Hiya! Been so busy haven't had time to check this thread. Didn't get to arrange any trades with anyone. Hope I can bring stuff that people would want. I have stuff like: lavender mums, white bleeding heart, sundrops, variegated artemesia, geranium of unknown name, purple flowered lamium, some 2nd year echinacea seedlings and some seedlings I've grown this year. Well, if all goes okay and I have time after my daughter's b-day party will pot some things up, and come along tomorrow. Ciao for now, Trish

I'm a teacher too, and I can give you some advice on some of these topics. I am 100% sure we're not in the same state because you make more money than I do (though I have 24 years experience). - First, you sound like you're doing very well for your age. You should pat yourself on the back for realizing the importance of saving and thinking about retirement well before most people your age. - I'll second the point about talking to your potential fiancée about finances ahead of time. Do not just assume it'll all work out. - Buying a house is a sound investment. I assume you'll sell your current paid-for house, so you'll have about 120K to put down on a new one -- excellent. Even if she brings little to the table for this project, the two of you should be able to knock out the borrowed 100K within five years (even if you have a baby soon). With no mortgage, you'll be amazed at how much easier it is to live comfortably and still save! - Do you have a savings account for a new car? Since yours is paid for, I suggest you begin paying a car payment into a savings account. Once you get yourself "a car ahead" (meaning that you're ready to buy a new car when you need it, so that you're not wasting money on interest), it's easy to STAY "a car ahead". - I have the impression she's a teacher too? If the two of you work at the same school, consider becoming a one-car family. We did it for several years (until I started teaching, and our schedules were completely incompatible), and it was a MONUMENTAL money saver for us. It was the single biggest thing that allowed us to get off to a good financial start in our 20s. - If you hate your job (I do at times, really, I do) but want to stay in the pension system, could you do something else within the school system? Could you be the tech guy? the athletic director? could you do something different as a state employee -- a possibility, if your pension systems are linked? - I don't think you need to think about life insurance at this moment. Not to be crass, but if you died today, would anyone be worse off financially? With no wife or children, probably not. Once you're married, you probably won't need it yet. If you were to die, your wife could use your pension pay-out and your other investments to pay off the modest house payment you anticipate taking out, and she'd still have her job to sustain her. You WILL need life insurance once you have a child. If you were to die and leave your wife with a toddler, she'd have years ahead of her in which she'd be a single parent, and although her salary would be enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs, your life insurance would be there to educate the child in the future. The life insurance would also assure you that your wife would be able to take some time off work, and that she'd be able to put aside a good chunk for retirement. Remember, she too will need life insurance. If she left you with the toddler, you'd need the same help. - The two of you probably need disability insurance more than you need life insurance. Statistically, you are more likely to be disabled than to die young. And becoming disabled is the real nightmare scenario (from a financial standpoint). Consider: You're in an accident or you become sick. You cannot work, so your household income's slashed in half. Yet your medical bills are sky-high. Your wife is still working, but she's also doing ALL the housework and ALL the childcare AND is trying to help you with your physical therapy. She's burning through her sick days taking you to the doctor. THIS is the nightmare scenario: She's overworked, AND she can't take advantage of your life insurance. Avoid it by signing on for disability insurance. - Another thing you should do after you marry is to write wills. As a teacher, you probably have access to your an employee's credit union? They probably offer such services for a low price. - About your pension: Do you know the details for the pension in your state? In my state you're fully vested at 10 years (so, yeah, you'd be a fool to leave at 9.5 years), and you can collect a full pension at any age once you've put in 30 years. You can collect a reduced pension at 20 or 25 years, though the dollar amount is reduced, and you can't begin collecting until 65 (65?) if you don't put in the full 30 years. Once you find out the details for your own state, you can "run the numbers" and see when it makes sense for you to leave teaching. It might be sensible for you to aim for 20 years, then do something else -- but you have to get the facts, then do your homework. - How secure is your state's pension? This is public knowledge, so look into it. You do not want to put all your eggs into the "staying in teaching" basket, if your state's weak in the pension department. As the people in Detroit! - In my state the pension program (defined benefit program) is being exchanged for a defined contribution program. This has its pros and cons, but overall it means that the new, younger teachers aren't going to get a pension. Why does this matter to you? Because if you ever leave, then return to teaching, you'll come in under those new rules! - An above poster mentioned Social Security. In my state, teachers DO pay into SS, so I will collect an SS check one day. You seem rather financially savvy, so I assume you know whether you've been paying into this or not. - I disagree with the above poster who says you're essentially screwed if you choose to have children AND want to retire at a reasonable age. The key is that you have to choose to live FRUGALLY. My husband and I are 48 and 51, and we have two college students. When we married, we had between us $200, college degrees and jobs, one car, and a brand-new mortgage. We chose to be frugal from the very beginning: We maxed out our 401Ks, even though it meant we couldn't afford vacations. We built an emergency fund, then started a savings account, putting away 1/4 of our after-taxes paychecks, even thought it meant we rarely ate out or bought new clothes. When our savings account grew, we started investing, even though it meant we had to remain a one-car family. Today we live in a house that's paid for, have significant investments, and are easily able to pay for our two college students' expenses -- they will graduate debt-free. My same-aged friends who wail that they can't afford their kids' college tuition don't like to hear that we buy used clothing, drive an 8-year old car, etc. The key is knowing the difference between needs and wants -- and being self-disciplined enough to stick to a budget. - Finally, I think you're off to a good start. If you and your wife are both about 10 years into teaching, then 20 years from now the two of you can expect the following: 1. You'll be about 55 years old, and as a person who can "see 55 from where she's standing", it's not "old" -- at 48, my knees hurt sometimes, but I can still hike all day and can pretty much still do whatever I want. 2. You'll live in a house that's paid for. 3. You'll have two teacher pensions. 4. You'll have teacher health insurance in retirement. 5. You'll have two Social Security checks. 6. You'll have the investments you've already begun. 7. If you have a child soon after your marriage, that child will be finishing college (and beginning to support himself) about the time you retire. You'll be able to have all these benefits AND you can work part-time (or seasonally) so you can avoid dipping into your investments too early. Though you're not earning big bucks now (or ever), you'll be well prepared for retirement. If the two of you put in a total of 60 years of teaching to earn these benefits, you'll have WORKED for every penny, but you'll have a comfortable retirement.

So, in these pictures I'm seeing three possible paths to KTWLS. First, kitchens that are explicitly and authentically ''period''. In 2010 and 2030 alike, a vintage 1920's period kitchen will look like a vintage 1920's period kitchen. It hasn't been ''in style'' for 90 years, it isn't pretending to be in style, and it can no more go out of style than the historical waxwork dioramas in the Museum of Natural History. Second, kitchens that are well-executed eclecticism. It isn't of a specific era, doesn't have a specific look, is a collection of disparate elements which are each appealing and go together harmoniously. Even as one of those elements becomes over-exposed and then shades into silly, it's just one risible piece in a still-graceful whole. Third, and I suspect this will be controversial, kitchens that are very, very avant-garde. Tastes change slowly. Furniture of the ''Le Courbusier'', Mies Van De Rohr, Marcel Breuer sort - ''modernist'' if you will - that was so stylish in the 1950s and 1960s, was actually created in the 1920s and 1930s. It took decades for the Wassily chair to go from ultra-modern to mainstream. A very perceptive student of cutting-edge modern design might be able to shoot ahead of the bird, as they say, and build a kitchen that might actually look less silly in 20 years than it does today. Maybe. I wouldn't be able to do it. Well, I can see a final approach, which I think would work in theory for a very few people. Simply transplant a commercial kitchen, or as close as you can, into the house. I think a restaurant kitchen in 2030 will look much like a restaurant kitchen today, save perhaps for more induction, because they are designed for function, not fashion. You'll have a kitchen that is equally institutional and graceless in 20 years as today. I really like seeing the pictures. I hope they keep coming. I'm getting some ideas.

Good for you, SueB20, you are a smart mom. We found with one of our kids the mere chance we might do spot checks was a deterrent. The others weren't always so smart. And it pays to know the parents of your kids' friends. One spring break one of ours went with a group of friends chaperoned by a mom I THOUGHT I knew pretty well. Turns out she and her husband stayed at a different hotel from the 16 year olds--- about a quarter mile away! Of course I found this out after the trip---it did not even occur to me to ask if the parents taking the kids to the beach were staying in the same hotel. I was so angry with those parents I didn't even know what to do. That was the end of our kids going on trips with their friends. I felt there was no way I could come up with enough questions to cover every possible weird idea or belief the parents might hold unbeknownst to me. The book How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk by Faber and Mazlish was my child rearing bible for about ten years. I can't recommend it enough.