I got myself two scoops of caramel ice cream with toffee on the way home and just sent a snarky e-mail to the nurse practitioner. (It was actually, "salted" caramel ice cream. When will this salted craze go away? In something like this, it just means too much salt.)

I've been there, msbelle. I suspect many of us have. I think that depriving yourself of everything is more likely to lead to falling off the wagon.

Birds! Oh, no. They're lovely outside, but a pain in the house.

I love salted caramel ice cream when it is done right, so I'm hoping the trend never goes away.

Yay for Tim heading home.

and I think a better plan than no nothing is no more thna x amount spent on non-needed item.

Zen, I am going to be working on an eat my way through my pantry adventure this summer. Goal, spend less on food, clear out stuff in pantry, cook more.

Also also, stopping with dying hair and spacing out the manicures more.

Oh, I forgot to say: YAY TIM going home from hospital! Stay inflated, lung of Tim!

I feel you, msbelle. I'm pretending that if I don't actually look at my financial situation it is okay by default but I know deep down that it is not.

I do not know how to psych myself into thinking about this damn presentation. It's not an intrinsically interesting topic and I'm not sure who the audience is supposed to be and I would so much rather take a nap.

Add me to the salted carmel lovers.

Ginger - snark away. This is crazycakes.

Izzard was born in what is now Yemen, so no US citizenship at birth for him.

I have no real useful budget advice (Suze Orman? Dave Ramsey?), but I agree that you probably should allow yourself a small fun budget so you can go to the movies or get BK once in a while. And if you declutter and make a few bucks while getting something out of the house, that could go into your fun budget.

I have been thinking about eating my way through my pantry in case I need to move. We could have pantry parties in Natter.

I'd love to stop dying my hair, but I'm not quite ready to go gray again. I quit getting manis and pedis last year. Food, ugh. I'd probably spend less if I just ate at the diner every meal than all the money I spend on food that gets wasted because I don't cook it. Or junk food and frozen meals because they're easy. Eating everything in the kitchen before I buy more, though, that's definitely a good idea. Mainly, though, I need to stop impulse buying stuff I don't need off Amazon. And also finally sell the big pile of stuff I've been meaning to sell for years now.

Where is this guy? How long can it take to put duct tape over a vent? Did he fall down the hill and die? Doesn't he want to get paid?