I just wanted to give this a little bump :) The sale is on! It's $19.50 for a one year subscription :)

I don't assume credit card equals debt :). We use them the same as other posters have mentioned to earn cash back. But the fact of the matter is that those who pay off their balance monthly make up a very small percentage of credit card users. If you know how to play the credit card game, you can reap some pretty great benefits, but the game is structured in favor of the CC company.

Oh absolutely. I a fairly frugal person, cash only, diligent budgeter(not a word) AND we don't do Xmas so there's no gift buying but my email BLEW UP this morning with sales. And I'm tempted. In fact I made a mental note to set money aside for next year for clothing and such.

They just add the sample recipes so you can see how the meal plan & shopping list work. You can add all your own recipes; I get almost all of mine online anyway, so I just added the Plan to Eat button to my toolbar & it imports everything really nicely.

I'd love to see others' recipes! My username is ajfries :)

Let's see...some of my usuals are pretzels, peanut butter crackers, graham crackers, spaghetti, Top Ramen, corn dogs :D, bananas, apples, yogurt, hot dogs, popsicles (they make these "mighty minis" that are somehow slow melting). Our little guy loves pizza, too (we do homemade but it obviously comes in the frozen variety, too ;) )

I went on my first shopping trip using Plan to Eat yesterday! It was great...I especially love that you can print out the "meal key" so you can see what ingredient goes to what meal if you need to. I am going to try to move the categories around so they correlate with the aisles at my store. We did have to do some backtracking :)

I think the ID is to track returns. So they can see if you constantly return items.

Baby sleeps in her room; she's not comfortable with having him in the bed with her at this point, but I think as he gets bigger & she gains confidence she might be more open to that. She got a good nap in yesterday morning and she sounded a little better. Thank you to everyone that had words of wisdom & advice (and commiseration!) I really appreciate it & I'm sure she will, too. :)

Her fiance's mom will have the baby when she goes back to work. She asked her to watch the baby so she could go get her hair done & she was really upset about it. About leaving him, I think. Going back to work is going to be really hard on her (as I think it often is) but there are definitely going to be some upsides, too. She does have a counselor, but she was doing so well during her pregnancy that she hadn't went too recently. I'm going to suggest that to her, too.

Baby won't take them, despite my sister's efforts. :sad:

Popular or not, I think I would have been better off not exclusively nursing my first DS. We had thrush and nursing was excruciating. I stuck it out, and I'm glad I did...but I think it cost me a fair amount of my sanity. If I were to go through that again, I don't think I would have made the same choice. I do think it would benefit her to look into options other than the anti-depressants, but as far as I know, the herbal supplements don't take effect as quickly. She is pumping, so she'll be able to watch her supply, and if notices a decrease there are herbs she'll be able to try to help bring it back up. Or she might decide that she's ok with other options. I just really want her to be able to feel empowered by her choices, rather than imprisoned by them.

Yep, it's the sleep deprivation that is really pushing her over the edge. She can cope during the day, but when it's time to go to bed everything is magnified. And then the next day you're able to cope a little less. She's also an extrovert and she really needs to get out and be around people. But you know how hard it is (even if it's just in our own minds) to get yourself and the baby out and about.

Her significant other works; I think he's very helpful when he's there but at the same time if the baby wants the boob, well...he can't help too much with that. She has started pumping & I think daddy does the before bed feeding, which helps. She's struggled with depression in the past & has anti-depressants on hand, which as of this morning she's decided to take. My biggest regret is not getting help when I had postpartum depression (I just didn't recognize the signs for what they were). But along with the anti-depressants is the risk of decreased milk supply, so she's having to work hard to weigh out the risks/rewards. I did (perhaps wrongly) tell her that the anti-depressants aren't magic pills. They won't make things instantaneously "rainbows and sunshine" but they will give her a fighting chance. If she thinks she needs them, she needs to trust her gut, but she also needs to be committed to her choice. She has a tendency to just take them willy-nilly. She did mention feeling bad for her guy (because she's so emotional and takes her frustration out on him) and I told her "He's a grown @ss man. He can take whatever you dish out. You need take care of yourself." I mean, sure, try to do better (and apologize for the crazies in your sane-ish moments), but don't beat yourself up too much.

This is me venting in order to help my sister through her....I want to say crisis :) but really it's just her new normal. Please don't quote; I might delete later on :) My little sister had her baby a month ago and is now in the thick of motherhood. All he wants to do is nurse, she's sleep deprived and probably a little lonely. She goes back to work on the 1st and is anxious about that. She feels guilty for not being all lovey dovey and rainbows and sunshine; her heart aches because she doesn't love breastfeeding and she gets frustrated at the endlessness of the tasks at hand. All of this is completely normal (at least in my experience). She's doing everything she needs to do to take care of him, but she feels like since she's not doing it with joy she's not doing it right. Our mother is useless and has been for quite some time so my sister turns to me. And I'm happy to help...except there's not much I can do except reassure her...I told her this morning that motherhood is varying degrees of hard. This phase is temporary, but all of child-raising is hard. I feel such empathy for her, but at the same time it's kind of like, "Well, yeah. Nobody said this was going to be easy." She tends to be overly dramatic and I am overly rational so I'm working really hard to reassure her without sounding heartless. We live an hour away and she's in an apartment so me going to her (with kids in tow) would not be helpful. I did encourage her to bring the baby out this way so I can help her. But again, having 3 kids 6 and under does not make for a peaceful retreat.

Ok. Seriously. I am amazed at this program. I'm making next week's menu and watching the shopping list change with each recipe I add is shockingly cool. For those of you who already use it, do you rotate the same meal plans for the most part or do you use quite a variety when your planning? It would be so easy to just rotate a few weeks worth of meals.

Safeway is the only grocery store in our small town & the prices without the club card are....awful. I did notice, though, that prices on things like milk & butter are cheaper than those of Walmart.

You know...I understand that there is a certain amount of....well, warnings we have to give to women. Ways to protect themselves. I get that...but what I'd like to see more of is the importance of raising our boys to be...not rapists?? To value a woman as a HUMAN BEING. I mean, I want to hear what the mother's of these boys' have to say about the boys. If I found out my son did something like this...he'd better hope that the law gets to him before I do. That's for certain.

I just wanted to spread the word that Plan to Eat is going on sale for $20 for a year's subscription next week. You can do a free 30 day trial, so if you signed up for that now, you could try it out for a week & see if it'd be worth it. I imported almost 30 recipes to it yesterday from various websites and had no trouble what-so-ever with them copying properly. I'm pretty amazed by it, actually. Then you can make a meal plan by dragging and dropping and it creates a shopping list for you based on the recipe's ingredients that you planned on making.

I couldn't finish the article. What kind of PEOPLE wouldn't take a woman who had just been gang raped to the hospital?! And the fraternity chants? Awful.

In this day & age, it's critical to give the proper tools to utilizing the internet in the proper manner. There's flat out no avoiding it. Yes, it has its dangers; as does driving a car & owning a home. This article talks about teaching internet safety; I really like the point of teaching our children to live by values, rather than rules.

I don't mean to be such a Debbie Downer :) It's such a fun experience! I like to google "Stitch Fix [current month]" and see what everyone else is getting. I put requests on my Pinterest board & in my note to my stylist and eagerly await my box. But once I get my box it's a huge let down because I couldn't justify the cost. This last box I really loved two of the tops, but one was a bit tight in the shoulders and the other was too expensive so then I was all depressed. It sounds silly, but it was so disappointing. Then I get into the whole "I wish we had more money...blah blah blah" for a day or so. If you typically shop for pricier items, I think Stitch Fix is awesome, but I will say that I don't think price reflects the quality (or lack there of).

I've received 3 boxes, but the items are very expensive and the quality is not what I would pay those kind of prices for. I cancelled this month. I really loved the experience but I can't justify $72 on a polyester top. The cheapest top I received was $38. They say the average cost of each item is $55. But I also received a $108 blazer. And I had my price requests set at "as cheap as possible". And of course even if you love something it might not fit and you can't request a different size.

We wouldn't unless we could take our families with us (well--his family) :) We've avoided the rat race altogether where we are. It's not perfect, but I'm happy with our priorities & how they are reflected in our lives.

In our house, I'M the one who expects little adults. It's very difficult. Least of all for me, I'm sure. I came from a home where you do what dad says because he said to. And my dad & my relationship was always lacking. Anyway, what has helped me is to be around other kids. Even just at the grocery store. Well behaved kids AND those who are less so. We're intimately aware of our children's failings because I think we sometimes translate that into OUR failings. Also, it's taken some self examination to realize that I have "off" days, too. Days when I KNOW I should do laundry, but I'd rather be on Pinterest. Kids have the same stuff, with less self control. Try to open up the lines of communication without placing blame. DH & I try to mention it LATER if we think each other was too harsh (or too soft). Some times all it takes is "DS is having a hard time with _______. I've been trying __________. Would you handle it different?" Some times in the heat of the moment we do differently than what we KNOW we should do; the emotions get to us. I know I struggle with taking things too personally. DH didn't put his dishes in the dishwasher (again!) the other day & I was like "I feel like you don't respect me!" The dude just didn't feel like doing it. He didn't think to himself "Eh. Jenna can do that for me." Not sure if that's even REMOTELY helpful...but I feel like I got a bit of therapeutic relief. :D