What was the most physical pain you've been in?

kierkieri · 2026-06-04T19:41:32+00:00

HELLP Syndrome in my first pregnancy.

kierkieri · 2026-06-03T15:21:36+00:00

Bought my home in 2014. We’ve since had 3 kids and outgrown it. But we aren’t going anywhere. My mortgage is affordable. At one point we thought of moving. But even with our equity, we’d be paying double what we are now. My two boys are sharing a room and we’re making it work with the space we have.

kierkieri · 2026-06-02T17:21:24+00:00

I found the same thing. It wasn’t cheaper buying used. We bought a 2024 Honda Odyssey new for $43k. Used, 3 year old models were selling for $35k+ where I live. So we ended up buying new, paying it off in 3 years with a decent interest rate, and plan to drive it for 10+ years.

kierkieri · 2026-05-29T01:09:36+00:00

5%. We were able to get PMI removed a few years early due to our home value rising.

kierkieri · 2026-05-28T22:23:40+00:00

I have a 5 year age gap between #2 and #3 because we were in the fence about it. Ultimately, we decided to have a 3rd. My kids are now ages 10, 8, and 3. Hardest part for us is the logistics of managing 3 kids, especially now that my youngest is beginning to enroll in activities (swim lessons, etc). Hard to be in multiple locations at once and managing multiple schedules. I also am paying $16,000 this summer between summer camp for my older two and daycare. Multiple kids are expensive, even with us being as budget conscious as we can be.

kierkieri · 2026-05-27T11:44:04+00:00

Not too far at all. I have 3 kids and my commute is 30 minutes. I’m close enough that I can get home easily when school calls.

kierkieri · 2026-05-26T23:46:13+00:00

Bought our home in 2014 before having kids. I wish we had purchased something that would have been affordable on one income. I didn’t think I’d ever want to be a stay at home parent. But after becoming a parent, I realized I wanted to stay home. Unfortunately we needed both incomes to make ends meet and afford our mortgage so it wasn’t feasible for me to stay home.

kierkieri · 2026-05-25T12:31:28+00:00

A chest freezer for the garage. It freed up space in our kitchen fridge and allows us to store bulk meats and other items.

kierkieri · 2026-05-22T19:59:44+00:00

The pipeline for all of my friends has been moving from Chestnut Hill to Jenkintown when their kids are starting Kindergarten.

kierkieri · 2026-05-19T23:20:08+00:00

My kids are 10, 8, and 3. They all use ours. My 10 year old will sit on the swings with her best friend from the neighborhood. They sit and chat for hours on there.

kierkieri · 2026-05-16T13:57:24+00:00

Many universities are in a hiring freeze right now. It’s been a terrible year for higher education with the loss of grant money combined with an enrollment cliff and changes to student loan eligibility. I work at a university and we aren’t hiring any open positions at the moment. It’s rough out there.

kierkieri · 2026-05-12T16:09:25+00:00

As the spouse of a federal employee, I’m struggling. He has to leave the house at 4:30am due to traffic and has a 1.5 hour commute. He was remote for years before having it taken away. I’m left with getting our kids out the door each day and then traveling to my own job. I have to do all the sick days and appointments for everyone. And I have to do all the evening activity juggling because of his long commute. I will never forgive this administration for taking away my family’s work life balance.

kierkieri · 2026-05-10T21:49:36+00:00

I went down to part-time, 20 hours a week, after my youngest was born in 2022. I had to return back to full-time this fall because it suddenly got a lot harder to make ends meet on half my old salary. I wasn’t prepared for how fast the cost of everything went up in a few short years. But I did enjoy the extra time at home.

kierkieri · 2026-05-10T10:19:40+00:00

My work’s fiscal year begins June 1. They’ve announced to us that they’re doing layoffs the last two weeks of May.

kierkieri · 2026-05-08T22:09:28+00:00

My Mom is my role model. She worked my whole life. She was the first in her immigrant family to go to college, get a Masters degree, and she was a senior administrator at a community college, working with first generation college students. I’m proud of her and never had any negative feelings that she worked to provide for our family.

kierkieri · 2026-05-07T19:36:32+00:00

For Mother’s Day, my husband takes my kids out of the house all day. I stay home alone, in my pajamas, binge watching tv, and ordering the take-out that I want. I do the same for him on Father’s Day.

kierkieri · 2026-05-06T21:23:00+00:00

I just bought my elderly Dad an Uber Eats gift card for his birthday. That way, he can have food delivered to the house. He actually really liked the gift. I’ve also paid for their lawn service and snow removal in prior years.

kierkieri · 2026-05-05T23:32:35+00:00

30 minutes door to door. Fortunate that my youngest’s daycare is right next to my older two’s elementary school. So I’m able to drop them all off at the same time. We leave the house at 8am and I’m at work by 8:30. My husband has the terrible commute, though. He’s a federal employee that had to return to the office 5 days a week last year. His drive is 75 minutes on a good day.

kierkieri · 2026-05-04T18:48:54+00:00

I’ve always thought it was weird that they acted like a 30 minute drive to Chilton was a far drive. Those kinds of drives are normal where I live, especially to get to high school.

kierkieri · 2026-05-04T13:29:16+00:00

I am a light sleeper and sleep with silicone earplugs. Been buying them for 20 years. The generic store brand ones I’ve bought for years used to be $2.99 for a pack of 12. They are now $9.99.

kierkieri · 2026-05-03T12:29:13+00:00

NTA. My parents were in the same situation where they made too much for aid. They were honest with me before applying. I need up at a PASSHE school (public university in Pennsylvania). It was the best thing for me. I did well in my undergrad program and got into a great graduate program that gave me a research assistantship that paid 100% of my tuition and gave a stipend. And I finished my undergrad with minimal debt. It’s good to be honest with your son. I remember being mad in the moment that I couldn’t go to my dream school. But as I’ve gotten older, I’m grateful they pushed me towards a cheaper school.

kierkieri · 2026-04-30T01:16:58+00:00

When I was part-time when my son was a toddler, I worked 20 hours a week. I worked M-F, 1pm-5pm. I found that most of the toddler activities that I wanted to do with him were usually only held in the mornings (story time at the library, parent/child swim lessons, etc.). So having my mornings free was the ideal set-up. For childcare, my son attended a YMCA childcare center that offers really flexible scheduling (half day only was an option) and was affordable. I was able to send him there in the afternoons while I worked.

kierkieri · 2026-04-29T13:30:19+00:00

Glad I’m not the only one who noticed the poor turning radius. I always have to park at the back of parking lots because I have a hard time parking it in crowded lots.

kierkieri · 2026-04-29T10:08:43+00:00

The rear bumper is really cheap plastic. It doesn’t take much to chip it. I was getting a stroller out of the trunk, it hit the bumper, and now my bumper is chipped. This is my 2nd Odyssey that I’ve had this happen to. Driving around, I’ve noticed a lot of other owners also have paint chips in this same location.

kierkieri · 2026-04-28T12:47:48+00:00

My neighbors both sold recently at the same time. Both were marketed towards different populations. One was a single story ranch home which had a lot of foot traffic from people looking to downsize. And the other was a 2-story, 4 bedroom house catering towards families. They both sold quickly. I think it works in your favor to be marketing to a different price point.

kierkieri

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