I think your list sounds great. Only suggestions I have are plastic lidded cups with mixed fresh fruit cut up (grapes, melon, strawberries, blueberries - not too many because you'd want to sell out), individual yogurt, and make real hot chocolate and serve it out of several big crockpots - Mmmm.

My kids are pretty picky, but I came up with ten dinners that they will *fairly willingly* eat. So I use those ten plus a "use up extra ingredients day" and a "new or infrequent recipe day" to make it twelve. That's two weeks of dinners for us that I can rotate through. I got bored of this for a while until DH asked what happened to it and that he thought it made my life easier and our grocery bill lighter. Not sure about the latter, but it was true for the former.

1. It's only one component of something more complex, like a breakfast burrito or breakfast sandwich. So it's not so much freezing plain scrambled eggs as freezing a burrito/sandwich that has scrambled eggs in it. 2. Dirty dishes!

Maybe I'm a food snob, but I HATE the way scrambled eggs freeze. If someone could tell me how to do it for breakfast burritos without them having the texture of styrofoam, please let me know! Pancakes and breakfast burritos do fine in the fridge for a week. If you are making food to only last a week, I don't see a problem with just keeping them in the fridge....no thawing...

Yes, it will be a miscellaneous itemized deduction, which only provides a tax benefit if it all adds up to more than 2% of your adjusted gross income.

I'm completely thrown off by PMS after my fourth pregnancy as well. It's awful. Super tired, super cranky, and it's the end of the world. I seem to be having some success with tyrosine and vitamin D, but I'm going to try some of these suggestions as well. I can't afford losing a week of my life every month.

I don't, and I'm a CPA so you might expect me to be anal about it. We write so few checks it hardly matters.

Sounds good! When we moved, we went from an 1800 sqft house to a 1300 sqft rental townhouse. We ended up being there for two years. The nice thing about that place was that it had a large, easily accessible attic, where we were able to store everything we hadn't gotten rid of during the move, but that wouldn't fit in the townhouse. We found that storage units were way more expensive than we anticipated, so that attic saved us a good bit of money. :)

When people change lanes through a turn. I never turn right when the traffic across the intersection from me is turning too, because even though they are in the left lane turning left, most of them end up in the right lane after the turn. The lane I want to turn into. I've only ever heard the ten months thing once and just thought the lady was stupid. <blush>

I think I'd put the house on the market and move if and when it sells. When you sell the house, move to a rental while you look for something to buy closer in. Moving into a rental will help you downsize your stuff so you can downsize your home. ETA: that vote was me. :)

I'd be thrilled with Starbucks or a local smoothie shop or anywhere that I could get a no-guilt treat for myself. :) (No-guilt money-wise.)

Getting the kids to like it or even eat it. Because I'm not making more than one meal, a healthier one for us and a kid one for the kids. Pushing back on the meat/grain/dairy and pushing for more vegetables. I think what makes this difficult is that it takes more time and is more difficult to plan and execute.

"Chopped - Homestyle."

Apart from the neighborhood bit, I could have written your post. Not sure how we ended up in the socio-economic bubble we find ourselves in, where everyone else seems to be living a fairly lavish lifestyle. I blame it on our choice of church. (Only half joking, I really like our church) I think we need to get involved in some volunteer/charitable activities to help with my (our) perspective. Also..."Seems like most everyone can afford multiple vacations including Disney at least once a year, surprise their spouse with a cruise for birthdays, buy new furniture, clothes, home accessories, pay for any kid activities they would like" might be you compiling several families together to create an "everyone" in your head. I know I do that. It's is discouraging though. I've actually encountered both of your examples up there of having people tell me to sign my daughter up for ballet and me having to explain why we don't have a summer pool membership at the pool where "everyone" at church gathers in summertime. Blah.

My ILs have a memory foam mattress and I dread sleeping on it. I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about? It's hot and it sucks you in and my back doesn't like it. We have a BeautyRest and really like it. You can't feel the other person moving in bed because of the way it's made. When we got it we compromised and bought a firm mattress (for me) with a pillow top (for DH). We will never buy a mattress with a pillow top again. It formed a ridge down the middle within weeks of buying it, and I hear everybody who has one say the same thing. (Too bad I didn't hear this ahead of time!). In the future, I will buy the plain mattress and a top that's removable/replaceable, maybe down?

I use the wide mouth jars and freeze with no lid. Once they're frozen I put a lid on them. I've never broken one, even when dropped.

We do this in our home every saturday. Except the dessert part is popcorn and a TV show.

That lamb with apricot sauce at our local Indian restaurant with a side of naan. The walnut chicken at Szechwan with some tempura green beans. Happy.

Nevermind. I was just whining.

So for pre-ballet, are the students required to do a recital? I don't really see the point. If you can opt out until the she can actually dance ballet at 8 or 9, would there be some sort of stigma in opting out? ETA - well, I guess if it's a month to month thing at the Y or parks and rec, a recital wouldn't be a concern, right? Her birthday is in February and I think I'd like to do this for her birthday. Clearly I need to start doing my homework!

My Ds would probably really like golf. I'll check that out for summer! I'm happy with choir. In only one semester, my DS has learned a good bit about tone, diction and control. And a little bit of music. They just did an extremely well done Christmas concert at our performing arts center. My expectations for this choir were high and I was not disappointed. :) The county sponsors quite a bit, but it doesn't seem to make it low cost. Again maybe going rate is just a hard thing for me to accept. I've heard of Upward sports but don't know a thing about it. I'll look into that. Thank you!

Nothing's free around here. I'll definitely look into the parks and rec stuff. We get their catalog in the mail periodically and I skim though it. Seems like in the past I didn't see much difference in cost between that and the Y (which is over $15/hr for just about anything), but I'll look more closely.

That's interesting. It must really vary regionally. Between ballet, martial arts and gymnastics, gymnastics is the most expensive here, even tumbling at the Y. Works out to about $18-20 per hour. People around here say it's because theres only one real academy in our city. Supply and demand. I don't have numbers on costume/recital fees on ballet. That part didn't occur to me...

Well! I guess I should read that other thread!

I'm not sure how to approach extracurriculars. I want my children (8 and almost 6) to be exposed to music and some kind of sport or (trained) physical activity, but I've been in sticker shock for years. We haven't done much for lack of funds. Can we talk about what options will give the best bang for our $$$$? I have my DS in a regional choir that's $230/semester. He's learning music and the cost is better than what it would take to learn an instrument. I'd like to start them on piano one day, when we actually HAVE a piano and the space for it. The only PE type thing they've got is once a week gym class at the Y. We had DS in Taekwondo for a while, but he started having some shoulder and back pain that made the pediatrician tell us to back off on that. Without going into specifics, I think he'd be fine with a more fluid martial arts like KungFu. DD wanted gymnastics classes for quite a while but we just couldn't afford it or justify it as something that could be useful through adulthood. She's also wanted ballet, and it looks like it would be less expensive. Still not something she could use as an adult, but I think that there are some cognitive benefits to dance. Convince me. I just recently found a good option for art at our museum. So I'm excited about that. Also, how do you manage the time commitments?