Joint or separate checking accounts

Posted by random olio

I am a personal finance fanatic. I grew up poor, and while for the most part my basic needs were met, I look back and never want to live the way we did. Nor do I want my children to live that way. What has that done to me? I have become passionate about personal finance, and how to be careful over what I spend my money on, how I save, and how I think about my future.

Which is what leads me to my blog title. There are a few subjects I think are taboo in our society. We rarely talk about our sex lives, and we rarely talk about money. Yes, we talk in surface ways about money, but never about how much we make, how much we save, and how much we feel most comfortable about having in our savings account. Why is that? I often wonder why it is such a taboo subject. Is it because comparisons make us feel like we are lesser than, or better than others? Possibly. What is funny, is you could live next to a run down home, that gives the facade that someone does not have the finances to keep it up, and maybe they do. Maybe it is just a choice that they live that way.

So, about checking accounts. Do you and your spouse or significant other have joint or separate checking accounts? I know that I will probably piss someone off today, as I am from the joint checking account camp. When Chris and I got married we decided to pool our finances, or rather I should say to be politically correct, we decided to pool our debt. We did not have much cash when we got married, we just had debt. Credit cards, school loans, you know normal twenty-something-year-old debt. Not too crazy, but still money we owed. So maybe it was easier for us to pool our finances, and make financial choices together. Would we have thought differently if we had plenty of cash in the bank? I hope not. Why? It works for us. We talk about everything, we discuss our purchases, and it all makes sense to us.

Yet, I know that a lot of couples fight about money. They fight about debt. Having separate checking accounts work for them, and I want to know why.

#pleaseshareyourexperience!

Compostable Diapers – who knew!

Posted by random olio

My sister is having a baby soon, so lately our conversations have included the discussion of car seats, strollers, and diapers. I mentioned that no one tells you how much you will truly spend on diapers. Ah yes, the fun part of raising a kid, endless butt wiping many, many times throughout the day. In a recent conversation, my sister told me about new technology for diapers.

The compostable diaper. Regular disposable diapers can take hundreds of years to decompose, and cloth diapers require too much water to wash and reuse. The compostable diaper (I even found ones that are flushable) are diaper inserts that can then be turned into compost. One company will pick up your dirty diapers weekly, and has a commercial grade machine that composts the diapers and turns your babies poo into topsoil for landscaping. Or you can take them out to your own compost bin in your yard (although they say only the wet diapers, not the poopy ones). Your baby will help fertilize your lawn!

Why has this taken so many years to happen? From my research disposable diapers made their debut in 1961 by Pampers. How many disposable diapers are sitting in landfills? Wikipedia says that:

“An average child will go through several thousand diapers in their life…An estimated 27.4 billion disposable diapers are used each year in the US, resulting in a possible 3.4 million tons of used diapers adding to landfills each year.”

Now multiply that times 52 years of diapers and you have 176 million tons of diapers have gone to landfills just in the United States. That is also 1 trillion, 424 billion disposable diapers sitting in our landfills. That is a shit ton of disposable poo. Two of the companies I found are in Northern California, I would be curious to hear if there are similar companies in other parts of the country. Definitely way past time for baby mommas to change the tune and start looking at alternative ways. I do not have the kid yet, but compostable diapers will be on the list.

#putpootogooduse

For further research:

http://www.gdiapers.com/

http://tinytots.com/

http://www.earth-baby.com/p-3-the-earthbaby-story.html

Young Entrepreneurs – Crafty Wonderland

Posted by random olio

I wrote yesterday about the artisan markets we went to over the weekend. A big one that happens twice a year in Portland is called Crafty Wonderland. As full, big, and overwhelming it is, I still love the inspiration I gain from interacting with artists and artisans at their finest.

This year they had almost an entire wall with kid entrepreneurs. As I began my venture into Crafty Wonderland I saw these kids (mostly girls) sitting at their tables, sketching, knitting, and painting while their finished products were up for sale. While we did not end up purchasing any of the kid products, I got a bit nostalgic and teary for these young artists. What courage they must have to get together enough art to sell, and set up a table in the Oregon Convention Center in a very large event room. I wish such events were available to me when I was a kid. I think it might have inspired a lot of ideas for me and encouraged me to continue to make art at such a young age.

Kids inspire me. They have had fewer opportunities for someone to tell them they are not good enough. Imagine what it must feel like to have a two-day event where individuals can purchase your works of art. Inspiring. If only we had the same untainted sense that kids have, maybe we would be more vulnerable to put our own artistic endeavors into the public eye.

Thank you, Portland kid artists for being bold and brave and putting yourselves out there. You inspired me this past weekend to continue to care less of what other people think, and to open the door to my studio, to paint and play, and be free.

Peeing in Portland

Posted by random olio

Over the weekend, I dragged Chris to a few holiday artisan markets. I usually do not buy much, but find I gain inspiration from seeing other artists share and sell their work. One of the markets is called: ADX Gifted. ADX is a design and prototyping facility in Portland that allows for metal, wood, industrial sewing machines, and 3D printing. My kind of place! I have for a long time wanted to do small woodworking projects using a lathe and sander. I have memories of my middle school wood shop class, and while I secretly loved to cook and sew, I also secretly loved playing with wood.

I digress. The reason for this blog has nothing to do with sand paper or wood. I found a book at the ADX Gifted market that I wanted to share. It is called: “The Best Places to Pee.” Yes, I did. It is a book about the best bathrooms in Portland. A fun idea, eh? There are pictures of each bathroom from the author’s list of 51 places to pee. Let me explain further.

I have an app on my iPhone called: Sit or Squat. I have it so that anytime I am out or traveling I can at any time look up where there might be a bathroom. Sit or Squat asks its users to add new bathrooms to the map using crowd sourcing for all of us that often have “gotta go.” I was the child on a road trip (my family’s version of a road trip was an hour away) who would ask if we could stop to go to the bathroom a zillion times. I am sure my father cringed every time I asked, knowing it was going to take five times longer to get there. Eventually he just told me I had to hold it. Sometimes that was successful, other times we had a mess on our hands.

So it is definitely appropriate for me to have a book on the best bathrooms in Portland. It shows a little snapshot of the quirkiness, adventure, and colorful life of Portlanders. You can view a few images of Portland bathrooms from the author’s website. I think you will find Portland is keeping it weird!

#lovemycity

Has this gone too far?

Posted by random olio

Seriously? An iPad potty training chair. What has the world come to? While I do not have kids, I have worked with plenty of children, (daycare and babysitting) who were being potty trained. A good book often did the trick. I am sure there are a zillion ways to engage a child, and train them, as well as a zillion ways children respond. They are all different right? Yet, have we gone too far with an iPad potty chair?

My mind has visions of children growing up in grade school, high school, college, and then in the workforce, that can only do their business while holding an iPad. I mean I already have a husband that does his business with the news on his iPhone, and if that is dead, the default is a magazine. I am also an offender, I catch up on Candy Crush in the bathroom. (The only place I am truly a captive audience). No, I am not ashamed to tell you that I give a few mind-numbing moments of my day to Candy Crush.

Having said all that, I cannot even remember how I was potty trained, most likely I was given a book and told to come out when I was done. If we start early with iPads on toilets, where does that lead us? Does that become a security blanket? Why are we not teaching kids to come up with dreams, tell stories, sing songs, read stories, as well as teach them to sit and be. Maybe that form of meditation on the potty is just what the little tykes need in this non-stop, technology seeking world.

What do you think?

#saynotoiPadsonpotties