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Budget Tune-Up: Tightening Our Belts Starting in June
Our vacation house is coming along! We are working on renovations, and we have a garage full of furniture waiting to be put together. As I shared in my weekly newsletter, the appraisal came in lower than we hoped. A lower appraisal meant that we had to sink a lot more cash into the deal than we hoped. (The cash we used was from the cash-out refinance on the home we rent out.) Since we lost so much of our cash, we had to pay for renovations and furniture using our credit cards. Now we are in need of a major Budget Tune-Up to get ourselves on track for … Read More
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How to Talk to Kids about Sex Ed
Photo used with consent from Henry As a mom of a 10 year-old and almost 8 year-old and an educator at a school serving infants through 6th grade, I find myself thinking a lot about how to talk to kids about sex ed. In the United States, only 13 states require that sex education be “medically accurate.” And “research published by the Journal of Adolescent Health shows that when sex education is comprehensive, students feel more informed, make safer choices and have healthier outcomes — resulting in fewer unplanned pregnancies and more protection against sexually transmitted diseases and infections.”
I made a personal commitment to talk to my children … Read More
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Summer Plans: What Kind of Summer Do You Want to Have?
Summer is nearly upon us! It’s time for me to start thinking about our summer plans.
In order to think about what kind of summer plans we want to have, I find myself trying to go back and remember past summers. But our lives have changed so much in the past couple years!
First, we dropped from two incomes down to one. When we made that switch, we knew we were giving up things like summer camps. But then it was COVID, so our summer felt really different last year.
So what do we want to make true about this summer? First, I don’t think we will do any … Read More