Per room. People not sharing is the reason that you need a house with so many rooms. Not saying that it is a bad thing they don't want to share.

Paducah is only getting roughly 1 min and 30 secs from my understanding. We considered it but will be driving into Indiana instead to get to a longer amount of totality

It might be possible. We did that last time pretty much accidentally. My dad had found a Walmart in the town Sparta, TN that we were planning to park and watch it at with bathroom access. When we rolled up early that morning the parking lot was jam packed already. Luckily, my brother had driven into the town earlier that morning to work from the library. They were having an eclipse party and it was the perfect amount of people and fun to experience it with. Not an overwhelming amount of people at all. I fear we won't find that this time around.

We're still trying to pinpoint a location in totality to head to. We've got a few towns in mind but will likely just decide the day before when everyone we're seeing it with us at the airbnb

Hugs Condessa

We are driving about 10 hours to spend the weekend with a bunch of family members and watch the eclipse. April is month 1 of relearning to live on a budget. We've just been spending too mindlessly and while not putting us in debt or messing up retirement savings we aren't making solid progress on other types of savings

Praying

Yes, all my kids have nicknames. Some came from younger siblings or cousins not being able to say their name properly. Others came from me, because I come up with random names to call babies and puppies while I'm cuddling them.

Oh boy! That first one I saw, the dill-ightful one was one my childhood dresser my entire childhood and the scent stuck for ages

This isn't a problem I needed in my life right now!!🤣 I guess I am forced to rewatch the entire series with a notepad in hands at all times. I'll get to the bottom of this ridiculousness.

I think that is pretty common in the world of ex spouses. Once they find themselves alone they reach out to what they were once familiar with. Thankfully, we have not dealt with this with dh's ex. They have no children together so truly no reason to ever 'accidentally' reach out.

So, our spending has gotten quite out of control. Nothing that puts us in debt or hurts our retirement savings. But it has hurt our savings for other things. We have decided to just be really drastic about it and are no longer using our credit cards, even though we can always pay them off every month. And we're switching to cash for a few categories we struggle with so when the cash is gone we have the visual reminder that any more is overspending. We'll implement it on April 1st, but I've got to go to the bank to get the cash out tomorrow on payday. Wish us luck. We've never really stuck to a budget too well other than never going into debt. But we really need to be more intentional with our savings.

Ugh! I hate the Dollar Tree. Only because my kids love it and still forget that nothing is a dollar anymore. So, now when they ask to go I remind them and then usually they still want to go and then get disappointed when we're there.

I've only ever used those 2. But I think booking.com is one

Horrifying. I always hated driving on that bridge.

She can also find a veterinarian who would prefer to train their own techs instead of hiring people who went through certification. That is what I did while in undergrad, fully intending to go to vet school after graduation. Then I worked in a good veterinary hospital for a year and decided against vet school. I certainly had the grades and ability but became jaded real fast while working. For me, it wasn't the euthanasia. I don't actually get bothered emotionally by that. It was watching the vets push testing and treatment, not because it was best for the animal, but because it was good for their bottom line. I decided to start my own pet sitting business instead.

Yeah, I think her feet may finally be done growing or near done so I may start doing 2 pairs at a time. Desiccant packs is a great idea. She does not take them out of her bag and kept scoffing at me when I'd tell her to. But tonight when she showed me her shoes I told her that she needed to start taking better care of her shoes and make sure they have a chance to dry out. Because while I understand 6 weeks is probably reasonable for her I also know she could have taken better care of them. And if she isn't willing to do that then I won't be willing to replace them every 6 weeks.

Capezio. She has tried many brands and these are so far the best for her feet. This is the first time that they wore out in the box. She had the competition and is in rehearsals for a show that is in 3 weeks. I'm not ready for her to go through a pair a week! I don't know how I'll be able to continue to justify the expense

6 weeks!!! Dd13's pointe shoes lasted 6 freaking weeks! I'm so over the expense of dance.

We actually have a tenant who is a professional ballerina. And him and I were just talking last night about how he is sick of having to work outside of his company in order to survive. He was saying he is going to set up a meeting with his boss in order to see what changes can be made to shift him to the company full-time in other capacities so he's at least not being dragged many different directions. And he is one of the 2 highest paid dancers there.

I think it is a parents job to lay out the reality of certain degrees/career paths. But that should be done in a loving and nurturing way. Dh followed his passion in martial arts and had a fulfilling career as a head instructor for 20 years. But it paid crap and pulled him from his family a lot. Most of that was him not knowing his value though. But after that experience, I will very lovingly use his experience as a talking point when discussing with my kids that if they want careers in certain industries they need a backup plan or another viable way to survive. It is just a reality. Dd13 wants to be a professional dancer, which I think is amazing and completely doable given her current skills and drive. However, she also needs to know that she will likely always have more than one job at any given moment and will be living with roommates. The arts are beautiful but they aren't appreciated in our society and rarely provide a stable living. So, going to college for them specifically is often not a great idea. Going into debt for them is an especially bad idea.

I can only laugh at this, but even our tenant uses me as me as brain power. He has lived with us since August and knows where everything goes in the kitchen. Today he was bringing in a big grocery haul he made and put everything away except the booze he bought. That he asked me where I wanted that to go. My response, 'um the liquor cabinet if it fits.' Which it did.

Man, I'd be ticked off at anyone who called me at wor to ask about mayo. To the point that I'd likely hang up on them and I do not hang up on people ever.

I have said this as well. But then I had to point it out to dh that it really was an issue because everyone in the family just asks mom instead of spending any amount of time pausing and thinking about xyz first to figure it out for themselves, dh included. Nothing major, things like 'do we have batteries,' 'where is the charger,' 'is recycling being picked up this week?' But with 7 people asking me these things all day long it is so tiring. Dh has stopped doing it but we're still working on the kids.

Congrats on being debt free. For me personally, I wouldn't finance a new car right after becoming debt free. I'm not opposed to debt, we are purposely not paying extra on our mortgage because the interest rate is 2.875% so investing extra gets us more than what we pay in interest. But we will never have a car loan again if we can avoid it. Many times the interest on car loans isn't less than what you can earn in the short term, or at least it is risky enough as a short term investment that I wouldn't risk it. But I also wouldn't take out money already invested. I'd just start saving up for a used car, probably 2 years old.