DirecTV rant

I was complaining on an email list about how I cannot wait until our DirecTV contract expires so I can switch and never, never, never give them any more of our money, when someone asked why I hated DirecTV so much.

So I wrote it up:

We have had DirecTV for about 5 years now. The first
few years were a gift from my brother, so I had no
idea how much it cost. Then he moved and (insert long
story here) my mom was paying for it for us. As my
mom was nearing retirement, I didn't think she needed
to be paying our cable TV bill, so I told her we'd
take it over. I was floored at what she was paying
(even with no premium channels or HD or
anything) and so I did some price comparing and
decided to go with Dish Network. (it was a LOT
cheaper) Dish has this cool thing where one DVR works
on two TVs, so we could record stuff and then (at
least theoretically) watch them in the livingroom OR
our bedroom. Unfortunately, we had a lousy installer
and whether due to the fact that our house has plaster
walls or that we're very near three TV broadcast
towers, we could never get it to work. So we
canceled (in the 30 day trial period) and went back
to DirecTV, since we knew that it would work in our house.

Since then, I have been on the phone with DirecTV every month,
complaining about how they have incorrectly billed us.

We were offered an additional $10 off a month for our
first year (of a 2 year contract). That $10 came off
once, but then disappeared. I am STILL working (15
months later) to get the credit applied because
although it's listed as a "12 month programming
credit", it only comes off when I call about it.

We were offered HBO at $10 off a month (it's $13 a
month) for six months. So we took that deal, but they
again "forgot" to apply that credit. We ended up with
the "deal" extended, but we also paid several months
at full price due to their oversight.

We had to sign a 2 year contract with DirecTV. Now,
if it's a contract, doesn't that mean that you're
locked into pricing? Apparently not. We signed up
for a package at $42.99 and it has since that time,
it's risen to $47.99 a month. To compensate for the
"inconvenience of our price increase", they offered
another monthly credit for six months. You guessed
it--a year later, I'm still calling to try to get that
applied EVERY month as it appears for one month and
then vanishes.

The DVR is a piece of crap. After we had it two
weeks, it completely stopped working. I can't count
the number of calls put into customer service for
that, before they finally told me they'd send out a
different DVR (they'd have to charge my account for
it, but would refund the money after I packaged up,
drove to a shipping center, and mailed back the
defective one). Imagine my surprise when they
replaced my *new* DVR with a reconditioned one.

And three months later, it died, too. I should
mention that we had spent three months recording
movies from HBO to get our money's worth, and all of
those movies were GONE.

Our DVR still doesn't work completely correctly. We
can watch things, but it will flake out and miss
recording things or will record multiple copies,
filling up the memory, at will. But I still have
movies to watch, so I'm not sending it back. I'm sure
it's out of warranty by now anyway.

This latest thing was the worst. The one thing that I
can say is that, though I am on the phone with
customer service for an average of 45 minutes every
month, at least the employees are polite and they DO
apologize and at least attempt to apply a credit to my
account.

I had called in when January's bill was again missing
our credit. The CS person apologized and told me that
she'd made a note on my account to start up a
new/different credit in February and told me that it
should be fine, but if I didn't receive the credit in
February, to call back at that time.

You guessed it--no credit in February. The CS person
apologized and transferred me to the customer
retention department (heh... they need a whole
DEPARTMENT to do that? doesn't that tell you
something?) and I was connected to the most rude woman
I have ever spoken with. She wouldn't let me speak.
I told her that I was late for a doctor's appointment
and I asked that she finish applying the discount and
simply email me to let me know it was resolved
(they've done that before) and she YELLED at me,
telling me that my rudeness was assuring that
SHE would work that much slower to resolve the issue.
She told me that I was not the only customer in the
world and that I wasn't entitled to anything, but she
would SEE if she could figure things out. She refused
to give me her name and every time I tried to say
anything, she spoke over me.

So today I finally called back today and after another 45
minutes, I got a one-time $60 credit. I sure hope
this resolves it--and I'm counting the days until our contract
expires and I can switch to another provider (September 23, 2008, btw).

Refinancing...

We bought our house in November of 2000 (though we moved in the next January) with a 30 year mortgage through a first-time buyer's program (lower rates) and with scraping every penny we could. Just over a year later, interest rates dropped and we refinanced (for 30 years). We were pretty comfortable that we had among the lowest rates we could get (5.875%), and our house had increased so greatly in value (in just one year!) that we were able to drop the PMI.

Last year we paid off our mini-van and realized that we could afford to put an addition on our house. We shopped around, and found the best rate on a Home Equity loan (6.79% for 15 years).

This weekend there was an article in the paper about how loan rates had dropped and that it was a great time to re-finance for all the people who had bought houses during the housing boom of the last few years. For the heck of it, I checked rates at our Credit Union and found that they were lower than our current mortgage and WAY lower than our Home Equity (5.75% for 30 and 5.625% for 20 years). We called to see if we could refinance--maybe even dropping to 20 years--and roll the two together.

After making the appointment and getting the stats (we'd be saving a couple hundred dollars a month even with the 20 year loan), I happened to look at the website for our credit union again and saw that 15 year loan rates were even lower (5.125%). G. went to the appointment and had our loan officer crunch the numbers.

And we decided to go with the 15 year!

It is kind of scary, as our payments will go up about $100 from what we were paying for both loans, but it's unbelievably exciting, too. We will be saving THOUSANDS of dollars in interest and we should be completely debt free in fifteen years! (right now the mortgage and home equity loan are our only debts other than month-to-month credit cards that we always pay off)

I'm so very proud of us!

The Remodel: Passing Final Inspection

I don't remember how much of the electrical saga I've shared, but on our final inspection (back in June), the inspector found two "small" things that needed to be fixed with the electrical system. One was that an outlet was set in too far and the other was that a wire needed to be secured on the box downstairs. I didn't fully understand what needed to be done, so I asked the inspector to call the electrician. Snipping a lot of details, it took almost six months for the inspector to reach the electrician (including numerous reminder calls from me). The electrician came on December 27th, and the building inspector came today and we're DONE! We'll officially have our project "off the books".

One of the annoying things about having the final inspection *not* completed is that we wanted to add a light over the mirror. The only lights in the bathroom are one over the shower stall, and one in the middle of the bathroom, in the same fixture as the fan. Needless to say, things like putting on makeup were impossible! We had purchased (almost 6 months ago) a $42 light to mount over the medicine cabinet, but since we were going to put it in, and not the electrician, we had to wait for the inspection to be done. When the electrician was here last week, I mentioned something about how awful the light from the fan fixture was and he said, "and you can't put a light over your sink because of code". Here's a picture of the ceiling, with the slanty wall/ceiling, due to the roof:
Unfortunately, the 90 days had passed for returning the $42 light fixture to Home Depot with our receipt. We tried bringing it back without a receipt and it had been marked down to $34 (bummer, but not as bad as I'd feared). Then we went to look for a lamp that could sit on the floor but aim light at the mirror.

We'd almost given up when we were walking past the track lighting in Home Depot and saw a floor lamp that matched some track lighting. It was a $60 lamp, clearanced for $17! We grabbed it, and some insanely expensive light bulbs for it, and went to check out. The lamp rang up at $0.01!!! I was no longer so annoyed with not getting the full $42 back on the light fixture.

It's not perfect, but it looks okay in the bathroom, and it works GREAT!

Brag about Customer Service

Oftentimes we are quick to complain about customer service (watch for an upcoming post about Pick N Save!), but not so quick to brag about good customer service. This is a brag.

After crushing my wedding ring in the van door, I found out that the local jeweler (who designed my engagement ring 16 years ago and my wedding ring over 14 years ago) had closed. I asked on a local email list for recommendations and got three. I chose to go to the closest one and see what they'd charge to fix the ring.

I walked into Donnybrook Fair Jewelers in Whitefish Bay and showed them the ring. The woman working there looked at it and said, "I should be able to fix this right now". I should have asked how much they'd charge, but I wanted the ring fixed and I figured it couldn't be too much if she could fix it right then.

Less than ten minutes later (and while T. and M. roamed around the jewelry store, being rather loud), she came out and handed me the ring. Not only was it round again, she'd polished it up and cleaned it and it looked better than it had for a LONG time! I put it on, raved, and asked, "how much?" The woman said, "oh, no charge!"

You could not have surprised me more. And I cannot recommend them highly enough.

My ring is back. Yay!!!

Addicted? Who, Me? I'm not addicted

Wow. I survived internet deprivation!

:)

For those of you who don't know, after a wonderful vacation at my mom's (very slow dialup, and therefore virtually no internet access), we came home to a very spotty internet connection here. I was worried that I'd left the modem and router on while gone and some sort of virus had gotten through, so I spent most of Tuesday (in between trying to catch up on blogging, and email, and Bloglines) cleaning the computer in every way I knew possible. By Tuesday night, however, there was no avoiding it--this was not just a virus.

I left for Knitting Club, thinking G. could spend some time trying other ways to fix the computer. When I got home, we faced the inevitable, and I called AT&T's customer service. They eventually (after running a bunch of "diagnostic tests") determined that our 5+ year old modem had died. The very-nice Tech Support guy told me that I could buy a new modem through AT&T for $50 and a 3-5 business day wait, or I could go to Best Buy and pick one up for $70-$90. Though I love my internet :) I was dragging my feet on paying $20 extra for a few days. But when the tech guy told me that sometimes the sales department will cut you a deal on modems, I decided to give it a try.

I called the Sales department at 7:00 Wednesday morning (right when they open) and was able to secure a modem for $50 and two month's credit (of $24.99) on our DSL bill (so essentially free).

After three days of running the the library to check email, I was SO happy to see the UPS guy this afternoon.

I'll snip all sorts of stories about phone calls to AT&T's tech support, and then phone calls to D-Link's tech support (the new modem wasn't working with our old router), but between G. and I, I think we were on the phone for about four hours.

And now... as of 8:30 pm on Friday night, we're back to normal! Actually, we're better than normal, as this modem seems quicker than our old one. Is that possible, or am I just hallucinating?

Now to the dozens of emails I need to reply to (I mostly only read at the library), the 285 Bloglines to read, and the Ravelry and 43Things posts to catch up on!

I hope I never have to suffer this way again ;)

"But I NEVER win anything!"

There's this cool new little store at the mall, called Moroccan Imports. We found a neat woodcarving for G's dad for Father's Day, and while we were there, we signed up for their mailing list/drawing to be held in the months of June, July and August. Well, I won the drawing for June! And I never win anything! The prize was a $45 lamp. Here it is, lit up:

A close-up of the jumping person:

The lamp has a metal base, and is made of goatskin, which, when wet, is stretched over the metal. It shrinks as it dries, and then they paint it with henna (mehndi). I like the idea, but I'm not really sold on the lamp itself... Wish I could have picked out anything I wanted from the store--their woodcarvings are SO cool!

Some mini "remodeling" of our own

Our downstairs bathroom is decorated (as is much of the rest of the house) in pink. Our hope has always been to replace the hideous (and barely-functioning) toilet, plus get a new vanity and eventually replace or recover the bathtub. Of course we want/need to have a fully-functioning full bathroom before doing this, but an opportunity presented itself (in the form of a massive dumpster to dispose of the old stuff) this weekend and G changed this:


into this:
How sad is it for me to say that I absolutely LOVE it? It's this toilet, but we found it on clearance at Home Depot for only $209.

It's one-piece (cleaning will be FUN! :)) and elongated vs. round. It's "white" but American Standard's white is not a super bright white and it actually matches our off-white tile pretty well.

We also found (on clearance) an oak vanity. We won't be able to replace that for awhile, but we bought it because we know we want oak (to go with the other accessories already in the bathroom) and it was a great price and exactly the size we needed and the one we wanted.

And with all the weather delays on the big project, it felt nice to be "doing" something! (Though G. might not agree as the installation wasn't exactly a piece of cake...)

Saving money feels so good...

I hadn't done a lot of money saving lately (other than buying most of the stuff for our new bedroom and then getting price adjustments when it went on sale), so today was a nice surprise.

The big deals of the day:


Poor M., as the third child, doesn't get a lot of brand new clothing. But I found two turtlenecks and a pair of way-cute pants.

check out my savings:
The whole thing for under $6, including tax!

Pretty good timing, too, since our record-breaking 80 degree temps of yesterday have become temps in the 40's today. We walked into Target at 65 and calm, then walked out to 45 and very windy.

Home Improvements

As I alluded to in an earlier post, I haven't been blogging as much because my life has been consumed with other stuff. A large portion of that "other stuff" involves our house.

First the background...

We own (well, there's the mortgage, but you know what I mean!) a 3 bedroom, 1+ bath (toilet and sink in basement) Cape Cod house in a wonderful community. When I was still teaching, I taught at the high school in this district and we knew that we wanted our kids to be able to attend it. After C. was born and I decided that I couldn't stand to WOH fulltime, we made some lifestyle changes, and moved out to a cheaper community and rented, so we could save up some money and eventually move back to this side of town and this community. We sort of stumbled upon our current house. We were visiting some friends' new baby, and arrived a bit early, so decided to drive around. We saw the "for sale" sign in front of this house and, though it looked too small, decided to check it out. It was at the end of an Open House and the realtor nearly hugged us when we walked in--he'd had no one come in the entire time. We looked around and almost immediately fell in love with it. It was (and is) much larger on the inside than it seems on the outside. The kitchen was a LOT larger than kitchens we'd seen in every other house on this side of town. We had some reservations because it is on a busy street (but there's a park across the street) and there is no back yard (instead there was a beautifully-landscaped SIDE yard). It had been on the market quite awhile and was a bit out of our price range (and budget). We decided to make an offer anyway--at the top of our approved loan value. We went back and forth, but eventually did get the house!

One of the things we'd dreamed about doing someday was popping out a dormer on the upstairs bedroom (those of you familiar with Cape Cods know that the upstairs has those slope-y ceilings) and turning the unfinished attic into a second full bathroom. I think we always thought that we'd actually end up moving to a bigger house and considering this our starter home. Still, as we'd see friends and neighbors trying to sell their houses, and we'd see houses sitting on the market for months and months, and we'd see no interest rates as good as what we got when we refinanced five years ago, remodeling began to look better and better. Besides, we LIKE our house. We LIKE all the work that we've done on it, and that my dad did on it before he died. We love our neighbors, and we don't want the hassle of buying another house and of selling THIS house!

Meanwhile, we started taking a look at our finances. When we bought our Honda Odyssey five years ago, the only way we could afford the payments was to take out a SIX YEAR loan (not something I'd recommend). Our plan was to pay more than the minimum payments and, whenever we had a chunk of "extra" money, to put that toward the van. After all, interest on a home loan is tax deductible, and the car loan is only 1.9% interest, so it made sense to put whatever we could on the van. So between savings and Christmas gifts (thanks, moms and dad!), we were able to pay off the van loan in December--15 months early!

Now we had an extra $400 a month to "play" with. We crunched some numbers and figured out what size home equity loan we could take out with payments in that neighborhood, and we started to get estimates from contractors.

Imagine our surpise when we realized that yes, we could actually get that work done, for that amount of money! We talked to five contractors--one never called back; one heard how small our project was, and declined; one spent ten minutes here and turned in a lame bid at $300 under our budget; one designed a great, all-inclusive addition for a bit above our budget; and one turned in a nice bid for $10K *under* our budget.

So you know who we went with...

I should put this in a timeline probably. We started the loan applications the second week of January, when G. was still on his semester break from teaching. We interviewed contractors that week and the next one. We decided to go with the one on my birthday (January 18th). We then struggled with plan designs for over two weeks before settling on one that we're all happy with, and that should be structurally safe! :) Please note that I just condensed a month's worth of stress into one paragraph--it wasn't fun.

But here we are. We have the plans (which we LOVE), we have the loan approved (money should be in our account tomorrow) and we have the final meeting with the contractors tonight to get the FINAL dollar amount and what will and will not be covered (I know it always costs more than you think). I think it's finally safe to post that this thing is going to happen. I promise to post more details after tonight's meeting. Cross fingers for me that I'm pleasantly surprised financially....

Target Xmas--90% off

Yippeee! And I didn't even have to miss part of M's birthday (tomorrow) to go!


I got:
BIG packs of red napkins reg. $4.99 for $0.49 each
Gift boxes (robe, shirt, assorted, patterned and plain) $1.99 for $0.19 each
Hershey's Kissables (I'll use the red and white for V-day cookies and the green for St. Pat's day cookies) reg. $2.79 for $0.27 each minus $0.75 each, so less than free!
Coloring/activity books in disney theme reg. $3.99 for $0.39 each
cook square snowflake plate reg. $3.99 for $0.39
Penguin kitchen towels reg. $2.99 for $0.29
Penguin potholders reg. $2.99 for $0.29
Big pack of plastic dinosaurs for M's treat bags reg. $5 for $1.25
Sponge Bob treat bags for M's birthday party reg. $1.99 for $0.19
Tiny black clutch purse reg. $12.99 for $1.29
Cranium Sounds of the Seashore reg. $16.99 for $4.24
1 last roll of giftwrap reg. $4.99 (it's velvety) for $0.49
Far Side Page-A-Day calendar reg. $9.99 for $0.99
3 big plastic glasses reg. $1.99 $0.19 each
2 Xmas tshirts reg. $5.00 for $0.50 each
Xmas jammies reg. $12.99 for $1.29
Santa hats for Suzee reg. $3.99 for $0.39
(several gifts that will not be mentioned here, for 75-90% off)

Regular prices: $193.78
I paid: $19.30

wooo hooo!!!

Trader Joe's--Looking for Suggestions

A little over a week ago, a Trader Joe's opened in the Milwaukee area. I had heard such wonderful things about TJ's since I entered the online world and could not WAIT to try it out.

I've been twice (the first time was on opening day and I wouldn't recommend that! craziness...) and bought several things, some which I enjoyed and others which I have not.

First, the good things:
Trader Giotto's Bruschetta in a jar (this was DIVINE as a pasta sauce and on toasted bread)
Some brand of shelf-stable gnocchi (very reasonable... like $1.29 and great texture!)
Hearth-baked Italian bread (also very good, though it had big air holes in it)
TJ's raspberry preserves (yummy, fresh raspberry taste)

I picked up some "two buck chuck" (actually $2.99 here)--a merlot and a chardonnay--and while not the best wine I've had, it was totally drinkable and inexpensive!

But the truly yucky things were:
Dark chocolate covered ginger snaps (would have been fine, but the bottoms of the cookies were this styrofoam-type material... gag!)
Organic, Free-range chicken broth (tasted like water but with a funky smell--digusting!)

While we were in the store, we tried some hummus (very garlicky and yummy) and cherry cider (good, but too pricey for my blood at $4 something). We also bought a nut and dried fruit mix for C the vegetarian, but haven't tried that yet.

So please help me! I can see the appeal and some of the things I've tried have been wonderful, but I don't want to have a lot of costly mistake purchases, either.

:) Thanks in advance...

Target Halloween--90% off

Yay! My favorite time of year... I actually held off this year and didn't buy halloween stuff at 50% or at 75% off at Target. I did look when it was 50% off, but the one thing I was looking for (a specific adult costume) was sold out.

So here's today's haul:
It includes:

Hollographic Bat Princess costume (M's size) $1.99
Spidergirl costume (C's size) $2.49
Springy witch hat $0.49
Get booed pack (for next year) $0.42
2 pumpkin carving sets $0.39 each
Little Pumpkin and Ghost treat cups $0.29 each
Flashlight w/ image projector $0.39
Ghost garbage can $0.99
3 cat napkins (packs) and 3 bat napkins $0.29 each
Socks (for M.) $0.39
pumpkin garland $0.19
Lizard and slinky party toys $0.19 each pack
Fear Factor test tube slime $0.19
2 20 packs plastic treat bags $0.19 each
M sized candy corn tshirt $0.40
My sized bone heart tshirt $0.50
T sized "My Sister Is A Witch" tshirt $0.40
M and C sized "My Brother's a Monster" tshirts $0.40 each
T sized glow in dark bat tee $0.40
G sized dracula boxers $0.79
S'mores snack size candy bars (only candy I found) $0.21

That's a lot of fun for under $15! I also had a prescription filled and had the $10 off coupon for that.

whee!!! Can't wait for the Christmas clearance--that is the MOST fun! :)

Good Grocery Shopping Trip

I think I'm a pretty decent grocery shopper, but I really felt like I was losing my abilities as our bills have climbed from $65 a week to often near $100 a week. However, I was talking to a friend this week (she also has three kids, although she has one older than C. instead of one younger than T!) and she said that she spent $320 at the grocery store. I think my jaw hit the floor. Maybe my grocery-shopping abilities really are an anomaly.

Today (double coupon day) I was in line, unloading my groceries, and talking to the checkout person when a college-aged guy got in line behind me with his small cart full of college-type foods. At the end, when I was paying (partially with a giftcard I'd earned the previous week and partly with our credit card that gives us 5% back on grocery store purchases), I apologized for being so slow (they had to call the woman from the service counter over twice). He kindly said "I'm in no hurry and I'm enjoying watching how you shop". The checkout person was one I'd not seen before (most of the regulars "know" me and laugh at me and sometimes roll their eyes at me), and she was in shock at what I saved. I ended up spending $101.31 and saving $79.70. Best of all, I bought a lot of "convenience" foods this trip--things that I can use for soccer nights or Open House nights, or whatever other nights where we're running from school pickup till bedtime.

Some of the highlights of the trip:

Chex mix reg. $2.29, on sale for $1 each, minus $0.25 coupons on each (have you tried the turtle flavor? oh, yummm....)
Ziploc bags reg. $2.55, on sale for $2.25, minus $1 coupons each (doubled)
Beef Sirloin Tip Roasts at "buy one get one free", resulting in a cost of $1.86 a pound
Sunny Valley Orange Juice (not frozen) reg. $2.39 each, sale for $1 each
Daisy Sour Cream 16 oz. reg. $2.09, sale for $1.50 minus $.50 coupons
Perdue Italian Turkey meatballs reg. $3.69, sale for $2.77 minus $2 coupon
Pillsbury Oven-Baked Dinner rolls reg. $3.39, on sale for $2.50, minus $2 coupon
Pillsbury ready-to-bake cookies reg. $2.99, sale $2.50 minus $2 coupon
Pillsbury Toaster Scrambles reg. $2.59, sale $2 minus $2 coupon (free, baby...)

And for "easy"meals, I got:
Frozen ravioli and tortellini (have jarred sauce) and the crusty rolls
Frozen Grecian Delight Gyro kit and fries
Frozen stuffed chicken entrees

They also had lunch boxes for 50% off, so I got each kid one (they were $2.50 and $3 each, but cuter than the ones Target had this year)

AND I got 70 bonus Box Tops for Education (spit out a form at the checkout), so that made $7 more for the school. :)

The more you spend, the more you save, right?

Let me begin with a little gripe. Why do car manufacturers put P.O.S. tires on new cars? Our van is four and a half years old and the Civic is THREE and a half years old, and both of them have horrible tires. Like the kind of tires where you try to start from a four-way stop and if it's been raining, you can't get going right away. ugh! So we knew this, and "budgeted" (as much as you can) for new tires for both vehicles this fall (before the snow comes). But then we realized that it's a lot easier to have car repairs done in the summer, when G. is off of work and we can easily run one vehicle up and not have to spend hours and hours sitting while the work is done.

This weekend both Sears and Fleet Farm had sales on tires, but since Sears is a five minute drive (and Fleet Farm is a 20 minute drive) we went to Sears. First the van. Buy three tires, get the fourth free (woo hoo!). Add in valve stems, alignment, tire disposal and a million other little things and it added up to $465.57 (saved $103.99). After I paid, the machine shot out two things--a coupon for $5 off a $25 purchase elsewhere in Sears today and a $5 off any purchase coupon if I took a phone survey. I did the survey, and C. and I went shopping! We found her first-day-of-school outfit:

Cute khaki green capri-length pants (regularly $26 for $15.60) and a brown, 100% cotton, lace-trimmed tee (regularly $18 for $10.80) with a picture of a *horse* on it! (click on the pics to see bigger images) With tax and after coupons, just $17.32.

Three hours later, G's car was done. Same deal with buying 3 tires, get one free. Total of $357.86 (saved $69.99). Two more coupons. Shopping for T. He got a picture day shirt (regularly $22 for $8.99), socks that he needed (regularly $7.99 for $5.99) and another "dressy" t-shirt (reg. $9.99 for $2.49):



Then I went searching for something for me, to bring it up to $25. I am SO excited to say that I found something I'd been looking for all summer long: black cotton gauchos with a roll-top waistband (regularly $36 for $7.99)! Better yet part--they are a size XS! I am *not* an extra small size, but I'm happy to wear one that's cut generously to make me feel good ;) Total of $16.33 for second set of purchases.

Grand total if there were no discounts: $1112.74
Grand total after discounts: $857.08
Savings: $255.66


(see, now if I'd just have posted "I saved $255.66 today", you'd have been way more impressed)

The value of a stay-at-home-mom

There's a kind of cool salary wizard at Mom Salary Wizard to calculate what moms should make for their "mom job". (There are versions for SAHM's and WOHM's)

According to the wizard, I'm worth $154,096 a year. In contrast, had I stayed at my teaching job, I might by now be making close to $50,000 a year.

And I think it's nice that the "value" of having a parent at home is being recognized. (This article popped up on My Yahoo as one of the top stories last week. ) I think it's certainly a better article than the ones that talk about how a woman is wasting her life, her intelligence, and her self-worth by staying home with the kids. But mainly, I don't need the justification, and I think it reeks of materialism. The joy that I get from staying home is not in realizing the monetary value of what we're saving (although G. will repeatedly tell me, when I consider returning to the paid workforce, how much my staying home SAVES us...). The value and the benefits that I get are the things that are not countable.

I did not start out my parenting "career" as an Attachment Parent, but I grew into it, following my daughter's lead. The more I followed her lead, the more I wanted to BE with her--fulltime. And so I quit my paid job when she was a little over two, and haven't looked back in nine years.

And I read a wonderful quote posted on my friend NewMama's website. Kim Pekin, the President of Natural Family Boutique, said: "I think that love of parenting is one of the biggest benefits of attachment parenting....[while] 'detachment' style parenting makes parenting into a job, another thing on your list of things to do."

I think the two ideas are similar. If you read an article that tells you that, as a stay-at-home mom (or working mom...) you should be making some exhorbitant amount of money, then a part of your mind might start counting out money/fees/charges in your everyday life. But if you realize that the benefits of being home (or being with your child after work...) are your true payment, then you realize that you're not missing out on anything. In fact, you're the wealthier one.

I {heart} Target

There's just nothing like the slightly-exhausted and slightly-exhilarated feeling that comes from a good shopping trip to Target! :)

I got there about 15 minutes later than I'd hoped, but when I walked in, they still had the 75% off signs up. There was one guy there, tossing a lot of things into his cart and I asked if it was scanning at 90%. He said it was and that his wife had sent him! lol

Despite not really "needing" anything, here's what I got:


All these were 90% off, so I'll just list the clearance price:
Red and purple shelf 4.99 (actually this was orig. $59.99)
2 women's size small t-shirts 0.50
6 sets of snack-sized plates (striped) 0.19 ea.
6 sets of dinner-sized plates (striped) 0.19 ea.
4 packs of luncheon napkins (striped) 0.19 ea.
7 packs of beverage napkins (striped) 0.19 ea.
Madagascar valentines 0.19
Cookie Monster valentines 0.19
Elmo valentines 0.19
Choxie truffles 1.20
Choxie assortment 0.50
3 packs of Tissue Paper 0.19 ea.
5 gift bags 0.14 to 0.49 ea.
3 size 6X scooters (red, pink, black) 0.60 ea.
4 men's boxers and 1 boxer brief 0.59 ea.
Purple plush bear (M. actually bought) 0.49
6 pair women's/children's socks 0.29-0.39 ea.
2 rolls of wrapping paper 0.34 ea.

But that's not all! They also had some great finds at 75% off:


Cute green purse 3.74
Striped tights 4-6X 1.24
Size 3 1/2 boys' tennies $4.98
3-seater inflatable snow tube 7.48

Very fun!

MyPoints and MyCoupons...

I have been posting a LOT about knitting and a lot about my cute kids :) so I thought I should write a bit about some bargains. Tomorrow Target's Valentine stuff goes 90%, so I'll hopefully get some deals there, but I wanted to share my favorite online bargains.

My favorite online shopping deal has to be MyPoints . I've been a member of MyPoints since it started, I think. If you're not familiar with it, you can join and receive points that can be redeemed for all sorts of great stuff! You don't even have to buy anything! You sign up to get emails about different products direct from companies and you get points just for visiting those websites (if you do make a purchase, you get even MORE points). You can also do surveys to earn points or join different clubs and gain more points. Then (the best part) you can redeem your points for great, free stuff. I have earned a TON of gift certificates to restaurants.

The other online site I want to share is MyCoupons . The two boards I visit most often are Look What I Found: Online Shopping Deals and Look What I Found: Brick & Mortar Shopping Deals (where I find my Target deals and clearance dates!).

That's it for the online plugs. Let's hope I have some great IRL finds for tomorrow!

Can I really call myself a "knitter"?

How many imperfect/failed projects does it take for a person to realize that maybe knitting isn't their thing?

Instead of a trip to Target, I spent a full day knitting the earflaphat for C. She came home after school and gave her approval, helped me pick out yarn from my stash (including the accent color green that perfectly matches her jacket), and bugged me to keep working on it. I followed directions perfectly, even making a gauge swatch (I never do that, but for this pattern, the swatch was an ear flap, so...). Nevertheless, after I finished the green accent color, I became a bit concerned. Well, here's the pic of the hat, all beautifully blocked. Nice, no? I love the colors and the braid... So there's only one problem. Here's a pic of C. wearing the hat:


Yeah, it's a bit snug. QUITE a bit snug... :(



Alright, in a kinda-related vein, I got my matchup for Sockapaloooza! I'm thrilled to have a "foreign" sock buddy (can't be too specific) and I love the idea of the whole thing, but I'm now having panic attacks about actually making these socks. Even moreso, I'm wondering whether I should have really called myself "not a beginner"... I have three months to make something that looks good, so I'm not completely spazzed, but I am quite nervous. Anyone have a great pattern for ankle-length socks (her request) that doesn't involve a ton of fancy needlework, but will still make a very cool, fun sock? :)


Let me take a minute and brag a bit about my shopping trip. Short and simple, but I got $180 worth of groceries for $103. That included bottled water, diapers, and SIX boxes of cereal...

And last, but not least, a bit about my beautiful daughter (the older one; the younger one's beautiful, too). This weekend she played in the "Music for Munchkins" concert, which is the High School fundraiser for the orchestra. The fifth graders got to play one song with the High Schoolers. The theme was "Hootenanny Hoedown" and they were supposed to dress the part. Here's C. in her outfit (and with M's horse):

A few projects in the works

I haven't posted in awhile, so I thought I'd do a quick update.

The first sleeve on the cardigan turned out pretty well! It might be about 2-4 stitches tighter than ideal, but I refuse to frog for that. DH is cool with it, too. So I've started the slow, boring process of making the second sleeve the same way. Since I've BTDT, I figure this can be my "take with" project until I finish. It only took a few days of concentrated knitting to finish the first sleeve, so I'm entering the home stretch! readingwhileknitting recommended a few books, including Knitting In Plain English and while reading that, I found a way that COULD have fixed the button band... she recommends doing a double-width button band, with an every-other-row slip one stitch halfway through it. This makes a nice "fold line" and you can then fold over the band and stitch it, making it actually lay flat and have substance!!! I have to say that this cardigan has been the best learning experience. If I really wanted to (and I don't!), I could rip the whole thing out and make a truly awesome cardigan! :) Maybe next year...

Tomorrow is the day Sockapaloooza starts, so I'll soon be knitting socks! (Don't know the specifications of those yet, so I can't start. I am hoping to try out the Magic Loop both-at-once method, however.

Yesterday, on one of my weekly (at least) pilgrimmages to Target, I found that all of their hats, gloves/mittens, scarves, etc. were 75% off. For some reason, my kids' school seems to eat hats, gloves/mittens and scarves and it pains me too much to knit them, only to have them disappear. So I bought T. two cool hats--one the jester type and one that has a mohawk-kinda stripe of bright yellow fur on a black fleece hat--and got C. a magic scarf for $2 (I'd previously knit a magic scarf and it didn't hang right and it also cost a heck of a lot more than $2 in materials--more like $20...). I kept myself from buying more. So this morning, C. tells me that she's lost her hat (which is actually MY hat, but I only wear earmuffs now). I am amazed to find that she has ZERO backup hats. So today she's wearing one of T's old, snagged, simple hats. I am still debating whether to drive to another Target to check out THEIR stash, or to whip up a knit one for her. (It's been close to a year since SHE has lost anything, and she rarely loses hats. Besides, I have enough stash to afford to knit several hats for "free"). I did some browsing and came across this pattern for a really cute ear flap hat and I might give it a try... It's something different with the pattern (or I might wimp out and do simple stripes instead).

I do still have to get to Ruhamas today, as my Yarn Club membership expires today and I want to stock up on needles at 20% off. They came out with the coolest business card that I got last time I was there. It opens to a mini needle inventory, broken up into straight (different lengths), circular (different lengths) and dpn's. Evil store! I now feel the need to fill in all my blank spaces!

Everything's moved over...

Woo Hoo!

I'm officially a "blogger" and no longer a "xanga"... Just moved all my posts from Xanga over. If you're looking for a site to start a blog, I'm pretty happy here! It's a lot more customizable (without costing money) IMHO.

I found a few good bargains today.
Target:
Red and green 18 gallon totes for $2.44 each. I got two!
Red glitter shoes (ala Dorothy from Wizard of Oz) for M. $3.24 (she just outgrew her size 7 dress shoes)
Black footless tights for M (0.98)
Women's size S fleece jacket in green for C. ($8.48)
Some cool tops for DH (won't explain in case he reads this) $3.24 ea.

At the grocery store, I won't explain all that I bought :) but I saved $51.71 on a bill of $89.24 (that's after savings). Not my best, but not bad.