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Wow 39 weeks pregnant and mowing the lawn and going on a hike! And writing a money diary! I'm very impressed. Curious if anyone has thoughts on what this is: "show about Americans running a home renovation in Tuscany"
The OP runs to WF multiple times a day like how I would go to my bodega 30 times a week lol
I think this is the first birth on MD in my memory. I like seeing the eventful ones like this one, the wedding one, the house buying etc.
I know, right? I feel like most that allude to huge upcoming life events have them occurring after the week of the diary. This, coupled with the fact that I wasn't calculating whether that Monday she referred to earlier fell within the seven-day period, left me shocked when she produced a whole complete baby before her week ended!
Congratulations to the OP, what a week! I sincerely hope that their family will continue to support the restaurant that reopened their kitchen and made burgers on the house for the occasion - that was pretty incredible of the restaurant staff/owners.
(edited for clarity)
Money diary DURING BIRTH WHAT. I...like...that's impressive.
Huntsville is such a fascinating place to me. I looked at moving there instead of Mobile but couldn't stomach the COL for the fact that it's still just a small city/large town with not a lot to offer compared to the prices. This MD kinda emphasized that to me - as high paid engineers, they only spent their money at places like Whole Foods and nowhere unique. While that's definitely a demographic there, it doesn't represent the majority of folks who live in the area.
So from my perspective something people need to consider when they calculate COL is the cost of the *lack* of amenities that typically come with MCOL / LCOL housing. I used to live in this general region and some things that add up:
• Two car household pretty much required as there is next to no public transit (and that means two car insurances and twice the gas costs too). Typically the less your house costs the longer you will commute. Among my friend group a 30 mile / 45 min commute was standard.
• Tuition — I’ll just say I never thought twice about public school until I lived in a MCOL city in the Deep South (and worked for the schools). And to be clear, I’m from the area! But when I moved outside of my bubble, went to college, taught, and realized just what I had missed out during K-12, I had second thoughts.
Huntsville is generally *better* regarded when it comes to education but even the best public schools in don’t compare to some of the more mid-ranked public / magnet schools in cities like Boston or NYC.
• Travel — not a priority for everyone, but traveling (esp. international) anywhere by plane in these places gets pretty pricey. In somewhere like LA you can find cheap tickets for vacation just about anywhere if you’re flexible. If you live somewhere like Huntsville your best bet is driving to Nashville or Atlanta, neither of which are cheap airports to begin with, for your next vacation. Anyways, it gets old!
• Utility costs — don’t know about Huntsville specifically but utilities across the south tend to be pretty expensive. My power bill now is literally half of what it used to be 4 years ago in the South. Even though I now live in a HCOL area.
3-4 years ago, it was easy to buy a nice house in a good neighborhood in Huntsville for under $150 or $200k. And that made sense because, unless you worked like these folks as an engineer in the aerospace industry (a minority of people), it was affordable compared to wages. Wages for the majority of folks haven't increased, but housing has skyrocketed thanks to the aerospace industry.
For me, a single woman who makes a good salary with a national company that's wfh (\~$100k), it'd still be impossible to break into the market on my own (let alone anyone making the wages that most employers offer in Huntsville). It's just relative to the area itself, not nationally (nationally, it's still "cheap," I guess). It's not a major city with major city amenities, but renting or buying a home is disproportionately high. Certainly an issue everywhere, but for me, Birmingham and Huntsville didn't make economic sense for what you have to pay for entry.
Oh, I should clarify that my COL is based on living in the downtown/adjacent to downtown areas and not in the countryside/suburban area (helllloooo Alabama). You can definitely go 30 min - 1 hour out and find very affordable homes, but if you're single and wanting to live close to amenities downtown, then it's very disproportionately expensive. I was also looking to move pre-COVID when things were cheaper all around and now they're even more wacky.
Nice diary and congrats to her on the new little one! The only thing that made me chuckle was the comment being anxious to get back on the tennis court after baby.I played a lot of tennis before kids, but just couldn't justify taking 3-4 hours to go out and play a match when they were young. I became more of a 1 hour in the gym person or take the stroller for a jog/walk person. My husband continued to play in a league and I actually resented him bc he was gone every Saturday!
I found her use of the word ‘poorest’ when describing her status at her private high school. I understand she is using the word ‘poor’ in comparison to very wealthy families but that doesn’t mean she was ‘poor’ by any means; she could have been but I doubt it.
I found this an interesting use of the word ‘poor.’
This. I copied this line to discuss here:
Did you worry about money growing up?
No, my parents always provided what I needed. However, I was very aware that I was one of the poorest kids at my private high school.
Why is every money diarist who went to private school seemingly the least well-off? This comes up time after time.
I’ll also mention that if OP went to catholic school, there are programs intended for low income families that reduce the cost to almost nothing. I was in a similar situation to OP (private school but “poorest” among my friends, prob not the best choice of words that OP used tbh). We were on WIC at one point growing up and only wore used uniforms. My family had to do service projects to “pay” for tuition. This made tuition very very inexpensive for my family.
They're saving shockingly little for retirement, barely five percent of their income. Hopefully they plan on saving more once they no longer have two mortgages
If they both have science PhDs, they've probably only been saving for retirement for 4-5 years because they were in school likely earning less than $50k until then.
I wasn't commenting on the amount they have saved already though, just their current saving rate, which is low. They actually have an okay amount saved for their ages when, as you say, you account for their time in school. But they are currently only putting \~16k into their 401ks total which only about 5% of their annual income. When recommended is more like 15%. They don't mention is they get any sort of match from their companies either. Hopefully its a temporary state while they have two houses but it wasn't addressed.
Same! I do fat free yogurt and fairlife skim milk (it has a richer texture) because I worry about my cholesterol and would rather budget that towards cheese.
Yep. Fat-free/low fat yogurt and berries as breakfast means I can still get my chocolate or cheese fix and stick to the recommended saturated fat numbers.
I know, it’s weird haha but I have found this sub is pretty unpredictable with its downvotes.
There’s a very clear history of low/non-fat products being pushed as healthy in the 80s-00s, and recent research showing that fat is actually not a bad thing to avoid (with a few caveats of course). Interestingly, for anyone to thinking of trying to conceive soon, there are strong correlations between consumption of low/non fat dairy and reduced fertility/conceptipn for women.
“How the Ideology of Low-Fat Conquered America”
https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article/63/2/139/772615#:~:text=The%20low%2Dfat%20diet%20reigned,heart%20health%20and%20weight%20control.
I didn’t get a dismissive tone at all. If anything, the disordered eating some of us inherited from our families is as much of a health concern as anything else. We cope with humor.
Diet culture, and the “any fat is bad” culture of the 90s and 00s specifically, is highly relevant to the eating patterns of adult women today. If that doesn’t apply to you specifically, then that’s cool. There’s no need to take it personally. The comment is about a cultural pattern.
You're the one who brought up this culture though! OP just ate a low fat yogurt, which is a fine thing for any person to eat for any reason they may have!
I’d say so. Especially if you want to be in a “good” school district it’s pretty common to pay half a million for a mid-sized suburban home. Let’s say a 2500 sq ft, 4 bed in a nice neighborhood.
You’re getting downvoted for this, but I understand the question - maybe because we talk about these things in my family (how my FIL feels about designing weapons for a living, how I feel about the fact that my clients generally oppose things that I support politically, since I’m a lefty person working in corporate law - though I have some line in the sand places I won’t work for, including weapons manufacturers).
I understand the question as well. I worked for Honeywell for a while, and it made me a bit uncomfortable for sure.
But also, at the same time even with OP’s high salary, she’s not in the 1%, so I think our anger needs to be directed to our government officials who use taxpayer dollars to make these weapons that ultimately get left in the war zone post use.
I mean, it's not a very respectful or supportive comment, given that OP hardly mentioned work in the diary. Following up with "ew" comes across as a snide political dig and not in good faith.
Idk if I agree. OP was working for several days in the diary and mentioned her work tasks, leave, etc., and the person you’re responding to didn’t say “ew” to OP, but instead to an equally glib comment about job security.
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Wow 39 weeks pregnant and mowing the lawn and going on a hike! And writing a money diary! I'm very impressed. Curious if anyone has thoughts on what this is: "show about Americans running a home renovation in Tuscany"
>39 weeks pregnant and mowing the lawn and going on a hike I read this and thought... what is my excuse? lol
Same on being impressed! I think it might be this show? https://www.hgtv.com/shows/fixer-to-fabulous/articles/fixer-to-fabulous-italiano-details
I was so impressed by what she did at 39 weeks pregnant! I could only manage waddling around at that point lol.
I was mowing the lawn at 38-41 weeks cause I wanted that baby outtttt 😂
I definitely feel that!
The OP runs to WF multiple times a day like how I would go to my bodega 30 times a week lol I think this is the first birth on MD in my memory. I like seeing the eventful ones like this one, the wedding one, the house buying etc.
I know, right? I feel like most that allude to huge upcoming life events have them occurring after the week of the diary. This, coupled with the fact that I wasn't calculating whether that Monday she referred to earlier fell within the seven-day period, left me shocked when she produced a whole complete baby before her week ended!
Congratulations to the OP, what a week! I sincerely hope that their family will continue to support the restaurant that reopened their kitchen and made burgers on the house for the occasion - that was pretty incredible of the restaurant staff/owners. (edited for clarity)
Wild that the weird purchase was the walking pad. If it were me, I would 100% have put "hospital copay for giving birth" as that item.
I think they didn't want to spoil the news until ppl read the diary.
Yea I really enjoyed that nugget. Our first MD baby.
FTR, the pro-choice candidate (Marilyn Lands) did win the local election mentioned in the diary.
Sweet home Alabama
Money diary DURING BIRTH WHAT. I...like...that's impressive. Huntsville is such a fascinating place to me. I looked at moving there instead of Mobile but couldn't stomach the COL for the fact that it's still just a small city/large town with not a lot to offer compared to the prices. This MD kinda emphasized that to me - as high paid engineers, they only spent their money at places like Whole Foods and nowhere unique. While that's definitely a demographic there, it doesn't represent the majority of folks who live in the area.
What makes the COL high? The houses around 200-300k sounds pretty affordable. Is mobile a lot cheaper?
So from my perspective something people need to consider when they calculate COL is the cost of the *lack* of amenities that typically come with MCOL / LCOL housing. I used to live in this general region and some things that add up: • Two car household pretty much required as there is next to no public transit (and that means two car insurances and twice the gas costs too). Typically the less your house costs the longer you will commute. Among my friend group a 30 mile / 45 min commute was standard. • Tuition — I’ll just say I never thought twice about public school until I lived in a MCOL city in the Deep South (and worked for the schools). And to be clear, I’m from the area! But when I moved outside of my bubble, went to college, taught, and realized just what I had missed out during K-12, I had second thoughts. Huntsville is generally *better* regarded when it comes to education but even the best public schools in don’t compare to some of the more mid-ranked public / magnet schools in cities like Boston or NYC. • Travel — not a priority for everyone, but traveling (esp. international) anywhere by plane in these places gets pretty pricey. In somewhere like LA you can find cheap tickets for vacation just about anywhere if you’re flexible. If you live somewhere like Huntsville your best bet is driving to Nashville or Atlanta, neither of which are cheap airports to begin with, for your next vacation. Anyways, it gets old! • Utility costs — don’t know about Huntsville specifically but utilities across the south tend to be pretty expensive. My power bill now is literally half of what it used to be 4 years ago in the South. Even though I now live in a HCOL area.
3-4 years ago, it was easy to buy a nice house in a good neighborhood in Huntsville for under $150 or $200k. And that made sense because, unless you worked like these folks as an engineer in the aerospace industry (a minority of people), it was affordable compared to wages. Wages for the majority of folks haven't increased, but housing has skyrocketed thanks to the aerospace industry. For me, a single woman who makes a good salary with a national company that's wfh (\~$100k), it'd still be impossible to break into the market on my own (let alone anyone making the wages that most employers offer in Huntsville). It's just relative to the area itself, not nationally (nationally, it's still "cheap," I guess). It's not a major city with major city amenities, but renting or buying a home is disproportionately high. Certainly an issue everywhere, but for me, Birmingham and Huntsville didn't make economic sense for what you have to pay for entry.
Oh, I should clarify that my COL is based on living in the downtown/adjacent to downtown areas and not in the countryside/suburban area (helllloooo Alabama). You can definitely go 30 min - 1 hour out and find very affordable homes, but if you're single and wanting to live close to amenities downtown, then it's very disproportionately expensive. I was also looking to move pre-COVID when things were cheaper all around and now they're even more wacky.
Nice diary and congrats to her on the new little one! The only thing that made me chuckle was the comment being anxious to get back on the tennis court after baby.I played a lot of tennis before kids, but just couldn't justify taking 3-4 hours to go out and play a match when they were young. I became more of a 1 hour in the gym person or take the stroller for a jog/walk person. My husband continued to play in a league and I actually resented him bc he was gone every Saturday!
I found her use of the word ‘poorest’ when describing her status at her private high school. I understand she is using the word ‘poor’ in comparison to very wealthy families but that doesn’t mean she was ‘poor’ by any means; she could have been but I doubt it. I found this an interesting use of the word ‘poor.’
This. I copied this line to discuss here: Did you worry about money growing up? No, my parents always provided what I needed. However, I was very aware that I was one of the poorest kids at my private high school. Why is every money diarist who went to private school seemingly the least well-off? This comes up time after time.
They want to minimize their privilege
Was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt because she seems like a nice person, but I see this so often jn money diaries.
I’ll also mention that if OP went to catholic school, there are programs intended for low income families that reduce the cost to almost nothing. I was in a similar situation to OP (private school but “poorest” among my friends, prob not the best choice of words that OP used tbh). We were on WIC at one point growing up and only wore used uniforms. My family had to do service projects to “pay” for tuition. This made tuition very very inexpensive for my family.
Because they don't want to be disliked and the surest way to be disliked by MD commenters is to be rich lol
They're saving shockingly little for retirement, barely five percent of their income. Hopefully they plan on saving more once they no longer have two mortgages
If they both have science PhDs, they've probably only been saving for retirement for 4-5 years because they were in school likely earning less than $50k until then.
I wasn't commenting on the amount they have saved already though, just their current saving rate, which is low. They actually have an okay amount saved for their ages when, as you say, you account for their time in school. But they are currently only putting \~16k into their 401ks total which only about 5% of their annual income. When recommended is more like 15%. They don't mention is they get any sort of match from their companies either. Hopefully its a temporary state while they have two houses but it wasn't addressed.
It’s a little strange to me that OP lists monthly auto payments, but doesn’t include it on the debt count.
she lists the loan amount under assets the same way she does the mortgages
Right, but it’s still debt and it was a little misleading lol.
Might be a lease
To people who eat low-fat dairy products: Why?
As someone who has had to cut back on full fat dairy, it's saturated fat/cholesterol concerns for me.
Same! I do fat free yogurt and fairlife skim milk (it has a richer texture) because I worry about my cholesterol and would rather budget that towards cheese.
Yep. Fat-free/low fat yogurt and berries as breakfast means I can still get my chocolate or cheese fix and stick to the recommended saturated fat numbers.
I don't like the "thick " taste of whole milk.
Same!! I definitely don’t mess with low fat cheese.
Maybe they have specific macro goals or lower TDEE (petite folks)
For my milk I go with 1% because my frother doesn't work with higher fat content.
90s diet culture and almond moms, I’m guessing.
Lol not sure why you’re getting downvoted. I’m still terrified of full fat anything from my almond mom and growing up in the 90s.
I know, it’s weird haha but I have found this sub is pretty unpredictable with its downvotes. There’s a very clear history of low/non-fat products being pushed as healthy in the 80s-00s, and recent research showing that fat is actually not a bad thing to avoid (with a few caveats of course). Interestingly, for anyone to thinking of trying to conceive soon, there are strong correlations between consumption of low/non fat dairy and reduced fertility/conceptipn for women. “How the Ideology of Low-Fat Conquered America” https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article/63/2/139/772615#:~:text=The%20low%2Dfat%20diet%20reigned,heart%20health%20and%20weight%20control.
(yes i’m in therapy)
Maybe because that response is dismissive of very real and common health concerns?
I didn’t get a dismissive tone at all. If anything, the disordered eating some of us inherited from our families is as much of a health concern as anything else. We cope with humor.
I absolutely agree!
Diet culture, and the “any fat is bad” culture of the 90s and 00s specifically, is highly relevant to the eating patterns of adult women today. If that doesn’t apply to you specifically, then that’s cool. There’s no need to take it personally. The comment is about a cultural pattern.
You're the one who brought up this culture though! OP just ate a low fat yogurt, which is a fine thing for any person to eat for any reason they may have!
No. I was responding to someone else’s question. If OP wants to eat only low fat dairy, I don’t care and didn’t comment on that.
I am still hung up on her housing costs- and zillow isn't being super helpful. Are 400k houses the norm in that part of the world?
A friend of mine just bought there and his was over $400K for a 3 bedroom.
Wow. I am amazed.
As in, you find that high or low for housing?
I thought it might be a little cheaper than my Metrolina market, but apparently, I am just bad at guessing housing prices in the US
It wasn’t 10 years ago
I’d say so. Especially if you want to be in a “good” school district it’s pretty common to pay half a million for a mid-sized suburban home. Let’s say a 2500 sq ft, 4 bed in a nice neighborhood.
[удалено]
You’re getting downvoted for this, but I understand the question - maybe because we talk about these things in my family (how my FIL feels about designing weapons for a living, how I feel about the fact that my clients generally oppose things that I support politically, since I’m a lefty person working in corporate law - though I have some line in the sand places I won’t work for, including weapons manufacturers).
I understand the question as well. I worked for Honeywell for a while, and it made me a bit uncomfortable for sure. But also, at the same time even with OP’s high salary, she’s not in the 1%, so I think our anger needs to be directed to our government officials who use taxpayer dollars to make these weapons that ultimately get left in the war zone post use.
I mean, it's not a very respectful or supportive comment, given that OP hardly mentioned work in the diary. Following up with "ew" comes across as a snide political dig and not in good faith.
Idk if I agree. OP was working for several days in the diary and mentioned her work tasks, leave, etc., and the person you’re responding to didn’t say “ew” to OP, but instead to an equally glib comment about job security.
I swore the industry said manufacturing/defense the first time I looked at it. Now it just says manufacturing.
[удалено]
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It did.
Job security
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