It's about food.

Please do note that I have not tried the olive oil thing, so don't blame me if it doesn't work/ruins your microscope.

Same problem trying to obtain unripe mangos. Both papayas and mangos seem to be sold not quite ripe enough to count as ripe, but way too ripe to count as green/unripe.

Yeah, what they said: Aquí es muy difícil conseguir el tipo de papaya verde que se utiliza en Tailandia It's really not the same with ripe papaya, and finding one that's still green is pretty much impossible around here. Maybe you'll have more luck where you live.

http://www.thehomescientist.com/manuals/Illustrated_Guide_to_Home_Biology_Experiments.pdf Page 24.

(completely garbling biblical references for the sake of cheering Slash up)

Yeah, we went through something like that. But then, things started turning around. Things seem to be turning around for you too. Matt got an 8.6% raise, right? You're just doing the 7 years of riches and 7 years of lean, but backwards (the thing with the cows and the pharaoh and stuff).

The thing is, not every NYS resident is eligible, even if their income is under $100k. If you don't complete 30 credits in a year you're not eligible. Likewise: "Students who began an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree who are not on-track to complete on time are not eligible to receive an award." I was 13 credits shy from graduating in Texas, but that would involve out-of-state tuition and flying there for at least one weekend (and since they changed the degree program since then, more than 13 credits now). In NY, I'd be in-state since we've lived here for 5 years, and as a transfer student there are some majors that would let me graduate in just 30 hours (the minimum a university requires from transfer students). I won't be able to take all 30 of those in one calendar year for various reasons (prereqs, scheduling, homeschooling two kids one of which is special needs, etc), and I'm not on-track to graduate on time anyway, so, I'm not eligible for multiple reasons even though our household income is decidedly under $100k. But, with this tuition discount program, it'd be easy for SUNY to increase in-state tuition, since most in-state students at 4-year universities ARE eligible. So... this may end up hurting me. I really don't see how lowering in-state tuition would benefit SUNY, so I don't think they will. Anyway, that was a not-relevant-to-most-other-people rant... all I was saying is that I'd love it if they'd lower tuition, but I doubt they will.

Yes, but I don't require it, unless it makes a difference in meaning.

In some (all??) places you can DE at the 4-year university as well. Whether it matters depends. My Calc 1 & 2 prof taught the exact same courses at the 4-year university and at the local CC - same prof, same book, same everything, just different cost.

Since the 2nd grade books were the last ones to be created, I'm going to say 'no'. That said, we haven't used BA. I don't see a problem with starting Pre-Algebra in 6th grade. If necessary, just take 2 years. Or if pre-a goes fine in 6th, but algebra is hard, do 2 years for algebra. I just wouldn't go looking for problems where there aren't any. There are plenty of kids who do pre-a in 6th, algebra in 7th, geometry in 8th, etc without issue. I'd probably take a moment to consider what happens in 9th grade onwards, but if the kid did fine in algebra in 7th and geometry in 8th, I wouldn't foresee an issue continuing on that track. If the kid needs two years for either algebra or geometry, that's fine too. I just would try to make sure the kid wouldn't need to spend 2 years on something in high school, but you're not there yet.

Last time I looked, there were also some Chem MOOCs - not sure how well they were run, but with most MOOCs I've done, there were some knowledgable students who were quite helpful in the forums.

I wish they'd lower tuition prices, but I don't see a reason why public universities in NY would lower their sticker price - in fact, wouldn't it make sense for them to increase their sticker price, since the tuition they get for most in-state students is fixed by the state, so any increase would have to come from out-of-state students and in-state students who don't qualify for free tuition (such as yours truly (not a student at the moment, but I still want to finish my degree at some point before my kids graduate high school)).

It's not a big deal, but DW needs to go yell at them to try to make it not hurt her credit score. It's a vast improvement over when we were in college and they actually shut our power off and we were in the dark because DW forgot to pay it in her manic state even though we had like $5k in the bank (because of the GI Bill and I don't know what).

And financially speaking, buying something that needs cosmetic improvements (such as badly needing paint) is your best option - stuff that needs major repairs or stuff that's sparkly super great looking are usually worse choices, financially speaking.

Also, your goal would have to be to keep the property for at least 5 years or so, otherwise closing costs etc are going to make it probably not worth it.

The liabilities column (I had trouble thinking of that word earlier). Right... so long as you're not buying in a bubble, or in a neighborhood that you think will go down the drain, it's probably a good idea. Just make sure you don't get foreclosed on - selling at a loss is almost always better than getting foreclosed on (of course, the goal is to do neither). I'm going to recommend learning a basic bit of accounting, and teaching your kids a basic bit of accounting too (when they're older - this can wait until they're teens). Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Accounting-Game-Basic-Fresh-Lemonade/dp/1402211864/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292733735&sr=1-1

Not necessarily. Yes, if you get a mortgage, you've got that debt in one column, but it should be balanced by the home value in the asset column. So, as long as the house price doesn't drop for w/e reason, it shouldn't have a negative impact on your net worth (houses don't really depreciate, normally speaking, unlike, say, cars, though houses do require some amount of maintenance).

(((Jean)))

They live in town, obviously. And probably in Santa's house too.

We got a notice on our door from the gas company the other day saying we needed to pay within 72 hours or they'd shut us off. I have no clue why they didn't write "warning" or something on the envelope for our most recent bill (other companies do that... plenty of experience with that back in Texas, when we were wealthy). It's on autopay, so we tend to not even open those envelopes... I think what happened is that DW got a new debit card so the expiration date changed, and she forgot to tell the gas company. Still not amused.

Oh, and only the living room/bedroom had heaters/window A/C units, so the pipes under the house froze a couple of times in winter, leaving us without running water (even though we'd let the faucets drip), and in summer you'd about faint just setting foot in the kitchen (especially the day it was 116F outside). :svengo: And in winter it hit 42F in the bedroom a few times according to the space heater there (and it only measures the temp right where it's at). Also, I think that technically speaking, your net worth has to be positive in order to be wealthy, which it was not.

Then for your own sanity I'd probably join now, rather than wait for Jan 1st. Of course, YMMV.

:lol: You can always cite us as an example. We owned a house in Texas before we moved to Buffalo. We bought it for $13,500 in Jan 2007 and sold it for $20k in 2013 (and no, that doesn't mean 48% profit - fixing the foundation, putting in a subfloor and floor in the living room and bedroom (because when we bought it it was a 3.5ft drop to the dirt floor), putting in plumbing, gas, and electrical in the rest of the house (because there were no plumbing or gas lines, and the electrical that was there looked like it was incredible that it hadn't caught on fire yet), and some drywall and paint, meant that that was sold at a loss (not too big a loss, since everything except the $4k or so for the foundation was done by DW and me, and it was cheaper than renting would've been, but still)). We qualified for Medicaid, food stamps, and WIC most of the time we lived there (and Celery qualified for free breakfast and lunch at school). Jobs we did while we lived there included cabinet making ($7/hour, iirc), waitressing, delivering pizza, truck driving, stacking boxes as a temp in a factory, installing satellite TV dishes, and picking up trash at the dump (as in, bagging pieces of trash that were flying around so they wouldn't fly off the dump - yes, that's a (temp) job), some of those interspersed with generous periods of unemployment (as in, up to 9 months or so at a time). Only truck driving and installing satellite TV dishes paid significantly more than minimum wage. Oh, and DW started working as a remote for the company she currently works for just before they made us move to NY. If that doesn't scream "wealthy", I don't know what does. :lol:

Some cashiers also get really confused by DW, who pays with her watch.