I may have read this on Lifehacker, but take pictures of your kids in what they are wearing. Getting separated isn't going to be less nervewracking, but you can show people exactly what they look like.

It's sort of like the opposite is true at my house. My son thinks the vegetables from the garden are a treat. If the fruit comed first, he doesn't want the veggies.

If you treat the refund as enforced savings, you stand a good chance of coming out ahead, rather than spending the money. Once you shuttle it into a tax-advantaged retirement account, you're coming out way ahead. You run big risks by investing your tax money on your own in the short term, and as many people have…

This is a good article on pretty conventional wisdom, but it ignores anchoring. If they have a range that they can offer for the position, the first person to give a number pushes the other person in their direction to some extent. Sure, it doesn't work if the applicant is way out of the range, but in that case,…

I'm excited to try this!

We use the 30 second timeout method with our 2 year old. Is that the same thing? We count very slowly to 30 and then remind him that we love him but that he can't do whatever it was (biting for example).

I appreciate that arguement, but growing 33% more income (if you're in the 25% bracket) is going to more than cover that change. If taxes do rise, can one be confident that protections like the roth will be more protected than traditional retirement assets? Politicians count on retired people a lot and don't like to…

Everyone suggests Roth IRA's before a traditional IRA, but are opposed to taxable investment accounts. Roth IRA's sound great if you expect to pay off a lot of debt and put your kids through college when you're already retired, but if you plan on having that behind you, chances are you'll make it to a lower tax…

One way that this is off base is that you don't need to replace the portion of your income that you've been saving. For example, if you save 15% (pretty modest), you only have to replace 85% in retirement.

There's an obvious problem, here. You don't have to replace your entire income, because you don't have to replace retirement savings. The more you save, the less you have to replace.

Alternately, we could work to reduce our use and thereby export more of our own oil, driving down cost by reducing US demand. Oil is a commodity, so it doesn't matter that we don't buy it from Russia, it only matters that more is available. This is possible (if anyone ever listens) and would increase US exports.

That's a good starting point, but you could also look at it from an expense point of view. For example, if it takes a day for you to earn $200, but you spend about $100 a day, a $30000 purchase is 150 days of working or almost a year of living cost. It's the same principle, but it provides additional incentive to…

I want to agree with you because this has worked for me for over 10 years, but I think that it works for couples who communicate well and regularly. It does create the risk that one person could be creating debt. Some people might have just as happy a marriage with completely joint accounts.

I believe that the delay this year is due to the gov't shutdown

Sounds like you're getting a 100% return on your investment! I'd suggest going in for the full $30. It's really about $5 out of your pocket, because it's pretax, but it probably means years added to your retirement (I'm not exaggerating here)

I did this with Comcast and they gave me a "Valued Customer Discount" of $15/month. Not the best, but better than nothing. I really wanted to have my bill go down a lot more...

It was from the movie Tampopo, mostly about a noodle shop, all about food. He also has a carrot around his neck