You ever get upset and do something completely irrational? I’ve gone almost an entire year without eating any chocolate (that wasn’t fair trade), but Saturday I almost broke that commitment. As I mentioned the other day, we were having a bad day with car trouble and all, and I was really struggling with how frustrating things have been lately. It hasn’t even been so much the circumstances that have created the problems, so much as I felt it was our convictions.
We have a conviction that debt is not a good …

I’ve been talking about the house and budgeting a bit and I wanted to get into some discussion about budgeting and housing. This will be more about how I ‘think’ about it it terms of my budget more then anything, you’ll find it will kind of pan out the same. I’m not doing anything magical, but I still think the discussion is important.
I’ve mentioned before that in our month to month budget we’ve allotted $400 to cover rent and all utilities (internet, phone, gas, electricity). In the past we’ve lived …

My post about what they didn’t tell me when buying a house had some good dialog. One of the things that came up, because I mentioned it off handedly in my post, was about equity. I figured I mentioned it, so I might as well share a little of my thoughts concerning it too.
First of all, “Equity” is a word that gets thrown around a lot when you start looking for a house. I realized the big selling point to buying instead of renting is sort of focused in the …

We’ve been moved into our new home for about one month now. I’m sorry I haven’t done well at keeping you up to date on how things have been going here, but you can tell from the lack of updating that it has been busy. I’ve discussed our decision to buy on the blog a bit, but I’ll probably try and articulate it more in future posts. For now, I wanted to start informing my non-homeowner friends of somethings I wasn’t prepared for. This might turn into a series, but …

I thoroughly enjoyed Christmas. Time with family is always a good thing, and with lots of babies around, the joy is that much greater. However, here we are, the day after, and I’m experiencing the same Christmas Hangover I’ve experienced the last few years.
You wake up and there’s wrapping paper strewn about, the house is a mess. Your stomach aches from all the food you munched on through out the day, and your mental muscles are throbbing as you contemplate who gave you what, where your going to get thank …

I don’t usually use my site as support raising (though I might do it more then most, who knows), but today I wanted to make a special request.
My good friends, Beth and Curt, are doing some awesome work in Haiti helping raise support to build wells for clean drinking water. It’s great stuff.
And today, in the next five hours, they are trying to get as many individual donors as they can through the Facebook Causes and thus win an extra $1000 for their cause.
So, be a pal and …

(That word starts to look funny when you write it a lot)
As you know, from some previous posts, and my lack of updates, we’ve been in the midst of some major life changes. First, the baby, which has been a joy through and through. And now, a house. I’ve written about the decision to buy a house before and as you can see, we’ve come to the conclusion that it wise an appropriate decision. I’ve also said before that I’m willing to be open to the fact that I might …

I’ll probably be linking to Lisa @ Corporate Babysitter a lot more as I continue to explore the ins and outs of raising my child in this extremely consumeristic world, but until I do, I recommend you check her out for yourself. Here’s a quote to get you started:
Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about the corporate dollars spent on new ways to manipulate my children. In a world of mounting personal debt and limited natural resources, is this akin to offering a kid a lollypop …