We're unfortunately mid-to-late 30s too. The recessions actually didn't touch us, as we've never had anything saved or invested. I'm all for making sound financial decisions, of course, but I'd still love for someone to show me how to save money when every cent of every paycheck is needed just to eat and pay the basic…

I do agree with your larger sentiment and I'm in a somewhat similar boat. The thing that does put you (and me) into that "upper" group is discretionary income. Most middle and lower class households little-to-no discretionary income. They can pay their bills and not much more (unless they play the credit game).

We are $45K above the mediun income, but not anywhere near the "Upper" and that's us. Triage. Zero fluff. No family vacations. We have excellent health insurance through my husband's job, but my job (adjunct college instructor) has zero benes. The only way we will be able to pay for college is to sell our condo and…

I wish I could demonstrate. I've often daydreamed about having someone who has lived a financially stable life come and stay with me for a few weeks, just for fun. I honestly believe that they would be shocked, having understood all along that there would be a different standard of living, but vastly underestimating…

The problem is that "middle class" doesn't actually mean what you think it means.

On the subject of saving for retirement, which millions are not doing adequately, if at all. What's it going to be like in 40 years? Social Security will be dried out. Then what?

But as I think more about it, I realize that any sense of austerity we have in our house is because we force it upon ourselves. We save a lot of money - for retirement, some for our kids' college, paying down our own student loans, and so forth. So while our budget feels tight, it's largely because we're doing it in…

We're a family of three (two adults and one child) and we each make about $40k each (so close to $80k in household income), and we really don't have "general vacation money." We pay on the low end for daycare since we go to one out of someone's home, but we still pay $560/month. My student loans eat up another $600…

Note: For anyone else as confused as I was, if you have an ad blocking program, you won’t see the options. You have to disable it.

1:15 isn't bad. Is your mower self propelled?

My lot is just a smidge smaller than yours, at 15,350. I have a Honda self propelled mower, and it takes a full 3 hours to mow/trim/edge if I do front and back all at once. I've never considered a riding mower, even though I could easily justify it to others, because I just don't feel like my yard is quite big…

There are a number of walk behind mowers with 30-36 inch decks that will get the job done quickly. You'll probably have to venture beyond the big box stores to find them however.

The best mower is the one you can use from the shade.

Can't blame the guy for trying to make the Maoist of the moment.

I have but one quibble. Iowa State isn't a "small school." It's got nearly 35,000 students and is the largest university in the state of Iowa.

I played for a small high school in the Midwest in the mid-90s. I'm 6'3" so I played the post. During the regular season we always played schools in our own class, but in the spring and summer we routinely played schools 4-5x or more our size in AAU ball. We held our own, beating most of them.

If you create a joint email account, you could put all the common contacts in there and sync them easily. That'd also allow you both to keep separate contacts for some people (like she doesn't need to know the contact info for best friend that she despises, just a random possible example). Each time you add new…

Create a family account and only sync calendar/contacts. Our family does this for a familycalendar, and we always know when someone has an appointment (doctor/dentist/whatever). This has helped in numerous occasions, but I can certainly see the contact application.

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