devorah, yeah you have a point. That is always a possibility, but that's why we also have the emergency fund- it's a road I hope we don't have to take. At present he's in a job he doesn't love, but it is relatively secure. At our current payoff rate it will be just a few more years with a mortgage and then he will be free to take chances with other jobs that may not be as secure. I should also mention that in addition to prepaying the mortgage, we are continuing to save for retirement as well as for short term goals (new appliances, unforseen repairs, etc.) When the house is paid off, it will mean a substancial chunk of expendable income coming our way each month- even taking into consideration taxes, insurance, and additional monies that will be earmarked for retirement accounts. The way we looked at it was to struggle very hard for a few short years, and have the stress of a house payment removed rather than having larger demands of both mortgage and retirement hanging over our heads for 30 years. I should probably also mention that we are beyond the point where we are able to deduct the interest- so no tax break for us there to offset the amount of interest needed to break even. I don't expect others to fully understand the method to our madness- there are so many more facets to it beyond just that. It's a personal decision based on current circumstances, hopefully the right one for us. Now that I think about it, I've never heard someone say they were sorry they paid their house off early... Sorry to get so wordy- I've been sitting on hold with an insurance company for 30 minutes....

Labmomma- Did I say anything about court? :-) Let me tell you the nutshell version of a story of how the dog whisper helped probably save our furry little behinds. I told this story on another forum and all the cesar-haters came out and told me how stupid i was so you're getting the short version. After watching the show, I decided I would make more of an effort to keep the dogs to my side instead of in front of me while on walks. I wouldn't say they had a pulling problem but the one would pee on everything in sight and the pup was starting to learn how that looked like fun so I felt like it was time to see if I can walk the dogs how cesar does on tv. And no I didn't contact a professional before using the technique like it says in the disclaimer! I thought I'd take a chance. Well after some time walks became a lot more enjoyable and didn't need someone to reinsert my arm into it's socket if a squirrel ran by and there's no more pee-mail. So there's something to be said for more structured walks and not letting the dogs go first. That's only half of it. Ok so we're on a sidewalk where some rednecks keep their pitbull looking dogs out in their yard and never walk them or probably do anything remotely responsible so the dogs had tunnneled under the fence. I didn't know this until a mean looking growling and barking dog ambushes us. My first instinct: soil trousers. My second instinct: must get out of here.* â note there is a "*" Normally these dogs of mine are very friendly, they think every person and dog is their friend and wants to give them cookies. They are personalities that people would kill for in a dog. The mean dog is circling us and I was trying to act like i didn't notice and wanted the boys to play along like we were all wearing iron clad armour. They stayed with the program, focusing on me and where we were going, not jerking me away to go mess with the mean dog. We managed to evade persuit, not getting bitten. I credit the dog whisper show for making me aware that perfecting the walk was possible and it paid off big. Now for that * I was talking about. On a recent episode Cesar talked about what do do in a situation where if you are face to face with a mad dog, you don't turn around and run away. He didn't give instructions on what to do, it was the post office seminar episode, but whatever we're still alive and the dogs did not engage thank god. He also says to be calm and assertive and not show fear. I would be very surprsied if I was not showing or smelling like fear but I'm sure I probably was pretty calm and assertive.

Hi, this is my first time posting, and if it is too long, I apologize. This is about our odyssey in creating our kitchen on very limited funds. We wanted top quality while having little extra cash to put away. We ended up purchasing one piece at a time, while looking at Craigslist/Boston Globe online/etc. I researched which were the high quality cabinet brands (here, thank you all!), and bought a set someone was removing. We found it online in the Boston Globe. Very high quality, lots of pullouts, and if you are at all creative, this can give you a good opportunity to think outside the box. Our Quakermaid cabinets have lots and lots of features (pull outs, 4 drawer stack, dividers, lazy susans, etc.), we made sure that the set we purchased had more than we could use of lots of different sizes, (which has been very helpful in fitting as well as in creating a recycle center elsewhere in our home.) We paid $2,500 for 19 of them, with extra fillers included. We have installed a plate rack, created a baking center (by cutting down a cabinet which had strange side cut outs - we leveled the top and have a lower surface to roll out dough,) and are creating a kick drawer under one of the cabinets, per instructions on Ikea Hacker. I check CraigsList every morning and evening for about 20 minutes. I was the second caller on some gorgeous Oceanside Glass Tile (Veil blend with white, iridescent white, iridescent clear and frosted tiles.) It was left over from a job, and the first person to see it didn't know what she was looking at due to the tile's clear tiles appearing brown on the backing paper) and I paid the outrageous price of $5 a square foot. I still cannot believe that. It was a good thing I checked that morning, as the seller said that he had many, many others call about the tile. Last Saturday I drove 3 hours to pick up just the sink I wanted. I paid $500 for a 60" long Kohler Pro TaskCenter (with cutting board, rack, strainer included - it acts as its own countertop, and has a built in stainless drainboard.) It retails for over $3000. It is about 2 years old, and stunning. It was advertised (I check multiple CraigsList locations) including the faucets, which I did not really want. I was planning on removing them. However, when I had a chance to really look at them back at our home, I fell in love with them. They are very high quality - Vinnata Faucet, matching Wellspring filtered water faucet, and matching soap pump, all in Vibrant Stainless. The faucet may not work well - I don't know. Based on what I was told, however, it works fine - they had bought and gutted the home, and were totally renovating. I at first thought that the styling was too traditional for our kitchen, but believe that the Vibrant Stainless finish will work well with our knobs/pulls and really pull things together. A new Vinnata in Vibrant Stainless costs more than I spent on it all. We ended up looking for this type of sink because we could not afford the soapstone we really, really wanted. We purchased butcherblock from Ikea - gorgeous and affordable. We finished the baking area with beeswax/mineral oil, and will be treating the counter on both sides of the sink. We may use the Ikea product, or wait for good weather and use Waterlox. We installed a stainless hood I found half off on ebay, which was through a local retailer, which saved on shipping. I purchased cabinet knobs a while ago when a local store was closing - I purchased a few more than I needed, just in case our plans changed a bit - we still saved quite a bit. We installed the cabinets ourselves. Two years ago our local big box store had an insane sale on overstocked appliances, and we picked up our Frigidaire Professional with Convection Range for $299 (true story) and our Maytag french door for the same. The unexpected sale ended in three hours, so we lucked out. While I keep checking Craigslist, the only things we anticipate paying full price for will be the flooring (we want Forbo Click Tiles) and the electric installation. I have tiled our entryway, and will practice before installing our glass tile backsplash, but feel confident that I will be able to master a good tile install. I did an estimate the other day, and believe that when all is said and done, we will have spent under $6,000 and our kitchen will have an added value of close to $50,000. Finding the time to work on it is challenging, but we continue to make progress. From dark, gloomy early 70's to light and bright modern, we can see it coming together. This type of doing the work only works if you don't move your main supply lines, are willing to spend the time moving around your floorplan (google sketchup is helpful, but I finally made a 3D scale plan to help me visualize the space). Lots of time, but believe it or not, my DH and I are closer because of working on this common goal together. I think having strangers traipsing through the house for months would be much more stressful. Doing it this way takes patience, luck, flexibility and knowing what you are willing to settle for. I will post photos when we are done, but just wanted to say you can pay for it in cash and have a kitchen that you are truly happy with.

I wouldn't call it cruel, Roarah, either. My 14 y/o ds manages just fine without a cell phone. He actually has one, just a regular phone for calls/texting, but he never uses it. It is always either uncharged, turned off, or forgotten when he leaves the house. He wants an iPhone, but at this point, he's not getting one for a variety of reasons. I have to say that when my kids were younger, I felt the same way as you. I was totally annoyed that the parents of my dd's friends were all giving them iPhones. I didn't necessarily have a beef with a regular phone b/c I could understand for logistical reasons why they might want to even if I didn't necessarily agree. I didn't give the full story here as to what ultimately led to our decision to give dd the iPhone, but the short story was that she was really struggling socially. You can do what you want obviously but I've had to eat crow several times with opinions I had when my kids were younger but have evolved as my kids have gotten older. As I said before, My dd is now a happy, well-adjusted, straight-A student, who is respectful, mature, well-mannered and basically I couldn't ask for a nicer kid. And knowing what I was like at her age and the relationship I had with my mom as a teen, I feel truly blessed. She contributes to her phone and seriously has no sense of entitlement. I can't say the same for several of my friends' kids the same age (this is part observation but mostly opinions my friends share with me). FWIW, the texting in the car that was going on back when dd was suffering? Not a common occurrence now, two years later. She and her friends have great conversations in the car when I'm driving them around...in fact, I learn quite a bit about them and what's going on in their lives. I cherish these times in the car...no disrespect and ill-mannered kids buried in their phones. Just last night while taking dd and her friend to the movies, we had a great conversation about their recent final exams, group projects and how to handle kids not pulling their weight, their quirky Latin teacher, etc.