Congress - especially when controlled by the President's party - is unlikely to pass legislation contrary to what the President wants.  I suppose we have some balance in that the House is still Republican controlled, but that often just leads to gridlock.

There was only one candidate for President running on a platform of mutual sacrifice, but he was ignored by the media and laughed at by most pundits.  He did get 1 million votes (about 1%), which is the highest a Libertarian candidate has ever received in a Presidential election.  I suppose this gives me hope that at l...more

The reason Nickelodeon (and other kids channels) have been slipping is that much better programming (including classic kids shows) is available on-demand and commercial-free on the internet & Netflix.

Based on the comments below, this article is several years old.  Have there been any updates to the recommendations now that the residential real estate market is starting to recover?

Our kids' school used to get a kick-back from store-branded gift cards purchased through our local grocer's community rewards program, so we got into the habit of putting our entire monthly grocery budget on the card at the start of the month.  After a few months, we learned how much "month" that money would really buy...more

Another great cost saver is asking your reception caterer if there is a buffet "menu du jour" that you can use for the reception food instead of choosing a fancy plated dinner.  When I worked at a banquet hall, many brides choose expensive plates, but hardly ate any of it at the reception because they were too busy soc...more

I can't help but wonder about Ms. Manner's response to the question about the future mother-in-law purchasing a dress for the wedding without consulting the bride.   What if she had purchased the same dress that the bride's own mother had planned to wear?   What if it was in a color or style that would clash ho...more

We also dropped the DVD service when they doubled the price to keep it, and we have not taken our business elsewhere since we rarely watched the DVDs anyway.  The only reason we keep Netflix streaming at all is because our kids like watching classic cartoons from the 80's and 90's (like Inspector Gadget and Care Bears)...more

I knew about the bedroom thing.  Technically, our house only has "3 bedrooms" since the finished attic only has closets in the hall for the two "bedrooms" that are up there.  If we were to reconfigure the upstairs so the closets opened into the rooms, then voila! we'd have 4 bedrooms.  Also, the 3/4 bathroom in the bas...more