Amen to that, Carol! I have had to live off of the government for short times in my life, but I've paid for others to do so when I was working, so I don't feel like I'm so bad. I HAD a retirement account, but then the stock market crashed, and then I got injured and had cancer and couldn't work for two years, so there that went. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but for people to feel superior because they have a 401(k) is just laughable. Look at all those people at Worldcom who thought they had it made. My sister worked for them. She is frugal to a fault, and she believed in them so much that she put most of her retirement savings into their stock. She lost it all, and it was a considerable amount. She's not stupid. She scrimped and saved for 30 years, and it was all gone, overnight. To give the impression that people who have savings accounts are somehow smarter than those who don't is snobbery, plain and simple. But that's o.k., because I truly believe that what you put out there comes back to you, and that if you have what the bible calls "ill gotten gains", which can just be money stashed away for your own benefit instead of giving to others who are in need, it will be taken away from you. You cannot hold on to ill gotten gains. Go read your Bible. My father once told me I would never have money, because I would give it all away. He was right. I'm sort of proud of that. Even in my current financial plight, I am thinking of going to help those who are worse off than I am, NOT about what the interest rate is on my IRA or 401(k). I'm telling you, it comes back on you 7 fold, so be careful! I've seen it time and time again. And BTW, my isp is only 5.50 a month!

Hi guys! No, I didn't finally jump over the ledge :) I just took a small hiatus. I boarded "charliedawg" in a kennel, packed the suitcases, got the family in the car and got the heck out of here. WHEW! If I ever build a house again (which I highly doubt I will) I will definitely put mental health vacation $$$$ in my budget. LOL Tragusa, I'm not glad that you had all of the problems but I'm glad to know that it worked out for you so I know it will all be ok fo me too. GC will be back tomorrow. She has ALWAYS made things perfect so I'm not sure why I doubted it now. I think I just felt out of control because she is gone. I'm not the type that needs to be in control of such a big project, I guess ya'll figured that out by now.

oh oh oh....sounds a lot like my posts of 2012 doesn't it! I can't believe my system is 2 years old. The choices can make your head spin. I had a similar dilemma with my hwh. I eventually chose tankless and since we have a portable generator I don't worry about the power issues (which you will also have with a power vent). Have to say I LOVE the tankless. Sometimes we just seem to need a lot of hot water, with 4 adults in the house. I have a soaker tub that I love and when it's cold it is delightful to fill it and not worry about who might come home and complain I used all the hot water. I think they ripped me about $4k for that puppy. Perhaps you can sway them into a tankless for the price they quoted you. It is the slow season. I used a company starting with an H,here in south jersey, and I got them to drop about $1500 from the price they had quoted in June by waiting until this time of year. The other company would not budge. My oop was $2k, plus the 0% financed amount. I found the 0% to be very attractive as well so as not to spend cash that could be invested. I sometimes wish I'd gotten the next level up in my furnace, to variable speed from multi speed, because I had humidity issues the first summer. I think that was solved by choosing the correct speed setting as this year has been perfect and my heating has been fine as well, I did get 2-stage heat and ac. I just came up against my price limit and decided the luxury of the tankless was how I wanted to go (rather than up the heater another level) The guys here got VERY tired of me (sometimes rightly so!) Perhaps you can find the old threads (novels almost!) that I posted here about the NJ CLEAN ENERGY program. By the way, I did do some reading online and it can be true that if your house is well sealed that a conventional heater may not draft properly causing a risk of carbon monoxide buildup, which is why they talk you into a power vent or tankless. Good luck. Try not to overthink or get too wrapped up in it. Accept that you will save SOME $, but the contractor will get at least half your rebate $ in mark ups. Are you getting insulation added? I think that was a good thing that I wouldn't have done otherwise.

fyi? think Martha stewart mentioned ivory soap bars to help keep them from your best plants...I fear the ones around here will try and cross our street...and yes we had snow again this evening but so far it's melted on the back deck...we had to take dgd to soccer practice..(it was indoors) ad got covered coming home...