get these things done now. How is his diet and what are his eating and sleeping and energy patterns like?

Good luck, Shelly! What kind of job is it? (I realize that information may require security clearance ... just curious.)

Bask in the silence, Erin! :)

I haven't shared my transcript - not sure where it is. But I know DS has heard a few stories from DH and me about various aspects of college. He is, shall we say, not in danger of overambition ( :D ) as it is.... I'm sure he'll hear a lot more as we get closer to application season.

:huh: :crying: What a sad story! Hugs to your 7th grade self! And :hurray: to you for working so hard to overcome it.

I found this disturbing on multiple levels. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/ivy-league-economist-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight/ By the way, the writing is terrible - I won't blame you for skimming. ;)

Oh, how horrible! :crying: I hope no one in that family had to be the one to discover it.... I just can't imagine such a horror. :grouphug: to you and your friends.