NightSG

It's Portland; what do you expect?

This is a problem; he's not going to stop when the kids do understand, and that is going to cause them a lot of issues down the road.

Frankly, I don't see it as any worse than people who use "replacement words" all the time. After all, if it was about the specific words and not the sentiment behind them, we'd only be prohibited from using Hebrew (Or was it Greek? I'm too lazy to go look up where that came from.) profanity.

So drop the R, get your butt back out on the streets and go convert yourself a harem. Problem solved.

Exactly; the "necessities of life and protection" for one more person would mean adding ~2000 calories a day (less than a dollar in rice and sugar) to my budget, a couple extra dollars a month on the water bill and an extra roll of toilet paper from time to time. Other than that, there's already a roof overhead and a door that locks. There are plenty of happy families in the world who even manage to do without the toilet paper.

They really don't like being killed by women either, especially young ones, so maybe our sister missionaries could do 6 month tours as "troubleshooters" too.

I had suspected you were an alpine salamander. Now we have proof.

I'm even in favor of recess between Sacrament meeting and Sunday school. That basketball goal needs to get some use.

In order to follow that counsel to its fullest, women need to be getting married and pregnant at the onset of menses. Otherwise they're putting off having children for lesser reasons. I doubt you'd find any support for that among Church leadership for the simple reason that we are expected to prepare ourselves to support and guide children before having them, and modern society makes it rather difficult to complete certain steps of that preparation before age 18/19/20. Marriage is one of those steps, but by no means does it always have to be the last one; putting off marriage because you're not ready to have children is not somehow more righteous than marrying while not ready, and then waiting to have the children. If you're not going to be ready to have children until you're 25 either way, then refusing to marry at 20 is just delaying one of the most critical steps in the process until you're ready to finish the whole thing. Might as well wait until just before mission age to get baptized at that rate. (Well, ok, a year before mission age, but still, the process doesn't have to be held until all the waterfowl are completely linearized just so you can blast through multiple steps as quickly as possible.)

And don't even think about how bad the gas can get. I wear, there were flies lined up at the door begging to be let out, and buzzards wouldn't even circle over the house. It's advised not to put it off when it's already practical. My aunt and uncle did that, and while they're no doubt financially better off for it, they weren't hurting just a couple years after college, and now they often regret not having their kids when they were in their early to mid twenties and already quite stable. They might not have the gorgeous custom house on the hill with the basketball court and saltwater pool with natural rock surrounds that they have now, but they almost certainly would still be very well off, and not waiting for their 17 year old to get through college so they can retire. (Yeah, they could easily retire and pay tuition from extra savings, but that's just not the way my family does it; you work until your kids graduate and then retirement becomes an option.) I'm pretty sure no GA would advise a couple to start trying for a baby if they're dependent on food assistance and without an expectation of being financially stable enough to support themselves and the baby in the next nine months. That advice was geared more toward some of the mid singles we have who are fast approaching 40, never married, working on a PhD or trying to get their career right where they want it before "letting a relationship get in the way."

True, but that also depends on how the insurance is handled; I was on a separate policy shortly after I turned 18 even though family still paid for it while I was in school. The rule was they paid the base price and any ticket increases would be my problem. Mom and I got speeding tickets within a couple days of each other, and she couldn't figure out how much of the increase should be mine on the shared policy. That depends on how you wash; if you dump it all together and wash every time there's a full load, (and only when there's a full load) sure. If you separate it, and one or more loads have room for more, then two people can more efficiently make use of those loads. It also becomes considerably more practical to look for a used W/D when two people will be sharing it. (And when they don't have the roommate issue of what happens to it when one moves out.) You're sharing sheets, blankets, maybe towels, and things like the fluffy little mat around the toilet, so that part of the laundry is effectively cut in half. (And yes, I had the fluffy toilet mat for a while because I had ceramic tile in the bathroom and that stuff is cold when you're barefoot. I could leap from the carpeted hall to the little mat in my sleep.) Again, usage of standard sizes is the key; I've never mastered getting a single serving of rice from the cooker, nor do I generally eat an entire can of anything other than soup by myself in one sitting, so things that will spoil soon are often wasted, when they wouldn't be if shared with someone else. The simple matter of cutting rent in half (or nearly so; my aunt and uncle upgraded to a one-bedroom apartment when they got married in college, because in the efficiencies they'd had, there was no way for one to stay up studying late while the other slept - they went from $450 each to $550 for both of them) will give back a significant chunk of the income of most people poor enough to care. If both are students, then a little care in scheduling may allow them to mothball or even sell a car until graduation. Too many people seem to think they have to buy and furnish a house as part of getting married, or at least upgrade to renting a house instead of apartments. My ex wife and I spent the first year on a twin bed in the same rented one bedroom house she'd had, then another two years on a full. The only furniture we acquired in the first couple years was a mix of gifts and garage sale finds. Overall expenses went way down compared to our separate living costs.

Then you're doing it wrong. Getting married, is, financially speaking, taking on a roommate who shares more effectively in expenses than regular ones; two-car discount on the insurance, one bed, one set of sheets, laundry gets combined, etc. If you can't afford to get that roommate pregnant right away, then don't; I can't find any commandment to get knocked up on the honeymoon. I was married three years before my oldest was born; (and no, it wasn't from lack of sex, just normal precautions with less concern for the consequences if they failed) up until that point, it was much cheaper than two people living separately. You also don't need as much room as a normal set of roommates; at least three couples that I know of have lived in the 550sf apartment I'm currently in. Just because the ring is on doesn't mean you need to buy all new toys right away. Plan around what you need, and let what you want happen as funds become available, same as being single. As for the OP, I'd say if their original plan was to support him through college, lock in the amount before the wedding, and stick to that. It's no more than they were previously doing, and he should be able to stretch the amount a bit more effectively.

I don't claim to be a great mechanic, but I am more careful than some when I know it's going to be my butt (or that of someone I care about) in the driver seat. That's a bigger incentive to double check all the fasteners, etc. than just having an insurance company deal with a lawsuit. Depends on how many new words you learn and where you use them.

Nobody works on my brakes but me. OTOH, there are plenty of "extra hands" tasks that are pretty hard to screw up in most car repairs. (Even a brake repair; much easier with someone else to mash the pedal.)

He'd probably want to know why I'm paying somebody in beer and cigs to help me work on my car instead of having the missionaries over so they can have an excuse to get greasy and learn about car repairs. (And of course, the answer to his question is that profanity is far too important to the repair process.)

So what happens when a child has a doctor appointment during the day, or gets sick at school and needs to be picked up? If the working parent has to take time off (assuming that's even an option, especially for unexpected issues; my job occasionally has me 3+ hours from home) to deal with something like that, it's far more economical to get a second car. Insurance discounts make that almost a non-issue, especially when the car isn't financed, so anything beyond liability U/UMC and PI becomes unnecessary, (after all, my last two cars each cost less than a year of comprehensive coverage, and the current one less than the deductible would be for any policy that isn't flat out insanely priced) gas and tires are tied to mileage, and the semiannual washing costs $1.50. If she can't pick the kids up from school, there's really not that much time lost during the school year anyway; with even a half hour bus ride, they're out of the house for 6-7 hours. If she's within 15 minutes of home, (and assuming a 30 minute lunch off the clock) she'll only be gone for 9 to work full time. At least in 5th grade, I had a 90 minute bus ride; I left before everybody else, and we all got home at the same time.

I see two problems here: first, you're assuming the second income is pretty low, and that SAHMs don't need cars. (Or that working takes something more than a $500-1200 car.) In my case, my ex wife's income was $60k, and having only one car wasn't an option, since there are still things to be done during the day. We did, however, go through a few $500-1000 cars, mostly because she had a knack for picking the absolute worst solution to minor issues. (Leave the car idling when it overheated, thinking the fan would cool it off turned a bad radiator hose into a ruined engine, for example.)

One thing that I think a lot of us need to keep in mind in the quest for that magic "enough" number is that no child ever said at a parent's funeral "I wish daddy had spent more time at work instead of with us." Even charity doesn't have to be money; a few minutes of your time and labor can do a lot more. When I picked up the $500 car on New Year's Eve, the seller wasn't too sure about how accurate the gas gauge was. I found out the hard way about 1AM that it's empty about a 16th of an inch above the empty line, while on an access road with no shoulder and no turnoffs close. A young couple stopped, he helped me push it to the top of the hill and I was able to coast until I found a side street, while she followed. They then gave me a ride about a mile to a gas station where I was able to get a can and a couple gallons of gas, then took me back to the car. 20 minutes out of their New Year's night saved me walking around in the cold looking for the station, then having to lug the full can all the way back to the car. I don't know how well off they were financially, but that few minutes of their effort meant more to me than if someone had handed me a couple hundred bucks on the side of the road.

I spent $500 instead of $350 because the $500 car has an intact windshield. Does that count? (Well, and it's a Pontiac, so the shift linkage isn't held together entirely by old rubber bushings that come apart and leave it stuck in whatever gear it's in at the moment. Had a chance at a better condition Dodge Neon for the same price, but with at least one of the four bushings failed. Replacements are $22 for all four, but the repair takes longer than I was willing to work on the car in a stranger's driveway in the dark.)

I would think that part generally goes without saying. I mean, if the top 15 all agree that God said so, we should probably do it.

Again, only with an option to knowingly use an unlicensed practitioner. Otherwise, there's still a risk of the licensing agencies colluding to increase prices well beyond a free market level.

IMO, it is a bad thing. As long as I'm fully aware that he has no training, no malpractice insurance, and no significant assets to pay a claim, I don't think the WalMart greeter should be prohibited from selling me medical services. I'm fine with government endorsing standards and requiring those who don't meet them to disclose that fact, but if I knowingly decide to let a high school dropout with Parkinson's do my surgery, that's my business and my risk to take.

After grandma died, granddad would get up in the morning, fry a half pound of bacon, scramble 3-4 eggs in the bacon grease, then make toast in the skillet to soak up the rest of the grease. He'd use about a quarter stick of butter on the 2-3 slices of toast. After the doctor told him his HDL was unusually low, he started doubling up to make bacon and egg on toast sandwiches for lunch. He also ate a lot of pecans, (still several acres of pecan orchards on the family land) and knew most of the beef he ate personally, since the primary source was the 10-20 cattle kept mainly to justify an ag exemption for the pastureland. The bacon was from the same butcher that handle the beef, usually by trading beef for it. Eggs generally came from the flock of chickens in the back yard. Chicken was processed the old fashioned way on the back porch.

Take an aikido class. Tons of techniques absolutely guaranteed to kill the mood without too much lasting pain.