Sometimes it’s not just about the food though. I cook for my family almost every night, and for the most part I enjoy it. I do still enjoy a break from cooking the food and cleaning up afterwards though. My family didn’t start going back to restaurants until this past summer, and whenever we do it feels like an…

Same in Michigan. I used to really enjoy Caribou Coffee, but they’ve long since left the area. 

Life isn’t fair. I also paid off my student loan debts, but I am not at all bothered by this. Sour grapes shouldn’t be a reason to prevent helping others. 

I don’t know about you, but my homeowner’s insurance company has never been inside of my house for any sort of inspection. 

I think those who will still have a loan balance after having some of it forgiven and have been making payments all along would be best served to keep making their old payment, assuming they can afford it. This way the debt will be paid down faster, which is a good thing in most cases. 

How about using too large of a fuse for a circuit in a fuse box? A few of us still haven’t upgraded to breaker boxes and this is a possibility. 

I disagree on the no nut policy. We always leave a bowl outside with a variety of candy, some with nuts/nut butter, some without. In our situation kids and parents can choose which candy they take. Beyond that, the parent of a child with a nut allergy will be aware of it, and I’m sure they go through their candy…

I guess I forgot about calendar things, those pop up too. For email I don’t get notifications that pop up, but I do check it on my personal phone. I have a separate work phone, so it’s not hard to keep the two apart. 

This is just common sense. The only things I get notified for on my personal phone are texts and phone calls, life is much better that way. 

I definitely understand that, but I still have a hard time believing it would be $400/month per child for the entirety of raising them. Even if a couple started out in a 1 bedroom apartment prior to children you’d have to assume the majority of them would move to a bigger home at some point regardless of their parent…

John Landis finished Twilight Zone back in the 80s and had quite a few successful films after the horrible accidents on that set. 

To me these figures are more or less useless because individual circumstances vary so much, and you gave great examples of some of those. 

I get that, but what % of childless couples live in a 1 bedroom home? I’d have to imagine it’s relatively low. Plus, most people regardless of parent status probably don’t plan on living in 1 bedroom homes forever. On the surface it seems like a flawed metric. 

Of course there will be differences among individuals, but you’re probably the exception vs me being closer to average. I don’t think the majority of married folks live with roommates, and most people probably intend to move into larger homes as their careers advance regardless of if they plan on having children.

I never understand these figures. How is something like housing calculated? I know in my specific case my wife and I still live in the same house that we owned prior to having our two children. The change in the cost of our housing before and after kids is essentially $0. I know we aren’t alone in that respect. I’m…

My family spent a few days at Shenandoah National Park in August, and we thought it was amazing. I can only imagine how gorgeous it must be with the fall leaves. It sucks that our kids’ school gets in the way of fall travel. 

I think most who live out of the area hire a property manager. The house next door to me is actually in that exact situation, the owner lives out of state and a management company handles everything. I have no real desire to be a landlord, so if we ever do rent this house out we’d likely go with a property manager.

Yes, right now buyers disagree. Prices should continue to fall as the higher mortgage rates continue putting pressure on them, we haven’t reached equilibrium yet. I’ve been waiting on the sidelines to enter the housing market again. I already own a house that I bought at an absurd discount in ‘09, so I’m not in a…

While those higher mortgage rates undoubtedly suck, I’d rather buy a house at a lower price and a higher mortgage rate than for a higher price with a lower mortgage rate. The biggest reason is that if and when mortgage rates come back down I can refinance, whereas if I buy a house at a higher price I’m stuck with that…

My dad is a mechanic by trade, so he obviously uses his tools a lot. When I was a kid he’d save up his broken Craftsmen tools, and once or twice a year I’d go with him to Sears when he plopped his big bag of busted tools on the counter, and the sales staff let him walk around and replace every individual item for no…