That sounds wonderful. I'm 30 weeks right now and I make a point of getting up early enough to have a leisurely bowl of cereal with banana slices and a cup of coffee while I read the internet for half an hour. I would do the egg thing but they are on my food aversion list, which sucks because I used to want them…

My male OBGYN has a female NP and I just hate seeing her. She's so judgmental and condescending. I'm 35 years old, I don't need to be told how to eat healthily during my pregnancy. She also told me I should only be gaining 0.5 pound/week during my second trimester and I'd gained 3 in four weeks so I really needed to…

FYI, the #1 killer of women is heart disease.

Californians "have no accent" only because our accent is the one that's on TV the most.

I do this too, even when I've just watched too match British television. It sticks around a few days. I never really had a southern accent though I lived in the south till I was six and my midwestern accent (Ohio from 6 to 17) went away pretty quickly when I moved to southern California though it took 10 years to…

I'd have to say ebay; I bought most of my graduate school textbooks there, the international edition that was really the same as what the bookstore carried. Usually, the books were printed more cheaply but all the same information was there. And it usually didn't take any longer to arrive from India or China that…

When I was in graduate school from 2008 to 2010, the cheapest prices I found were international editions on ebay. I don't know if that's more common with engineering texts than other types.

Similarly, I much prefer to post Craigslist ads using my phone. I can always edit the text later on my PC.

It took us nearly three years to get pregnant, so I know EXACTLY how you feel. We'd been trying for six months when my husband's younger brother announced they were expecting and would be having the first grandchild. We'd been trying for a year when my BFF and his wife announced number two was coming (and they…

I think it used to be bigger and they down-sized it, right before I got pregnant. I've still bought a few tops, a swimsuit tankini, and a couple pairs of shorts there. I purchased about the same at Old Navy. But I found a consignment sale a couple weeks ago and stocked up on four pairs of full-panel slacks, one pair…

It also matters in terms of where you end up living. I know that living in Southern California, having a degree from USC or UCLA can be very helpful. I'm sure Cal and Stanford are the same way up north.

Yep, I went to a very expensive private university but my scholarships and my grant (free money from the university) covered my tuition. All of my loans were for room and board. So going to a state school with free tuition or going to my university would basically have cost me the same, but now I have the name…

I read the postings that linkedin sends me weekly, but I haven't applied for anything in years and I haven't done more than a telephone interview in the last 12 for a job in my field. When I was furloughed one day/week six years ago, I got a third job so I wouldn't be bored on Fridays. (I already had a second job as…

Exactly. I tutor high school students on the side and I'm constantly reminding them that high school is as much about learning how to learn as it is the material itself. They come in the day before the test without notes and no idea how to prepare for the test. They also have no idea how important it is just to pay…

I remember being taught Excel (or perhaps it was Lotus?) very basically in a high school freshman class (early 1990s). I didn't use it again until Physics lab as a senior. But man, did I pick it up in college. I was so proud of myself for designing a wastewater treatment plant (tank dimensions, retention times, the…

I put 15% in my company 401K and another $300/month into a Roth IRA to contribute a portion of my side-job income but that income has varied from $7K to $13K in the last three years. We have no match but we have had profit sharing of 3 or 6% depending on AR in the past. It's a little up in the air right now after one…

We're currently living primarily on just one income and using the other one to pay off debt, so I guess we technically have about nine months of single-income between our liquid savings and Roth IRA contributions. Suze Orman says 8 months of expenses and I typically follow her advice. But we'll be out of debt in four…

I have a feeling that most people don't even know the cap exists or that long-term investment income is taxed differently.

Parking is an excellent one. My part-time graduate school tuition was only $1,300 in 2008 (it's doubled since then) but parking was over $100. That's a huge percentage of the total and there really was no way around it.

I self-medicated with BCP for years without before I was finally diagnosed with endo. They didn't figure it out until I was 34, infertile, with awfully painful periods. No one had ever taken my painful periods seriously in 21 years. I even have a family history of breast cancer (my mom and her mom, but BRCA negative)…