Now that more of my friends have kids, it's interesting to see how couples choose to divide up paid employment vs childcare. My favorite so far is the Bensons, who each work at paid employment a few days of the week, so they take turns with childcare. It looks like the Kullas do something similar. This is less practical when your baby is ( Read more... )

I was really close to starting a blog about simple living, frugality, and other money/lifestyle topics, with a nerdy and lighthearted take (e.g. my post about energy consumption), but I figured it's all been written already. Instead, I pledged to write more here. We'll see how that goes.

0. I had a fun birthday that included some kickball and ( Read more... )

When I got our first power bill for the new house, I had what one would consider a sticker shock. The bill was almost an order of magnitude larger than our old bill! How could this happen to Northwest Profile #12, the 60F thermostat guy? This triggered a fact-finding nerdgasm freakout where I learned some interesting stuff (one should always ( Read more... )

I have a love/hate relationship with the Puyallup Fair. I love the family tradition of taking the boys every year, but I hate the constant bombardment of crap to buy (like I'm really going to impulse buy a hot tub or tractor?). This year, I decided to take note of all the stuff we did that didn't cost a penny (other than the price of admission ( Read more... )