I’m not one for resolutions or setting real goals. For me they don’t make sense. But there’s something about a fresh, new year and wanting to make a few changes. One of the things we’re working on in our house is our budget [groaaaan]. From when we got married nearly 15(!) years ago, Mark and I have always shared finances. With the exception of retirement accounts, all of our money goes into the same pot and we make joint decisions about how to spend nearly all of it.

This is not so say we have a perfect situation set up here, or that I would ever claim that our way is the best way. In fact we need some help in setting budget parameters and living within them without texting things like “I’m going to spend $75 at Target – any reason I shouldn’t?” while we’re at the store. So we are slowing working on setting up “YNAB“.

Setting up realistic numbers should be pretty easy as nearly every penny of our spending has filtered through Quicken over the last 15 years. Seriously. And yet, even with that kind of tracking we don’t always do well with sticking to a realistic budget. More often then not our spending decision is “nope, can’t afford it”. Because with 2 kids, one still in daycare, we likely can’t. We expect YNAB to help us both see exactly were we stand on any given day in regards to all areas of our money. Hopefully this will give us a bit more accountability and maybe even some freedom.

Oh, and here’s a confession: we don’t have credit cards. In fact, 2015 is year 3 with no credit cards. It’s scary at times, but also almost a relief (?), I guess. I mean, if we don’t have the cash to buy something we don’t buy it. Simple decision. No hidden purchases stashed in the trunk (come on, we all do it), no spontaneous purchases. Yes, we have an emergency fund for real emergencies but we don’t touch that unless we have to. It’s the reason we can’t just go to Disney like we desperately want to. We plan to go in about 13 months because the cost of a trip like Disney takes about 18 months to save cash for. That’s just our reality and what works for us right now.

Things should loosen up in the fall when Madman starts kindergarten. But the truth is that most of the savings from tuition will be redirected to the items towards which we are saving. And can I just tell you how wonderful it is that we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after NINE YEARS of childcare? I mean we’ll still pay for aftercare and summer camps but it’s about one fifth of what we are paying now. (And those 2 years they were BOTH in daycare? Thinking about those bills makes me hyperventilate).

Right now some of the big, immediate things we are saving cash for include:

– Summer camps for Matilda. She is all signed up for 9 weeks of various camps and we need to pay off the balances before June 1.

– Having the house painted & garage doors replaced this summer

– 3 trips to see my parents in South Carolina in 2015

– Disney in early 2016

By the time bills are paid, food is purchased and savings are stashed away, there is little left for things like my make-up desires or new running shoes.

This lifestyle can be quite hard in today’s society (that sounds very pompous, it’s not meant to be). I can be pouty about seeing a great deal on something and not being able to take advantage of that deal because it’s not in the budget. Or having to turn down opportunities to go out because it’s not in the budget. It’s not to say we are broke, because we aren’t. But when you don’t have a credit card to fall back on those immediate wants aren’t nearly as gratifying to purchase.

But the big picture is this: by the end of 2016 we’ll should enough saved up to rewire the entire house and upgrade our electrical panel (we have old knob and tube wiring and not enough amps), and replace our 90+ year old boiler.

The 5 year plan includes a new roof, complete renovation of our 3rd floor including the existing bathroom into a full master suite. Basically I want it to be this with built-in dressers and bookshelves in the walls. I can’t wait. The 10 year plan will include the start of college(!) for Matilda and full kitchen gut-job and renovation. We’ll do as much of it with cash as we can.

I’m not sure how to wrap this all up with a nice bow. These are just the thoughts rattling around in my head right now.

I’m one of those people who typically try to have my Christmas shopping done by the first week of December. I try not to step foot in any store between Thanksgiving and Christmas and since I do lots of shopping online I want to leave ample time for shipping. This year I had all of my shopping completed as of Black Friday.

Of course, today is Cyber Monday so I checked out some of the sales to see how they compared to what I got.

First up: Land’s End. Last week I purchased clothes for the kids – 4 shirts, a dress and a 3-pack of socks (added to get my total to the free shipping level). A few items were on sale and I had a code for an additional 20% off. Today the whole site is 40% with free shipping on all orders. I loaded up my cart with the same things I got last week, added the 40% off code and… my total was $5 more than what I paid last week! Mmmm. Looks like the stuff that was on sale is no longer on sale, while the stuff that was full price is now on sale. So while 2 of the shirts are now $6 cheaper each, the whole order was more. I technically didn’t NEED the socks but now I almost see them as a bonus.  Final total: +$5 to me.

Next: Kohl’s. I got some Ohio State and Miami Dolphins gear for my nephew on sale and with an additional 15% off on Thursday. Plus I got $15 in Kohl’s Cash because I spent $50 to get to free shipping. Today they have 20% off site-wide and shipping is free for orders of $25+, so I re-loaded my cart. The items were on deeper discount plus the additional discount was bigger so the total was $18 less than a few days ago. I seriously thought about re-buying it all then returning the first purchase. Then I remembered the Kohl’s Cash, which I do plan on spending… and all of sudden doing a return and re-buy for $3 seems ridiculous. Final total: -$3

Next: Target. They had an amazing deal for 10% off gift cards so I picked up one for each teacher. I’ve never seen a discounted gift card for Target before so this was my favorite deal. Final total: +$6

Finally: Amazon – I bought some toys for the kids on Friday and did my pricing research using this site.  Things looked good on the price front so I ordered (side note: if you have Amazon Prime and select “no rush shipping” you get $1 towards a video rental… so I did a separate order for each toy and racked up the credits).  Then yesterday I was at Target and spotted this Marker Maker for Maggie and it was more than $10 cheaper in the store. I looked at Target.com and the price was the same. I called Amazon and they refused to price match. So that one I AM sending back. I got the cheaper one, plus a refill pack and even with the cost of return shipping we’ll break even. Final total: +/-$0 out of pocket. But I did get the bonus refill pack so I’m going to call this +$7.

Also, I recently signed up for Ebates (referral link) and have been religiously shopping through their site.  So far I have a whopping $0.40 cash-back. Maybe it takes some time for the cash back to show up? So far I’m not impressed.

All in all it looks like I actually SAVED about $15 by shopping before Cyber Monday.

What have been your best deals this year?

I love twitter. I have met some amazing people there, some of which have become real-life friends. I usually have great conversations, and learn a thing or two. But sometimes something happens on Twitter that makes me both shake my head and laugh. Today was one of those days. First the backstory…

Several months ago as I was checking out local CraigsList listings I came across a used stroller priced at $800 (or something close to that…it was near the $1000 mark). I was shocked… a USED stroller that costs a rent payment?! I looked up the brand (UppaBaby) and saw they had several models that started north of the $850 mark. I took to twitter saying I couldn’t believe anyone would pay that much for a stroller. Or would pay $800 for a used stroller. I think my words were “Who the hell spends $800 on a stroller?”

To say I got a smackdown in response would be an understatement. I got replies and DMs from dozens, all chiding me for judging their buying choices. “I own an UppaBaby and it was a great purchase and I would do it again!” “You don’t know my financial situation!” “I’ve got 2 and they are great, worth every penny” “I spend my money on what I want, who are you to judge?”.  Well ok then. In fact, I got so much negative response to that tweet that I ended up deleting it, which is why I can’t quote it exactly.

Maybe it’s my Midwestern-ness showing or the fact that I live in an area with a low cost of living or the fact that when I was buying a stroller that thousand dollar Bugaboo’s were the celebrity fashion and most non-celebrities gasped at the cost and said they were all about image. But I still maintain that a $800 stroller is a luxury and that if you are going to have one you at least need to own the fact that many think that price is a crazy amount to pay for a baby item.

Fast forward to today. A twitter friend posted about a used “rare” diaper selling on a cloth diaper site for $210. The hilarity of the price! Who would spend $200 on a diaper? And more than 20 people agreed – a $210 diaper is crazy. A $210 USED diaper? Ridiculous. “lost their minds”, “WTF”, “freaking insane” were some of the responses.

I agreed and jokingly warned her not to comment about the price of baby items …learn from my experience!

And you know what happened? I GOT SCOLDED AGAIN. I got scolded about by months-ago tweet about an expensive stroller! And people favorited the scolding tweet!

So that happened.

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Like I said sometimes you learn things on twitter.

Today’s lesson: it’s ok to make fun of a $210 diaper and those who would buy it, but it’s not ok to express the same things about a $800+ stroller.

It’s either that or: those who buy super-expensive strollers are really defensive about them on twitter, and those who by super-expensive diapers are not.

THANKS, TWITTER for these life lessons.

It started last night when Pauline posted it on FB and asked for thoughts. Then today I saw it all over my twitter feed. It’s an article on Salon.com called The day I left my son in the car by Kim Brooks. The article is very long but extremely well-written – it’s worth your time.

An article she mentions is also worth your read: The Overprotected Kid, by Hanna Rosin. If you haven’t read them both please go and read them, then come back.

Edited to add these other links:

This step-by-step story about a mom who is investigated by CPS for allowing her 6 year old walk alone in their neighborhood.

This interesting article by law professor David Pimentel which says among other things: “Of particular concern is how the trend toward overprotective parenting is reinforced by legal standards.”

I’m interested in your thoughts.

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As for me, it was around last year at this time that we allowed Matilda to walk to school on her own. She was at the end of kindergarten, school is just under a mile away and there are 4 crossing guards on the route. After a practice walk or two we let her go, hearts in our throats the entire time. And we got raised eyebrows over our decision. Weren’t we worried? What if something happens? It’s a residential route, full of other (older) kids walking and riding their bikes and yet I felt judged because we let our 6 year old walk.

In fact, just today today Matilda and another 1st grader neighbor walked to school together. I saw another mom and her 1st grader leaving to walk and I suggested he just join the girls “no, I feel safer if I go with him!” was her reply. Everyone has their own reasons, but even in a safe and pretty tight-knit community that fear is still there.

And now I’ll transition to the “did-our-parents-really-let-us-do-that” game that Ms. Brooks mentions in her article. I played around with google maps today and learned that from 1st grade on I walked a half a mile to school every day – my older brother and I walked with some neighbors. I’m pretty sure we walked home, too. I know when I was older I was a latch-key kid (my mom was a teacher at my school, so she got home a bit after I did). In middle school the walk was closer to a mile. In the summer we’d sometimes walk or ride bikes about 2 miles to the pool – which was on a pretty busy road with no sidewalks. I’d walk to soccer practice at the park about .5 mile up the hill.

All the kids in my neighborhood spent countless hours in the woods and ravine behind our houses. We built a city of forts, caught crayfish and built damns. We swung on vines and hunted for wildflowers. In the winter we’d drag our sleds to an awesome hill on the other side of the woods and spend hours sledding and building ramps to see who could get the most air. I don’t think anyone ever broke a bone. I have no idea who owned the land, but us kids were allowed to roam free through the woods.

that red mark was my house, the woods were our domain. So many great memories spent in those trees.

There are stories of my brother and his friends “trying to find the end of the road” on their bikes, which was nearly 6 miles away. I remember a few times in middle school being allowed to walk to Friendly’s over a mile away, so I could get ice cream with friends. Summer nights were spent playing in packs until long after sundown. We’d have epic games of “ghost in the graveyard” that spanned several blocks.

I do wish my kids could have that kind of freedom. And they are still so young, perhaps they will. Part of the reason why they won’t is just location. Looking back now, the location of my childhood house was ideal. It was a neighborhood full of families and our houses backed up to a large wooded area. There is nothing like that were we live now. Yes, there are parks and streams and places to explore nearby, but they aren’t places you can build a fort or pick wildflowers. And while our immediate neighborhood has sidewalks and is easy to navigate, the pool and ice cream and even the library require crossing major 4-lane roads in heavy traffic.

But the biggest issue is this fear of leaving kids alone to explore and learn and be independent and then being judged, or worse – arrested  – for it. It’s not necessarily actual danger most people are worried about. It’s the fear of being judged, of being labeled a bad parent.

I just saw a parent on FB talking about a great volunteer program for 14-16 year olds which will be run by the city this summer… “it’s from 9-3 but there is after-care available!” she said. Because we live in a world that makes us fee like 14-16 year olds need a babysitter after 3 pm.

I’m not sure the solution. What do you think?

My apologies for the rambling post and glut of photos, but I have tears streaming down my face as I write this.

It was October 2001. Mark and had just celebrated our 1^st anniversary that summer and we had been in our new house nearly a month and had discussed getting a dog. Mark and I wanted the same thing – a large dog, a rescue, not a puppy. But after al lot of talk we had come to the conclusion that we should wait about a year before adopting a dog.

Then one night we watched the movie “Return to Me” and while David Duchovny and Minnie Driver gave decent performances it was the dog, Mel, that won us over. At the end of the movie I turned to Mark and said, “We need a dog just like that. Let’s do it now” and he agreed.  We were on Petfinder.com that night.

I came across the listing for “Slick” at the Toledo Humane Society. He was 2 years old, a lab-shepherd mix (they thought) and he had big, dark puppy eyes. We went to meet him and he was the mellowest dog we’d ever met. They warned us that he was prone to ear infections and was sensitive around his ears so we were gentle and gave him his space. We could see his personality right away and knew he was our dog. Paperwork was filled out and we scheduled a time to come back to get him.

When we arrived to take him home, several staff came out to greet us. Slick had been at the Humane Society for several months. As a large adult dog he wasn’t what most people were looking for; he had long fur, was prone to shedding and got lots of ear infections. He wasn’t overly affectionate and shied away from anyone touching his head because of his sore ears. But the staff adored this sweet boy and they were so excited for him to be adopted. We happily took him back to our new house where he quickly came inside and pooped under the dining room table. Our first thought was “oh no! What have we gotten ourselves into?”

There was no need to worry as that was the one and only time he ever did that. He didn’t answer to Slick (there was some confusion as his name on some papers was Slick, on others it was Flick) so we changed his name to Mac (yes, after Apple computers), which he took to right away. He really was the best dog – housebroken and trained. He never strayed from our yard, even when off-leash, he didn’t bark unless there was a reason to, but if there was reason his bark told you to back off! He never chewed anything that wasn’t given to him or got onto furniture without permission. Yes, he did get nasty ear infections but we learned to deal with them. When we started taking him to our own vet we learned that he was closer to 4 years old which explained his mellow nature.

We also came to learn (over time) that he was allergic to wheat and corn, which is what caused the ear infections. I remember a short time where we fed him a raw diet of …I don’t remember exactly but it involved chicken and carrots and maple syrup and we were spending more on his food then on our own!

Mac quickly became part of our extended family. Despite his size and his deep, rumbling bark he was gentle as can be around nieces, nephews and the children of friends. At home he sometimes pretended he was a lap dog and crawled onto the couch for a belly rub. He was so chill that we used to joke that when we left for work during the day, Mac put on his smoking jacket and read Proust until we returned. He seemed too dignified for tricks, almost sighing at you when you asked him to “shake”, but he would do it to please you.

He did have a few quirks – one was that he hated cages/kennels so boarding him was never an option. Luckily we have good friends who had a golden retriever around the same age and we became each other’s dogsitters. Mac and Kilmer would put on a royal joust each evening they were together, both vying for Mark’s affections. Mac was Mark’s shadow; they had a bond like no other. Mac was Mark’s dog first and foremost.

When Matilda came along in 2006 Mac rolled with the punches without even a blip. He quickly took to hanging out around the baby when she was on the floor, not so much protecting her as just being near her. Things really looked up for Mac when she started eating table food. She could hang on him, squeeze his fur and he would patiently wait for a moment where he could make his get-a-way, but he never so much as growled at her. Madman’s entrance to the family was just as easy with Mac. Mac is a fixture in every family photo

Another of his quirks was his internal clock. No matter where we were or what we were doing at 10 PM on the dot he’d find you to let him out. And if you were late he’d start pacing from you to the back door until you got the hint.

Mac was so mellow from the start that it was always fun to see his playful side come out. He loved the snow, and even in his old age would romp around like a puppy after the first snowfall.

He’s been a fixture in our house, at family events and in our lives. A constant reminder that all you really need to be happy in life is a nap, a hot dog and a belly rub.

About 18 months ago Mac had a seizure. It was awful to witness and so hard to deal with. Our vet, who loves Mac as much as we do, told us to start preparing for the end. Of course Mac was fine for months after that.

About 6 months ago he had another. And another. He was often unable to get up from a laying position without help supporting his hind legs. His appetite came and went and he got thin. Discussion with our vet found nothing unexpected…he’s an old dog nearing the end of his life. He had a large growth (lump) on his neck and one near his liver. We decided to just let make him as comfortable as possible in his old age and not intervene.

Last week he had another seizure and instead of walking around after and “shaking it off” he just lay on the ground, with no energy left in him to gain his bearings. Anther discussion with the vet and we decided it was time to let him go. Today is that day and Mark and I are barley holding it together. As much as we know this is absolutely the right thing for Mac it doesn’t make it any easier.

Goodbye, buddy. Thank you for all the joy, smiles and cuddles you brought to our lives for the last 12 years. Thank you for being the best dog anyone could ever hope to have.