Comments on: Reader Mailbag: The Cost of Friendship

By: asrai

asrai — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:52:37 +0000

Prefold diapers and there are tons of covers available. All in one such as bumgenius are expensive and wear out faster. But far more convinient ie they are more like a disposable. But to get 24 you are paying two or three times more.

Also if you with prefolds get a $2 snappi. So much easier than pins.

By: de

de — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:15:40 +0000

Brad, we recently moved to the Southwestand were thrilled to discover that we can garden year round. However we have a fairly smal yard (Cali housing–feel your pain on the costs); We have always used the square foot gardening techniques of Mel Bartholemew, but recaently boutht his newest revised book, and he has made it even more simple and time saving. He also has some tips for container gardening, which many of our new friends here do on the patio or balcony. Maybe that could help with your famers market issues(which I fully sympathize with) and entertaining costs, especialy with fresh herbs and salads.

By: Kai

Kai — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:44:31 +0000

If I had a friend who turned up allergic to my house, I would not ask the friend to come over to my house. Nor would I move.
I would, however, keep the friendship going. You really think that a friendship would have to be left to die if the friend couldn’t visit you?
I would meet the friend at other places. We would go for walks in the park. We would do picnics. We would go out to things of mutual interest. Perhaps we would go to her place sometimes. Assuming the friendship also exists in a group, we would also see each other at the homes of others.

Your all or nothing idea is silly.

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:06:12 +0000

Julie, I’m going to offer you yet another advantage to cloth diapers. Once you know there are no more infants on the way, you have got the BEST, softest, most absorbent dusting and cleaning rags ever invented.

I remember,in my early teens, my mom sighing when the last of the old diapers gave out. And I echoed that sigh, some years later, when I ran out of the last few diapers I’d kept for polishing glass or furniture.

I seldom manage to persuade anyone, but I always try to encourage mothers-to-be to do three things: nurse their baby, use cloth diapers, and avoid commercial baby food entirely by mashing or chopping the food the family is eating.

My personal recommendation on this is the HappyBaby Food Grinder. No batteries, completely portable, built-in serving dish. We fed our daughter (now in her thirties) at restaurants with it, and we never bought one jar of baby food. My only connection to the company is that I’ve recommended it for years and given a number of them away, including to my daughter-in-law!

Hope this helps and/or encourages someone!

By: KimC

KimC — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:08:00 +0000

Just want to say that I love the new “What’s Inside” part of these mailbag posts. So much easier to scan and navigate. I used to skim past these because they were just so long; now I can easily find the parts that interest me.
Thanks!

By: Emma

Emma — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 09:41:14 +0000

Trent, I’m not sure it was a “rhetorical” question you were asking. Did you really ask it not expecting an answer?

By: Brittany

Brittany — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 03:05:49 +0000

Brad– Is your wife willing to work part-time? It seems her staying home is something to two of you value, but a few hours a week with a catering service, a one-to-two family load of regular dinner clients, personal chef, etc. could free up some wiggle room in your budget and give you a “slush fund” once the basics were covered.

Celia–Have you checked out Sundays at Moosewood? It’s an almost exclusively vegetarian cookbook (a little bit of fish, if I remember correctly, but not much), that has really fantastic and interesting recipes (a lot more variety than standard veggie cookbooks, I feel). For food blogs, I recommend The Casual Kitchen, which is also part (but not totally) veggie.

By: jo

jo — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:24:09 +0000

@ #30 aryn -
The federal government has a several programs hiring straight from college that are different version of a ladder program. They hire at a salary slightly lower than private sector and promise raises to bring you up to private sector within a specified time. So as long as JP is average or above average in his work he will get those raises.

@ JP – Make sure to check the income requirements for forgiveness of the student loans does not have an income ceiling. Not knowing what ceiling to base the locality pay off of, it appears that you are starting as a GS-9 with a ladder to a GS-11 or GS-12. The issue is that it may be possible to make it to a 13 or 14 within the 10 years; salaries at those levels are usually above the ceilings. It’s worth a look.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 23:52:05 +0000

For Celia re cooking…These are my favorite sites for great recipes. I was rather indifferent for many years until job circumstances brought us to our current location where, for us, there are not a lot of options for eating out or finding ingredients. We’ve begun making our own yogurt, bread, pizza dough and sauce, grinding our own beef, etc. (you get the pic!)

King Arthur Flour has lots of recipes for baking, and if you’ve some extra $$$, great products that can be bought on sale. Our bread and pizza dough and yogurt recipes come from here.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/

And this wonderful site: The Pioneer Woman
There’s a wide range of topics on her site including two cooking sections. Ree has many recipes under “Cooking” and “The Tasty Kitchen”

http://thepioneerwoman.com/

Hope these inspire you as they have me.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:45:56 +0000

We have a few vegetarian cookbooks, and actually, we spent the month of July eating completely vegetarian just to see if we could do it (and it wasn’t too hard). Our favorite by far is The Vegetarian Family Cookbook by Nava Atlas. I agree with what everyone said about experimenting in the kitchen, but also I completely understand needing a recipe to go off of at first.

We cloth diaper most of the time, and we use plain Proraps and prefolds. They are on the cheaper end of cloth diapers, but I love them, and we’ve had I think 2 instances of them not containing messes in 10 months (and those were BIG messes). We do disposables at night and on long car rides, but otherwise it’s the cloth ones.

By: Mich

Mich — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:51:49 +0000

Here is a delicious rice and bean recipe that only takes a few ingredients and is very quick to make. I learned it after I was in Costa Rica and it was so good!

Gallo Pinto (for 4ppl)
-1 Can black beans
-2 cups instant rice
-1 can chicken broth(regular not the 99% fat free)
-chopped onions, cilantro, yellow pepper
-(optional, a bit of jalapeno)

fry the uncooked rice and chopped veggies in a pan with some oil for a few min, then add in the chicken broth and cover until rice is cooked. Add in the can of beans with some of the black water, cook a little longer and its done. So flavorful and delicious!

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:33:16 +0000

for Celia, whose question was how to get protein into recipes. I’ve come up with a few reliable strategies that don’t require much forethought: top anything with a handful of tasty cheese (goat, feta, etc), or toasted nuts, or both. Start adding protein rich grains/seeds to dishes: quinoa can be slipped in to all kinds of things. As can cooked beans. There are a lot of possibilities and the fun part is figuring out the flavours and textures you like and having those ingredients in your cupboard to add to anything. You can cook pretty standard dishes and transform them by adding adventurous spices and something protein-rich.

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:32:57 +0000

Choi = I have done the prepaid utility thing & understand where your coming from on prepaying daycare.
I have a 10 yearold so I’m speaking from experience here. I very, very strongly advise against paying more then a month at a time . Daycare centers don’t keep the best records regardless of size & if the daycare director changes your ” credit balance” could disappear.
While I see the point of sending your child if your doing odd jobs while seeking a full time gig, if one if you isn’t working at all the child would do best at home. Peer relationships have negligible impact upon developement until around 4-6 yrs. Until then Mom & Dad are who the child is best to be with, developmentally speaking. That & also the high turn over in the staff the we saw at most daycares wasn’t real good on my son either.

Sorry for any typoes. I’m using my iPod while the PC is compling .

By: Nur

Nur — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:24:11 +0000

I have a similar question to Celia, I am in the same boat but I live in Canada. Although the book suggested by Trent is great, (I read it), can anyone suggest a book that gives an overview of investing from a Canadian perspective?

By: GayleRN

GayleRN — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:58:48 +0000

For Katie, you do not at this point have enough money to consider investing in anything but an index fund. If you are really serious about learning about investing start with the local library and start working your way through the investment section. There is a lot of BS written about investing but you have to know what it is so you can identify it instantly when it is being pitched to you. And it will be pitched to you. Secondly there is a wealth of information available on the internet, starting with the Schwab website to learn some mechanics. Subscribe to some magazines, or Investor’s Business Daily. Read, read, and read some more.

If all this sounds like way too much work, then you need not bother with anything other than index funds. If you are not willing to put a lot of work into learning investments it is just a good way to lose money faster.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 09:24:08 +0000

Rachael, Please make sure you are elligible to contribute to a ROTH, that your income is earned income which is the only income which qualifies for a ROTH. You don’t need $3,000. Go to a bank and open a ROTH to which you can contribute over the course of a year. Even if it is only a savings account, you can add a little at a time. Make sure it is an account with no fees. If your income doesn’t qualitfy for a ROTH, consider a modest part time job, even one or two short shifts a week. The ability to contribute to a ROTH when you are very young is a magfificent thing! Once you accumulate a bit in a ROTH savings account, you can then shift it over into a fund like Trent suggests. The idea is to START! Because if you do not contribute any part of the elligible $5,000. per year in THAT YEAR, you lose that particular opportunity forever. Contribute something to a ROTH every year, stretch yourself to get that money in there! You’ll be thrilled when it’s time to retire.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 03:14:02 +0000

@ETF I certainly agree. The dad is the one without the job at the moment and it’s completely bizarre that Trent suggests the mom may secretly want to stay home with the kid, when the dad is the one actually in a position to do that! The whole thing is made even more bizarre by the fact that I get the impression Trent himself does the dad-at-home thing (even though he’s working, he made the choice to work from home so he could spend more time with the kids). I’m completely confused as to why he focused only on the wife as the childcare option here.

By: Courtney

Courtney — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:22:40 +0000

RE: house issue

Yes, that can be a problem, but it’s never been a major problem. There are entire cultures (see also: Tokyo) where the major socialization takes place outside the home because the house is too small.

RE: rice & beans
If I were you, I’d develop a taste for peasant food. Most “main” dishes were once only holiday meals. Lasagna, for instance. Go for authentic food as much as possible. For example, General Tsao’s Chicken was created in Cleveland.

Rice and beans around the world, via epicurious.com:
Central Asian Rice and Bean Stew
In Cuba, this versatile dish is known as congrí. Louisiana has its own version of red beans and rice, of course, but in that one you won’t find the oregano, cumin or cilantro.
Cajun Red Beans and Rice Salad
Steamed Rice and Bean Dumplings in Spicy Lentil and Radish Sauce by Julie Sahni from Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking
Yellow Rice Salad with Roasted Peppers and Spicy Black Beans
Saffron Rice with Peas and Garbanzo Beans
Braised Chicken and Rice with Orange, Saffron, Almond, and Pistachio Syrup
Vegetable Paella

My favorite cookbooks are: The Joy of Cooking. How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman, classic Indian cooking by Julie Sahni, Laurel’s Kitchen, The New Basic Cookbook, and Three Ancient Cuisines. Most of these can be found used for cheap and/or free.

I also highly recommend Indian food if you are vegetarian.

I will grant you that you can invest a little or a lot in seasonings, but buying in bulk from ethnic food stores will cut down expenses quite a bit.

By: J

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 01:22:06 +0000

I used to be very allergic to cats. I have 2 that have lived with me for over 6 years. The longer I have been exposed to them, the less my allergies have been a problem. I like cats enough to suck it up and have been rewarded. Just sayin’.

By: Courtney

Courtney — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 01:14:48 +0000

I am guessing that Choi’s concern of wanting to keep his child in daycare is that he says it’s “one that is very hard to get in” – i.e. if they take their daughter out because of the cost, someone else will be given that spot and then when they are both working again, the daycare will be unavailable. I’m not saying whether or not this is a valid or wise concern, but that’s probably the line of thinking he’s going on and why he’d like to pre-pay now to “hold” her spot, in order to (literally) buy them more time to obtain full-time work.

And Johanna is correct regarding Rachel’s IRA question. If Rachel has taxes withheld on her stipend, then it is eligible earned income for the purposes of an IRA contribution. If there are no taxes withheld, it is not considered “earned income” for IRA purposes (though it is certainly regular “income” in the eyes of the IRS and they will want their share!)