my dad having surgery, the Christmas holidays, etc. However, I believe I managed to post that I had started making custom coasters. My little start up is called Custom Coasters by Cindy.

I have been totally overwhelmed at the response. I can hardly remember al the ordres I have fulfilled. That reminds me I need to start keeping track of sales and create a customer file so I can follow up with them. At first I could hardly keep enough tiles on hand to make the coasters. I am now dealing with one flooring place to get my travertene tiles. They gave me a price break of about 10% on the tiles. I am using coupons and 50% off sales to get my ribbon and twine. I have looked online at ordering all this but the doggone shipping is so high for the amount I am ordering. It is cheaper to use sales and by locally. I am also going to make a copy of my tax info from our store so I can quit paying tax on this stuff and that will save me another 8.5% per purchase. This will be legit because we are selling some coasters thorugh our store. I also have some for sale in a local cafe/tanning salon.

Anyway, I have had quite a few to fill for Christmas and some for “late Christmas”, where they are traveling after Christmas and around New Years to see family or friends.

For advertising I am using my FB page, putting flyers in bags when customers make purchases at our store, and word of mouth.

Here are my most recent “to do’s”:

* I need to get my “studio” a little more organized so I can be a little more efficient when working, mostly decluttering stuff from my work table that I am not using specifically for making coasters.

* Dd has been working for me cleaning tiles before I use them. I am also probably going to get her to cut ribbon and twine for me, the two things I use to tie up the sets.

* I am going to get a stamp made that has my company name and phone number on it to stamp the underside of the coasters.

* Going to talk to dh about whether to adjust my pricing up after the first of the year. I am currently charging $12/set of 4 or any 2 sets for $20. Shipping/insurance is extra and actual cost. Current price is good till at least Jan. 1.

My FB page is www.facebook.com/customcoastersbycindy if you’d like to look around. I have posted pics of my work. All designs can be done in other colors. I have designs I will be posting as I make samples so keep checking back.

If you have any advice or suggestions, I’d appreciate it, especially on using FB. I am still learning on it. There are probably things I could do but have yet to learn it.

which we haven’t finalized yet. Most of you know what a combine is, in the context of farm equipment – those big paddlewheel monsters that rumble across fields of grain to harvest them. This past week, we became aware of a small one for sale not far from us. At first I looked at it like a kid looks at a toy in the toy store window – “oooooo, neato, gimme!” And had this been 2011 or 2010 or some prior year, I would have gone and borrowed the money to buy it without hardly a second thought. But no, we don’t do that anymore. I emailed Jan late last week and told her how tempted I’d been to get it, and how hard it had been to resist doing so this time, but that this time we were going to do things differently. So over the weekend, I brought up this piece of equipment with DH as a potential addition to the farm; in short it would be a game-changer for us. It would open up all sorts of new crops for us to grow, it would turn our considerable feed bill into a memory, and it would open up new markets for us. But it would also be the single most expensive, complex, challenging implement we’ll ever own. Something akin to going from flying a Cessna single engine pondjumper to flying the space shuttle. So there’s a lot riding on this decision. And we’re going to take our time with making it. We have a big hog sale coming up in March which will give us the funds needed for this purchase if we decide to go that route. Of course I had other ideas for how to spend that $$$$ so we’ll have to consider which is the best overall use of that income. I don’t know how that decision is going to go yet. But I do know that in previous years, I wouldn’t have done all this evaluation of pro’s and con’s; I would have just gone and bought the darn thing and lived with the consequences. Thanks, DR, and thanks to everyone on the list, for teaching us a new way to make such big, important decisions. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Yes, most of what is out there you won’t need for the baby, the companies just market it so new parents will feel guilty for not keeping up with the Jones family—and you know how I feel about those Joneses, they are up to their eyeballs in debt.

Good luck with your family, you seem to be on the right track, but it is difficult.

We’re expecting in May. Yep, it was an accident. DH still has 4 years of school left so that will be interesting to try to finish with scholarships, grants, and cash. DH had this idea that he was getting old and I wanted him to get more schooling done, but that doesn’t matter anymore.

And we’re under a bit of stress. I will try to make a long story short.

My DB had to short sale his condo that he had no business buying due to his princess wife saying they had to have a house because all their friends have houses (At market highs). My mom was “helping” them by renting it to help cover part of their mortgage until the market got better. (It hasn’t)

Needless to say they offered to have her move in with them in their other home that they also should not have bought until they sold their condo. She respectfully said no because they offered two weeks after she made arrangements with me and DH, they would want to turn her into a 24/7 nanny, and they would never fix anything in their condo. They thought that she should fix things since she was using them. That’s not how renting works.

I saw all of this coming down the pipe a year ago. In fact I told Dear mom it was a bad idea to move in to begin with two years ago.

In addition my DSIL had this idea of not telling my mom at first and thinking it was okay to force her out within two days thinking that their condo would sell really fast. (Ha, ha, ha.) I laughed hysterically at that when I heard it. It’s a strained relationship to say the least between them and my mom and between myself and DB/DSIL.

She is currently trying to get a medical coding certification so she can afford to rent her own place with a higher paying job. She hasn’t been making enough to pay her own rent for at least 8 years now, but thankfully she was able to pay cash for her training program at the local community college.

So we arranged to help by having my mom move in temporarily because I just can’t have my mother living out of her car or at my abusive brother’s house. That was before the above baby news happened.

So far she is taking her certification test for the 3rd time at $300 a try. (Ouch!) 70% of people fail the test the first time and you need a 70% to pass. She missed it by 6 questions last time. We’re praying she can pass it this coming Saturday so she can start to look for a job that pays more so she can afford to live on her own.

Anyway we are going to run out of space real soon and dear mother needs to move out.

The take home lesson of today is that sometimes helping family is enabling them and I hope my mother stops because I get tired of coming her rescue and won’t be able to anymore and I feel it’s a forced way of helping my siblings when it would be better to let them fail. My DH agrees that we just need to let my mom fail so she will stop helping my irresponsible older siblings. That’s probably wishful thinking as well. She won’t tell them no and when she does, they badger her. Dysfunctional drama as usual.

We’re trying to stop the misbehavior but it’s really hard by example and we can’t make them stop.

Anyway, back to the more exciting news, suggestions on how to save on buying baby stuff is welcomed! I’m pretty sure 60% of what I’ve seen so far isn’t necessary.

Do you have a written budget? And which of Dave’s books do you have(he has several)? If you don’t have the Total Money Makeover, I’d suggest starting there. He lays out the process of the “Baby Steps” that help you get control of your money, eliminate debt, and become wealthy.

I think I need to go back and reread some of Mark’s info on variable income but I wanted to pose this question to all of you. My job is commission only in an industry where sales are up and down without a lot of continuity. That said, spring is usually the busiest season so I hope to have a windfall soon.

I am currently on baby step 2 with about $12,000 of debt remaining to pay off. Would it be a horrible idea to put my debt payoff on the slow track and put a few months of expenses in savings first? I haven’t been working the system long and to be honest it scares me to death to not have a cushion in case I don’t have a check coming in a couple of months, which does happen. The $1000 emergency fund (guaranteed loans) won’t go far if I don’t have any money coming in at all.

Any of you experience the same sort of income fluctuation and how do you deal with that?

Under Obamacare, wellness visits are supposed to be covered 100%. The bad thing is, if your wellness visit reveals that something is wrong you’re on the hook for paying for treatment/medication/etc. I don’t know what the protocol is for preexisting conditions.

So DH changed jobs and medical insurance (still BX, different flavor) and I just got an “explanation of benefits.”

so basically, they are paying ZERO until we hit the deductible ($3k/person, $6k/family)

I’ve never had an insurance company pay ZERO before. So

1. does this mean i don’t have to shell out co-pays also? I mean, if I’m on the hook for “everything” why should I have to shell out a “co pay” also?

2. does them not paying ANYTHING even sound logical?

just thought i’d ask before I call tomorrow and ask What The Heck?

Some might not consider the following a victory, but to me it is. Over the holidays, I drove my elderly parents from Chicago to my home in Atlanta for a visit. (Oh, the stories I could tell about THAT!) I was driving a rental car, because my parents’ car was in for a repair. Long story/short. I damaged the rental car. It wasn’t due to a collision. In the dark, in the rain, on a very steep driveway, I damaged the fender/bumper on the driver’s side. Absolutely my fault, but totally cosmetic. No mechanical damage. I felt horrible, but realized a) this is why you have insurance, and b) I had more than $2,500 in my personal Emergency Fund, and $6,000 in my business Emergency Fund. (A portion of my income comes from my home-based business.)

That moment of abject terror when I saw the damage immediately changed to ‘I think I’ve got this! Thank you, Dave!’

After doing some research online I estimated that the damage could be between $500 and $2,000, if my assessment of the damage was correct. I was pretty sure I didn’t need to use my insurance to pay for the damage. Yesterday, I paid for the damage, $569. I shifted the money from my Emergency Fund and paid it promptly. I felt so empowered by this experience. Pre-Financial Peace, my only option would have been to pull those funds from my IRA. I’m happy to report that I haven’t tapped into my IRA since beginning FPU in April 2014.

Another victory in this. Again, perhaps strange, is that though my parents didn’t want me to pay the bill, I did. Even though I owned the mistake I made with the car, my mother wanted to pay for it. It was REALLY important to me to pay this myself. Mind you, I’m 54 years old. It was a bit ridiculous, but I had to trick my mother into giving me gave me all the invoice information. While I had her on the phone, I went online and paid for the damage. (She had written a check and was going to mail it to the car rental company. Internet trumps snail mail!) I announced to her ‘Ma, I just paid it. Cut up your check. I’ll send you a copy of the receipt in email.’

I felt so empowered by this experience, which would have been completely negative just 2 years ago. Not that I’m looking to have more accidents with cars!