We've been over $3 in Illinois, around here anyway, for a while now.

Yeah, I paid $2.90 in Arlington Heights this weekend, and that was the cheapest I could find. Thank gods I only used up a quarter tank driving people around!

Coming home from work today I saw the following regular unleaded gas prices on one stretch of road (about 2 miles long): $2.75, $2.59 (this is the lowest I've seen in weeks), $2.66, $2..63, $2.61 (those three are all on the same corner).

I have no idea what it will be tomorrow.

I just didn't copy it all, Sparky. Generic travel is definitely on the list. I'm hoping to come to the Bay Area this fall, although it looks like it will have to be after September (no Bay Area Serenity opening for me) because of jury duty for the whole month. I'll have to come soon, though, as it looks like my dad is probably selling his house and moving to Morro Bay. They found health insurance there for my uncle and Kaiser was all that was keeping them North. Good news for them, but I am more than a bit bummed that this is happening now. Years they lived there, and I hardly knew anyone in the area and we usually headed straight for Morro Bay anyway. Now, I meet buffistas and reconnect with some old friends, and he moves. Hmmpf.

Anyway, it sounds like you're doing well without the carrot, which is all for the good.

Not going broker is a shockingly large carrot.

Oooh! I went to high school in Morro Bay! Lots of tourists and fog and a Big Ass Rock.

Not going broker is a shockingly large carrot.

See, I would've said it was a big ol' stick. But I guess I'm a glass-half-empty type.

Stephanie, you go! That's wonderful news, and not a bit surprising!

Fay, so happy you'll have a teaching job, and I hope the school treats you extra well. I was a full-time sub at the International School in KL, and it was a great experience (although I often wished I had my own classroom/office), in part because I got to teach without having to police the lunchroom.

Mal is already taller than the side of the Pack-n-Play when he stands up. Which also means he touches both sides of the crib when he lays laterally. Which means he can engage in his new favorite pasttime of kicking the rattly crib side over and over. At 3:00 am.

See, I would've said it was a big ol' stick. But I guess I'm a glass-half-empty type.

It's big enough to do double duty.

You know, growing up, we were pretty broke. My parents could tell you to the penny how much they had, and would spend hours each month carefully resolving the checkbook. They managed, though it was always tight and the 70s saw my father RIFed on a regular basis. Somehow, I failed to inherit their financial sense (they are very good with money, no doubt from having to stretch it for so long). I'm like one of those kids who can't have sugar at home, and thus binges when at friends' parties.

I love pretty things, things that taste good, things that feel good against my skin. I don't know if it's a reaction to the years I went wearing decade-old hand-me-downs and eating cheap, lentil based meals or if luxury items really are that nice, but I love them. It pains me to give them up, because they felt like evidence of an escape from my years as a have-not.

When we were DINK, each working full time and me with a nasty commute, we fell out of the habit of even pretending to be thrifty. Cooking, when you're not even getting home until 8pm, and know damn well you'll be asleep before you can do the dishes, is unpleasant. We ate out a lot--when we were still tracking in quicken, it was our largest expense outside of housing and utilities.

The reality of my life now is occasionally frustrating, and as much as I love my child, depressing. I can't justify the gas to leave the house (there's no where to go within walking distance), so I'm home all day, trying my best to be frugal, which appears to mean washing a lot of diapers and cooking the best meals that I can with what I have on hand.

I also feel guilty, because I haven't managed to find a stable "real" job since the tech crash and layoffs. Lots of contracting, nothing on which we can count. So, as a partner, I'm not pulling my financial weight.

If it wasn't for the internets, I'd be a complete basket case by now.

t sits next to Plei on the money stress bench

Plei, your story is exactly mine, and the DH's family was even worse off. He's the first one in his family ever to go to college, and paid for it all himself. (I got $1000 from my family for school). So I totally get what you are saying.

Our financial situation is a lot worse now than it was last year, with me not working, but it's not bad. I suck with money management, but the DH is obsessive about it, so we are doing OK. The fact that I'm not working means we don't have to find and pay for daycare, or eat out, and while we can't afford retail therapy or travel, I've afforded some little luxuries, like having a housekeeper come in a couple times to help me.

So I will send you and Susan and others what need it the financial-ma.

On the way into work, gas was $2.79 in the U District. On the way home, it was $2.95.

By the house, though, it was still $2.79.

I figure we'll see $3.50 up here by the middle of September. Then, I will finally stop with the getting up late and driving in and start riding the bus every day.