Categories
Planning Random

Merging of Two Domains

Last night, while out for dinner to celebrate Valentine’s Day without the kids, Jeff and I were talking about websites and blogging, and he made the suggestion to start blogging here instead of my blogger domain. Quite brilliant, really I can’t understand why the idea didn’t cross my mind sooner.

I’ve been letting the domain sort of sit and rot since sometime in 2009, and then last year I made some half-hearted attempt to revive my site and integrate it into wordpress. I got bored of that pretty quick and just left it alone. Well, NO LONGER! This will be not only the home of my blog, but there will also be a full reintegration of my website. I’m actually quite excited by the prospects and it’ll look sleeker and smoother.

I really disliked blogger, and that’s why I moved my Wamber’s Whimsies blog off of the platform. It was too buggy, weird and didn’t allow for a lot of customization that I wanted. And besides, wordpress is pretty much the next thing in blogging anyway, and it allows for TONS of customization and while it’s got a bit of a learning curve, it’s getting easier to use and navigate around.

I’m quite excited about the change.. it feels nice to ‘digitally’ downsize, so to speak. While I was able to import my blogs over from blogspot, I still have work to do with re-uploading pictures and whatnot; hopefully this isn’t a major hassle.

 

So, with that said, if you’ve got a link on your blog going to my blogspot; be sure to change it over to wamber.com!

Categories
Planning Random

Just letting you guys know..

That after two or so years of inactivity, I’ve decided to start working on my website again. However, to make it easier on myself I’ve decided to instead of write my own HTML, I’m going to use wordpress to do all the coding for me to make ti easier to update my website. This will however take some time so please be patient!

Categories
Me Planning

Eight Point Two Eight Six Weeks Left

>Well, according to my LMP due date, that’s how much longer I have left until my due date of April 13th. (eight weeks 2 days for the mathematically uninclined) Either way, the end is near, and I find this to be a comforting thing, but also a bittersweet thing, since this is for sure our last baby and therefore, my last pregnancy. It’s been a while since I actually blogged about Oscar or anything in regards to the preparation of his impending arrival, so here goes! Oh and before I start, my last appointment was last Thursday on the 10th, and my weight was at 129.6 which puts my total weight gain so far for this pregnancy at 16 pounds. It’s roughly the same amount of weight I had gained with Ruthie at this point. So seriously, he’s right on target with my due LMP due date if that actually counts for anything.

So, in case you were curious, we did decide to cloth diaper (I just realized halfway through writing this particular paragraph I’ve blogged about this already, but I’ll do it again anyway). I had a cloth diaper store picked out after we decided to have another baby, but before we tried for conception. The store is called Diaper Junction, and they are based out of my hometown of Virginia Beach, Va. I’m not gonna lie to you, this is probably the BIGGEST thing that attracted me to their store. I won’t take back what I said previously; I honestly don’t see myself moving back; however I do have a part of me that will always belong there. Must be beacuse of all that ocean water I accidentally swallowed while swimming; most likely it makes up 5% of my blood content. 😉 With that said, we bought a full stash (25 diapers with 50 inserts; each diaper came with two and one diaper was actually free) back in December; and I actually got the box of diapers on Christmas Eve.. so I consider it a present to myself.. teehee. I should mention though, that Jeff was NOT really on board with it, until I found out that Diaper Junction was carrying Kawaii brand diapers; I got them for $7.95 each. When I found out they were carrying this brand of diapers, and told him how much they cost, and sharing that I was told previously they are pretty comparable to BumGenius -my original brand choice- he finally said “FINE! Get them!” and then replied after that “I’m not really sure what I just said fine to though.” (I should mention this converstation was through chat and not actually face to face) So I ordered my diapers, after sharing the link to them and asking for his input on the colors we should purchase (he said “Everything but the light blue.”) So I ordered six blue, six light green, six yellow and six red. Here’s a picture of part of my diaper stash…

You’ll notice the red diapers missing. Well, I ended up washing the diapers about 3 weeks ago, and discovered when I was stuffing them and snapping them down, that not all of the diapers were snapping properly. So, I called Diaper Junction, and they let me know that they would fix the snaps for me for free, provided I ship the shells back to them at cost, and provided them with proof of purchase from their store; I just went ahead and sent them my original sales receipt. I’m expecting them back today, along with my second order of stuff, that also includes another free diaper; the brand is a mystery though. This will bring up my stash to 26 diapers.. I’m really excited! So, now I bet you are curious as to what I’ve actually spent on everything, right? Well here’s the breakdown.
My original estimation of total cost including disposable newborn diapers and target brand disposable wipes was $719.96.. yes this does include tax. However, this was factoring in buying BumGenius diapers. However, this estimation is now old, and is actually very off. Here’s how it’ll break down now. Of course, I’ll share the previous breakdown.

24 Kawaii Diapers: $190.80 (same ammount of BumGenius would have cost me $406.80)
4 Bags of Rockin’ Green Soap; Hard Rock formula* and scoop: $55.03 (I had originally calculated $53.90 from the manufacturer; however I wasn’t considering the cost of shipping which would have actually put my total to $69.44. Of course, I could have ordered it from Diaper Junction as well, and that would have cost me $67.55)
2 pail liners: $31.45 (my original estimation called for me to get two of the same brand and would have cost me $29.90; however I was trying to pad my order to get a free diaper, so I ended up with two different brands)
2 wet bags: $19.00 (original estimation was $23. I ended up getting some cheaper wet bags than I initially planned to purchase)
*Rockin Green comes in three different formulas; classic rock for normal water that’s not hard or soft, soft rock for soft water, and hard rock for hard water. We have VERY hard water here in Utah, so I have to buy the hard rock formula. If you’re thinking of cloth diapering and using this soap but are not sure what your water falls under, feel free to call your water company to find out. They have a map on their site, but unless you clearly can see where you fall under, then call the water company, that way you buy the right soap the first time around.

So my total cost so far? Only $296.28! Had I gone with my original purchases, and assuming I bought everything from Diaper Junction, it would have cost me $527.25! I should mention that my estimation did not cover the cost of a diaper pail.. AKA a standard trash can, which don’t run for more than $12 at the most. With that said, my estimation of newborn diapers and wipes remain the same, which brings up my total estimated cost to $566.60; assuming my estimation for newborn diapers are correct as well as the wipes. This doesn’t include the cost of a pail though, since I don’t know how much it’s actually going to cost yet. I plan on actually keeping track of how many diapers I change, and how long it would take for me to break even. If I wasn’t cloth diapering, I would most likely be buying Huggies. Sadly enough though, their diapers are shockingly thin.. like one diaper folded up is THINNER than one of my inserts.. this is crazy to say the least! And heck, when they are unfolded, they are THINNER than an overnight maxi pad.. and seriously there is something VERY wrong about this in my head.

With that said, clothing wise we are ready! Well mostly. I still need to buy socks, and two pairs of knit pants, and a bringing home outfit and then I’m completely covered for clothes; well for 0-3 month sizes anyway. My sister in law gave me some newborn stuff to borrow, and I was able to score a box of baby clothes that was completely stuffed full of clothes for less than $11… seriously I got a GREAT deal, and I’m baffled as to how she got all of those clothes in such a small box! We supplemented the stash with a few more things too of course.

Room wise, we have the most important thing already; the crib. However, we still need to get two fitted sheets -one to wash one to use-, a changing table, changing pad, changing pad cover -most likely two one to wash and one to use- and a sleepy sack to use instead of blankets. We used one with Ruthie and LOVED it. Oh, and I need a set of bumpers as well. I forsee a trip to IKEA in the near future!

Anyways, that’s pretty much it! I’m really excited about the upcoming arrival of Oscar! Expect a few more posts about birthing related things; including my birth stories with Zoe and Ruthie.

Categories
Planning Random

Hot Parenting Topic: Potty Training & of Course, DIAPERS!

>Zoe and Ruthie are currently both potty trained, and so I’m just going to write a brief paragraph with the experience with both girls.

Zoe was potty trained in March of last year at 3 years and 4 months.  We decided with buying a new house, we needed to cut costs where we could, and we told Zoe since we were buying a house, we couldn’t afford to buy her diapers anymore, and for her to pick out a pack of panties.  She had a very concerned look on her face, and she picked her panties and she was potty trained pretty much the next day, with very few accidents.  She was okay for a few months, and then for about a 3 or months period period last year where she was driving us insane with having accidents all day every day. We cured her of t hat by forcing her to go bare butt for about 2-3 hours while her panties were in the washing machine and dryer. While I may get some backlash for doing this particular method, please keep in mind that nobody other than our family was home, and we did not publicly announce this; in fact I think this is the first time I’m mentioning it to anyone else.  We had to retrain her after our trip home from Virginia, but fortunately it was just a day or two, versus the months of accidents that we dealt with previously.

Ruthie was actually just potty trained in June of this year at 2 years, 4 months.  It took Ruthie about a week of having accidents and the like before she finally caught on.  She caught on to pooping really quick but had a hard time with peeing, until I finally pointed to the approximate area of her bladder, and told her when it feels ticklish, that it was time to go sit on the potty and she got it! We had issues this summer about her having accidents out of laziness, but that was stopped when we were out helping my father in law at a jobsite, and she walked away in a semi secluded area, and sat down on some concrete stairs and peed without even telling us she had to potty.  I wasn’t about to put her back in the carseat with a wet butt, so I dug around in the trunk of the car, and fashioned a loincloth of sorts from a clean kitchen towel and ducttape. She was so embarrassed, and refused to make eye contact with anyone.  It was just us four plus Jeff’s dad that saw her in it, but it was enough and we’ve not had problems since then, aside from nighttime accidents; which quite frankly are unavoidable, Zoe occasionally still has them as well.

Quite frankly, Jeff and I both feel that we could have potty trained Zoe much sooner. I’m not saying my kid’s MENSA material, but she’s above average in intelligence. We could have had her potty trained much sooner than we did; in fact she randomly used her potty at 20 months, but I never really pushed the issue since we had WAY too many other things going on at that time, and we were just in a stressful living situation, but we moved out of that place when Zoe was just over 2 so moving into our last apartment would have been a good place to do it, and we tried, but the bribery method DID NOT work for Zoe, she was simply too smart for it.  Not saying that the kids that the bribery method works on are not smart.. she just figured out pretty quick what we were trying to do.

The intital reason why I decided to potty train Ruthie when I did was primarily because I had done a really rough estimate on how much we had spent on diapers over the course of Zoe and Ruthie’s life in, and I bugged out at the cost. (My estimate was really rough, and I most likely underestimated the cost) I announced on facebook that we were potty training her due to the cost, and someone suggested I use coupons to buy diapers… I realize that I was a bit thoughtless in my response implying that couponing was a waste of time -I still need to figure out how to apologize to her- but I should have said that at that point, it would be easier for me to go ahead and potty train her; since she had already shown interest in potty training and “being a big girl”.  And I think at 2+ years old, she’s ready for potty training, intellectually and physically.  Granted she’s kind of on the small side and has to use a stool to get on the potty, but she has the physical control to hold it in to get to the bathroom without having an accident, and that’s more important than meeting ‘a height requirement’.

Anyway, lots of hot topics have come up with this pregnancy. We don’t know what we’re having yet -we’ll know in three weeks- but we’ve had the circumcision discussion (I’ll share on that later after we find out what we’re having and only if we’re having a boy); please do me and everyone else a favor and don’t mention your thoughts on it, I don’t want or need a lecture; of course this is generalized and not to anyone in particular. We already see eye to eye on hospital birthing, vaccinations and parenting, so those aren’t going to be brought up again. However, the current topic of discussion is diapering. I want to cloth diaper, Jeff’s not sold on it at all.  For me it’s mostly about cost.. I’m okay with saving money at the flip of convenience of tossing diapers out, and there is an environmental factor involved as well; for me anyway. However, we’re not Al Gore butt kissers, but we do think that hybrid cars and electric cars are a great idea -the technology isn’t old enough for us to make the leap- we use the energy saving bulbs, we recycle more than we throw out garbage, and almost all of our appliances are HE or energy efficient.. With the exception of our fridge, stove and dishwashing machine; those came with the house and when they break we will for sure will be replacing them with HE appliances. And we do believe in Global Warming.

Anyway, after watching a quick video today about the cost of cloth versus disposables, I decided to revisit the cost of diapering.  However, it’s not as clear-cut as one variable for disposable diapering and one for cloth diapering (well, for me there’s only one way to cloth, but still)  There’s THREE for disposables, and one for cloth diapering.  Why you ask.. aren’t all diapers equal? Those who have had kids recently will say NO.  Some diapers are VERY superior over others, and it’s obvious.  Here’s how my diapering needs will break down assuming the following things:

~The baby goes through 8 diapers a day for the first year of it’s life.
~The baby goes through 6 diapers a day for the remaining time they are in diapers.

If it’s a girl: (scenario A)
Huggies diapers for newborn size; these are what the hospitals use, and quite frankly I LOVE the brand.  They aren’t cost efficient in the long run (and while I admit coupons would help, I do not have the patience for it so it’s not for me, I give a big applaud to people who can do it and do it successfully), so when the baby is out of newborn sized diapers we’ll be using the Walmart brand of diapers called Parent’s Choice.  Assuming the baby is potty trained at 2.5 years (being generous, and I draw the line at that point) and we use Target brand wipes -LOVE THEM- diapering a baby girl from birth to 2.5 years will cost us $1,150 (I am rounding up a bit.. less than $3); this is factoring in sales tax as well.

If it’s a boy: (scenario B)
Target wipes again, and Huggies newborns again. Talking with both of my SILs, I’ve come to the conclusion that Parent’s Choice diapers are absolutely horrible for boys, and if I ABSOLUTELY use them, I need to prepare for more changes, so I added 3 extra diaper changes a day.  We also have to factor that boys take longer to potty train, so assuming he’s potty trained at 2.75 years (I’m giving an extra three months here).. and assuming that 3 extra a day is enough, it will cost us $1,540 (rounding up, less than $2); again tax is factored.


If it’s a boy: (scenario C)
Target wipes again, and Huggies newborns again. And again, Huggies are too cost prohibitive to use in the long run; however my SILs BOTH swear by Kirkland brand diapers from Costco.  They both say they are VERY comparable to Huggies, and are more affordable.  If we go this route, and still assuming 2.75 years for potty training PLUS 3 years of having a Costco membership ($50 a year, and I could split it or mooch, but I don’t want to) It will cost us $1,850 (rounding up, less than $4); and of course tax is included.

Cloth Diapering:
This doesn’t change on the gender of the baby.  One of my favorite sites that discuss cloth diapering and reviewing cloth diapers is done by a mom of two little boys, plus a friend of mine with her two daughters does not have issues; they are for the most part equal for both genders.  I draw the line at using ‘rewashable wipes’ so, again I will be using Target brand wipes, and because I think buying newborn cloth diapers is not a smart thing to do, I will continue to use Huggie newborn diapers; however instead of using them for 2 months, I will only use them for one month; and quite frankly who wants to deal with trying to wash the sticky newborn poo off of cloth diapers? There’s a few more things involved with cloth diapering than just buying the diapers.. you also need to buy two pail liners -one to wash, one to use-, two traveling wetbags -again one to wash one to use- plus, you cannot use commercial soaps to wash them because of the fillers and stuff they add to the detergents; they cause buildup that will prevent the diapers from being absorbent and they also will void the warranty of most diapers, so I plan on buying separate soap for the cloth diapers.  To be exact, I plan on using exclusively BumGenius diapers (version 4.0, with snaps, they are all in one size, so they cover a child from 8 lbs all the way up to 32 lbs I think) and the soap I plan on buying is called Rockin’ Green soap… unscented; using a scented soap will violate the warranty.  And what’s nice too is that they’ve got a hard water formula which is PERFECT, and they even sell a magnetic scoop that would stick to the washing machine, so I won’t have to use my measuring spoon from the kitchen!  The cost of supplies (including the wipes and disposable newborn diapers) is going to be… $719.96.  There’s a possibility the baby may be big enough to fit in the diapers right from birth, so we may be able to avoid using disposables after leaving the hospital and that’ll save us about $60.

I won’t have to pay salestax OR shipping so that helps out a TON.  What’s great too is that the site I plan on buying the diapers from has a 30 day, full money back guarantee, so if I decide that it’s NOT for me, then I can go ahead and get my money back.  I’ll just be out of the money on the liners, wetbags and soap.. which I would use anyway.  There’s a possibility that I may end up switching to using it full time anyway.. but that’s still very up in the air. I haven’t been able to figure out how much the extra laundry is going to affect my electric and gas bill, but since we pay a flat rate of $43 a month for water, and we NEVER go anywhere near the threshold to be charged more -it happened once this summer from watering the garden and lawn and it was only over by $6 bucks- it’s not going to affect my water bill at all. And because we have High Efficient (HE) washer and dryer, it’s not going to have a tremendous impact on our gas or electricity bill, but I plan on figuring it out for our electric bill at the very least.. we have also have a HE water heater and a very HE furnace, so that helps too and generally speaking we’re not a high energy consuming family as it is.

To put it simply cloth diapering will save… but how much?
Scenario A (girl):  $426.28
Scenario B (boy, using Parent’s Choice):  $818.43
Scenario C (boy, using Kirkland brand): $1,256.72

Using cloth diapers for a girl.. the difference is highly debatable.. but if we have a boy, That’s a lot of money.  Jeff and I very fortunate in the financial department in terms of not having any debt besides our mortgage, so not pinching pennies and nickling and diming every little thing isn’t going to spiral us into foreclosure or anything like that. Of course, $425 is still quite a bit of money, even of the time period of 2.5 years.  There’s going to be variables involved like if the baby is potty trained sooner than I estimated for (highly unlikely, maybe by 2 months if it’s a girl) or even later than I expected (more likely in the event if it’s a boy) and of course that would drive the cost up higher.  And I did my calculations based on current prices.. what’s not to say that they’ll go higher? One of my SILs said that Kirkland brand diapers recently went up in price, and I know when we started diapering Zoe, the price of Parent Choice diapers have gone up by $1.  The prices on cloth diapers are pretty set.

For Jeff, his biggest concern is with my.. well laziness when it comes to doing laundry and even dishes. I’m honest, I HATE doing dishes and I HATE doing laundry.  I’m not exactly Suzy Homemaker here.. and quite honestly any type of cleaning is the bane of my existence. I do LOVE cooking, I just hate the cleaning up.. the preparation and cooking is usually soothing for me (If I’m not short on time). And I’ve been told I’m a really decent cook (thanks Mom and Dad!) too. Due to the time constraints on the 30 day back money guarantee -from time of arrival not of usage- I have to wait until the baby is ready for cloth diapers to buy them- I can’t just buy them and store them.. so my personal goal is to get into a good washing cycle for both dishes and laundry. I’m not going to share my personal goal, but if I can be consistent with it for the next 24-26 weeks that I have left of my pregnancy, I think Jeff would be more willing to try it out. Hopefully too, we can get to the bottom of my medical issues that I’ve been having, I’ll possibly be more motivated to clean and whatnot more.  Whatever I got, if it’s an Auto-immune disease with depression as a side affect (most of them do), or just some form of clincal depression; having depression lowers your motivation to do well.. anything really.  Hopefully I’ll have answers sometime soon regarding that.

At least one of you may be thinking “Well, why not try X brand? They may be cheaper!” and to that I reply with.. nothing beats the cost of Parent’s Choice diapers.  With the girls we never had a ton of issues with pee leaks and while they did have blowouts -one of the bonuses of using cloth, you rarely get blowouts- that’s unavoidable with all disposable diapers. We tried Luvs, we tried the Target brand diapers, as well as the generic brands from the locally owned grocery stores.. they all suck for us, and if they were leaky and gross with girls, it’s gonna be worse with boys; my SIL confirmed this for me today.

Pampers… well I refuse to use them on principle, because there’s been issues with a very small percentage of babies getting chemical burns due to the reformulating they did recently on the absorbency stuff that’s in them.. and they refuse to own up to the possibility of their products causing the burns.. instead they are blaming parental negligence -newsflash, a dry diaper that’s been on a child for less than 10 minutes should NOT remove the top layers of a child’s skin, that’s by no means negligent- wrong sizing (like putting your child in a diaper that might be one size too small is going to cause a chemical burn), diet (debatable due to allergies and acidity of the food you feed your kid), medication (debatable due to side affects) and other weird factors they’ve cooked up. While I concede that less than 5% (it might even be less than 1%) of the babies that were in Pampers were getting chemical burns.. do I really want to run that risk of putting my child through that pain and trauma… it’s not just a no, it’s a HELL NO. (I make no excuses for using that phrase, hope you aren’t offended) If you use the diapers and have not seen any issue with your baby’s behind.. then that’s fantastic… but the unknowing for me is enough to avoid it, plus their refusal to take any sort of responsibility for their product is what really does me in.. it’s more of an ethical issue than anything else.

If you want links or further information on what I’ve posted or even the exact breakdown of my spreadsheet, feel free to let me know, I’ll just email it to you.  I know this was a lot to read, so if you finished, that’s GREAT!  I spent a ton of time figuring this stuff out, and I just wanted to share.  Keep in mind this is just an estimate based on my personal preferences and the experience of my close relatives in the state of Salt Lake County, Utah.  If you prefer to use a different brand, and/or you don’t live in Utah, the cost WILL vary because of sales tax and just the price differences between brands.

Categories
Planning Traveling

T Minus Three Weeks….

>Until we leave to Virginia, and have we done anything to prepare for the trip? NOPE!  Unless you count buying four of these duffel bags.  We actually have two colors; two in this yellow and two in gray.  I don’t know where the other three are, which kind of defeats the purpose of using them for our trip; I hope we can find them before it’s time to pack!

We’ve got a long list of things we need to do.  I guess I can type up the checklist here, since I’ll be able to refer back to it later.

Contact the post office to stop our mail.  This also means I have to stop buying stuff online as of next Thursday.  Less packages waiting for us the better.

Clean the house.  This is actually going to be one of the last things that get done, because if I clean it all spic and span, it’s just going to get dirty again before we leave.  I would like to come home to a clean house.

Figure out what to take.  Obviously clothes, shoes, my makeup, and toilet paper.  Yes, that’s right, toilet paper.  You never know when you go to that rest stop if they’ll have toilet paper in the stall.  Figured I’d be proactive and take my own TP, and besides, it’s better than using that thinner than tissue paper stuff they call toilet paper.  I also plan to sew myself one of these cute little bags:  It’s called “Weekend Away Travel Bag” and it can be found in a great book by Heather Ross called “Weekend Sewing”.  It’s got a lot of nifty patterns and the like for things such as purses, clothing and various other things.  In case you didn’t know, Heather Ross is a well known and highly sought after designer of fabric.  She’s got amazing talent and… eh hem, I guess I better get back to the blog on hand, I can rave about her on my creative blog.  Oh, obviously we’ll have to take toiletries such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, and pull ups for Zoe -we are NOT stopping every 20 minutes for her to go potty- and diapers and wipes for Ruthie.

Make reservations.  We’re staying at Super 8s across the country -well in Nebraska and Missouri anyway- and we need to obviously reserve our room so all four of us aren’t sleeping on a twin bed or something.

Well, that’s all I can think of for the check list at the moment.  I know I’m taking my sewing machine, and I need to get a sewing box/basket so I can take my thread and other things I may need to sew.  I promised my mom I’d help her sew new drapes for her living room.  I wish I could take my Juki, but it’s so big and heavy, and I don’t have anything to transport it in unless I buy a Rubbermaid container for it.  I’ll have to settle taking my BabyLock Xscape, which is conveniently a travel sized machine and it came with a travel bag.

Categories
Planning

Financial Goals

>Jeff and I have been married for over three years now, and we’ve talked about owning our own home.. what we want in a home, where we would want to live; that type of thing.  Well, for the first time, we’re actually planning ahead for our future home!  We finally decided it was time we started to get serious about saving and we’ve made a goal.  We want $10,000 in savings by December 31, 2009.  I’m sure we could have much more by then if we really tried, but I think with all other things, we need to take baby steps.  So, what I’m doing now is taking 8% out of every paycheck and putting that into savings.  Jeff also gets alot of mini bonuses once a month, so I plan on taking 20% of those and putting it into savings.  I’m going to do this and see how well it works, and if it works out, then I’ll up it from 8% to 10% and 20% to 25% respectively.

Our other goal is paying our car off.  We got a five year loan for it in September of 2005, so if we continue paying the due payment, it’ll be paid off in 25 months.  While it’s only an $80 a month payment, we’d rather not be tied down with a monthly payment.  The payoff amount is $1,800, but if we continue on with the payment plan, we’d wind up paying a total of $2000.  Thats a savings of $200; and therefore that’s $200 more that can go into savings!  So our short term goal is to have the car paid off by March 1st, 2009.  We’ll pay extra on the car loan, and then whatever balance is left over when we file taxes, we pay it off and then put the rest of our tax return into savings.

What’s nice is that we don’t really need to budget, scrimp and do extra savings.  We still have a lot of flexibility within our lifestyle which is great.  I’m just glad we don’t have a money monkey on our shoulder.