Filed under: Uncategorized
Lasse got another translating job and though he’s still in the finishing stages of getting hired (they’re checking references, etc.), we’re both rather amazed at how this situation has developed. Out of one random translating job he got back in May, it’s spawned a career, more or less. Now if only translating work had occured to us way back in January when he was looking for work…Ah well. Who would have thought Finnish and Swedish translators would be in such high demand? The sad thing is that the engineering company he’s translating for is having issues getting the drawings ready and to him to translate, so he spends a lot of his time bored. Then the boredom progresses to worry, then sadness and general malaise. Fortunately, he got this other job right around the same time or else I might have had to get him on some anti-depressants. The good thing is that the engineering company wrote him a kick-ass reference, though they put down ‘Romanian’ when asked what language he translated for them. I guess we just shrug and say, “that’s why they’re engineers and not linguists.” The project leader also got into a minor panic: “You’re not quitting this project, are you? PLEASE don’t quit this project!” and Lasse had to reassure him that no, he wouldn’t be quitting the project, don’t worry, this is just something else to do. I’m beginning to wonder if maybe Lasse could negotiate a higher wager rate as he seems to have a lot of leverage here…
We’re also reaching that stage of the pregnancy where we spend a lot of time staring at each other and saying, “We’re going to have a kid soon.” It’s really intimidating once you have the crib assembled, the carseat ready to install, the diapers well on their way to being made, and you can feel a small round probe moving all around your belly…okay, so the probe is probably a foot, but I’m not discounting anything. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could feel ready for this sort of thing, ever. Amidst it all, I’ve started to feel way to young to be doing this. The sad thing is that I’m 24 and when I consider my mother (married at 18, pregnant immediately, gave birth damn near 9 months to the day after getting married) or my sister (pregnant at 18, gave birth at 19), I’m quite old and settled down. But I don’t feel that way at all. Sure, I’ve had experience with babies before, but the last time I spent any significant amount of time with a newborn was 6 years ago, when my youngest nephew was born. It also matters that I wasn’t the one who was post-partum or breastfeeding him. I pretty much got to just enjoy the cute floppy newborn and maybe change a few diapers here and there. This is going to be completely different. For his part, Lasse enjoys talking to the belly as loud as he can (so that the baby can hear, you know…) and all of the random kicks. He’s also fairly worried about this whole fatherhood thing, but really: he has about as much experience with kids as most guys do when they become dads (none). He’ll learn, though, and hopefully not rely on me too much to be the expert! It’s been a while.
The light in our kitchen is a constant source of frustration. When we moved in, I replaced all the light bulbs with CFLs (bought on sale at work) to save money and energy, except for the kitchen because that light fixture is completely impossible to take down. We can’t figure it out! We’ve turned it every which way, pulled on it, and basically done everything except swing from it and it won’t come down. One of the light bulbs in there is burnt out, which was annoying, but this morning I went to turn it on and the other one burnt out as well. So, I ended up having to call maintenance up and put in a work order to get this light bulb changed. How stupid does that sound? Seriously. The sad thing is that they didn’t come today and I want to make sure we’re here when they come so that we can learn how to replace this stupid thing, so I’m debating whether or not we can leave the apartment at all tomorrow…this will be resolved!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Just found this this morning–a diaper giveaway of 12 Bum Genius 3.0 diapers (and found it via Frugal Babe, one again). So, I figured what the heck, might as well enter. Technically if my sewing goes according to plan, I won’t need these diapers, but it’s a contest, dammit, and if I win, I’ll be a winner! And according to Xenophobe’s Guide to the Americans, Americans like to win because it makes Americans feel good, and good is the American way to feel. So, in the interest of patriotism, I’m posting a link here because you get an extra entry if you link to the post somewhere. Sorry, guys. But who knows, you might actually find yourself interested in it, too!
In a nod to the recent fad, I’ve decided to use cloth diapers on our baby when he’s born. I say “I” mainly because Lasse didn’t really have much input in it at all–if it were up to him, he wouldn’t be changing diapers at all. His main concern when I brought it up was that it would involve playing with poop a lot more. Unfortunately, from what I remember of my nephew’s diaper days, any kind of diaper involves playing with poop. Sometimes enough poop to where the kid needs a bath afterwards, as do the sheets and you. As far as I’m concerned, cloth would have to be really bad in order of it to be worse than disposibles.
Besides, it has a lot of other stuff going for it. I’m mainly thinking about how cheap it is compared to disposibles.According to the babycenter baby cost calculator, Disposibles cost $72 a month, making one year of disposibles $864. Cloth diapers, on the otherhand, are estimated to cost $19 a month, for a total of $228.
In addition to that, you don’t have to worry about running out of diapers at a very inconvenient time and having to run down to the store to buy more. As long as you keep up on the laundry, you shouldn’t run out (unless your kid comes down with horrible, no good, very bad diarrhea. In that case, I would screw the diapers and just put the kid in the bathtub. Right?)
They also look cuter. I got a free disposible diaper from huggies in the mail the other day and despite their attempts at making it look cute on the outside, I’m almost astounded at how ugly it is. On the other hand, it’s just going to be peed/pooped in and thrown away. Beauty is irrelevent.
I suppose I should mention that it’s better for the environment. Sigh. This is the reason a lot of people use cloth diapers, such as my sister’s friend, who gave me a lot of good information on cloth diapering to help me decide whether or not I wanted to do it. She’s so green, she should be running as the Green Party presidential candidate, not Cynnthia McKinney. However, it’s not really my big motivating factor. I’m mainly concentrating on the cheap aspect of it all.
Another benefit is that babies will feel the wetness in cloth diapers (as will you!)–something they miss out on with disposibles, making disposibles a very cool place for them to hang out until they’re 3…4…and sometimes 5 years old. Sorry, I’m not going to deal with a kid in diapers for the next 5 years of my life. Not happening. No friggin’ way.
So, cloth it is. My first forays into cloth diapering were extremely confusing, mainly because of the terminology and diapering “technology” that exists today. Found on the lowest level of cloth diapering are flats, which are large flat pieces of cloth you have to fold to make absorbant and then pin (or snappi, the technologically advanced version of pins) onto your baby. If you don’t want them to leak, you need a waterproof diaper cover or wool soaker for them to wear. Slightly more complicated than that are the prefolds. They’re like flats in that you have to pin (or snappi) them, but actually have a section of absorbant think material in the middle, which cuts down on the folding trimendously. These are the two “cheap” cloth diapering methods out there.
Next up are fitteds. Fitteds are like disposible diapers in that they already look like a diaper, don’t need to be folded, and close with velcro or snaps. However, they are not waterproof and still require a cover of somesort to hold in the wetness. At the top of the scale come All-in-Ones, which are fitted cloth diapers with a waterproof outer lining. You put the diaper on and forget about it until the baby pees or poops in it, at which point you change them, exactly as you would a disposible, only you put it in the wash instead of the trash.
Easy enough, right? I guess, unless you’re trying to decide what you should get. For diapering on a budget, prefolds are touted as the best. They’re about $1.25 each for high quality ones, but you also need covers to go with them. All-in-Ones are the most expensive, but most convenient. BumGenius offers them at $17.95 each, but you can get ones that are one size and “grow” with your baby. If you can get buy with just those, you can probably cloth diaper for $550 for the whole time you spend diapering (that’s for 30 diapers). Impressive, unless you account for the fact that the one-sized ones don’t always fit newborns well and may not fit 2 year olds too well, either.
It’s around this point that I should mention a lot of cloth diapering women lose track fo the fact that cloth diapering is supposed to be cheaper and go a bit crazy in their desire to build up the “perfect stash” of cloth diapers. One brand, in particular, suffers from this: goodmamas. These diapers are never in stock, but are apparently so gosh darn pretty and perfect that they sell for $35 each on the website, but have been known to be auctioned off for over $100 on other sites. And they have no waterproof outer layer, so you still need a cover.
As for me, I’ve been led astray by various finance blogs (Frugal Babe started it) and decided to make my own damn diapers. It’s touted as easy and a good way for you to learn how to sew. I’ve never sewn in my life, so I figured, hey, why not? I ordered a two patterns from Very Baby ($10.95 each), enlisted the help of expert seamstress Porcupine Kate (I mentioned it to her, and she immediately offered to help–a blessing since my first trip to the fabric store revealed how clueless I was), bought fabric ($26 at one store for a ton of fabric, $82 at another for a ton of diaper cotton, $100 for PUL–the waterproof outer lining), bought velcro to close the diapers with ($25), and off I went!
So far, I’ve cut out 20 newborn diapers: 10 regular cloth diapers, and 10 all-in-ones. I’ll probably make 18 small sized diapers (9 regular, 9 all-in-ones) and then 18 medium sized. I’m going to lay off the large diapers for now, unless I have a lot of extra time because they’re not a huge priority. I’ll show some pictures once we’ve started sewing some.
In addition to these diapers, I also have 3 BumGenius diapers ($35. Two I bought to serve as examples so we know what the final product should look like, one my host family gave me), 2 covers, 1 wool soaker, 6 newborn sized prefolds, 6 infant sized prefolds, and 3 snappis (bought from Green Mountain Diapers for $110). So, so far, cloth diapering has cost me $400. Not quite the savings Babycenter’s calculator was predicting, but I’m pretty sure I bought WAY too much fabric, especially the PUL. Maybe I’ll be able to sell off the rest of it once I’m done making the diapers I need, we’ll see.
My savings will also decrease due to the fact that I’m going to be using coin operated washers. Laundry here costs $1.75 a load, $1.50 to dry. We don’t bother with the dryers–we bought an IKEA drying rack instead. So assuming 2-3 loads of diapers a week, that’s maximum $5.25 a week I’ll be spending on cloth diapers. Maybe Babycenter didn’t count the start up costs of buying cloth diapers in their calculator and only included the washing costs, because it’s not looking that much cheaper at all now!
Perhaps I should become a rabid environmentalist. Then at least if the cost savings don’t add up, I’ll have another feather in my cap for saving Mother Earth, or something like that.
On the plus side, if these diapers hold up well, I can store them and use them on the next kid, which would increase the savings. And, if I decide that 20 newborn sized diapers isn’t enough (and the six additional prefolds aren’t, either), I can always sew more with the excess fabric.
So far, reactions to this have ranged from excited (green libertarian leaning girl at work) all the way down to my dad’s “Good luck.” My sister’s friend is pleased that I’m going ahead with it, but thinks I’m insane for sewing them myself. So does my sister. Hell, so do I. But here we are. Wish me luck, eh?
Filed under: liberty
My husband and I went to see The Dark Knight this weekend and Gotham’s D.A. decided to restore everyone’s faith in government by spouting this gem of a quote: “Vigilence is the price of safety.”
No, dumbass. You got it wrong. Vigilence is the price of liberty, and that’s paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson. The sad thing is that the movie’s take on it is probably a more accurate depiction of how most Americans feel today.
After reading this article in today’s Union Leader, I’m extremely glad we rented the apartment we did. Not only is heat included in the rent, but the building is fairly new and feels well insulated (despite the fact we live on the third floor, we’ve only had to use the air conditioning 7 days this summer). Heating costs up here in New England are ridiculously high, especially when you combine the long cold winters with your heating options: electricity (yikes!), oil (yikes!), or natural gas (rare).
Electricity is by far the most expensive way to heat anything and when you consider the fact that our very first electricity bill turned out to be $80, I can understand why. We hardly had the A/C on at all! But most of our bill was not for actual electricity usage: $14 was a one time fee (boo!), $28 for “delivery charges” (wtf?), $0.22 was energy consumption tax, and the rest was our usage. Heating in the winter with electricity would suck.
Oil isn’t much better anymore, now that it’s running at around $4.00 a gallon. Apparently 2,000 is a good estimate for how much a typical consumer will use in one winter. That’s $8,000 for one winter. I don’t know about you, but I can see how that would be hard for some families to fit into their budget. I suppose if you can put enough money away in the off season, you can make it work out. But even spread across a whole year, that’s $666 a month you’d have to stash away.
And so, in order to escape spending $8,000 to heat their homes this winter, Granite Staters are insulating their homes, fixing up (or buying) wood and pellet stoves and looking into geothermal heat.
Lasse and I have discussed installing geothermal heat when we buy/build a house and now that I know there’s a company in Nashua that installs it, it looks like we’ll definitely be doing it. Start up costs are a bit much: $12,000 to $30,000 depending on how big the house is, what kind of system, etc. However, if you factor in normal heating costs and let’s say you get a mid-range system that costs $20,000, that system would pay for itself in 4 years. That’s also not including the tax credits and utility credits you get.
I suppose I should also mention how environmentally friendly it is, but like most “green” technologies, that’s not our main motivation in using it. It’s the cheap factor, folks. We find that far more motivating. I’m sure there are also ways to finance such a purchase–hell, if you can finance a $20,000 car, surely you can get something for a heating system, right?
Should all else fail, the Union Leader also mentions that sweaters and wool socks keep you warm, too. I guess I should learn to knit as a fail-safe measure.
One of the pharmacy techs at work came up to me the other day to let me know that there was no more toilet paper in the women’s bathroom.
I told her that she should probably go get some old ads or some leaves or something else to use then and she just stared at me until she realized I was joking.
It did get me thinking, however. What with all the bad news we’re getting about the economy pretty much every day (Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are going to go under, bank runs, etc.) and all the news articles about people cutting back, I started to wonder how poor I would have to get before I would stop using toilet paper and start using old newspaper as they did in the Good Ol’ Days.
Some people have already gone this far and use “family cloth,” which is a pseudonym for “cloth squares we cut up, wipe our nether-regions with, wash, and reuse.” They do it to save the environment, to save money, and because cloth is oh so cushiony. I wonder whether or not it really is cheaper: toilet paper itself is so extraordinarily inexpensive (especially if you buy it on sale) that it would take years for cost of the amount of cloth wipes you would have to buy to equal the cost of the amount of toilet paper. If you compare the cost of the ads you get in the mail ($0.00), it should be clear which way they should go if they really want to save money and the environment (it’s reusing, dammit).
Of course, it didn’t take long for me to hop from wondering when I would stop using toilet paper out of economic necessity to wondering if toilet paper would be deadlast on the list of things I would give up to save money. Which would go first, internet…or toilet paper?
Not to brag or anything, but while reading the personal finance blogs at the beginning of this month, I noticed a lot of them had very extreme dips in their net worth thanks to June being the worst month in stock market history since 1929 (or was it 1934? Eh, whatever), I couldn’t help but think our June was a great month for our net worth. Even though my retirement fund lost quite a bit of value, we more than made up for it in how much value gold gained. I suppose that’s the problem with most personal finance bloggers: they’re too mainstreamed into the idea that all you have to do to retire well is buy index funds and sit on them. Commodities help, too, guys. Besides, I like to think of the small amount of gold and silver we keep on hand as our emergency emergency fund–in the sense of “all of society and government is breaking down, anarchy is ruling the day (not a bad thing if you ask most the people I know) and the dollar is a nice, inexpensive alternative to Charmin.
Filed under: Uncategorized
First we had the spinach salamonella scare and for a few weeks I was completely incapable of finding spinach. Then we had the tomato salamonella scare and for a few days, I was completely incapale of finding tomatoes. Then there are other things that the FDA put warnings and recalls on, such as baby Tylenol, baby Motrin, and all Robitussin. At work, we had to pull all these items off the shelf and were forbidden to sell any of them until the FDA came out and said that people wanting to use baby Tylenol or Motrin should consult their doctors. The Robitussin was banned until the company came out with new dosage cups.
Everytime this sort of thing happens, the cynic in me can’t help but wonder which CEO of these companies pissed off someone in the FDA. It seems so senseless and random–all it does is cause the companies involved to lose a ton of sales for a period of time until the government makes gives the go ahead and allows stores to sell it again. What triggers that go ahead, I wonder?
