Financial Planning- AKA Self Imposed Torture or How Not To End Up Poor When You're Old

So a few month ago my husband and I had a pretty serious conversation about how we needed to start putting money to the side for the children's college funds. In the States of course, education costs some big bucks once you go to university, so having a leg up on the financial side of things is always a good idea. Of course, it also helps if you have a good grasp of your finances. I will be the first to admit, we are pretty willy nilly with our money. So, we decided to call in a professional to help us with our financial goals, including starting to save for the children's college funds. I guess I naively thought the financial planner would just come to our house, show us some ideas and then be out the door with his sale. I was so wrong.

Apparently, this guy is really in depth, which is good. I guess. Unfortunately it is going to make my husband and I look at some really hard truths about the way that we spend money. The fact that we are in debt up to our eyeballs due to the way that we lived in the past is not going to help at all. No, we are not in serious financial difficulty whatsoever, but we have debts that we are slowly paying, and if we keep on the same path will probably be paying until we are both dead. Ah yes, the allure of the credit card when you are young and dumb.

So, tonight we had the financial planner asking us about our goals; when we would like to retire, how much we would like to contribute to our children's education; where we would like to see our children go to school; what age we would like to retire. He basically, all the things that you should probably only ask after the third date and only if you were serious about this person becoming a long term partner. This week I will be putting together more information so our financial planner can, well, form us a plan.

I am dreading it. Mostly because I really don't want to know EXACTLY how much debt we have. I don't want to be told "hey you spend entirely too much on crap". I know it is needed and in our best interests though, so I will do it. Mind you, I will probably want an entire bottle of wine to myself when I am finished.

The Mom Cold

You try to fight it, feeling it sneaking up on you slowly- the slight sore throat, the sniffly nose, the tired eyes; and then you just admit it. You have a cold. Of course, Moms can't be sick, so you get up and make a cup of coffee and get on with it. You sort out the school clothes, pack the lunches, get the kids dressed, sign slips to go back to school, sign the reading record, practice spelling words, make breakfast, comb the kids hair, kiss their cheeks and then put them on the school bus. You then come inside and want to curl up on the couch but the washing needs to be started, errands need to be run, the living room looks like a bomb site and the dog still needs a bath- so you get started on that. Before you know it, it is three thirty and the kids are on their way home from school. So, you get a snack together, wait for the bus, get the kids inside, tell them to quit fighting, check their backpacks, feed the kids, ask them what they would prefer for dinner, get them started with their homework and reading, fold some clothes, and cook dinner. Then the husband is on the way home, so you get dinner on the table, wait for him to come through the door, eat dinner, help tidy the kids rooms, give the kids a bath, get the kids in their PJs, read the kids a bedtime story, send the kids off to sleep, and then tell the kids to stay in bed repeatedly. Then finally, you decide to crawl up on the couch and be miserable with your cold, because Moms do not get the day off.

Circus Time!

Last Saturday, after I dropped my parents off at the train station, The Man and I decided to take the girls to the circus that happened to be in the town next to ours. It was just a small one ring circus, no animal acts, just a clown, acrobats, juggler, fire breather and high fliers. I wasn't really expecting much, but I was pleasantly surprised. The acts were all really well done, even for a small circus, they had enough variety to keep my husband and myself entertained, and the setting was intimate enough that nobody under the big top had a bad seat.

What fun we're going to have under the big top!


Alex the clown. He was great fun.


How in the world?


The lovely Miss Amanda.


Miss Amanda on the silks. Gorgeous.


Antonio (as Super Mario) spinning plates. Well done on keeping them all spinning!


Oh my goodness, that's really high up there!


Mmm lovely abs...umm I mean he's really strong.


Antonio spitting fire. My kids thought this was amazing.


Spinning fire.


Miss Lizzy on the rope. You can see it but Alex the clown was about to spin her round and round.


Alex and the Ringmaster Paul Martinez having a goofy boxing match.


Ramon juggling. He was brilliant.


The spring boarding was fantastic.

I just can't say enough how much fun my family and I had at the circus. My children were talking about it for days and are still trying to master their new spinning plates. So, if you ever see Russell's International Circus in your town, stop by and be spellbound.

Just Around The Bend

When my family comes to visit me here in England it is always an adventure. Sometimes it becomes a comedy of errors and other times we find things to explore in my little area of England that I didn't even know existed. This time my parents are here visiting. This is their fourth trip to England since I have moved over here, so I don't feel the need to do the touristy bits with them. In fact, today I dropped them off at the train station so they could make their way to Bath for the next few days.

On Saturday there was a bit of rain, but once it cleared up it was a balmy 70F outside with just a bit of a breeze. We decided to go feed the ducks down in the town close to my house, which could have turned out really bad considering KiKi's last encounter with the ducks. Let's just say she ended up pinned on the bench next to the river with about 200 ducks swarming around her and looking at me with pleading eyes said "Can we go home now?" She was a bit traumatized. So, on Saturday when we mentioned ducks, she balked for a second and then decided that she would go because her PaPa (grandfather) was going.

We ended up having a fantastic time. The girls fed the ducks without incident and we decided to walk down a path that takes you to the next village just to see what was around the bend. We ended up next to a little pond that I guess has formed from the overflow of the river. The female ducks had taken this pond over and there were ducklings galore for the girls to fawn over. A few male ducks were in the pond and made a spectacle out of themselves by fighting over any little scrap of bread that the girls would throw to them, sending the girls into fits of giggles.

This just goes to show you, that sometimes the best adventures are right outside your front door.

Sometimes Timing is Everything

I was decending the stairs yesterday morning at my brother in laws house and my sister in law asked "Did you poop?"

I answered, "Yeah, but geez I didn't want to broadcast it to everyone," as I looked around the room to see my husband, my kids, my inlaw's kids, my brother in law and my sister in law standing there.

Then as they started laughing I realized she was talking to her two year old daughter. Dammit.

Back in the 80's

I was talking to by buddy, NFAH, and she mentioned Moonlighting as the first adult show she was allowed to watch despite the sexual innuendo. Then I mentioned that I would sneak into my parents bedroom and try to watch 21 Jump Street on my parents old black and white TV with rabbit ears. Yes, I knew it was wrong to do, but 21 Jump Street was an awesome show, can you really blame me?

Then I got to thinking about my family and our TV watching habits. When I was growing up, cable TV was just coming into it's own. No longer were we restricted to just the big three TV stations. We now had Fox (which wasn't cable), MTV, Nickelodeon, HBO and around 80 other new networks. It was a TV explosion.

When I used to arrive home from school, I would do my homework as my mom would watch Oprah. I would sit at the dining room table and watch the TV from across the back of the sofa that defined the partition between the living room and dining room in our condo; often getting told to get a move on with my homework. My dad would arrive home shortly after 5 and we would have dinner as a family, around the dining room table. After dinner, we would all watch the local and National News together. Always NBC with Dan Rather. At 7:30 we watched Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon as a family, then it was time for bed. Now, I knew I HAD to be asleep by the time I heard the theme song to Roseanne through my bedroom wall (the tell tale harmonica riff was like my mental clock), which was attached to the living room. If I heard the theme song to China Beach, I knew I had better not come out of my bedroom with a lame excuse. That was my Mom's favorite show and she really didn't like to be interrupted. Plus it was on crazy late, like 10pm. If the Tonight Show was on, well, I just better pretend I was sleep walking.

It is weird what you remember from your childhood. What do you remember about TV shows and how they related to your family from when you were a kid?