Bubble Bobble saved my dad’s sanity. I mean this quite literally.

Back when this first came out, my Dad was going through a nasty divorce from his second wife. (When I say nasty, I mean it; 2nd wife beat the living crap out of me and scared me into never telling my Dad; when he found out and divorced her, courts sided…

As a 42 year old, I listened to my parents.....

....and I’m doing extremely well. House is half paid off (and we have a 15-year loan), we own our vehicles outright, we have money in savings and stocks, etc. Additionally, because we’re conservative with our spending, we can easily get along with one income, were it…

I gotta be honest...

I think a picture of the letter belongs in the dictionary, right next to the word ‘humblebrag.’  My wife tells me that 99% of the reason she liked me is because SHE thought I was a catch and yet I’ve NEVER thought I was one to begin with.

You ain’t kidding.  O_O  I was about ready to tear the damn thing apart when I realized that (thankfully) my Gerber (I worked in a warehouse between jobs at the time) was on my person; so I was able to whip the Gerber out and cut through the straps.  My son was fine; but I was a wreck for a few hours afterwards.  LOL

You ain’t kidding.  O_O  I was about ready to tear the damn thing apart when I realized that (thankfully) my Gerber…

I do. :P

Seriously, I considered getting a smaller truck (I own a 2013 F150 4x4 extended cab), but there were several reasons we didn’t.

- I don’t tow ALL the time, but I do tow a 30' camper a few times a year, as well as a 16' trailer, and wanted to do it fairly easily when necessary.
- We frequently ferry kids around…

I do have to share a story about Safety 1st, given some events I’d experienced back in 2009.

Back when my son was about a year old, we had been gifted a seat (wasn’t very expensive). I think it was Cosco. It had one of those stupid clasps where you press an ovular button and the latches insert on either side.

Well, my…

I do have to share a story about Safety 1st, given some events I’d experienced back in 2009.

Back when my son was…

Heh, right there with you on the deadlifts.  I also like them too, though I find it tougher to get the right form than I do squats (simply because you KNOW very quickly if you’ve jacked up your squat form lol).

I love squats - not because they’re ‘fun’ but because I’m one of those guys who is naturally a bit more ‘built’ in the legs than others, and not super-tall, so squats are pretty easy for me.

With that said, form is paramount.  I’ve easily squatted 325# with proper form, but once pulled a muscle squatting 185# (which…

My father always told me a mortgage payment, if at all possible, should be no more than 30% of ONE person’s income regardless of credit rating.

That has served me well; having been married for 16 years now and having owned 2 houses, we’ve been able to always pay the bills through 2 job losses, 2 moves, a…

Agreed. Where I live, suffice to say schools aren’t exactly the best, and literally every family I know who homeschools their kids

a) are VERY grounded and social (more so than those in public schools) and
b) end up more advanced, more easily integrated into society, etc.

With that said...I feel like this article was a…

Amidst all the criticism of Jill Krause (some of which I think is spot-on and correct), I still have to say that I didn’t want to bang my head against a wall like I did when I read how Shannon Watts ‘parents.’

Ditto; I was looking for words like ‘synergize’ and ‘cohesiveness’ and the like.

This is a pretty dang good idea; my son (who is 9) is approaching the age where he’d like his own device to call us; and considering the dangers of social media for young children (and other kid-related dangers), it’d be nice to know where he is and give him a means to contact us without a full-fledged smartphone.…

Ditto; I had no problems doing burpees during CrossFit WOD’s but caught some flak @ times because I would NOT do them sloppy. (In my case, I’d already had a L5/S1 microdiscectomy back in 2005, and while I can do everything, I wasn’t going to do it in such a way that my back would get worse from it.)

I’ll grant the “...or something” part isn’t; I could have worded that much better.

With that said, I wasn’t trying to be flippant with my response. Others commenting on this story have mentioned cohabitation; and regarding relocation, it’s a very real possibility. One actually CAN live on minimum wage where I live.…

GTFOH. LOL I’m pretty dang conservative and you couldn’t pay me to buy this crap.

VABlitz - actually, no I didn’t have a VA loan to assist me.

I do realize my pay is way higher than minimum wage. I’ve also held minimum wage jobs...which is why I worked more than one job at a time.

As far as occupancy laws...what are those? lol I don’t live in CA or NY, which is where the absolute vast majority of people posting here seem to be from.

Back in 2008, I bought a house on my income of $14.97/hour (I also was an Army reservist at the time, which added maybe $6K/year). It was very tight but manageable. I just made sure that I didn’t spend >30% of my income on the mortgage.

So since that equaled out to about $1800/month (after taxes, I think), 30% was…

...but it’s terrible if Trump does it consensually. Got it.