Splurge Tuesday’s Workwear Report: Pussy-Bow Silk Blouse

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1. Happy New Year ladies. Travel question: I’m planning a trip to London this spring. I want to take the hubs to Liverpool to see all The Beatles spots. I want to spend at least one night in Liverpool. Should I engage a travel agent to help me plan the trip? And if yes, any recommendations? Thanks in advance!

   1. I don’t see any particular need for a travel agent in this case. The UK is quite easy to navigate. Train tickets to Liverpool can be booked on thetrainline.com. If you need planning advice, travel blogger https://www.aladyinlondon.com/ offers travel planning services.

      1. Agree with this.
         Just a warning to watch the news or check the trainline website for any sign of a train strike in the leadup to your trip. We’ve been having loads of them over the last 9 months, with increasing frequency recently, and it could very much ruin your plans to go to Liverpool if you plan to take the train. It’s definitely your best bet to plan to go via train if it’s running though.

   2. I’m based in the UK (although by no means a Liverpool or Beatles expert). Personally, I’d probably just book a train myself (the journey will be about 2.5hrs, book using the trainline) and then book a Beatles tour.

   3. Beatlemaniac here. I did Liverpool in 2008 (so you should check for updates from what I tell you). There is a Magical Mystery Tour you can take. As in, the tour company is called Magical Mystery Tour, the bus is replica from the movie Magical Mystery Tour, and it takes you ’round to most of the relevant sites (Penny Lane, Strawberry Field, St. Stephen’s church where John and Paul met). The National Trust of England now owns both John and Pauls’ childhood homes, and you can do a special tour inside them. It was spine-tingling to be in their childhood homes. You can find and go to the Cavern independently–it is still a working club. I believe there is a hotel right near the Cavern called Hard Day’s Night, and the statues of the Beatles are nearby. Then, there is a museum, which when I went was at the Albert Dock but may have moved.

      Liverpool is obviously proud of the Beatles, so it is not too difficult to find Beatle things. My experience was also that Liverpudlians are very, very friendly. Part of the charm of going to Liverpool is simply listening to the accents–everyone sounds just like the Beatles!

      In London, I have done a Beatles Walking Tour led by a guy named Richard. I did it most recently in May 2022. It is fun and informative and you can just show up at the start of the tour. Go to beatlesinlondon dot com. FYI, it is VERY hard to get a good picture at Abbey Road, because even though there is a crosswalk, there is no stoplight.

      One of my favorites for Beatles sites in London that you won’t see on a tour, because it is out of the way, is Chiswick House. They filmed the videos for Paperback Writer and Rain on the grounds, and it is instantly recognizable. But what is great is that Chiswick House is independently interesting; it is a stately home with wonderful gardens. You can tour inside too. It is in Zone 2 of the London Tube, so not too far.

      1. I now feel so much better for never seeking out that intersection! I had no idea it was in a different park of the UK! So obvi not a beetles fan here!

      2. Thank you so much for this wonderful information!! I want this trip to be so special for my husband. Would you recommend that we spend one night in Liverpool? More than one night? Paul & John’s childhood homes is my #1 reason for visiting Liverpool. I know they close for the winter so our plan is to go in May before the King’s Coronation. Any other tips??? thanks again!!

         1. The only other recommendation is to talk to locals in Liverpool–just chat to them, because you never know who may have a great Beatles connection. When I was at the Cavern, there was an old guy enjoying a pint who claimed his mother was the housecleaner of Paul’s father. Maybe true, maybe not, but he was very entertaining.

      3. The Cavern is a “replica” of the original. I’ve seen the parking lot where the original Cavern used to be.

   4. I wrote a long response which is in moderation. Check back here. I will repost if it doesn’t get out of moderation.

   5. We did all of it in one day. I like the cabbies who do the Beatles tours. You get one on one customized info. Ours was absolutely great. We got lots of tidbits about the lads that even my husband, lifelong Beatles fan, didn’t previously know.

      Of course, leave time to go to the cavern club!

      Enjoy.

   6. I was in Liverpool in 2018 to see a soccer game and am not a Beatles fan – but one of my best pictures was in early morning of the Fab Four statue by the waterfront (Pier Head). Not many people and the sunlight is in the right place to get some great shots!

      1. There’s a statue of Eleanor Rigby that was poignant. I was at the Anglican cathedral when a choir was rehearsing something unfamiliar. I realised later that it was Sir Paul’s Liverpool Oratorio. Tingles!

   7. You don’t need an agent. Buy advance train tickets (90-35 days before) to get cheaper tickets.

      I would get one night at a hotel, and have dinner and see some random live music at a pub or small concert venue, Liverpool is still a great music city.

2. I need help with an awkward invitation.

   I would have more of our friends over if I could invite them for a glass of wine and then they would leave with enough time for us to cook dinner for our young kids. Is there a way to word that? Please come over but also please leave by 6:00?? Help!

   1. I would phrase it as a home happy-hour and then plan leftovers or something easy for dinner that night so that you don’t feel rushed.

      1. THIS

   2. I think you can only do this with friends you feel close enough to that you can say “hey, we’d love to have you over for a late-afternoon glass of wine before the little-kid dinner rush begins. We usually have to start doing that by 6, so any interest in coming over around (4:30?) for an hour or so?”

      But honestly, unless they live down the block, this is likely a tough sell – it’s sort of an in-between time that doesn’t line up well with other plans, and you’re asking them to come to you and to do it for a pretty short window of time that has a mandatory ending. It’s hard to make that feel hospitable except for very close friends, who live close by, and who understand this stage of life.

      FWIW, I have 3 kids and one is still a toddler. My best option has been asking folks over for cocktails and snacks on the porch after he goes to bed – so making it a later event rather than an early one.

      1. I think this would be much easier at 7 – even 8pm – come over for a cup of tea/glass of wine after our kids are in bed and chat!

      2. Cosign this. I have friends like this (close neighborhood friends) who I could totally say this to – and do – but I don’t think you can do this with people you don’t know as well & when it’s not a big commitment (minimal/no travel time). An after bedtime drink or lowering expectations for dinner for kids may make this easier.

   3. Invite them for brunch

      1. We do brunch for this reason. I don’t think you can reasonably do it otherwise.

   4. Are you talking about weekdays or weekends? I don’t know how that would even work on a weekday even if people WFH and are done right at 5:00. On a weekend, if you explicitly invite people to come “hang out” in the middle of the afternoon or for “drinks and appetizers” at 4:00-ish they should get the message that it’s not a dinner party.

      1. Good question – weekends. These are friends with kids, so they couldn’t come over after bedtime. And it would only be an invitation to people who do live close.

         1. If they have kids too then don’t they have to get home and feed their kids?

         2. This is pretty important context, that it’s weekends not weekdays. Couldn’t you just say, “We’d love to see you – could you come by for a quick drink from about 5-6 before we start the kids’ dinner?” I don’t find providing a specific time frame awkward or rude.

         3. What are they doing with their kids while they’re at your house? We have had the best luck with inviting the whole family over (kids included) for drinks and then I just plan on feeding all the kids easy stuff like meatballs and sweet potato fries and cut fruit. Grownup dinner happens later.

            1. I expect them to bring their kids, but I don’t want to be responsible for feeding them! I feel like we just need a few hours in the evening to ourselves to get organized and do our routine.

            2. If you want them gone by 6, inviting them over in the evening isn’t the best plan.

            3. yeah, this is exactly what I have done – bring kids/eat pizza/go home for bedtime.
               I wouldn’t do a weekend evening/late afternoon if you don’t intend to feed people dinner. What about “come over for coffee and a playdate Sunday AM?” or a different alternative time?

   5. What about something like: “Would you like to stop by for a glass of wine from on your way home on Tuesday before we start the evening routine for Jack and Sally?” Then, when you need to start cooking dinner, one parent can say, “I’ve had so much fun, but I must excuse myself to start our routine. Jack and Sally get so out of sorts when they’re late to bed.”

      1. I like this!

      2. I wouldn’t get that I needed to leave. I think this needs to be more direct.

         Frankly, I think a quick drink works as a guest but not a host. I think the timing is tough unless you’re both meeting outside of your home and setting the expectation of happy hour in advance.

   6. We have one young child and we do this a lot both with friends with kids and close friends who do not have kids. We live in the city and our apartment is ~ 5 min away from our invitees’ homes or offices, which I think is why it works. We do say something about “a drink before dinner” or we serve heavy apps so they won’t be too hungry. I would not look at all askance at a invitation saying basically what you said here – I’d be flattered you cared enough about spending time with me that you were trying to find creative ways to do it despite clearly being busy!

   7. I know you said you were inviting friends with kids, but as a childfree person I would also totally understand needing to leave at a certain time. I’ve explicitly told friends with young kids “I want to see you, tell me what works best and I’ll make it happen.” We’ll come over early, late, whatever works. And we don’t care if your house is a mess or if your kids are crying. Our house is a mess too!

   8. This isn’t awkward – just set an end time. “Hey Jane, do you want to come over on Friday from 4-6 for drinks and snacks?”

      1. +1 this is the most normal and natural to me. They’re your friends, just tell them when you’re available. my friends and I frequently talk about how we should just do this all the time. Specific times with leave times included.

   9. I’m going to be the voice of dissent here. Why is it so hard to also feed them and their kids? I’m a mom so I’m not naive about dinner/bath/bedtime routines, but you’re talking about a weekend. It sounds like you’re too rigid about your schedule.

      1. Agreed. I have little kids so I get it, but I think you need to try for a different time/location unless they are very close friends who live up the street or something. Or just be willing to feed everyone something super easy if they are still there.

         Personally, I would not invite people over and then invite them to leave so you can cook.

      2. I think there’s a good point here… you mentioned earlier that you expect them to bring their kids, but you don’t want to feed them. It sounds a little like you’re prioritizing your family’s routine/schedule over your guests’ but for these friendships to flourish there has to be some flexibility on both sides. Could you put yourself in their shoes? As a guest, I would not be thrilled if someone asked us to come over from 4-6 pm and then I had to leave at 6 with unfed kids and scramble to get my own kids fed and in bed. If you need to protect your evening routine this carefully (not judging – some kids really do need that!) then maybe an evening hang with friends is just not the right option for this phase of life. As an alternative, we’ve also had a lot of success with inviting people over around 10 am on a weekend for donuts and mimosas.

         Honestly, matching up schedules across different families is just really hard. Like everything, there’s a question of tradeoffs – if you want to prioritize adult friendships with other parents, you might have to occasionally flex in other areas (like your evening routine).

      3. Yeah, I commented below that I’d do pizza or a soup night if feeling ambitious. The trick to entertaining more is being flexible with your own routine and something’s got to give. It doesn’t need to be hard. I like pizza and soup because both can accommodate a lot of different dietary restrictions while being easy.

      4. Either invite them and feed them or don’t invite them. Appetizers are perfectly good for dinner. Hot dog rolls for the kids and whatever you pick up for take out for the adults. Why would I bring my hungry and tired kids to your house?

   10. Short of this being an invite to your BFF where you could probably pull off a not so enticing invite, I’d just do pizza that night for the kids. If this is with other families, invite everyone for drinks and pizza. If you want to keep it healthier, make a giant pot of soup and serve with garlic bread and invite everyone for a soup night. A come over for a short window invite just isn’t going to be much fun for anyone so I’d rethink the concept.

       1. I am almost leaning towards this!

          What time are you asking them to come over?

          To invite folks over for ?1-2 hours just before dinner for drinks…. no food…. bring your kids…. drink your alcohol fast and then drive your kids home after drinking alcohol with us with no food just alcohol…..

          Am I a prude? Not usually, but I was hit by a drunk driver who “hadn’t had that much to drink”. Do people really still drink and drive? With their young kids in the car?

          1. This is such a good point. If you’re talking next door neighbors or walking distance, maybe this works. Otherwise, it seems unworkable to me.

       2. Yeah, this. I have kids who need to eat early, due to some sensory issues. I’ve tried to have people over on this timeframe, and honestly, it doesn’t work very well. If they are even a little late (typical for people who are coming over for a casual hang out with kids), they are effectively leaving by the time you need to feed your kids. As noted by other commenters above, most people will expect that you are just going to bustle around in the kitchen and prep dinner while they have a glass of wine in your kitchen and chat with you. I would lean into expecting everyone to eat an early dinner at your house, then leave after, or probably find another time to hang out. FWIW, I now love the early dinner of kids’ pizza (or frozen chicken nuggets, pasta, and fruit), and have made wonderful friendships with neighbors over this exact schedule. 4:45 to 7 is pretty standard for us.

   11. I am having friends over this afternoon at 4pm. It works because they are childless and not working today. But I was pretty explicit and said just a heads up, I will need to kick you out around 7 – 7:30 for the baby’s bedtime routine. Everyone is on the same page and no one was offended. I would just be clear: “would you like to come by from 4-6 on Saturday for drinks and snacks? we would love to see you but we can’t do later because we need to prep for dinner and our week”

       1. Agreed. I think the only way to do this is to be explicit with the invite. Otherwise, go with brunch.

          As others have said though, I would probably have heavy apps for the adults and pizza (or nuggets or mac and cheese) for all the kids – yours and theirs – so that you won’t be stressed if the guests linger past 6pm. You can still kick them out before bedtime, but at least the kids will have had dinner.

   12. The word is “Lunch”.

       1. Agree with lunch or afternoon drinks/snacks. We also had very close friends who, like us, had 3 kids under age 3 and we did an 8am breakfast every Saturday, alternating houses. Sometimes real eggs, sometimes cereal and toast, with pots and pots of coffee. At 8am everyone had been up for a few hours so it kinda felt like mid-afternoon already.

   13. Why not just do pizza night. Have people come on Saturday at 4, drink some vino, kids play, pizza at 5:30. Everyone is gone by 6:30/7. Routines start a little late on weekends but, shrug? TBH, I don’t really want to drink wine at 3pm on a weekend and then have to go home to figure out dinner and deal with my kid.

   14. My grandparents did this all the time: their friends would come around 5 get a drink and catch up, leave before dinner around 6.30. It was a cheap and convenient way to spend some time together

   15. I would tell them more directly. When my Dad wants people to show up, but then leave, he says that we have another engagement at 6:25 p.m., so if they want to come, they MUST leave by 6:15 so that Mom has 10 minutes of time to clean up the living room before they leave for the engagement, and that if they don’t leave, my father will push them out the door! Suttle, hardly, but it eliminates any possibility of confusion! Go Dad! YAY!!!!!

3. Looking for a destination for a multigenerational family trip. It will include my 70-year old mom who is fairly active, plus kids ages 2-12. Want to keep it within an 8-hour drive or 4 hour plane ride from Newark. Thinking an Airbnb or vacation rental on a beach or near a national park. Would need to have some restaurants nearby, plus activities for kids like an aquarium or something for a rainy day. Budget is around $700/night. Thanks everyone who responded to my post on this yesterday and helped me narrow in on what I am looking for!

   1. Acadia?

   2. Rent a house on one of the islands near Charleston (Sullivan’s or Isle of Palms are the ones I’m familiar with, but there’s also Folly to the south). Close enough to Charleston for the restaurants and there’s some indoor activities in Charleston proper for rainy days (aquarium. USS yorktown, and old exchange/dungeon would probably interest boys at least)

      1. My immediate family went to Folly Beach a few years ago and loved it. They rented a fairly big beach house – my parents paid for the house and it would have been a around your budget.

         1. Was also going to recommend Folly Beach. We went when I was in my early teens with my mom and family friends (including one who was in her 70s), and I still look back on it as one of my favorite vacations. Charleston and Folly Beach are great spots for multi-generational groups.

   3. Poconos, Deep Creek Lake, Cape May NJ, Vermont

   4. Not sure if anyone suggested this yesterday, but Royal Caribbean has cruises departing from Bayonne, NJ, and cruises tend to be a very easy option for intergenerational trips – plenty for everyone to do, all in one place with few logistical hassles.

      1. +1 Cruises and all-inclusive resorts are by far the easiest option for this kind of thing. There are cruises that leave from NJ and go to Bermuda, and many more cruise options that leave from Florida. You can find all-inclusive resorts in many places, but the most popular locations for them are Mexico, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic. If you don’t want to leave the country, there is a Club Med in Florida that friends have been to and enjoyed.

         I know there are people out there who love sharing a big house with several families, but it sounds really exhausting to me. So much cooking and cleaning, and figuring out how to divide the cooking and cleaning. If I’m going to have that level of housekeeping stress, I would rather just host people rather than burn money on a vacation that’s not relaxing.

      2. Cruises have been great for our family. I would never consider myself a “cruise person” but funny enough to we’ve been on 8! They do tend to work well for groups with lots of choices of food, activity, accommodations. Takes the guess work out of decision making.

   5. Rent a nice place at the Jersey shore. It’s not the most glamorous destination but still nice and easy. The Cape May zoo is great for a rainy day.

   6. There are lots of big, beautiful houses to rent in the Outer Banks, but the drive might be a little longer than 8 hours. For the last few years my family has been renting a home in Lewes, Delaware, in the neighborhood right next to Cape Henlopen State Park. We love it there, and particularly enjoy bike riding and the nature center in the park.

4. I have a big work dinner this week and soon a conference to go to where the dress is rather formal. I tried on my work pants this weekend. The waists are loose. But a look over my shoulder with a hand mirror revealed immense butt-cupping. IDK that they were like that before and I barely remember what business-formal attire looks like. But it should not look like club wear and it should not have a Kardashian fit. My partner said “ don’t worry, there are curvy cuts.” Dude, these are the curvy cuts.

   I have an outfit for my dinner (a-line dress and jacket) but are there workwear brands that run very curvy for pants? I prefer pants in fall and spring and probably need some new basic pants that fit.

   1. Ann Taylor (Loft is usually slightly more forgiving) would be my pick if you just want 1-2 pairs of pants. I like Talbots for work pants, they tend to be cut pretty straight up and down. I bought a pair of Jcrew Factory tartan pants for the holiday on super sale and was pleased at the quality for the price, so I’d look into that if the price is right.

   2. Maybe try going up 1 size to accommodate hips and having the waist tailored?

      1. Yes and no. A lot of extreme tailoring (my hips are +2 sizes to my waist) just don’t hang right. Or the rise looks funny. You want something that is really close off the rack.

         My final complaint: it is so hard to find lined wool pants and I find that I need a lining. Synthetic pants often run too casual (or the jackets aren’t high quality) or don’t work as a winter fabric.

   3. I have the same issue with all of my Theory/Boss suit pants now. I might get roasted for this but I wear Abercrombie tailored wide leg pants to work. They don’t actually have their curvy fit in that style but because there is a lot of room in the thighs they work for me. I don’t love that they’re poly blend but at least you aren’t paying $250 for it and they are breathable due to the style.

   4. This is why I continue to wear Talbots pants after so many years – I have always had a generous booty and a disproportionately smaller waist, and Talbots works well for me. One tip – they have an X and an XP at Talbots that are generally equivalent to a 12. If the straight-size 12 doesn’t offer enough booty coverage, try the X (or the XP) and see if that works better. They also have misses and petite curvy fits and you might try a few different sizes to see which one works best for you.

      1. Agreed. Talbots curvy cut are the only pants and jeans I own. Black straight leg pants that fit well trump the name of the store. Order a few pair in various sizes and see what you can find.

      2. I am loyal to Talbots pants as well. I stalk my favorite style on eBay so I never run out, which was a necessity when everything was ankle pants.

      3. +1 for Talbots work pants. I have this same body and their pants have worked for me my entire adult life

   5. Just bought a pair of Eileen Fisher wide leg wool pants at the company store for something like $50. I am curvy and they fit well. The front has a smooth waistband and the rear has some elastic. No pocket gap, waist fits, no butt-cupping.

   6. I think some brands are better for those without a large bust to waist or hip to waist drop (Theory, Banana Republic) and others are better for those who do have that drop (Brooks Brothers, Ann Taylor, Talbots).

   7. Similar issues and i just got a pair of black BCBG work pants that didn’t have this problem so I’d recommend that!

5. Any recommendations for a black work tote that will fit under seat on plane but with some structure (if possible)? I am starting to travel again for work conferences and my Beis Work Tote is too big to fit well under the plane seat. Thanks!

   1. Not sure what your budget is, but I really like my Lo&Sons OG2 tote. It had a sleeve that slides over the handle of a rolling suitcase, which makes traveling with it such a breeze.

      1. Thanks for the rec! Do you have the medium or large size? My laptop is the bigger version (16″ Pro I think), so I am assuming the 13″ laptop compartment on both sizes won’t work, but maybe still room inside the bag?

         1. I have both – original/large is definitely travel size but fits well under seats, medium is more day-to-day. The large has a good amount of room and is my go-to- for a carry-on.

      2. Counterpoint–I had the OG version of the OG and found it space-inefficient and difficult to access because the top was narrower than rest of the bag. The Lo & Sons Rowledge backpack is much more capacious and user-friendly but isn’t any more bulky to carry. I also have and love the KAAI Pyramid bag, but not for air travel because it doesn’t hold all the extra stuff I need to cram into my work bag for a flight and because I’m afraid of wrecking it under the airplane seat.

      3. Second the OG 2, it’s the only bag I’ll fly with. So many pockets for organizing everything, fits under the seat in front of me with no problem, and the trolley sleeve makes it easy to pop on top of a carryon suitcase and roll it through the airport. I have the larger size because I usually travel with both a work and personal laptop.

         1. What size laptops do you fit in the OG2? Thanks!

            1. Highly recommend the OG2, I have the large and a 16 inch macbook. It is also the only bag I travel with now (even over my beloved ebags commuter backpacks). I think Lo and Sons are really well designed and have some of their purses now too.

   2. I love the Lo & Sons Seville. I had a Tumi for years and years that was a similar size and shape, but they don’t carry exactly the same bag anymore, and what they do have is way expensive (even for Tumi imho). I have the Seville in black leather and I think I actually like it better than my old Tumi.

   3. I am a traveler who hates to have a beautiful and expensive leather bag under the airplane seat. I love Baggalini black nylon totes that were designed by airline stewardesses. You can get them in many colors and sizes about $100. Washable and very durable and perfect storage design.

      1. I also like a nylon bag for travel, and love my Longchamp le pliage tote with a sturdy felt organizer, which helps the bag keep its shape without adding a lot of weight. Also obviously helps with organization. This is my go-to bag to keep under the seat while flying.

         1. Can you share with organizer you use? Love my Longchamp, but with so many small things I’ve started to carry these days, an organizer would be so helpful!

            1. This is the exact one I have: https://handbagangels.co.uk/liner-to-fit-longchamp-le-pliage-large-shopper-tote.html. I got the standard one with no add-ons, and picked a brighter color so the bag doesn’t just end up as a big black hole. I also have several of their organizers for other bags, and like all of them. They just have the pockets along the sides, but I find it’s enough to put things like a pen, wallet, passport, and set of keys in so I know just where they all are. Everything else gets put in the big open middle compartment, sometimes in pouches to corral other small items.

               Since the specific company I got mine from is in the UK, shipping to US is kind of pricey, but there’s probably lots of producers who make similar ones in the US. I’d suggest you take a look on Etsy, which was how I originally found the Handbag Angels brand.

            2. Thanks!

         2. Thank you everyone for your recs! Can any of these fit a 16″ Macbook Pro in the laptop sleeve or in the general inside (such as the Longchamp)?

      2. Which Baggalini bag size do you prefer and does it fit your laptop (what size laptop)? Thanks!

6. Ugh I love this blouse, and love Valentino’s color saturation in general (not sure this is the right word). A bit rich for my blood – maybe if one of the 0s were removed…

   I posted about this before the holidays, and got some helpful responses. I got more perspective over the holidays when speaking with loved ones. I really enjoy my job, colleagues, and the organization. My boss is nit-picky, passive-aggressive, and often takes/makes things personal which IMHO would be better just addressed professionally. They are also very, very smart and I do learn a lot from them, BUT, I constantly feel like no matter what I do, it isn’t enough for them – e.g. either I’m looping them in too much/sending useless emails OR I’m not looping them in enough and I get a reminder it’s THEIR team.

   I first thought it was me – and sure there are areas I can work on, but this is beyond that. They are OOO until next week and I’m trying to use the space (no snarky emails or texts!) to think about what I really want and how to draw boundaries. Since I don’t trust/feel safe with her, I can’t really have an honest conversation about my perception at this time. My therapist has given me some good coaching on how to frame her behavior.

   Any other suggestions from this wise hive?

   1. Yes, find a new job. This boss isn’t going to change and you are going to get even more frustrated trying. Or you accept that the boss is who the boss is and work on your own reaction to it. The latter would never work for me, so I’d be looking for a new job.

      1. To add, this boss is not going to respect any boundaries you set. That is why this setup would never work for me. I have to feel psychologically safe with my boss and have trust there.

      2. Find a new job. I worked for a boss like that for 7 years. I consoled myself that it was a great opportunity and I was learning so much. While both of those were correct, I should have left after 2-3 years. I’m 4 years into another job and am still struggling so much with imposter syndrome and confidence after internalizing that nothing I did was ever good enough.

   2. Is the job as a whole good enough to counter how your interactions with her make you feel? have you been there long enough that this isn’t just getting to know each other, and isn’t a performance issue, but more just a personality conflict?
      I do truly think some personality conflicts are enough to affect your enjoyment of a job, but if you think “that’s just how Jane is” and it’s not a matter of establishing the relationship/performance concerns, and the job is worth it, then I’d try to treat it as a social experiment and just know it’s not about you. Try to observe tension points (e.g., is she snarkiest when you send her something later in the day, so you can instead send it to her early in the morning?) If you felt comfortable enough, you could bring up the tension and name it, and see if they have any suggestions, pitched as “I have been looping you in on y communications with the Widget Team, but it seems like you don’t need to see those emails unless an issue arises – is that correct?”
      But my main point is that I think you can believe your job is otherwise good, but your boss s*cks, and that can make it a bad job and a reason to look for something else.

   3. Do we share a boss? Honestly, I could have written this, but I am close enough to retirement that I decided to stick and I just take nothing personally. Since I took that approach, I have been promoted twice and upped my compensation by 50%. It is not an outcome I expected, but it has served my needs well. If I had been earlier in my career, I would have looked for a new job, because some things are only tolerable with the finish line in sight.

   4. Start looking for a new job. Your boss is never going to change.

   5. Have you had a discussion with your boss about what level of communication she expects and how she prefers to receive it? She may be difficult, or this may be a case where you learn to manage up. (Or both. Both can be true.)

      In your situation, I would ask for regular 1:1 meetings, with the cadence up to her. Prepare an agenda and send it a workday ahead of the meeting so she knows what you’re planning and has the opportunity to add to it. If the meeting is monthly, then prepare a templated email update on your projects and send it each week. If there are issues or challenges in between, loop her in with a proposed solution and ask for her advice. If something is time-sensitive, you can say “I plan to send this notice out to the team by noon tomorrow. If you would like any edits, please let me know by 11am.” I would also err on the side of brevity and let her ask for more detail.

      If that isn’t helpful, then you do need to look for a new job. Sometimes people aren’t a good fit. But these skills will serve you well in any position, so it’s worth trying.

      Good luck and please share updates!

7. Happy new year All! My firm uses a system where partners individually negotiate with each other. Example: my firm (private) rate is $100/hr. If a client is quoted at $150/hr, who keeps the $50 is negotiated between me (the person doing the work) and the partners who are originating or managing the work. I understand some firms have set percentages, but we don’t. After four years as a partner in this system, my partners refuse to negotiate: if I want the work, I only get my firm rate. I am frustrated and consistently finding out that partners are billing me out at, say, $300 – so they keep $200 and I keep $100 for every hour I work. (Using round numbers here). This year I plan to increase my firm rate and am bracing myself to lose work. Any suggestions or guidance?

   1. This seems like a terrible system designed to line the pockets of the partners at the expense of those without as much negotiating power!

      I applaud your effort to value your time more highly and hope it does not result in you losing work. Perhaps you will be the start of a shift in norms and the culture there.

   2. That’s frustrating. I would band together with other partners in your position and push for a change in policy.

      In the short term I agree with your plan to increase your rate – perhaps drastically. I’m not sure you’re going to lose work, attorney rates have skyrocketed almost as much as the real estate market. If you’re being billed out at 3x your rate then it’s because the market can tolerate it. Can you find out the new rates for other partners who might get this work instead of you?

   3. Oh my god, this is a terrible system. I’ve worked at a few firms and have never heard of such a brutal and unfair policy. Concur with the other suggestions: 1. Raise your rate, if the other partners can bill out your work at much higher rates, then that’s what your private rate should be (perhaps, if more attorneys at your firm moved their private rates higher, thus trimming the “extra” that the originators would otherwise pocket, then those lame jackasses would have more incentive to negotiate). 2. Advocate for a change in that system, and 3. focus on building your own client base so you don’t have to take work from those a-holes. Given how busy so many firms and attorneys were this past year or two, I would have hoped that those originators would have found it challenging to find attorneys to work on their matters under those unreasonable conditions.

   4. Just chiming in to add that this is a horrible system which would be cause enough for me to try to move my practice to another firm,

8. Anyone have good Christmas/vacation/holiday stories from time with family? I’m still trying to de-stress from travel to see a parent (parent is exhausting).

   1. Definitely had our share of exhausting family, but on the positive side my mom watched our toddler for a night so my husband and I could escape to NYC for a whirlwind anniversary celebration/baby moon. We totally splurged on a five star hotel and nine course chef’s tasting and went back to the little spot in Central Park where we eloped five years ago. We actually met another couple eloping in the same place! They thought we were a very good omen and insisted on taking a picture with us. It was just 24 hours but such a magical adventure and reminder of the connection we still have despite drowning in parenthood. Outweighed all the other holiday stress (travel, illness, burst pipes, you name it).

   2. I got to spend time with my brother and his new gf without our parents around. She is lovely and a much better fit for him than his ex-wife, who hates our family. I’ve never had a better relationship with my brother than I do now. He looks so happy, like he has a new lease on life. I’m sad that his (adult) kids refuse to be around the new gf (no cheating, their mom is just bitter) but I’m hopeful that they will come around once they see how happy their dad is.

   3. Well, it was my first Christmas with no parents. No good stories this year…. My Mom died too young, and my Dad just died this year. So it was really sad. I have to declutter his home now etc.. Last time in the family house.

      My regrets… I wish I had more pictures of my family/parents later in life. I hate having my (aging..) picture taken, but I’d love to have more pix with me and my parents, and wish we had been taking them every year at holidays. And I wish I had recorded their voice telling their stories…

      If you have kids, remember that they way you interact with your parents/manage holidays is the model your kids will follow once they grow up and move away.

   4. Okay, I hadn’t planned to talk about this here and it will out me to anybody who knows me and hasn’t figured me out already, but it’s so great I can’t help sharing plus I’m on a mission to normalize it, so… Shortly before Thanksgiving, my son came out to me as a tr*ns woman (after identifying as non-binary for the previous year or so). She had moved out of state several months previously and had been living as a woman the whole time but I didn’t know because she’s not on social media and we’d been texting and talking but not sharing photos.

      Anyway, the back story is that every since she was born, I had been collecting these specific Christmas ornaments with the date every year — one that said “mom,” and one that said “son.” This year, of course, I changed to “mom” and “daughter,” and I didn’t put out the others. I asked my daughter if I had to get rid of the collection and she said “of course not, I know it means a lot to you,” but obviously I wasn’t going to put them out, so they stayed in their box and I figured it was just something I was going to have to let go of graciously, which of course I was happy to do because in the scheme of things it was no big deal.

      Well. On Christmas we traveled to visit her, and for my Christmas gift she had gone on eBay and tracked down the whole collection — 35 years’ worth — of “daughter” ornaments. OMG I cried so hard! She said “I know it was something that was a big deal to you, mom.” And I said “you are most definitely a woman because only a woman would do this!” Best gift ever.

      But really? The best gift is seeing her so happy, living her best life as her best self.

      1. I cried instantly reading your story.

         Wishing all good things for you and your daughter this year.

         Thanks for sharing this with us. You are the best.

      2. Oh I love this so much.

      3. Thank you for sharing yours and her story. It’s truly beautiful. I’m in tears.

      4. I have tears in my eyes. What a wonderful story , SA!

      5. “you are most definitely a woman because only a woman would do this” made me audibly snor

         1. SNORT* not snor

      6. thank you for sharing your story <3 that is so beautiful, I have tears in my eyes! wishing all the best for you, your daughter, & Mr. Senior Attorney in 2023!

      7. I love this! You’re a great mom.

      8. Welp I’m crying at my desk now. Big hugs to both of you.

      9. What a beautiful story, SA.

      10. Love this!

      11. I love this story, SA. Your family sounds amazing.

   5. I had COVID right before Christmas and right before my family arrived from overseas. I was so worried I was going to give it to them, or that they would give us some other respiratory bug (we have a toddler). Miraculously nobody else got COVID from me (I was pretty strict in isolating/masking until negative, even if it meant many dinners in my bedroom) and nobody got sick from anything. I’ll take it! Also my brother’s girlfriend is lovely and he seems much happier and at ease with life, so that was good. An my toddler learned how to say grandma in her native language and seemed to really enjoy getting to know her.

      1. Aw, that’s all so sweet (give or take you alone in your bedroom!), especially the grandma part!

9. Looking for advice from readers who are partners or have heavily bonus/commissioned based income. Although we are fortunate to be well compensated, ~50% of our income is in bonus type payments, which pay out infrequently in small amounts throughout the year with a big bump once a year. We’ve always used a zero-based budget (like YNAB or the old school envelope method) and on an annual basis the picture looks great, but in a given month it can be tight.

   Would love to hear from others in similar situations a couple things: how much do you worry about monthly cash flow vs. annual cash flow (ie are there any months that your savings technically go down, even if on the year you’re way up)? When developing a budget for the year, how much if at all do you include your target bonus/commission/profit sharing/stock grants etc? Do you lump any expenses together to manage cash flow, e.g., shifting 401k contributions to the time period you get the most cash or paying an annual insurance premium rather than monthly ones?

   Thanks in advance for advice from others!

   1. Commiseration. I live far below my means (due to lean months) and just pay for a lot in cash. So for one year, I lived on 25% of my pay (saving the 50% as I went for taxes and to pay health insurance), since I have to file taxes quarterly also. It is pretty white-knuckle at times so IDK how it is if day you sel cars or real estate or are otherwise full-commission. If I have a “want”, it often gets saved up for and bought a year later with cash. If it is a need that is unexpected — credit card to conserve cash and hope I can pay it all off quickly. I have a sickly clothes dryer that I hope lives a bit longer while I save and a paid off older car that maybe I want to save for a replacement also.

   2. Some won’t like this, but it works for us: monthly budget has to run on salaries only. Bonuses (1x per year and for many years were 50% of TC) are used for big goals and lumpy purchases (college savings, home projects, furniture, car, trips) only AFTER received.

      1. Same. Our salaries are ~50% of our total take home pay (other 50% is annual bonus). This forces us to live below our means (we save a % of salary, too).

      2. This is how we do it. Our day to day life has to be fully funded with salary, no living beyond the paychecks steadily coming in. When we get a big payment, we immediately portion out the amounts to taxes, college and retirement savings. The rest is divided between investments and savings/travel — we only book trips or do major home projects with cash on hand.

         It took us a while to get to this point, though – YNAB was critical in helping us build up a hefty cash buffer so we now don’t have to feel like we are delaying major expenditures, we’ve saved up about a year’s worth of bonuses in advance.

      3. Posted in the wrong spot below but this.

         As a plus, it’s really increased our savings rate since we find it easier to save the vast majority of our bonuses.

      4. Same. We have occasionally dipped into our emergency fund to fund unexpected travel (funerals) or childcare and then top it off with the next RSU best, but that’s mostly because the pools of savings dedicated to each of those got eaten up by cancer and living on his salary + (very generous) disability.

      5. This. We did this when Dh was commission based. Sometimes feast (steak! Ski trips!) sometimes famine (beans! Library!) but all required expenses (incl baseline level food etc) were budgeted from salary only.

   3. My income is 100% commission. I get paid somewhat increquently and generally range from $10k to $50k net. It took me a long time to figure out how to manage this. I had to completely abandon my tight budgeting/monthly cash flow system (more on that below) when I transitioned to this pay structure.

      We are focused on annual. Monthly completely went out the window, and it was the most uncomfortable transition at the start. It took like 5 years to get there, but it’s all about annual cash flow now (7 years in). We have one “bills” account that we over fund – keep like $7-10k in there and bills are paid out. I replenish that when I get my payments so that it stays around that level, providing plenty of cushion. Similarly, we have a daily checking account that I drop $5-7k in and replenish as it gets to $0. That lasts us a good long time.

      I also heavily fund my 401k out of the first few months of the year so I max early and don’t have to worry about it. I also have worked to reduce nearly all debt. We bought our last cars in cash. All we have is a mortgage and nominal credit card usage that I pay off with each chunky payment. I also much prefer to pay annual premiums vs monthly – car and home insurance, pet insurance, subscriptions (Disney+, Sirius XM, to name a few). I figure the less I have to actually pay on a monthly basis, the more comfortably I’ll live between the months when I don’t get a commission check. I went 9 months without income in 2020 (yikes, btw…) and this all worked out pretty well.

      I was a psycho money hoarder before I went all commission, fwiw. I grew up in a middle class family with parents who fought about nothing but money. They made smart choices that I’m grateful for, but those fights are burned in my brain. I had a very tight money management system before I went commission (also when I was much lower income), tracking every last cent (literally) of all of my accounts, setting budgets and benchmarks. Now, there’s a bit of fudge factor at play, which I’m grateful for because I’m similarly well compensated but I’m glad I have the tight money management in my bones because, for example, I’ve seen colleagues get a $50k payday and legit blow it on a car and vacation, when that might be the only pay day for months to come. Something about getting sums of money all at once can really mess with you.

10. My 2023 goal is to improve my self discipline. A few years ago I was quite disciplined but unfortunately that went all out the window during the pandemic, I’m sure as a coping method.

    Living for what feels good now vs a better long term choice for me has led to weight gain, poor sleeping habits, too much time on my phone, meh at best work at my job, and all of those have really impacted my anxiety.

    However I also want to still be flexible enough for some spontaneous fun! Friends are starting to get married, have kids and/or move to the suburbs or other areas of the city so want to enjoy what is likely the dwindling years of everyone living nearby and hanging out.

    I think that developing systems of “things I just do” and habit stacking is my best bet here. Looking for any advice!

    1. For me a big help has been setting screen time limits on my phone to prevent mindless browsing – and setting myself a “reminder” to get ready for bed. Getting good sleep to have energy to do stuff makes a different in my mood – vs the time-suck of doomscrolling!

    2. For me, I needed to frame this as “intentional.” Like, great, I want to make my bed everyday, but why? Because I live and work in a studio apartment and see my bed from every part of my apartment, so the intention is to make my apartment look tidy and put together. It also meant that there’s flexibility in what that means – some days it’s the full spread with all the fancy pillows piled on, other days, it’s just the bed covers pulled up over the pillows.

       1. This helps me, too. I’m trying to frame it as, “how will future pugsnbourbon feel about this?” I use the 3rd person and everything lol. So far it’s helping.

    3. Going to bed by 10pm and working out in the morning unless I have a specific reason not to has really changed everything for me.

    4. We set up our expenses so that we can cover everything with our standard salaries alone with maxing out our 401ks, and some additional modest college savings for our kids.

       We use bonuses to put large chunks of money into college savings, put money towards loans, max out solo employer 401k ($40,500 – one spouse is a 1099 employee), save for large purchases/repairs.

       Agree that it’s stressful and some months are close to the bone. We also keep a larger than usual emergency fund just in case.

       Keeping our fixed expenditures low and within our set salaries has been key for us (although this may not work if the bulk of your income is from bonuses, for us it’s like 70% salary 30% bonus).

       As a whole I think it’s actually made us better savers though since it’s easier to throw large chunks of money at goals when it comes in as opposed to just trying to set some stuff aside every month.

    5. Resources I have found helpful for building habits are The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin – by understanding what type of person you are, you can set yourself up to respond well to the things you want to do. And Atomic Habits by James Clear – his method is perfect for weaving in small changes to your life.

       1. Ah just took the 4 Tendencies quiz and I’m an obliger which explains my struggle very well!

          1. +1 also an obliger and 100% not surprised

       2. I think this is James Clear tip: Use the idea of the ‘kind of person’ you are to help you do the thing you want to do. Come up with a script like “I’m the kind of person who runs in the morning” or “I’m the kind of person who sends flowers to my friends” and that’s been a good way to help with my mindset.

       3. This book was very helpful for me as well – I realized that I’m much more externally motivated, and dong something purely for “me” is more difficult.

    6. There are so many habits you *could* implement and it can be overwhelming imo, so can you pick a few priorities to give you structure? For me, it’s 1) getting 8 hours of sleep 2) waking up early to peacefully read and drink my coffee before work 3) drinking 3 big water bottles every day. That’s my base level to function, and then from there I’m way more likely to exercise, cook, socialize etc.

       1. It amazes me that people can drink that much water. I would literally need to pee every 1-2 hours.

          1. Yeah, you get up and go to the bathroom . . .

          2. I drink between 60-100 oz most days and I do pee frequently. But, I walk to work (1.5 mile each way) and workout 5x a week so have a lot of liquid to replace. And, if I’m dehydrated I get cranky.

11. You all are so good at suggesting destinations, I would love to get some ideas. Would like to plan a beach/lake house trip with my sister’s family next summer. We are coming from the DC area and they are coming from the PNW. Criteria: not too difficult for travel (close-ish to a major airport), water warm enough to swim, not TOO hot/humid. Any favorite places? Thank you!

    1. Following this! My first thought was San Diego, but that’s a big flight from DC. We are trying to find a mountain lake destination that’s a meet in the middle for us (PNW) and my family (Chicago). Maybe the suggestions you get will work for us!
       Lake Geneva is pretty and not far from Chicago, or you could do Dunes state park in Indiana (fly into Midway I think). Anything along Lake Michigan — Sheboygan, parts of Michigan — is beautiful in summer.

       1. I live in north central Indiana and we love the Dunes for a beach day with friends, but I cannot imagine flying there from the coast and spending a week there. The area around the Dunes is very industrial (Gary) and there’s basically nothing to do except the beach itself. The beach towns in Michigan have much more in the way of cute downtowns with shops and restaurants, although I still think it would be a struggle to spend a week there unless you really want to do nothing except play in the sand. Could work if all the kids are under age 4 or so, but I wouldn’t recommend it with older kids.

    2. You could go somewhere like harbor country, saugatuck, holland Michigan. Everyone flies to Chicago.

       1. Good point. My memories are from 2-3 day backpacking trips with YMCA camp.

    3. Long trip from DC, but very partial to the Russian River in west Sonoma County. It’s a short drive from SFO and there’s also an airport in Santa Rosa that may be easy for the Portland side.

       1. Not OP. That’s where we go every summer. Which town do you stay in?

          1. We own a place in Guerneville so we stay there, highly recommended it! Anywhere in the area is lovely.

             1. Ah love Guerneville. We rent in Cazadero.

             2. Oh we love Caz too! You know about their Friday pizza at Raymond’s bakery right?

       2. Sacramento would be my choice for flights to the Russian River- SFO would be a schlep.

          1. Hmm, not at all really – I suggested it and live in SF. It’s an hour and fifteen minutes from the Golden Gate Bridge, so tack on another 20-45 depending on traffic from SFO. You need to get to 101N and over closer to the coast and from Sacramento you’re talking a lot more time as it’s very inland not to mention way fewer flight options.

          2. I have no skin in this conversation but I live in the Bay Area and just spot checked it because this didn’t seem right to me… SFO is closer to both Guerneville and Healdsburg (areas I generally think of when I think Russian River) then SAC. I suppose traffic could push that over. OAK might be the real answer but fewer flight options.

             1. OAK is probably the answer. The trip from Sac is doable but you’re not on main roads. You’re meandering along on state highways with stoplights for a lot of it. Very slow. We’ve done it.

             2. OAK is still farther and more traffic, you want to already be west and Oakland is east.

             3. Right now it is 1 hour 30 mins from OAK to Guerneville; it is 1 hour 45 mins from SFO. And I would rather take my chances with traffic coming out of OAK to the Richmond bridge vs traffic out of SFO which is miserable almost all the time. BUT the flight options make this a moot point likely for most east coast places.

    4. Tahoe.

       1. I was thinking Tahoe too, but the criteria that the water is warm enough to swim is probably a stretch for most except the most hard core little kid that doesn’t care. OP if you do do this, I would at the very least aim for late July/August to give it time to warm up as much as it can. Tahoe really is super fun in the Summer though, and if you are somewhere that has a pool, or stay on one of the smaller/shallower lakes nearby, that might be enough. Can fly into Reno or Sacramento (although still a 1-2.5 hour drive from either of those places).

          1. Reno is best airport for Tahoe. Can get to anywhere olin the lake in 45 mins-1.5 hours. Sac is much further and can have bad traffic if you’re headed to Tahoe on the weekends.

       2. I would also vote Tahoe and have never had any issues swimming there in the summer months (June-August). Even in June it’s much warmer than the ocean in New England.

          1. The internet tells me the avg June Lake Tahoe water temp is 56 vs the avg June Atlantic Ocean water temp at the Jersey Shore is 63. Which makes sense to me, it can easily still be literally snowing through the end of May in Tahoe and that runs off somewhere. I’m sure there are exceptions and people that can do it, but I would personally not consider it reliable or pleasant.

12. Any recommendations for where to get a leather bag fixed in DC/MD burbs? The strap broke on my favorite purse over the holidays and I’m hoping its an easy fix!

    1. Craft Shoe Shop in Gaithersburg (Kentlands) is great with leather goods

    2. I don’t have a specific recommendation but most cobblers do this type of work.

13. I have three months off (but paid!) before I start a new job. I feel like this is a unicorn situation where I have a full time nanny but will also have lots of time to myself. What are some things I should put on my list of things to do with this time? I’m going old school and keeping a written list so that the end of the break I can actually see everything that I got to do and don’t have that feeling of “where did the time go.”

    I’m going to take a lot of exercise classes, take myself to ski school at a local mountain, organize my house, purge my closet, and have a list of friends that I’m going to make a point of scheduling something with. What else would you do with this time?

    1. Wow, that’s awesome! Can you swing some travel? You +kid(s)+ nanny/partner or a solo trip.

       1. I would definitely try to take a trip in there at some point. I know this is an unpopular opinion on this board, but I would even take my kids out of school for a week to go somewhere if there are no school breaks during your time off. If you prefer not to do that, at least try to do a girls trip or solo trip for a few days?

          1. I don’t mean to stir the pot, but why is this unpopular? As someone who grew up poor, but will be raising children solidly middle, if not upper middle, class, I saw my classmates miss a day or two here or there without issue and would have no problem pulling my eventual kids out for up to a week for a good reason (and I would count rare opportunity to spend time with a mom with low to no stress on her a rare opportunity). I myself missed 2 weeks to travel to the Asian country my family is from for family/religious events as a kids ,and while it required more coordination with teachers over missed assignments, my academics were not harmed. I agree this shouldn’t be excessive, but families/lives/cultures don’t stop because kids are in school.

             1. I agree it’s not unpopular here. We don’t pull our kids out of school for normal vacations, but I feel like I’m very much in the minority on that. I do think a trip back home for a family or religious event is a completely different story, and we would be open to pulling our kids out if that kind of situation arose. It also depends on the age of the child, and how the child is doing academically. Missing kindergarten is very different than missing two weeks of AP classes in high school.

                FYI though that it’s not just about what the parents want to do. Many school districts are very strict about absences. In our district, if you have more than 7 unexcused absences in a school year, you’re referred to truancy court, which is a big deal. Illness is excused, but only if you have a doctor’s note, so we generally need to save the unexcused absences for illness that doesn’t require a doctor’s visit. We also would need them for things like family funerals and medical emergencies. Even if we wanted our kids to miss school to go to a beach resort, we would never feel comfortable doing it until May when we were sure we didn’t need the 7 unexcused absences.

             2. Schools have become increasingly horrible about vacations during school.

             3. People who have the resources and the inclination should feel good about pushing back against these draconian policies; they’re harmful including to people who aren’t in a good position to push back.

       2. I would definitely travel. I would probably try to do a solo or couples trip and a trip with the kid(s).

    2. I love these threads! So many great ideas. Here are mine:

       ​
       – Make and go to all the routine doctor/health appointments we all “should” be doing but are hard to find time for.
       – Get into a good hair maintenance/beauty routine – take the time to research techniques and products that will allow you to have a good result but not take a lot of time
       – Tune up bikes or other recreational equipment that needs maintenance for optimal use
       – Make plans for upcoming vacations and book them
       – Take cars in for routine maintenance, any necessary repairs, and detailing
       – You talked about home organization but add maintenance – get white paint and touch up your baseboards and window/door frames, clean off any stubborn/overlooked spots on carpets or furniture, get your carpets professionally cleaned, schedule any nagging professional repairs that may be needed
       – Create printed photo books from your digital photos
       – Renew your family’s passports even if they have a couple years left – they’re good for 10 years and somehow they never seem to get renewed until it’s too late
       – Cancel recurring subscriptions you don’t use. For those you do, where possible, call and see if you can get a better rate
       – Stock your wallet and home with a supply of cash in various bill denominations – I feel like we never have cash on hand for tips, gifts, etc
       – Get creative with cooking and find recipes to use up all those misc spices and ingredients we all have sitting in the back of the cabinet – or if in 3 months you haven’t found a way to use them and don’t think you ever will, throw them out!

    3. How did you swing this?!

       1. Not OP but it’s pretty common in the finance industry. It’s called “garden leave.” They don’t want you to go work for a competitor right away, so they just pay you to do nothing.

          1. Nice.

    4. I would recommend making space for creative arts! During my sabbatical, I decided to take an eight week improv class. It was so much more fun than I expected and I was much better than I thought I would be. I’m looking forward to taking the next level!
       For those in Boston, I went did Improv Asylum’s level 1.

    5. Organize photos and make printed photo books!

14. My new year’s resolution is to curb food waste in my house, in large part by starting to meal plan. Do you meal plan, and if so, how do you approach it? We’re a family of two adults and one toddler plus two tweens that we have for dinner one night a week+alternating weekends.

    1. Specific days have meal assignments. For example, Sundays are almost always slow-cooker days (I have 6-8 recipes I rotate through). Mondays are meatless (usually beans and rice or vegetarian lasagna). Tuesdays are Mexican (frequently enchiladas that I make ahead and keep in the freezer). Then there’s usually one other day that I cook, and the rest of the week is leftovers.

       The biggest a-ha moment for me was to shift our grocery order to Friday instead of the weekend. It’s somehow easier for me to think about the week ahead when I’m in the middle of a work week than on the weekend, and then we know we will have everything on hand for Sunday and Monday meals.

    2. I really like the Plan to Eat app – I use it to store all my recipes and there is also a grocery list feature. My husband has it too and we use it to keep a combined running grocery list.

       This might sound a little crazy, but I found it easier to meal plan a month at a time, and then use Fridays to tweak the coming week’s plan and put in a grocery order for pickup. I just hate meal planning so much that it’s easier for me to batch it into a monthly chore and then just tweak weekly, rather than trying to start from a blank slate every week.

       Using grocery delivery or pickup is really helpful in curbing food waste too – fewer impulse purchases. I do a monthly Costco shop to stock up on meat & pantry goods, and then mostly just have to use weekly grocery shopping for fresh produce.

       In the same vein, I had to accept that weeknights are not the time to get creative or try out fancy new recipes with obscure ingredients – it makes it a little less exciting but at this point I just know that I’m never going to use an entire container of farro so if the goal is avoiding food waste, I shouldn’t bother choosing a recipe based on it.

       Other tip is to find out the right cadence for your family. For us, it works best to plan 4 dinners/week that require actual cooking (don’t have the energy for more). We’ll usually do an easy freezer dinner one additional night, and then the other two nights are leftovers or takeout/dining out.

       Good luck! It can be hard to assess your family’s needs and build up the right habits to make it a value add activity rather than a total chore, but can be pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

    3. For meal planning:
       Sunday – I cook 6 portions of a more elaborate meal as I like to cook and have more time (lasagna, etc.). 2/3 eaten this week, 1/3 frozen.
       Monday – Sunday’s leftovers
       Tuesday – Cook 2 portions of a 30 minute meal (curry, tacos, hearty soup, etc.).
       Wednesday – Tuesday’s leftovers.
       Thursday – Protein + veggie + carb (usually a rice bowl (rice in rice maker + veggies/protein in air fryer or sheet pan meal subbing potatoes for rice).
       Friday – takeout (we order extras and eat that for lunch on Saturday or freeze it)
       Saturday – we either eat out, do takeout, or eat a portion of the Sunday leftovers from a prior week

       I like freezing some of the Sunday meal each week so we can sub in leftovers in busy weeks.

       My two main tips for reducing food waste:
       1. If I have leftovers and am not 100% sure we will eat them, I freeze them and add a note to my “freezer” note in notes app listing that I added them. Then when I need a freezer meal in the future, I can check my note to see what is in there.
       2. For food waste generally, the biggest game changer for me has been storing fruit and vegetables properly. This was not something I learned growing up and have learned via Tiktok, and now they last for weeks and I’m rarely throwing them out.

       1. Can you say more about storing fruits and vegetables properly? I’ve learned the best way to store herbs (rinse, trim, put in mason jar with 1 inch water, cover) but any other good tips you’ve picked up?

    4. I have a longer post in mod but I also find its easier for me not to plan out specific meals but just keep my house stocked with ingredients and throw things together. This probably doesn’t work for everyone. I have like 15 go to recipes, and I keep the key ingredients (spices, etc.) on hand. Most of the recipes can be modified to sub in whatever protein or veggies I have. For example, I make tacos – sometimes they are salmon, sometimes they are served with black beans, sometimes with white beans, sometimes with chicken, etc. I make a lot of curries – so just using whatever vegetables I have leftover. Same with pasta dishes. Or I’ll make rice bowls/sheet pan meals using whatever protein is in the freezer with some spices + whatever veggies are leftover. I find I have way less waste if I just pick out veggies that look good during the week and protein that is on sale, and throw that into my standard recipes. I basically cook with what I have, not what the recipe specifies, so I don’t have to worry about not using stuff. This works better if you have a stable of flexible recipes/like cooking probably.

       1. +1 this is what I do too, now that we have a toddler and dinner time is hectic (after years of closely following recipes and “learning” how to cook). Makes grocery shopping so much easier and cheaper too.

    5. My husband and I meal plan together most Saturday mornings. We can do it in 30 minutes if we’re not interrupted, so it usually takes 45 minutes to an hour.
       – We use Paprika for easy, shared access to recipes, a meal calendar, and grocery list.
       – We start meal planning by checking the family calendar for activities or nights we’re out of the house. Forgetting that you don’t actually have an hour to cook dinner on Wednesday night is a great contributor to food waste.
       – We check the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry for what’s on hand and meal plan around that. (We also toss stuff from the refrigerator while we’re meal planning.)
       – We have a category in Paprika for weeknight dinners that we tend to repeat regularly. Even if we don’t need to follow a recipe, we include dishes with just an ingredients list so we can quickly check and add them to the grocery list. So, for “cheeseburgers,” we don’t have a recipe written out, but we have an ingredients list for buns, ground meat, cheese, and the toppings/condiments we may want to use.
       – We leave space, whether lunch or 1-2 dinners per week, for leftovers. Obviously, that includes food we’ve cooked and not eaten. DH is also great at pulling out random ingredients and making something. (I am not. Without a plan, I can see a full refrigerator and conclude we have “nothing to eat.”)

    6. this is one of mine too, but i do meal plan and then one of my preschoolers gets sick and it all goes out the window…

    7. We just eat a lot of leftovers, including by bringing our lunch to work every day. My husband really has to (he’s a teacher), and I do to save money. I plan to cook about 2 entrees a week (with at least 2x as many servings as we will need for dinner) but get home too late to make dinner, so my husband is in charge of either reheating something one of us made or cooking. He cooks a lot and usually makes enough for leftovers. I do our grocery shopping on Saturday and pick up whatever I need for what I’m going to cook, staples, and anything special he asks for. But he can stop by the store on his way home really easily and hates planning, so we don’t have a real formal plan.

    8. I do. It’s not always perfect (man plans, g-d laughs) but I do try to buy groceries with specific meals in mind for them. If you eat meat, it’s really easy to plan a meal around a meat dish (meat, starch, veg). A lot of meal planning seems to focus on cook once, eat twice or three times, but to be honest my family has never been good about eating leftovers, so I have learned not to do big batches. I also know that the “one pot meals” that the eaters in this house would find acceptable are few and far between. For instance, I recently saw a cooking video for a so-called Mexican casserole that just looked like barf – that would go right into the compost untouched at my house.

       So our normal meals are: some kind of roasted skin-on bone-in chicken thigh (change up the spices) with roasted seasonal vegetables. A whole roast chicken about once a week. Or a chicken and rice dish. Korean beef bowls. Vegetable soup or chili or some other kids of soup that catches my imagination. A pot of beans with cornbread. Small steaks with frozen fries and a tangy salad. Risotto. (I make a lot of risotto).

       I don’t try to plan 7 meals a week. 3-4 is the max. If we cook in more than 3-4 nights a week, then we have a well stocked pantry to turn to. Pasta or sandwiches are always an option.

       1. Ahahaha. My mom made Mexican casserole when I was a kid. Can confirm it looks like barf.

          1. So sorry you experienced that! Or maybe it was delicious, what do I know haha

    9. I plan dinners based on what I pick up at the farmer’s market each Saturday. I keep a running list on my notes app of what produce I have in the fridge, and a separate list of dinners to use it up. I’ll remove items from each list when they’re used. I also keep a running grocery list that I add to when I’m making the meal plan for the week, but also when we run low on staples. Also, the dinners don’t necessarily have set dates. Most weekdays I have at least two options available to make, so there’s at least some sense of spontaneity.

       Breakfasts, lunches, and snacks are freeform and rely upon leftovers and staples, because that’s more planning than I can handle. I throw out so little food since I started doing this, and we eat more veggies/less meat, which was a goal.

    10. Yes, I’ve been meal planning for years. Family of two adults and one toddler. I spend some time each Friday evening to plan the week’s meals. If one recipe uses an ingredient and I know there will be extra, I’ll find another recipe that uses that same ingredient. Like if something needs cilantro, I’ll find another recipe that’s different but also uses cilantro. I do almost all of my cooking on the weekend and reheat leftovers for the week. By Friday we pretty much don’t have food left and we just heat up something that I had previously frozen. Freezing unused food is a great way to reduce waste as well.

    11. 2 adults, 1 ES kid, 1 MS kid. I find that having at least one adult who WFH regularly is a big reducer of food waste as long as the food exists as leftovers. I have eaten so many lunches that are just bites of this and that in order to get rid of the leftovers lol.
        I meal plan a week at a time. I start by noting the days where I am in the office (and thus can’t stick something in the oven at 3:30 or whatever), kids have after school or evening activities, other outliers that impact who’s home for dinner and how much time we have. I also think about how many school lunches I need to make that week (weeks are almost always planned as “this is what’s for lunch this week, kids!” not individual daily menus).
        I also take a quick look in the fridge to see what we have in the way of leftovers. Many leftovers = maybe one night is leftovers. Medium leftovers = just right. No leftovers = plan some meals with lots of leftovers lol. Also anything that didn’t get used b/c life > meal planning. So the broccoli that’s starting to wilt is going to get planned quicky, maybe a stirfry, while the kale that’s brand new can wait til Thursday.
        I don’t have a strict rotation like “Taco Tuesday” or “Meatless Monday.” But I do try to plan only one pasta-based dinner per week. Half the year, one night is soup/stew/chili, the other half of the year I rotate between burgers and dogs 1 night/week. One night per week is meatless or low-meat. In cold weather, i try for one night per week using something that came from the freezer (ie leftover chili from whenever) and one night that puts something back in the freezer (make two lasagnas, freeze one). These categories can overlap – so the meatless meal can be something pulled from the freezer.
        I’m also a big fan of meal prepping but not in one big shot on Sunday afternoon. So if I roast a chicken on Sunday, I will use the carcass to make stock on Monday while WFH and then plan for chicken soup on Tues (quick to make if the stock’s already done, good for an in-office day). Basically I like to re-use things as much as possible… cooking rice for dinner Monday means the kids might get rice and bean bowls for lunch most of the week. Etc.
        Beyond that, it’s what I think I can get at the farmers market + how much time/energy I have for cooking that week. I try to vary cuisines, my kids are pretty good eaters so italian, east asian, indian, all in the rotation. When life happens and a meal doesn’t come together, I either re-shuffle the meals within the week (and maybe move one to next week) or skip a meal entirely. Leftovers and breakfast for dinner are reliable backups and can almost always pinch hit if needed. I DO NOT make separate meals for the kids – we all eat the same thing.
        I tend to plan all this in little snatches of time during the previous week. A few minutes in the school pickup line or whatever. Now that I look at it all written out, that’s a kind of weird meal planning algorithm there… but I swear there is method in the madness. I guess what you can pull from all of these examples is that good meal planning is whatever works for you! Start small and go from there.

    12. Every Thursday I sit down and plan out dinners for the week. I try and think about how we can repurpose things throughout the week. For example, I will plan for my husband to grill something (chicken, salmon, etc) for dinner on Sunday night. I will then save the leftovers for tacos or burrito bowls the next night. Same thing if I make a large pot of beans one night. I try and plan uses for the leftovers. We also stick to a general formula of something like pasta on Mondays, tacos on Tuesdays, breakfast on Wednesday, etc.(mostly because I am tired and it is hard for me to think of new things to try). We still get a lot of variety in that kind of plan, but makes it easier for me to come up with the meal plan. For breakfast and lunch, I usually get basically the same things (oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, stuff for sandwiches, etc.) I also only plan meals for 5 days a week. We usually eat out one night and have leftovers (or cereal if we are being honest lol) the other night.

15. Family land: MIL (75) recently inherited her parents’ farmland, which will go to her only child, DH, when she dies. The land has been leased for the past 20+ years by the same family/company and earns a modest profit (really modest). As the new owner, MIL was made an offer by the family/company that has been leasing the land to purchase it outright. The offer was a lot- almost $1.5M. This is about 4x what MIL thought the land would be worth, so she had it appraised, and whaddya know, that’s in the ballpark of market value. MIL asked DH what he wants to do, since it will ultimately go to him.

    THING IS. After DH, the land would go to our kids. There are three of them. We live nowhere near this land and have no connection to it. Do we:
    1) Do nothing, hang onto it, put it into a trust and let the 3 kids decide to keep or sell it once it’s theirs
    2) Sell it, invest the proceeds, and when DH inherits the proceeds earmark/put into a trust some of THAT for the kids
    3) Other option? It’s really just farmland, just a lot of it and it does have mineral rights (never worth much to date, don’t expect there to be- other people have investigated this over the years).

    If MIL sells, she wants to sell to the people that have leased it for 20+ years. It’s a small farming community, they have a good reputation, and it’s what her parents would have wanted if they ever had to sell it.

    DH is leaning toward selling it but waiting until his mom dies, assuming there is still interest in buying it. He doesn’t want it, but doesn’t want her to have to be the one to sell it. But if it’s the sort of thing that would be neat to have in the family, then he’s okay keeping it. I think he’s nervous about creating something for our 3 kids to have to agree on in the future (eg. buy or sell).

    1. I would sell now

       1. +1. Plus this is MIL’s land, and if she wants to sell it she should. DH’s desires shouldn’t enter into it. Then she can live off the proceeds if she needs to (elder care is expensive!!!).

          1. This is the correct response.

             Do not burden your children with farmland they probably won’t want and will have to deal with in the aftermath of a parent’s death. Especially since the family who actually has had ties to the land for 20 years wants to pay market value!! This is a total no-brainer to me.

    2. Sell now, to the people who have been farming it for 20+ years. It’s the right thing to do, and I don’t know why you’d benefit from holding on to land you have no ties to and will just be complicated for the kids to deal with.

       1. Yes, sell to the people who are farming it now. It is a good offer, and depending on where you are, the quality of the land for farming could change drastically in a generation due to climate change.

       2. I guess there are technically tied- it’s where MIL was raised, and DH spent time there as a kid. My kids have never been and the lot with the farmhouse was sold 10 years ago, so there isn’t really anywhere to visit. But my kids knew their great grandma, and knew she lived there.

       3. My family recently did this with a less-valuable piece of farmland. The property had been rented to the same guy since the 1950s, and his adult son purchased it from my family. It’s in a remote area and to a certain extent, the value was dependent on the willingness of the tenant to rent it out. While there was some sentimental value to the property, no one in my family has lived within 100 miles of the place since 1991.

    3. I would sell now. That’s a lot of money in the bank for your MIL should she need intensive healthcare in the future.

       1. To add – my uncle (by marriage) is a farmer with a family corporation. He and his sister are dissolving it bc none of their kids want to take it over. So the offer you have could really be a “bird in the hand” situation.

          1. I have a side-hustle consulting with small businesses, and there are sooooo many “family businesses” that get sold to an outside party, or get dissolved, because the younger generation wants nothing to do with the business. It’s a big assumption, usually, to assume that a young person is going to want to ditch their own plans for family and career and take over the family business. I consulted in one situation where the dad was adamant that Junior wanted the business and when Junior graduated from college, he dropped the bomb on Dad: sorry dad, I do not want the mechanic’s shop; I’m going to law school. He’d seen the sacrifices his dad had to make to keep the business afloat (working 7 day weeks, working 12-hour days at times, etc.) and wanted none of it. IME it’s safer to assume that the kids won’t want something – the house, the land, the business, etc. than to assume they will want it. Most kids, IME, want cash more than they want a physical encumbrance.

    4. I would do my best to keep the land with the people who have been working it for 20 years. If they’re interested in buying it for what it’s worth then great. If they don’t want to buy now but might want to in the future, then I’d hold onto it, or maybe try to work out a rent to own situation. If they want to lease indefinitely then I’d keep it until they/their kids no longer want it, and I’d sell it to the highest bidder at that point. You have something of an, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, situation right now, not a bad place to be.

       1. Sorry I misread, MIL “was offered” $1.5 she didn’t offer. It’s a little unclear to me if a company is leasing and then subletting to individuals who farm it or if the individuals and the company are one and the same, like a family LLC. I’d want to know that the buyer isn’t going to turn around and sell it to a developer, to the extent you can know such a thing.

          1. OP here. No, it’s not a developmer nor would anyone ever want to develop this land. It’s a local family that has stayed in the farming business after everyone else moved on, and they are working a Lot of land, at scale. When my husband’s grandparents became too old to work the land themselves, they started leasing it out and that was almost 25 years ago.

             1. Definitely sell now. Future generations won’t necessarily want to keep farming it or leasing it.

    5. I will at some point be a 1/8 owner of farmland that has been leased out for a long time. It isn’t worth much. One of the 7 cousins will want to keep it but likely won’t pay the taxes or insurance. You’d have to sue to partition (worthless small piece of land) or sell, both costing money and netting little. So, I’m biased to take the money now since you have no real connection to this land and your kids won’t. This isn’t Yellowstone.

       1. Thanks- this is what we are imagining except among 3 sisters. I would hate to create that situation for them. If it were just one kid it might be more of a debate.

          1. My sister and my mom get along pretty well, but it was still a slog to convince my aunt to sell their co-owned property. Also they had to buy out their a-hole cousin about 15 years ago which caused a lot of drama. If they’d sold it and invested the money in the stock market I think the return might have been better in the long run.

    6. Sell now.

    7. Sell now. The romance of family farmland is not worth giving up the money you’re talking about.

       I would frame this in your heads as the gift of the farmland is something that will help your family for decades to come. By hanging onto it, you run the very real risk of selling for less later on (eg during a crash), or perhaps to a huge corporation that would change the use of it. Let another family own it and let your own family enjoy the windfall.

    8. Sell now. There’s an offer on the table and from friends with farmland, that’s a good offer and not common. I wouldn’t count on it coming back later. Invest the money and use it in your lifetime. If there’s anything left after you go, that goes to your kids. There’s enough expenses with three kids in life that I don’t see why you’d lock it up. Fund college, retirement, etc.

    9. I would sell it now unless your MIL feels strongly about keeping it.

    10. I would sell, and I would sell now, while there’s an interested party who probably has put some funds together to complete the sale.

        I say this as the granddaughter of a well-meaning grandpa who bought parcels of land intending for them to be a legacy to his kids and grandkids, and when he passed, none of us were interested in hanging onto the land and paying the taxes or dealing with potential tenants (the land was totally vacant when he passed), so we all signed off on selling the parcels to a developer who was interested in potentially, at some point, building on the parcels.

        I know there’s this theory about land – “they’re not making any more of it” so it’s a great investment – but not all land is in locations where it’s ever going to be that valuable, or it may take generations before the land becomes really worth something. The land my grandfather bought was in an area where there’s limited water, and so unless people were willing to drill very expensive wells, there just wasn’t much that could be done with it. We could wait and see if the water situation was going to change (like someone was going to bring in a pipeline or something), or we could just sell, at fair market price, to someone who was interested in actually doing something with the property.

        I think your husband has a point about leaving the land to 3 kids and then hoping they will be able to agree what to do with it when the time comes. A lot of land ends up sitting vacant because it’s owned by multiple entities who can’t agree on the right thing to do with the property.

        $1.5 million is nothing to sneeze at – even if your MIL is comfortable, that could provide her with extra comfort and peace of mind in her later years – and if your husband ends up inheriting the bulk of it, that is a nice bit of security for the two of you, and possibly your children. Unless the land is really strategically located near a city that could expand onto the land, or there are substantial mineral or water rights attached to it that have independent value, personally, I would sell, and I would sell now. I am interested in what other folks have to say.

        1. Yeah, not all land is valuable and not all land appreciates at the same rate. The land my mom sold has a well, but who knows how long that will last. Also, it’s on a dirt road and I tend to doubt the rural county is going to pave it anytime soon. Eminent domain is also a possibility if someone decided it was better to have a nature preserve than a bunch of scrubland that probably shouldn’t have been farmed in the first place.

    11. I don’t quite understand — is the land your MIL’s, or does she just have a life tenancy? If it’s hers, I don’t see why any money from the sale wouldn’t be hers, too, to do whatever she wants with. Why do proceeds from the sale need to pass to your husband/children? Personally I think your husband should encourage his mom to sell it and use the proceeds in a way that will make her happy and/or fund any long-term care she will need.

        If she’s just the custodian of the land until she dies, I would have her keep it so that she continues to benefit from the lease payments, then you can sell it when she passes.

        1. Ah- sorry if this isn’t clear. It’s MIL’s land. She doesn’t need the money at all, and she’s treating it as though it’s already DH’s, though it won’t technically be until she does. She asked DH what he wants to do with it.

           MIL is already very well positioned for end of life finances. Plus, she just inherited a separate chunk of money from her late mother (which she also doesn’t need and is starting to gift to DH and our kids).

           I think, really, she knows the right answer is to sell but emotionally she isn’t ready to do it so she’s asking DH to make the call.

           1. I would personally get a lot of emotional satisfaction from selling it to the same family who has been leasing for 20 years, rather than selling it to investors or randos years down the road.

              There are no guarantees that this family is going to continue to lease, let alone always be willing to pay $1.5M for the land. They may very well buy a different piece of land this year – clearly, they want to buy. Move the land along to another family who loves it and will farm it.

    12. Why doesn’t he want his mother to sell it? It makes sense to sell it now so that she can enjoy the profit and pass on what’s left. I really don’t think there’s value in saving it for your children just because, unless it’s part of a longer term investment strategy.

    13. Both sides of my family have been in similar positions with the original family farm. Short answer, sell reserving the mineral rights. We had sentimental attachments to the land on both sides, but none of the remaining generation were farmers or wanted to be. I would offer it first to the family who has leased it for years for market price or close to it, then put it on the market. The only caveat would be if the area is experiencing a lot of growth, and there is a realistic chance of converting it to another use in the near term.

    14. Does the lease generate income sufficient to cover any costs? If not, this seems like a reasonable investment to hang onto. If I were in your shoes, I would take the inherited land and hang onto it as an asset that can be sold for a rainy day. I don’t really understand the “sell now” advice. If the offer on the table was some unique, way-above-market-value, too good to pass up offer, sure, maybe. But if an independent appraiser is saying $1.5M is the right price, there’s every reason to think that number will only go up. It doesn’t sound like anyone particularly needs the cash right now. Why disrupt the status quo? I’m particularly wary of your Option 2 – are you REALLY going to invest the proceeds and not touch them, or are you going to end up spending the money?

        1. Second sentence should be “if so”, obviously

        2. I am generally a hang onto real estate person but farmland is a different animal (pun intended). Many friends of mine have it and it’s not the kind of investment that necessarily appreciates over time. It’s complicated and often very hard to sell. This is one of those situations where I think sell and invest in something else is the right answer.

        3. OP here. Lease generates about $10-$15k/year in net profit.

        4. I agree! sometimes there is more value in a periodic income than in a lump sum. what would you do with the money if you got the lump sum? would you invest it wisely and have yearly or monthly income off of it? if not, holding onto it and taking the income may be more useful to you. also, not sure what the tax implications may be, but that may make.it more favorable to keep taking the income.

    15. Sell, sell, sell. Now!

    16. Unless she needs the money now, wait until she dies to take advantage of the step up basis.

        1. I get that the Rs have the house now, but that section of the tax code IMO stands a high chance of being repealed or hit with a low ceiling. She may not die soon and by then, the law may be different.

           1. Eliminating stepped up basis could not make it out of committee when the D’s controlled the House. I know Biden proposed it, but I rate the chances of it passing in the foreseeable future- especially for real estate – somewhere between slim and none.

        2. That was my first thought but since MIL herself only recently inherited it, the capital gains should be minimal at this point.

           Also, I will be shocked if this Congress can get it together to do much of anything, much less substantially raise taxes on inherited land.

    17. Sell it. If you wait till your kids inherit they would sell it. Let the people who have been working the land own it. They’re offering market value. It’s a perfect selling situation.

    18. I would encourage MIL to sell now but whatever you do, DO NOT DO OPTION 1! My husband has spent the last 2 years trying to sell jointly owned family property on the other side of the country with relatives he barely knows. It is such a PITA. And everyone has to agree to sell at the same time, or they go to court unless one person can afford to buy everyone else out.

        1. My friend lives next to a house in this situation that is going to fall into the foundation b/c no co-owner will spend $ to fix anything, they all hate each other, and they all think it’s worth $$$, so reject every reasonable offer. Somehow they pay the property taxes every year but it’s an eyesore and losing value by the minute.

           Farmland has value to the farmer offering to buy it. Roll time forward 10-20 years and that guy may not be farming and guaranteed his kids won’t want to. So there may be no offers then as good as this one. Value goes down, especially if there is no city exurbs going out your way. And if you have the $1.5M now, you can invest it! Or MIL may need it for her bills, so you want her as solvent as possible, no denied Medicaid b/c she is sitting on farmland she can’t sell and has no cash.

    19. You could sell now if there’s no capital gains tax implications (and there’s no development potential). There doesn’t sound there’s any urgency to sell now, except that you’re making almost no money off of it. Farmland is a special animal but that’s an absurdly low return for $1.5M of land value. For comparison, good farmland where I’m at would get ~2% return, so you’d be looking at $30,000+ income on $1.5M, and even that is too low a rate of return for many of my clients’ families who don’t care about the land itself. Unfortunately, families nowadays move away and lose the connection with the land. Unless there’s recreational areas (woods/creek/etc) on it, I doubt your family plans to make many trips there. And co-ownership can lead to a lot of problems. It would be possible to keep this in the family by putting into (for example) an LLC and giving your kids each a share, but I don’t see many people doing that unless they have enough ties to the property that make it worth the extra trouble (and low income). It’s sad but probably makes sense to sell to the farm tenant and appreciate the value it’s brought to your family.

        Farmland prices have increased dramatically in the last five years. I keep thinking that input expenses are going to put some downward pressure on it, but so far I haven’t seen anything drop. I haven’t seen enough farms sales come through my office after interest rates rose to see if that’s had an effect, but that might cool the market too.

    20. Another plus one for selling now. As a former farm kid whose dad still farms, like someone else said – it’s a “bird in hand” situation.

16. Another travel question! We are going to Arizona with two kids (ages 10 and 7). We found a couple of different tours online that sound appealing in that they let you see a bunch of stuff in a short amount of time — for example, one flight leaves the Grand Canyon airport, flies you over the canyon and to Antelope Valley where you do a jeep tour before flying back. Another will fly you to the bottom of the canyon for a smooth rafting trip. Has anyone done something like this and, if so, can you recommend the company that ran your tour?

    1. The Grand Canyon is majestic and beautiful. If you haven’t been there before, I recommend that you don’t try to do the “bunch of stuff in a short amount of time” options. I know that most visitors take a look from one of the most popular vantage points and then leave, but consider hiking down a little bit and being able to see geological changes. Sunrises and sunsets are spectacular. I have been there only three times in my life — each time doing hikes and staying overnight. Think about what you want to see. Maybe you want to check it off your list, and in that case I don’t have recommendations, but if you want to experience the Grand Canyon, you might want to think about it differently.

       1. +1.

          If you stay at one of the hotels near there, you can see the Canyon at sunset and sunrise and I highly recommend both times! If you don’t want to hike down into the Canyon, you can walk any portion of the “Rim Trail”, which is 11 miles total along the rim of the Canyon, and you can get a bus at any of the stops along the way so you don’t have to do the entire 11 miles. It is a really easy and beautiful way to see the Canyon, and you can avoid the crowds in many of the areas as you walk the trail.

    2. We opted against those primarily because of the cost, but you really don’t need more stuff to do at the Grand Canyon. Just spend longer there and go on some hikes!

    3. Agree w others – take the day to view the Grand Canyon. It’s majestic. Hike/walk to
       your comfort level.

       If you’re driving from Phoenix, stop in Sedona on your way home.

    4. Just did Antelope Canyon over the holidays and it was amazing! Can only do via tour since it is on the Navajo reservation. My son, age 8, was really into it. We used Redstone Tours.

       Lots of great easy hikes in Sedona. Bell Rock, Devil’s Bridge …

       Verde Canyon Railroad was also fun and good for kiddo.

17. DH has been in a funk this entire holiday season. Not without reason, he’s going through a stressful time on a lot of fronts. I’ve done my best to walk on eggshells to keep the peace through the holidays. Then on New Years Day he took offense to some comment I made about dinner and stormed off to drink in the basement until sometime after 2 am. He spent the night on the couch and hasn’t spoken to me since. The comment that precipitated this? He made dinner then served himself almost the entire thing – at least 6 servings – and I said babe I didn’t get enough. I had earlier expressed some disappointment with dinner because we had 3 day old shellfish that needed using, but he didn’t cook it and said he’d use it another day, then accused me of accusing him of trying to poison me with bad shellfish, which is ironic since I had been sick for the prior 24 hours because of food he made us. What a great start to the new year.

    I’m so sad and angry. I’ve put up with his mood swings and stonewalling and drinking too much for the sake of getting through the holidays. But he ruined New Years anyway. I don’t want to get divorced, we’ve only been married 2 years, but this is beyond unacceptable. Everything I read about dealing with the silent treatment says to stay calm and be open and kind when they finally come around. I don’t want to be kind. I’ve spent weeks being kind. I have no more kindness left until I get some in return. I can’t even go stay with my parents for a few days – we had a fight because DH didn’t want to spend Christmas with them. Idk what to do.

    1. Other posters will likely have better advice about responding to this situation. I just wanted to say that I’m sure your parents love you and want to continue to support you (eg host you) regardless of the fight. Hope things improve

       1. Thanks. The fight with my parents was basically my mother losing her ever loving mind and screaming at me, totally unprovoked, as we left on Christmas Eve (as planned) because we wouldn’t spend the night (also as planned but not what she wanted). DH didn’t want to go there at all over Christmas, so Christmas Eve was our compromise. Right now I’m feeling like I should’ve just left him at home to be miserable by himself. But also my mom’s behavior was inexcusable and she has not apologized so I don’t really want to hang out with her either.

          1. Are you sure this isn’t my husband? In all seriousness get to therapy and see if his disagreement style changes and if not, get a divorce. I married this guy, and stayed married and now with kids my husband continues to handle disagreements in this manner and I truly wish I would have left him before we had children. I didn’t think it was a big deal how he handled disagreements because we didn’t have much to disagree upon. However once you add kids to the mix the number of disagreements rises dramatically and big shocker he handles them horribly. Get out while you can and watch for how your partner handles disagreements in the future. This to me from my perspective is the more important thing in any relationship.

          2. If this is how your parents operate, I’m starting to understand why you are tolerating your husband acting this way. My husband and I bicker a lot, we’re both oversensitive and reactive, but nothing you are describing sounds remotely normal or healthy. Do you have a friend you can stay with?

             1. Yes! I remember one of the worst times in my whole life was when my parents essentially broke up with me because they couldn’t tolerate being around my then-husband. Then shortly after I decided I couldn’t tolerate being around him, either, but I didn’t have my parents to reach out to or lean on because… well, they’d broken up with me for being married to a man who essentially re-created the dynamic in my childhood home! Gah. I vividly remember feeling like I was literally going insane.

                Anyway, OP. This is not normal, it’s not acceptable, and really the only course of action is to get yourself out before you have kids and are tied to this horrible person forever.

    2. Definitely stop eating his cooking!

       This is an awful position to be in, I’m so sorry. He’s definitely not treating you right. Please don’t forget that. Nothing you do warrants this behavior, no matter what he says.

    3. Ask if he wants to go to marriage counseling so that you all can work in your communication patterns because your relationship is hard and painful. If you need to go to your parents house for a day or two after that conversation, go.

    4. Two years in? Get divorced.

       1. For real. These types of posts always make me so thankful to be single and live alone.

          1. It’s weird… I’m very pro-marriage and anti-divorce, but that’s why I suggest divorce here. The marriage is not going to make it, so the question is if it fails now, while she’s still able to find someone else, or fails later when kids are involved and she may not be able to find someone else. If you’re religious, annulments exist for this reason.

             1. Yep, this. Also very pro marriage and anti divorce, but the marriage must be a good one. Marriage at all costs is never the goal. I’m team stay single until you get a good marriage and anti divorce only because it’s expensive and tough to mentally get over for a lot of women. Breaking up is easier to process.

             2. Co-sign. I am a long-married person who has had to work things out in my marriage, over time, and leans toward working things out vs. walking out. But in this case, I completely agree that it’s better to realize two years in that things aren’t working, and bail out before it gets worse (or there are kids involved) than to hang in there and still be miserable 10 years later.

                I have sympathy for people who are depressed – my husband has struggled with depression off and on throughout our entire marriage – but two things about OP’s post concern me: 1. the lack of recognition by her husband that he needs to seek help for the depression and 2. the excessive drinking, which will just make the depression worse, and also cause many other concomitant problems. Before I met my husband, I almost married a guy who drank as a way to cope with emotional problems; he refused to get help and I left, and he ended up unemployed, disabled from chronic alcoholic pancreatitis, and finally drank himself to death at age 41. I am glad I didn’t “hang in there” with someone who had no recognition that he had a problem, much less any motivation to do something about it.

          2. Honestly, I’m anti-marriage. I’m single, FWIW, but I’m also staunchly childfree and see no reason to marry anyone. I’d be fine with having a partner and even living with them, but it ends there.

             1. +1

       2. Yes yes yes. I stayed married to this guy for fifteen years and I am here to tell you it only gets worse.

       3. +1

       4. 2 years in this should not be happening. Cut your losses. You do not want to coparent with this mess for the next 20 years.

    5. Oh girl, being single is better than being married to someone like that. I’d seriously consider leaving while you’re only two years in and before kids.

       1. If you want to have children with this man I would take a long hard look at whether this is the type of behavior you want to deal with long term. Ask over on the mom’s page how easy/enjoyable it is being married to someone who sulks, gives you the silent treatment, opts out of joint family time, and drinks too much. Even without kids, you don’t deserve this, but I would not even entertain the idea of children unless you do individual and joint therapy and he has better coping mechanisms and a handle on his drinking.

       2. +1. I am not usually quick to jump to “get divorced” advice, but this behavior is not something I would want to live with long term, especially if you want to have kids. I would strongly consider moving on now if you want to have kids.

       3. Absolutely don’t have kids with him.

          OP – you deserve better. Two years is nothing. Cut your losses.

    6. No other side to the story? If there’s really no “his side” (which, from his perspective is unlikely), he’s a psycho and you need to leave. If there is another side, presenting it will garner you better advice here!

       1. As I mentioned, he’s been going through a stressful time on a lot of fronts. I’ve been trying to be patient and not take it personally when he’s snippy or withdrawn. I think he would say that he just needs his space. Idk what he would say beyond that because he hasn’t spoken to me for 2 days.

          1. Oof. I have 2 kids, one special needs, and a stressful FT job. I am sure that others can compete and outpace me in the suffering olympics. Still, I bet that none of us is treating our spouse / SO like this. And how would you feel about your future kids watching you get treated this way and normalizing it? 2 years in and quitting to restart is hard. But so is having 2 kids and feeling even more stuck with a toxic partner. His stress will only go up and what will that do to you? And stop eating his cooking!

          2. Going through a stressful time is no excuse for this ongoing behavior. Has he made any amends at all or acknowledged that he’s being jerk? The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse. If he’s not making any attempts to change, then there’s not much hope for this relationship. Like others have said, cut your losses early.

          3. What kind of stressful time are we talking about?

             Did you cheat on him and he’s processing? Does he have a parent actively dying of a nasty disease, that’s one thing. If he’s under a lot of stress at work, that’s a different animal entirely.

             One of those scenarios is something I would do my ever loving best to support. But if he’s acting like this because of work, I would be at a hotel and strongly considering divorce.

          4. If you stay married and especially if you have kids, you both will go through many more stressful times. Are you willing to put up with this kind of behavior every time he gets stressed out?

             1. This is a key, critical, crucial question.
                My husband and I have been through a lot together, and he still has never done anything like the OP describes, to me. We’ve had brief blow-up arguments, but one of the reasons why I fell in love with my husband, and have hung in there, is that we do not let arguments spill over for days on end. He has always had the self-awareness and maturity to realize that sulking, pouting, and the silent treatment are not the way to solve problems, as a functional adult. One of us will approach the other and offer an apology and ask to work out the issue, if it’s something that still needs discussing. Silent treatments that last for days remind me too much of what it was like to live with my mother and I could never tolerate that now. OP, really really think about what you want your life to be, going forward. Because you have the power to create the life you want for yourself.

          5. I still really don’t understand what you mean by a stressful time.

             I’ve seen outbursts of negative emotion from my husband in extremely stressful situations (sudden death; life threatening emergency; ongoing financial crisis; overlap thereof). In these kinds of stressful situations, he sometimes expressed sudden disproportionate anger about inane things. He apologized and we kept working together on getting through things.

             Based on my experience with my husband and with humans in general, it sounds like there is more going on than just a stressful time if he’s giving you the silent treatment for days and treating you this badly over time? Kindly and patiently waiting out silent treatment is also not what my therapist would have considered good advice (she was more of the “people treat us how we let them treat us” school of thought). I also think it’s reasonable that you’re upset with your mom and that it’s really reasonable to want to be treated better in both these relationships!

             1. This. Also, stressful times are not isolated to a single period of life. In fact, as I approach 40, I find they become more frequent. Add kids, an aging parent (or 4!), deaths, job losses, recessions… KIDS. Like, omg. This man will continue to treat you like this.

                DH lost his best friend and father – dropped dead – two weeks before I gave birth and a month after DH lost his job. You want to talk stress? That’s stress. He never ONCE treated me even a smidge this badly.

                OP, you deserve a hell of a lot better. I hope someone close to you helps you see that soon.

             2. +1. My husband was a mess a year ago, when we had a three month old and I’d just been diagnosed with cancer, but he never acted remotely like what OP describes.

          6. You know what most people do when stressed? Ask their spouse for a favor or a hug or work through it together after some brief alone time like going for a run. Not blow up, drink in the basement, and wall the other person off. Don’t make excuses for this sh!tty behavior.

       2. This. If he was posting here, what would he say?

          I’m not saying there’s more to the story, but if there isn’t then I’m not sure why you are putting up with this.

       3. Please tell us what “other side” warrants giving somebody the silent treatment. I’ll wait.

          1. Not the OP, but I have found something so upsetting that either I could not speak b/c I was still processing or I was so angry that I dare not speak b/c I’d likely say something so damaging that I couldn’t undo that (thinking of someone who mouthed off to me about my miscarriage as I was waiting for the D&C ). But that’s at most an overnight thing, not something still going on days later. So I say DTMFAMO, with absolutely zero joy.

             1. The only time I have ever given my bf the silent treatment was when I was so angry I would say something I regret and it wasn’t for days and we were actively fighting.

          2. I mean, I’ve stopped talking to my in-laws entirely. Some of them are verbally and emotionally abusive to me; some are “lovely people” who say that I need to attend events with the abusive people so that “the entire family can be together.” I have asked, begged, pleaded, and even screamed to find a different solution (alternating with the abusive people, going after they leave, etc) and been shot down. The “lovely people” even went so far as to lie about it, claiming that things happened differently than they did. (They backed off of it when my husband told them they were “mistaken.”)

             Since I don’t allow people to treat me like that, we don’t talk.

    7. This is all so not normal. Get out now.

    8. I think people here are usually to quick to jump to the “divorce him” advice, but you’re 2 years in and presumably don’t have kids… divorce him. I don’t care if he’s stressed out. He kept you from your family over Christmas. You’ve been walking on eggshells. Something is going on with his cooking. He’s drinking too much. And he’s giving you the silent treatment for days. Go see your parents, at least.

       1. +1,000 everyone gets stressed out and we all make mistakes, but this is not even remotely acceptable. Get the heck out before you sink more time and energy into this relationship.

       2. OP, I read your update about your mom’s behavior on Christmas Eve. So, I retract the advice to go stay with your parents. Go anyways, and take care of yourself.

    9. You need to give him an ultimatum that this behavior is unacceptable. Start seeing a marriage counselor or at least start going by yourself. If you don’t see him making an attempt to change his behavior, then I would seriously consider divorce. You can’t make someone change if they don’t want to. Absolutely do not have children with this man.

    10. Your parents will 100% instantly forgive you if you tell them what happened and what you need from them. And I say this as someone with a rocky relationship with her parents.

        If it’s too painful to tell them, just copy and paste the above.

        1. Sounds like her parents are the ones who should be asking for forgiveness.

    11. To add to what other commenters have said and make it crystal clear: the silent treatment is emotional abuse.

    12. I suggest you start with therapy for yourself. If screaming and “losing her ever living mind” is normal in your family of origin, then you’re programmed to be willing to accept your husband’s poor behavior. Neither the screaming from your mother nor the litany of behaviors from your husband is sound, mature, or healthy. Talk to a therapist and learn what healthy, mature relationships look like.

        1. THIS!!!

        2. Yup!

    13. You are correct, this is beyond unacceptable. I understand not wanting to get divorced, but your alternative is to stay together and continue to deal with this. Life is always going to throw stressful times our way. The mature, healthy way of dealing with it is not to take it out on your spouse. It will only get harder to leave, so you might as well go through the pain now to make your future better. Your parents will let you stay there when you tell them you are leaving him (but also listen to the other posters that your parents behavior is not normal either).

    14. Hon, you are putting up with a lot of abuse from people – your mom, your husband. Break the cycle. Get some therapy and learn to demand better in your life.

        I waited way, way too long to divorce my first husband because I didn’t want to be “divorced” and because of the sunk cost fallacy. Don’t be me.

        I saw two different therapists to help me figure this out. The first was a marriage therapist, but I went to her by myself at first because my question – “how do you know when you should get divorced?” – wasn’t one I wanted to ask in front of my then-husband. She really helped me to know what I wanted in my relationship, but then I made the mistake of bringing my husband to some sessions. Since she already knew my side of things from individual therapy, she spent a lot of time getting his perspective, which seemed to signal to him that only his perspective mattered, WHICH WAS THE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!!

        Then I had to find another therapist just for me, for “anxiety”, but really my question was, again, “how do you know when it’s time to get divorced?” She said, “most people don’t know, but when they finally do get divorced, they all realize they waited too long.”

        Read that again.

        My dear, you are there. “I don’t want to get divorced because we’ve been married for two years” is a terrible reason for staying. And it doesn’t sound like you have any other reasons.

        Get out now.

        1. The mom may have acted out because the parents are tired of their daughter’s toxic relationship. My husband and I went to counseling early in our marriage and learned HOW to argue. Is he willing to do that?

    15. I got divorced 2 months after my third wedding anniversary and should have done it 2 months after my second. If this has happened before and isn’t an aberration in your marital life, learn from my mistake and don’t waste a year of your life in a miserable situation.

18. Asking out of curiosity…has anyone here really spent $2,100 on a single blouse? I can’t fathom it.

    1. Definitely not, but it is lovely. I think there was a thread on avergae spending per item/highest priced item you own in the past. I (and many others) talked about how our most expensive single items of clothing were winter coats (I’m leaving out my wedding dress).
       For my day to day clothes, my most expensives pieces are my blazers or blouses from the Fold – I rarely wear suits but when I did I had a few that were $600-$700 full price.

    2. No, but I spent much more than that in a worthless master’s degree. At least you can wear the blouse.

       1. Haha!

       2. HA!

       3. Master of Fine Arts checking in

    3. No, and even if I had a wild amount of money I don’t think I would – I’m clumsy and would probably stain this in a couple wears. It’d break my heart!

       1. Quince washable silk is as fancy as I can go because of my clumsiness. Spilled coffee on mine just this morning!

          1. Same, I’m in my 40’s and still can’t pay over $30 for a white blouse as I inevitably spill coffee or get oil/food stains on them within 1-2 wears.

             1. So glad I’m not alone. My #1 and #2 requirements for clothing are durability and stain-hiding-ability.

    4. Not even close. Even if I play the zero game (dropping a zero), it’s not inexpensive. For me, the price of this blouse falls into the category of “laughable” rather than “fantasy.”

    5. No. I buy a lot of designer items on sale at net-a-porter every year, but even at 70% off this blouse would be too much for me. I’ve been happy with Rebecca Taylor silk tops that I find for $50-$150 on sale.

    6. No and I could theoretically afford it. For that kind of money, I want to see it in my jewelry box, on my feet or swinging from my arm.

    7. A long time ago I spent close to $300 on a blouse that I thought was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Then I was afraid to wear it.

       Not doing that again!

       1. Counterpoint: A long time ago I spent about $240 on a gorgeous silk blouse that I wore almost weekly for years, until it literally fell apart. I wish I could find something that fabulous again!

    8. Never $2,100 but have spent $600-$700 on blouses. My weight has been relatively stable, blouses were in gorgeous prints and have held up well for the YEARS still getting lots of compliments.

    9. No, but I would DEFINITELY wear it with my Salvation army $3 drop crotch high waisted Mom jeans…. Wouldn’t you?

    10. Click on the little video on the link. The styling is so ridiculous. The jeans are stupid.

19. Does anyone here have experience with guardianships? We all know about Britney Spears, but this is for my younger sister. My parents had hoped that she would be able to live independently as an adult and have a job, but she can be very erratic. She has a level of autism that has been hard to pin down — she went to a regular school but as a teen became at times obsessed with various causes (at one point e-mailing a neighbor who worked at a power company that he was killing the planet, etc., etc.) and at times threatening self-harm and seeing things that aren’t there. And yet, if you met her, she’d seem to be totally fine (unless she was acting like you needed to call for emergency psychiatric care). It’s one or the other.

    I know we need a lawyer, but how do you go about finding one? At some level, my sister won’t like it and yet I feel that a part of her may be relieved that she won’t wake up one day having given away all of her money to save the rain forest in a fit of passion or that my parents aren’t able to access her medical records or find out important things too late (in our state, a lot of health care providers promise health care privacy for anyone over 14, so I think that my parents are rightly worried about that). She is turning 18 soon.

    1. Yes, I have 2 autistic children (who sound somewhat more severely disabled than your sister) and I have guardianship of both of them. It might vary by state, but your sister’s school might have a special education transition coordinator, who could at least recommend a lawyer, even if your sister is not in the special ed program. Otherwise, try searching for special education lawyers. If they don’t handle guardianship, they can point you to someone who does.

       Interestingly, part of the process involves hiring a lawyer who represents the party (your sister) to make sure she’s not being taken advantage of, and that she understands the case. If she objects, that will make the case much more difficult.

    2. My comment is in mod. Redacted to remove the forbidden character string:

       Yes, I have 2 autistic children (who sound somewhat more severely disabled than your sister) and I have guardianship of both of them. It might vary by state, but your sister’s school might have a special education tr@nsition coordinator, who could at least recommend a lawyer, even if your sister is not in the special ed program. Otherwise, try searching for special education lawyers. If they don’t handle guardianship, they can point you to someone who does.

       Interestingly, part of the process involves hiring a lawyer who represents the party (your sister) to make sure she’s not being taken advantage of, and that she understands the case. If she objects, that will make the case much more difficult.

       1. If they are your children, are you their guardian while they are under 18? Or is that automatic for parents (assuming they don’t emancipate their children)? Or do you just need to be their guardian if they are legally adults at 18?

          1. My children are 18+.

    3. I think that’s going to be a tough road to get a conservatorship (and it should be) – that sounds more like a difference in opinion on how to deal with the world and someone like to become estranged from their family, not someone incapable of making decisions for themselves.

       1. Seeing things that aren’t there though is concerning. Ditto self-harm. It’s almost like you need a springing guardianship for when she’s not lucid, but IDK that that is a thing.

          1. It is a very high bar to conservatorship though. Concerning behavior does not equal losing your right make decisions for yourself. If OPs sibling is open to letting her parents continue to care for her, that’s the easiest route, practically speaking.

    4. What state are you in? Post here for recommendations for a lawyer.

       Some states may require a finding by the court that she is incompetent. You can set up a trust, power of attorney, and health care proxy with her consent at age 18 provided she is of sound mind. Again, state laws matter for exactly how to do this.

       1. NC, near Charlotte

       2. Also look into Supported Decision Making, an alternative to guardianship.

          1. THIS – newer model that disability advocates like.

    5. Is there any possibility that she has been misdiagnosed? This sounds less like autism and more like cluster B personality traits. I think it would be challenging to establish the need for a guardian based on what you’ve described here. People have the right to make poor decisions, and it doesn’t sound like she lacks decisional capacity.

       1. I was thinking that too.

       2. I was thinking that too. The awkward email to the neighbor definitely sounds like autism, but ‘seeing things that are not there’ is not an autism trait.

       3. OP here — possibly? I know that my parents felt really stuck during the pandemic and a lot of her providers have turned over recently. She was more stable as a child, but any adult-type responsibilities seem to unduly stress her out to the point where she gets unhinged quickly. She is on ADHD meds and what I think is an antidepressant and my parents have always gotten them and administered them and they can see the bottles. But there is an abuse potential and what they don’t want is for her to try community college, make some bad friends, etc. IDK that she will live at home forever but they have worried before that she was interacting online with something that looked like a cult (and IIRC one of the January 6 defendants got a very light sentence because his autism made him not able to make good decisions — this is their nightmare, or that she gets pregnant and has the baby).

          1. I commented above (2 autistic children). In my state at least, there are different levels of guardianship: financial, medical, or the whole person, possibly others. Perhaps your parents can gain guardianship of her medical care, if she is unable to take her medication without assistance, while not having guardianship of her in other areas. My children are much more severely impaired than your sister so the cases were not contested. Guardianship of the whole person is an extreme event when the person is basically capable of functioning and taking care of herself. Can she get herself ready for school every day? How is her ADL function? All these things would be pertinent to a legal case and bottom line, there will have to be doctors who declare her disabled.

             1. These are good points. IDK how she’d be without my mother. Mom had to do everything with her growing up (like she went on every field trip and Girl Scout camping trip) in case she had a meltdown and to help manage meds, sort of as a condition of her being allowed to be in Girl Scouts. Mom never wanted to be a helicopter parent, but realized that sis might have a better QOL if she weren’t just kept at home (she didn’t really ever have friends, so she was only able to interact with peers in activities with her). I guess they could go away for a night or weekend once she is 18 and see how that goes — she does text regularly and they have her on the friend finder on the iPhone (which is on their account). She got on the wrong bus once and it came in handy to spot her and find her.

             2. Nothing you have described (meltdowns as a child, getting on the wrong bus) is telling me that she needs guardianship. Adults get on the wrong bus all the time. Adults also threaten self-harm. I imagine you will need a lot more documented evidence to have a chance at this, even more so if she objects, which she will have the opportunity to do.

    6. Guardianship is a big hill to climb. What are the goals of getting it?

       In the short term, could your parents be set up as POA and health care proxies? That would give them access to her money and medical records. It requires permission but also is fairly common for people her age- I made my parents Healthcare proxies and gave them poa when I was away at college.

       1. I mean, going to law school seems to be an objectively bad decision, based on this board, and people do it all the time. But that is assuming really lucid rational people who are able to have social and other relationships with other people. This reminds me of how it is with elderly relatives who have fallen prey to scams, been robbed by trusted care providers, and even abused. It is sad to see it happening in front of you and so frustrating that there is little to do if the person doesn’t want help. With a girl, I’d be very worried that she’d be ripe for an abusive relationship, especially if she thinks she wants freedom of her college-aged peers and isn’t getting it from the parents.

       2. I know for my parents (similar situation), one concern is that if my brother has an episode when they can’t easily be reached (they both work), he will be sent for an involuntary commitment for his safety. They have had this conversation with him so that he is aware and knows that my parent will eventually find him and take him home as soon as it is safe. But he is a teen still. After he turns 18, I don’t know that they would be able to talk to doctors directly without going to court first (IANAL) or maybe they would since my parents are his next of kin (my mom has a different last name, so IDK that they would assume that they are even related).

    7. Once she’s 18, she can add your parents to her medical records as someone the provider can speak with. She doesn’t need a guardianship for that.

       I sympathize with trying to figure out how to help family members. My autistic brother is in his late 20s and similarly added my mom. He’s never had a job and got denied for disability. He lives with our mom and frankly has no idea what he’ll do when she dies. He was high functioning enough to get a GED although he did poorly in the high school setting and dropped out. He also has anxiety and depression and basically wants to play video games all day.

    8. Late commenting. To answer your question, call your local (legal) bar associations hotline for lawyer referrals. They can likely help you find someone in your area for your parents to talk to. Encourage your parents to go in with the mindset of learning about their options – when is a guardianship available, under what circumstances, what options are there short of a guardianship, when are the inflection points to start thinking about different options. Chances are that your parents will end up putting guardrails in your sister’s life but never go through the formal guardianship process unless there is a crisis point.

       Anecdotally, I’ve seen this play out in my family. My cousin (now in his 40s) has the executive functioning of a young teenager, but is able to still have a career (creative, freelancer) with his parents managing his business and other finances. They’ve managed to develop a guardianship-lite relationship informally (finances, support with ADLs) and its worked well for quite a while.

20. This is going to sound odd but does anyone have any suggestions for nice looking, sturdy hampers? This one is lovely but I simply cannot fathom paying $450 for a hamper. I’ve learned the hard way that the cheap rattan ones from Homegoods inevitably fall apart after a year or two, and I’d prefer something nicer looking (and sturdy as the pets/child aren’t gentle with it) as the hampers are out in the middle of our bathrooms.
    https://www.serenaandlily.com/riviera-hamper/white/449897.html?color=White&searchCategory=storage%20bin

    1. Did you try Simplehuman? They’re not cheap but still less than half of the $450 price of the one you’re looking at.

    2. I just got a decent looking bamboo hamper from Wayfair for $30. I don’t know that I would say is tough or able to stand up to abuse, but it seems sturdy enough as long as no one is climbing on it or bashing into it constantly.

       It replaces the plastic Rubbermaid one that, after several decades going from college to married life with kids & dogs, is still going strong and was totally functional just the wrong color for our space. If I could find it in the right color I would have had no qualms dropping ten bucks on a new version of that one.

    3. What are you doing to your hampers that they fall apart? Don’t they just sit there all the time?

       1. The cats make a game of jumping in the laundry hamper (and knock it over to get out), chew on the edges, use them as stretching/scratch posts. My son is too big/old to climb into it anymore but apparently to boys open hamper=basketball hoop for clothing (including heavy, wet towels) which also often result in the hamper being banged around/knocked over.
          I love our pets/child but I daydream of the clean, neat, orderly bachelorette apartment I had once upon a time….

    4. I have some from Target that have held up nicely, to my surprise. My spouse is the one who isn’t gentle with it (ugh how hard is it to put something neatly in a hamper) but so far they still look pretty good. There is a better selection online and shipping was free at a surprisingly low point.

    5. Etsy has a ton of wicker hampers, some of them vintage. And a quick Google search shows a really nice one from The Container Store for a slightly more reasonable $150. But I think if you have kids and pets that are rough with them, this isn’t the laundry solution for you. People made hampers out of wicker because it was a cheap and semi-disposable material in the era before plastic laundry baskets. You’re fighting the nature of the material.

    6. Okay, $450 for a laundry hamper is even wilder than $2k for a blouse. It looks nice, I’ll give them that, but goodness.

    7. We have the round Sedona hamper from Crate & Barrel. It’s beautiful and has held up well for over 9 years. The material much higher quality (tight weave, smoother finish) than cheap ones from TJX stores

21. How do you store your jewelry? I have recently inherited some nicer pieces (probably $35-40k value in total, not appraised) and I don’t know how to store them in a way that is accessible to me if I want to wear them but also not going to present an easy crime of opportunity for anyone who happens to be in the condo (cleaning service, maintenance people from the building, guests, etc.). I’m not as worried about random strangers breaking in, since we’re in a high tower & a low crime city. Should I get it appraised? Insured? I don’t think any one piece is of the “store it in a bank vault until you go to the met gala” type, but the quantity is a bit startling and very unexpected.

    1. Maybe I’m just dumb and trusting, but I live in a major city and I just have my stuff in a jewelry box in my bedroom. I don’t worry about my housecleaner or other people who come to do things in the house (other than the cleaner someone is home). When I travel, I do out my nicest pieces in this vest designed to hide jewelry (Amazon purchase) that hangs in between my clothes just in case. But I get a lot more enjoyment out of wearing my things. At some point we should probably get a safe at home.

    2. If you don’t want to store in the bank, then I would get a very heavy safe and have it installed so it is bolted to the wall or floor. This is how my family stores our jewelry that either is expensive but we don’t keep at the bank or we store at the bank but have taken out temporarily to wear it. Safes can come with various trays and organizers so you can organize it easily.

       1. The bank??

          1. Safe deposit boxes. They’re at the bank.

       2. Safe deposit boxes. They’re at the bank.

    3. I’m from a South Asian family, so my mother owns a decent bit of gold jewelry compared to the average person. Other than the pieces she wears routinely (aka daily or weekly), everything lives in a safe deposit box at the bank. The total value of her jewelry is much, much less than what you noted above, but my parents still do this because thieves in America know that South Asians tend to own gold, so even if if they don’t own a lot, the perception/generalization is enough to motivate someone with bad intentions. Something similar may or may not apply to you, but it’s worth considering if visible markers of wealth may make you a target for theft regardless of what may or may not actually be in home that’s expensive. Any one piece may or may not be that expensive, but taken together, that is a quite an expensive amount of jewelry.

       1. I’ve never heard this about South Asians. Interesting.

          1. Not South Asia, but I used to live somewhere where if you needed flee, you needed to bring some wealth with you. Jewelry was what they used (bold bangles).

          2. There was an NYTimes article several years back about thieves targeting Indian American homes due to knowing that people of that culture are more likely to own gold. I showed it to my parents in an attempt to encourage them to get a security system for their home. It did convince them, but my dad initially resisted because he said my mom’s gold jewelry was much cheaper compared to what other families he knew owned. My argument to him was that a potential house thief wouldn’t know that to be the case, but might consider their home as an easy target: two aging visible South Asians living alone without a home security system. My dad’s friends in other areas of the country have also shared stories about wedding burglaries (South Asian weddings tend to be large and festive, and gold jewelry is a common wedding gift, so you have tons of people together wearing lots of gold all in one place) becoming more common.

       2. +1 – Fellow South Asian, and Safe Deposit in the bank is all I’ve known until I met DH (not South Asian) and he told me *gasp* his Mum keeps things in a safe in the basement!

    4. I recently bought a house with previous owners very focused on jewelry protection.
       1) They had a keyless lock installed in a built-in dresser in the master bedroom. So the drawer has a small keypad remote that can be tucked away somewhere else. I was able to reprogram it when we bought the house. I think ours is a StealthLock. I see one similar on Amazon for about $150.
       1) Fireproof safe, if you don’t have one already. It might be worth spending a couple of hundred dollars on one. Not just for jewelry but for important documents you wouldn’t want to lose in a house fire. (Real Estate Documents, Car Titles, Estate Planning Documents, etc.) Ours is about a 2′ by 2′ cube in the basement and it has a tray intended for jewelry.

    5. after my parents’ house being robbed and jewelry being stolen, much of which was luckily recovered, (they live in an upper middle class suburb of dc), my mom started splitting hers between a tin hidden in the kitchen and one hidden in the room that was her office. she used to also keep some stuff in the safety deposit box. she has since passed and the stuff i’ve inherited is in my closet in a more obvious place, which i should probably move, but haven’t gotten around to doing it yet

    6. I have jewelry that probably has next to no street value (mostly very unusual pearls) but would definitely get stolen if someone broke in. First line of defense is a home alarm. Second line of defense is a home safe, just a little one like you get in a hotel room, bolted to the floor. Given the alarm, anyone who broke in here would have limited time, looking to do a smash and grab type thing, so they’re not going to be able to get the little safe up from the floor of my closet in limited time.

       I don’t keep everything in the safe, just the more valuable stuff. I do wear jewelry every day (otherwise what’s the point), so there would inevitably be some of it not in the case, but at least it wouldn’t be 100%.

       1. +1 to an alarm. We got a Simplisafe system after a break-in, and it successfully deterred a second one a year later (went off after they broke a window; nothing was taken).

    7. The right answer probably is to have it appraised and insured and then get a locking jewelry box that you store in the back of a closet.

       I have a ton of inherited jewelry and I do none of that. The value to me is sentimental. If it got stolen I wouldn’t replace it. I’m not going to pay to appraise and insure something I wouldn’t replace. I don’t have a locked box because I would forget about it if I can’t see it every day. I’d rather use the jewelry and take the small risk that a housekeeper will steal it (frankly I think it’s at greater risk of being stolen during mugging when I’m wearing it) than have it sit in a box forever. But ymmv.

       1. This.

    8. We have a large safe that has DH’s shotgun, an inherited collection of coins worth some decent money, and my nicer jewelry. It also has our passports & deed to the house just because it seems like a good spot for them.

       My engagement ring and diamond studs live in my jewelry box but go into the safe when we travel.

    9. The sentimental stuff I put in my safe deposit box when I go on vacation, the rest I hide in the attic, because quite frankly if anyone can find anything in my attic, they deserve the reward. The rest of the time it’s in the back of my closet. I imagine a thief could find it, but someone who’s just in for cleaning or maintenance probably wouldn’t have the time. I do have a separate insurance policy on the higher value pieces.

       1. Haha on the attic. Good idea, honestly.

    10. I have a lockbox – a portable safe. It’s about the size of those hotel room safes and lives in the back of my closet. Sure, a thief could make off with it, but it’s more about keeping pieces that could walk off out of sight (so they’re not in my jewelry drawer), as well as protecting documents in a fireproof box (my birth certificate is in there, as well as marriage, etc).

    11. I had my valuable inherited pieces appraised. Then I checked my insurance policy to see what the included limits were already for jewelry (I have both a Homeowners policy and an umbrella policy). Then, depending upon your risk for having it stolen (who enters your home? how often do break-ins occur?), and how much it means to you, you can decide whether you want to buy supplemental insurance through your provider to increase your coverage.

        Someone broke into my apartment a few years ago. Most of my jewelry was in an unexpected place, but not too hard to find. None of that was stolen. BUT… the jewelry that I wore the most often… the sentimental pieces I inherited from my mother were all in my bathroom medicine cabinet. Those were all stolen. Apparently thieves always check bathrooms looking for prescription pain meds to steal.

        Now, I keep a lower amount of insurance on my jewelry, because the only stuff that mattered to me is already gone. But I keep the valuable stuff hidden – in a “fake book” that is actually a small locked safe that is mixed among hundreds of books in my bookshelves.

        1. As the owner of a lot of books, I’m interested in the book safe.

           1. Mine is a beautiful antique, hundreds of years old.

              But you can search for “Book Box” or “Book Box safe”.

              Of course, someone can find it and carry it out of your place without breaking into it. But most robbers will never “see” it. And if a ?cleaning person / caregiver found it, they probably wouldn’t steal the whole book/safe, if they couldn’t open it.

    12. Most of my jewelry is appraised and insured so that I don’t worry about wearing it. The jewelry I don’t wear everyday stays in a bolted down safe in my closet. I wear my engagement ring and diamond studs almost daily.

22. Question for those of you experienced in alterations. I picked up a nice blazer on sale recently. It has a fine, drapey fabric but the fit is boxier than I’d like. I’m thinking of having the blazer altered along the vertical (princess?) seams to nip in the waist slightly but am hesitant due to previous bad experiences with alterations. I previously had a new skirt become unwearable after it was professionally altered too tight, and that was with a reputable tailor. Does the blazer alteration I’m describing seem risky? I’m particularly worried that the drapey fabric will not hang right if the work is not done perfectly.

    1. I think this is a very common alteration. Do some research on good tailor options and you should be fine.

    2. I’ve never had luck trying to change a garment. You can shorten, lengthen, let in or out to your specs for a great fit but making something what it isn’t isn’t worth the money trying.

       1. Agreed.

    3. A reputable tailor should be able to readjust your garment if the first attempt doesn’t work. I think the blazer is doable and I’d take the skirt back to them.

    4. I’m not sure a boxy fitting blazer would have princess seams, which generally is a more fitted look. They are vertical, often accentuating or including bust apex, and are meant to shape the garment after your curves.

       It’s not that difficult to nip in a blazer a little. I’ve had luck with doing a little adjustment at the side and back seams, opening the lining and making new seams, basically darts. I’ve pinned the garment a little before deciding to go for it, and you could try that. Try to pin a gradual new seam at your waist at each side inside of the garment, and look in the mirror and see if it affects the drape the way you want.

23. I’m getting remarried this year after being divorced for 15 years. We are planning on a prenup. Can I use my previous divorce attorney? Or someone else? I really liked them but don’t know much about attorney specialties.

    1. Probably! Depends on the attorney. Ask them and if they can’t do the work, they can refer you to someone who can.

    2. I’d ask, that’s usually the same specialty and if not, they can refer you.

    3. Not every family law (divorce) attorney does prenups, but many do. Call and ask your attorney if they can do it. Otherwise, they should be able to give you a referral to someone who can.

    4. Reach out to them — they can probably do it or will recommend someone who can. Most attorneys who do divorces also do pre-nups and lots of other “family law” things. Your future spouse will need their own attorney.

       Just some advice you didn’t ask for — I also got married post-divorce (but only 3 years later) and the prenup process was really upsetting in ways I did not expect — brought up a lot of old divorce hurts. I hated it so much but I’m really glad we did it. I feel much more secure in my marriage having gone through it (especially since I’m the higher earner with much higher savings, and a child from my first marriage).

       1. Thank you for sharing your experience. I’ll keep it in mind as I go through the process.

    5. Make sure you both have attorneys. If one party is unrepresented I think it’s less likely to hold up.

       1. This.

       2. Thank you. I’ll make sure we are represented individually.

          1. Many states require this anyway.

24. Does anybody have a gym bag they like? It doesn’t have to be very big – I will only be carrying clothes and shoes. My only requirement is a separate compartment for the shoes. TIA!

25. Happy New Year everyone! I’m already planning my next getaway and am eyeing the MLK day long weekend for a trip with the bf. We live in the DC/NOVA area and have cars (and would prefer to use them). We like outdoor activities, movies, musical performances/theater, and museums. And good food (as in hole-in-the-wall places, not necessarily high-end restaurants). Some places I’m currently thinking of:

    – Philly
    – Charlottesville (though neither of us drink, so idk what else there is to do…I’ve only been there for a day)
    – NYC (I grew up there and don’t loveee it but he might)
    Thank you!!

    1. no opinion on Charlottesville as I’ve never been, but seems like either NYC or Philly would fit the bill. I’ve lived in both NYC and Philly and love Philly so much. Not necessarily where I would say to go to see theater, but there are good museums, food, and outdoor activities depending on weather, which i’m sure as you know could be variable MLK weekend

       1. Mutter Museum of medical history in Philadelphia! There are also good art museums. I think Philadelphia has some excellent restaurants, and they skew a little cheaper than DC. Off the top of my head: Bud and Marilyn’s, Tallula’s Garden, Little Nonna…

          Charlottesville is also nice, although better in nice weather. There’s good hiking nearby, Monticello, James Madison’s estate…

    2. Start with Charlottesville – see if there are any good performances on that interest you and if so, do that. There are enough cute restaurants in the area and you can go hiking nearby, or hit Montpelier or wineries on the way there and back.

       Otherwise I’d do Philly, because I think it’s great for a long weekend and I’d rather have a shorter drive and longer leisure time at a destination, but YMMV.

    3. I vote for Philly. I love Charlottesville but it’s boring (albeit beautiful) after a day if you aren’t drinking or riding horses.

    4. I’ve lived in Philly for 22 of my 28 years so I’m biased, but it’s a great city. So many beautiful places to walk, excellent food, great museums, cool concert venues, several theaters.

       I posted a bunch of recs here a little while ago on a thread, and am happy to do so again!

26. free pants

    if you’re size 16 and in need of dress pants, I’m happy to send you several pairs with tags.

    post a burner.

    1. That is so kind! <3

    2. That would be incredible, please!

       plutus@opinionsbte.com

27. WWYD? I took up a local med spa’s offer for a free B12 shot. I mentioned to the nurse that I had a headache and she offered a $10 upgrade to add torodol (liquid pain reliever) to the injection. I was surprised by that and agreed. Then when I went to check out, I noticed a service menu that said the upcharge was $15 and that there was no torodol, just other vitamins. I wouldn’t have upgraded if I knew. I paid and left, but it’s been bugging me all weekend. I don’t think it was intentional but I do feel ripped off.

    1. I’d have asked in the moment. Days later I wouldn’t let $15 occupy my thoughts.

    2. So, so many red flags in this. Toradol is not indicated for a routine headache. Was it a nurse or a nurse practitioner that gave the injection? Only the NP has prescriptive authority (though inappropriate in this situation).

       1. Yeah, this is totally inappropriate.

       2. I’m not sure. She’s an injection nurse at a medspa, and I know they just hired her. I will definitely not be getting any other injections from her again. If it matters, it wasn’t a routine headache- I have regular migraines and had residual pain from a migraine earlier in the day. I have had toradol for that situation before and it was effective.

          1. Still highly inappropriate. A med spa is not the proper place for treatment of your migraine. Too many places will throw drugs at patients without a proper work up/indication. This is not a place I would feel comfortable using in the future.

    3. Curious: did it help?

       I might be calling them and asking what they really injected into me. I wouldn’t know whether the nurse or the service menu was mistaken.

28. Favorite beach towels? Just noticed that ours are getting ratty, and I’d like to keep an eye out for sales to pick up before our next trip.

    1. Ours are from Lands End and they’ve held up really well (I think this was their… fifth summer? and we use them regularly b/c we have a pool). I’ve heard good things about LL Bean, too.

       1. +1 – my LandsEnd ones have held up well for going on 5 summers now – wait for a sale, I got ours when they were 50% off. I have a bunch of Pottery Barn kids ones as well which are also holding up well so I’d imagine the adult ones are equally sturdy.

    2. I love Turkish towels since they don’t keep the sand.

29. Y’all, my four year old has been throwing tantrums. Big, toddler-style kicking and screaming tantrums. To be honest, he never really did this much when he was younger (unless I’ve completely blocked it out, which is possible.). We also have a 2 year old, so maybe it’s an experimental thing? It just seems like he’s too old to be doing this and I’m frustrated.

    1. This is completely normal. Sounds like he was unusually easy as a 2 and 3 year old. I’ve heard a lot of people say either age 3 or age 4 is horrible. For us it was age 3, and 4 was so much better, but I have friends who had the opposite experience.

    2. i think you meant to post on the mom’s board, so i’d suggest reposting there, but as a mom to two 4 year olds, i’ll tell you that the tantrums at 4 are worse for us than the ones at 2. I’ve done a lot of reading on this and from speaking to other moms, it seems like by age 4 our kids often look/act grown up, so we expect them to always behave that way, but really their brains are still under major development so it is totally normal for kids to still tantrum. If you haven’t already read, How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen and depending on what the tantrums are about, Siblings Without Rivalry, I’d highly recommend

    3. I thought I was posting this on the mom’s page, sorry! Will repost another day there.

    4. Mine did this briefly when her life was disrupted around that age. I told her that she was much too old to behave this way and instituted a fairly draconian system of consequences immediately. She tried a couple more times and then decided it was not worth it.

       The key (for us) was to remain completely calm (easier said that done I know), speak firmly but in a normal tone, outline the consequences and then follow through while completely refusing to engage emotionally. I picked mine up and carried her (kicking and screaming) to her room, put her on the floor, told her when she was ready to behave she could come out, closed the door and walked away. Once she stopped I told her that was completely unacceptable, that she was behaving badly and that I was not going to tolerate it. Then I picked her favorite toy and put it in time out for a day (to be earned back with good behavior) and told her that I would continue to take her things away until she showed she deserved to have them. (And I added in all the stuff you are supposed to say about how if something was bothering or upsetting her I would be happy to talk about it but I would not tolerate being screamed at; honestly I do not think any of that registered.)

       It passed pretty quickly. The thing about a 4 year old rather than a toddler is that they are capable of more self-control and they are doing it for the reaction rather than because they are actually overwhelmed. Refusing to react emotionally meant she was getting a punishment but no reward.

       Good luck! Consider it practice for having a teenager (although mine was actually a good teen as teens go).

       1. Saying a 4 year old is “much too old” to behave this way seems really dramatic. Kids develop on different timelines, and there are many 4 year olds who still really struggle with emotional regulation. Maybe you had one who matured fast and really was “choosing” to act out, but for many, if not most, kids that age it’s not a choice. Most child development experts believe that consequence/reward systems like the one you describe do more harm than good in the long run.

    5. Our son threw terrible temper tantrums at that age. We had unemployment, cancer, and moving in the family. Kids pick up stress. My mother told me to buckle down on a routine and it helped. No shopping or errand running in the evening. Just home from daycare, dinner, bath, playtime and bed. His room was the first to be set up and organized after the move. My husband would turn on the shower and go in with him (yes, clothed) and that helped calm him down. I couldn’t do that because he was too strong and I didn’t want either of us to get hurt. I would sit on the floor in stores and hold him tight while he kicked and screamed. But I will tell you this: it only lasted two years and he is a happy, healthy and nice 23 year old with a degree and a great girlfriend. He will grow out of it.

30. Question for those who spend $ on beauty-related stuff with a shared income. It could really be any expensive beauty maintenance: regular mani/pedis, regular hair coloring, botox, expensive skincare/makeup, etc. How did you get your partner to agree to this? Or rather, how much do you take their opinion into consideration at all? My husband is very against botox/filler/laser etc. He thinks it is a giant waste of money and that I don’t need it. At the end of the day, it is up to me, but he will be upset about it. I like to look good, and I like to spend money on my appearance; but every dollar spent on it is a waste of money to him.

    1. My husband never questions these expenditures. He believes that I should be able to have what is important to me. I don’t think I’m excessive with what I spend, but it’s not something he gives me a hard time about. Maybe you both need separate pots of money that you can each spend as you please?

    2. do you have budgets set aside for your own care? if not think about it.

       noting that women’s services cost more and are more frequent than men’s so allocate accordingly….

    3. To flip the question around, I wouldn’t be thrilled if my husband was spending thousands of dollars a year on that stuff, both because it’s not in our budget and I’m mildly against it. We definitely give each other the ultimate ability to decide on things like that for ourselves as long as it’s within our budget, but I probably wouldn’t have married someone who spent a lot of money on beauty maintenance. My husband now spends a lot less on his fancy tech toys than he used to as we’ve collectively decided that we care more about saving than about more extravagant spending on things we don’t really need.

       1. I should add, my point isn’t that my priorities should be your priorities, it’s that you have to come to a mutual decision on how you want to spend your money and then trust each other to make decisions. If he spends money on things that you think are frivolous, then it’s fair that you can also spend on things he thinks are frivolous. It’s a much harder issue if he wants to be more frugal in general.

          1. yes i am kind of in the same boat. i don’t think i would be with someone who valued spending so much $ on beauty stuff, bc i think it is kind of vain, but again what constitutes “so much” varies a lot from person to person and i am by no means “right” in thinking that way. obviously many many people really value spending money on that. My MIL for example spends thousands a year on that stuff, (but then complains that a wedding planner for my SIL’s wedding is too expensive), but I digress. To me and again this is just me, the botox/laser/fillers falls into a different category than mani/pedi, makeup, etc.

    4. I’ve honestly never discussed it with my husband. We spend what we want within reason and it’s been fine.

       1. This.

       2. +1

          And this is true even with divergent approaches. My husband cuts his own hair and favors the Target house brand combo shampoo and body wash. But he doesn’t so much as blink at my salon shampoo or the Hermes perfume sampler I ordered. The trick is that neither of us attaches a value judgment to the small purchases that brings the other person joy.

    5. We each have a set amount we can spend on a personal credit card each month on whatever we want, no questions asked, essentially our “fun” money. Over time, we’ve evolved what counts. Haircuts don’t count as fun money, because we can’t do that at home, but mani/pedis do since I can just paint my own nails and sometimes choose not to. Socks and basic clothing replacements don’t count, but fun clothes do. His work lunches count since he could pack one at home and chooses not to. Our weekly dinner dates don’t count, but nights out with friends do.

       Basically we expect my Chase statement and his MC statement to be less than say, $400 each month and less than $1000 at holiday time. (We both have birthdays around the end of the year, and buy for our own similar-sized families.) If we’re going to spend more than that, then we need to talk to each other first. If we are saving up for a mutual goal (like our hopeful down payment) then we reduce the amount of fun money evenly between the two of us or agree to go smaller at year end or whatever.

    6. I’d tell him that it’s easy for him to say you don’t need it when (presumably) you’ve been getting it regularly, so he doesn’t know what you look like without it. If he likes the way you look, he should support you doing what it takes to look that way. This would be like someone with a lean, fit partner objecting to an expensive gym membership – nothing in this world comes for free.

    7. That is kind of how I feel about my SO’s car expenses. I don’t have a drivers license, and bike or take public transport everywhere. He loves his big fancy car – which this year cost as much to maintain as a solid german family car from new, and has painfully low mileage.
       It makes him happy, we can afford it. He absolutely gets to do it without any complaint from my side.
       And trust me, I have a lot of environmental judgment that I could apply. I just.. don’t.

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