- @fcn Yahoo Pipes into GReader. 50 news sites filtered to max 50 items/day–all on topic. in reply to fcn #
- @fcn You can filter on keywords, so only the topics you care about come through. in reply to fcn #
- It's a sad day when you find out that your 3 year old can access anything in the house. Sadder when she maces herself with hairspray. #
- 5 sets of 15 pushups to start my day. Only 85 to go! Last 5 weren't as good as first 5. #30DayProject #
- What happens to your leftover money in your flex-spending account? http://su.pr/9xDs6q #
- Enter to Win iPod Touch from @DoughRoller http://tinyurl.com/y8rpyns #DRiPodTouch #
- Arrrgh! 3 year old covered in nail polish. And clothes. And carpet. And sister. #
- Crap. 5 sets of 5 pushups. #30dayproject #
- Woo! My son just got his first pin in a wrestling meet! #
- RT @Doughroller: Check out this site that gives your free credit report AND score without asking for a cc# or social… http://bit.ly/bRhlMz #
- Breaking news! Penicillin cures syphilis, not debt. https://liverealnow.net/KIzE #
- Win a $25 Amazon GC via @suburbandollar RT + Fllw to enter #sd1Yrgvwy Rules -> http://bit.ly/sd1Yrgvwy2 #
- This won't be coming to our house. RT @FMFblog: Wow! Check out the new Monopoly: http://tinyurl.com/ygf2say #
- @ChristianPF is giving away a Flip UltraHD Camcorder – RT to enter to win… http://su.pr/2ZvBZL #
A Perfectly Maid Home
Last night, I got home after a 13 hour day at the office and found a spotlessly clean house. The laundry was folded. The dishes were done, and everything was put away.
It was great.
I work 80 hours a week, 90 if you count commuting time.
That’s about 50 hours at my day job, 10-15 hours working on this site, and 20-30 hours working on my other side hustles. Some weeks, my volunteer geek skills get put to use for a local non-profit, too.
My wife works at least 40 hours every week.
We chase our kids around, plan or birthday parties, visit family, take care of the yard, and do everything else that every other family does.
The difference is that, if I take work in all of its forms out of the equation and give myself permission to get a full night’s sleep every night, I have a total of 20-30 hours per week to eat, socialize, and spend time with my family. That not a lot.
I hate cleaning.
Between my work schedule and my cleaning aversion, I’m not always a lot of help around the house.
Half of my work time is spent at home. It’s hardly fair to expect my wife to clean up after me.
This has been a huge point of contention between us. She sees me on the computer and gets frustrated when I’m not helping her clean up. I get frustrated because I’m trying to make us some extra money, but she’s complaining that I’m not cleaning.
About a month ago, we hired a housekeeper. She comes every other week for a few hours and does a phenomenal job cleaning our house. We pay her about $150 per month for the work.
It’s been great.
My wife is happy because the house is clean. I’m happy because the complaining has stopped. Our housekeeper is happy because it’s more money. It’s a win/win/win scenario.
Now, $150 is a decent amount to add to our debt snowball, but paying for the cleaning services facilitates my side hustles, which bring in quite a bit more than $150 per month, so it’s even a good idea financially.
Even if it’s not, the peace of mind of knowing that I didn’t have to fold all of the laundry that was waiting for me yesterday makes it worthwhile.
How about you? Would you consider hiring a maid? Why?
‘Mommy, I’m bored!’ Top 5 online activities for your kids
This is a guest post.
When nasty weather, a cold or the flu keeps kids indoors, plan ahead for those days with some great online activities kids will enjoy. Whether it is learning a new language with mom or dad, or practicing multiplication tables with an older sibling, kids can find plenty of cool things to do to kill their time. Here is a top five list of things your children can do while surfing the net.
Fun Languages
Learn Spanish, German, or French online with your kids. Give your children the gift of language with some key phrases and words to encourage brain activity in the language zones. Studies have shown that children exposed to multiple languages in their elementary years are more likely to learn a second language as adolescents and adults. Statistics indicate basic knowledge of a second language promotes better understanding of English grammar. The internet has some great resources for older children and parents wishing to improve their vocabulary knowledge and grammar skills. Word a day programs and test prep programs are often as entertaining for the parents as they are for the kids.
Arts and Crafts
There is a plethora of sites offering downloadable art project sheets, coloring pages, creative flash cards, art activity books and art games on the internet. Let the creative genius of your young artist shine through with how to draw tutorials and interactive art history sites. Don’t forget the musician in the house, as there are plenty of great music tutorials complete with video and audio for the young future soloist to watch. Many sites offer interesting and kid friendly “how to” videos for piano and vocals. Many sites offer inexpensive or free holiday cards the kids can create and print for one of a kind holiday or birthday gift giving. Crayola offers terrific downloadable coloring pages, games and activities.
More Academics with Math
Colorful math puzzles, homework practice sessions all online, downloadable speed tests and great interactive programs abound for the math whiz. Fun and entertaining, these online interactive programs are often free and downloadable in seconds. Your kids will never be bored again when accessing such interesting activities as tangrams, money games and creating their own math flash cards. Periodic tables and math and science in the kitchen bring fun and kid friendly experiments for rainy days and long summer vacations. Keep them interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) with how things work videos.
Early Learners Have Fun Too
There are wonderful sites that teach young children and early learners about counting, colors and shapes. Teach your children about telling time and other valuable skills. Learn about money, traffic safety and stranger danger in fun and engaging videos and interactive games. Young children are remarkably quick to pick up on new skills through technology. Parents can take advantage of wonderful online activities at many educational websites.
Games and More Games
There are free and not so free video and mobile device games for children of all ages. Fun and diverting puzzles, adventure and arcade, card and board games for younger to middle school aged children can be found just a few clicks away. Fun and challenging sports and trivia games for high school aged kids are often found at no charge.
Sell old CDs
Got some unused video games ready for the bin? A DVD that you kids received for Christmas and never watched? An old CD they don’t like to listen to anymore? Here it is another opportunity to spend some time online having fun. Websites such musicmagpie will allow your children to sell their unwanted CDs and make a bit of money out of it. Less clutter around the house, more fun for your kids. That sounds like a win-win.
The Story of Sammy
As I’ve mentioned, we’re cleaning out my mother-in-law’s house. She was a hoarder who passed away a couple of months ago. As of yesterday, we’ve filled two 30-yard dumpsters. For perspective, that’s big enough to park our F150.
I’m not here to talk about that, or the 20 year old can of green beans that burst and ran down my leg on Saturday.
Last month, we put a recliner out on the curb with a free sign. A few minutes later, a couple of guys stopped by and grabbed it.
Last week, one of the guys–I’ll call him Sammy–stopped by and left a note on the windshield of one of our inherited cars, asking about buying it.
Long story short, we sold him two cars. One hadn’t been run in a year or two, and one had been parked for almost 20 years. We signed this titles and let him take the cars while he was still $50 short of the purchase price. This isn’t a story about the cars.
It’s a story about Sammy.
Sammy doesn’t have a lot of money. He’s living off of a monthly check from an old injury, and his fiancee works part-time. They’re living in Section 8 housing, and consistently have more month than money. When he was younger, he made some decisions that make some forms of employment difficult now.
On Friday, Sammy stopped by. He was supposed to give us $50, but said that getting one of the cars running had cost more than expected, and it still had a problem that was keeping it from being safe on the road. He asked about an extension.
No problem.
Then, he looked around my mother-in-law’s overgrown yard and asked if he could help. After we negotiated the price, he asked if he could a) borrow our tools for the work, and b) get a ride Saturday morning.
I am a nice guy.
Saturday, I was planning to pick him up, then drive downtown to pick up a friend who has been living at the Salvation Army since moving to the area. His friend was so excited about the work, he hopped on a bus at 6am and got to Sammy’s house.
When I got there, Sammy also had a teenager he was mentoring. He told me that his dream was to start a lawn-care business with his friend, so they can put kids to work and help them turn into productive citizens. Idle, broke, and bored teenagers are a recipe for disaster. Teenagers who grow into men not believing they have a chance to change their future are worse.
I dropped them off and went to have a chat with my wife.
We’re far from rich but, at the moment, we are fairly flush. We’ve found some cash, and a there is a bit of life insurance money. Most of that will be going into remodeling the house, but we have a bit extra. If we can take a few hundred dollars, and help launch Sammy into a business that will help him, his family, and a circle of kids with few prospects, I think it’s the right thing to do.
When I told Sammy what we were considering, he started to break down. It was a truly emotional experience for him to know that somebody was willing to take a chance on him.
I told him to put together plan. I want to know what it would take for him to get started. Hopefully, he’s serious enough to do that. I’d like to help.
Expensive Cheese
Saturday morning, I woke up to a room-temperature refrigerator. I dislike drinking milk that’s 40 degrees warmer than I’m used to.
We called the repairman who showed up at 9PM and poked around in the fridge for a bit before announcing that he didn’t have the needed parts in his truck.
The parts came Monday. The next repairman got there Tuesday afternoon. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s nearly 4 days without a refrigerator.
That poor bacon.
Tuesday’s repairman didn’t think highly of Saturday’s. Apparently, the two parts Saturday ordered never go bad at the same time, so he was guessing.
He also didn’t notice the slice of individually wrapped American cheese that had slipped between a shelf and one of the cold-air vents, preventing any air flow at all.
Grr.
I wish I would have noticed that on Saturday. I now own the most expensive cheese in the world. It’s not Pule, which comes in at $616 per pound. This lowly slice of American cheese cost me nearly $200. At one ounce per slice, that’s $3200 per pound. Of course, I’m counting the lost food. My hamburger, eggs, bacon, milk, and mayonnaise are gone, along with every other perishable bit of food we had on hand.
I don’t know how much the repairs cost. Saturday’s visit, minus the parts, was billed at $95. I didn’t see the total for Tuesday’s visit.
We pay for a repair plan through our gas company. For around $15 per month, we get a list of appliances protected. We don’t have to worry about our washer, dryer, water softener, stove, refrigerator, or our sewer main. Assuming Tuesday’s visit was billed the same as Saturday’s, this one repair paid for the plan for an entire year. When you count our sewer main–which backs up with tree roots once a year and costs at least $200 to fix–the repair plan is definitely worth it for us.
When we get tenants in my mother-in-law’s house, we’ll have the repair plan set up there, too.
Do you use any kind of repair plan? How is it working out for you?
Cheap Lo Mein
- Image via Wikipedia
I’ve never been a fan of making Chinese food. It always seems to involve ingredients I don’t stock and several hours of prep work. It’s not usually worth the hassle. Several months ago, I began to notice that, when we went out for Chinese, all of my kids had the same favorite dish: lo mein. It would be nice to be able to have the dish without having to pay restaurant prices, so I did some research and came up with a quick, easy, and cheap recipe for lo mein. It takes 3 dishes and 20 minutes.
Lo mein has 3 components: noodles, sauce, and the rest.
Noodles
I use spaghetti noodles. I leave them a bit al dente, because they will spend some time in the hot lo mein sauce, which will cook them a bit more. 1 box of noodles is enough for two meals for my family of 5.
Sauce
- Chicken broth, 4 cups
- Rice wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons
- Sesame oil, 2 tablespoons
- Red pepper flakes to taste, about 1 teaspoon
- Soy sauce, 1/4 cup
- Sugar, 1 teaspoon
Mix it all in a bowl, then wisk until the sugar is dissolved. Nuke until hot. I do this while the wok is heating up and the noodles are cooking, so the pepper flavor has a better chance to blend with the liquid.
The Rest
- Sesame oil
- Minced garlic
- 1 Onion, cut to whatever size you like
- Protein, chopped
- Vegetables, chopped
- Ginger powder, to taste
Chop everything first. When you start cooking, you will be busy cooking, not prepping.
Get the pan hot. Splash in some oil, then toss in the meat when the oil is hot. I usually use chicken, but any meat you like–or even no meat at all–will work.
When the meat is almost completely cooked, add the onions and ginger. Stir constantly.
When the onions are barely translucent, start adding the vegetables, in the order they will take to cook. You can use any vegetable you want. Broccoli, carrots, and peas work well. Whenever the grocery store has a sale on stir-fry vegetable packs, we stock up for about $2/bag. Just defrost ’em before you start cooking, so it’s possible to chop them up, and they work great. Otherwise, any vegetables you have on hand will work. Add them, and stir constantly.
At some point, toss in a spoonful of minced garlic. When depends on how much garlic you want to taste. The earlier you add it, the tamer the flavor.
When it’s all cooked, spoon in some lo mein sauce and toss to coat. Remove from heat.
Serve
Spoon the rest of the sauce over the noodles and toss. You will have extra sauce, so don’t add it all at once. You want the noodles coated, not floating.
Combine the noodles with the stir-fry and serve.
If you buy the noodles, vegetables, and meat on sale, this meal costs about $10 to make. Like I said, that’s two complete meals for 5 people, 3 of whom have adult appetites. The rice wine vinegar and sesame oil aren’t cheap, but you don’t use much, so the cost per meal is negligible.
