I have a feeling that "financial denial" is a major cog in the credit industry's machinery. Back in the day, people didn't have this tool to get them in financial trouble, they just had to suck it up and stop spending, to balance their budget in real time! I know I have always hated to think about money, and that's a mental block I really need to work harder to get past. And my immediate family also has it, big time. They are all too happy to let me suffer through the misery of trying to make ends meet all on my own. I've said it here before, that I always meant to go all Ross Perot on their ***es, to show them just where the problem is and what we have to do. I suppose it all comes down to me being too much of a wimp. But I am quite aware that it's doing my daughters much more harm to allow this to continue to fester than to get them involved in buckling down and dealing with life.

That said, when expenses just rain down, I understandably get depressed. Large dental bills, the ever increasing gas and food bite, and the big kahuna college along with persistent old debt can be a TAD overwhelming.

Screwed! Well, not totally, yet, but I sure feel like it. I am realizing that I can't use my 401k for the kids' college costs because withdrawals go against my income, so I would qualify for no financial aid at all if I do that. And I can't borrow the whole thing, especially for 7 years in a row. And to make a sad story even sadder, it looks like my FICO score went down recently after I had to refinance some expiring 0% debt to a promotional 1.99%. BoA juggled the credit limits on three CC accounts I had with them. They said it wouldn't adversely affect my FICO score, but something sure did last month - not sure how much lag time is involved, it could also have been financing $10k of college costs on a credit card back in January.

So if anyone can see any bright lights at the end of the tunnel for me that isn't a train, please let me know! Thanks.

We avoided ordering out two nights this weekend, probably saving about $30 - not too bad, definitely a much-needed step in the right direction. Annualized, that comes out to $1560 after tax dollars!! And speaking of tax, it's good to keep in mind that ordering out is penalized by the government with the 7% sales tax.

So the major setback was that onto the CC went college books and a few hundred of travel expenses for taking my daughter back to college and stocking her up, totalling darn near $1000. Oh my, college is going to be a miserable financial experience!

I find it pretty amazing that they can have so much loss from bad debt. CEOs and other executives get paid all these millions and they still make fundamental blunders like that? And for those of us working to pay off debts, how does it make you feel to see so many people just get to write theirs off? Sure, it comes with a lot of pain, I'm sure, but it still seems like we are heavily subsidizing people who made bad decisions, whether through the stock market crashing or public bailouts and stimulus packages being tossed around frantically in DC right now.

My wife is dealing with a hit and run in a parking lot now, making a police report, I think. So I wonder if my insurance company will jack up our rates again, even if we don't make a claim??! (See earlier similar rant). It feels like I am in the Twilight Zone since we keep getting hit and our rates keep going up at the same time our cars get more dented. The high school parking lot took a HUGE toll on the car my daughter drives - dings all over the doors.

It's interesting that to a large degree in both my parents and my wife's parents, the man solely supported the family at first in the traditional model. But then the women took over for Act II, supporting the families from roughly age 50 or so.

But even more interesting to me is that both families sort of just barely got by, and yet the impact this had on my wife and I has been very different. It turned me into a natural cheapskate, very at home here. But to her, it meant giving her daughters what she never had. Both very reasonable reactions. But needless to say, it has caused trouble and conflict and led to our current less than ideal financial situation. I should also say that neither of us learned squat about finances from our parents or anyone else really, and we have unfortunately repeated that mistake in our daughters. For some reason I don't think our schools here ever had a class like that for kids, but I'll have to double check that, especially for the one still in high school where there is still time.

So I know what we need to do, to instill financial common sense in all of us, but I need a strategy, mainly a way to broach the subject. We are in this mess because whenever I bring up money, I get stonewalled. So I've often thought we needed a combined marriage/financial counselor, but as you might expect, I'm much too cheap to seek out and pay such a person, if they even exist. But as I'm sure many of you here know, there is a difference between being financially sensible and just plain being cheap. If there really was such a person and I had gone to him years ago, we would almost certainly be better off.

And lest it sound like I am laying too much at the feet of my wife, I am the one who allowed this to happen, it's my life that is affected, so I have to take some blame for not dealing with my problems in a timely and effective manner. Man, life is complex! I just wanted to get married and live comfortably.

Perusing this year's tax form I see that I made a big mistake. Suffice it to say that you need to consider the consequences when you do something, ESPECIALLY something big. Do I know that? Yes. Do I always do that? No! Why not??! I sure hope Ron White isn't right that you can't fix stupid!

DH I got: Designated Hitter, er, I mean Domestic Housemate or Dear Husband.

OOPS! Now that I wrote this out, I'm going to guess Dear Daughter and Dear Son! Dang! I was only thinking Domestic Housemate, but as soon as I googled up Dear Husband for DH, it hit me! OK, I've still got a question though. Is DD(7) an age or number? Playing the odds, I'd say age.

I am pretty livid with my car insurance company. I now have the privilege of paying $3000 per year for 3 cars and 3 drivers.

The rates went up when my daughter had an at-fault accident. OK, can't argue that. But then she was rear-ended by some one who wound up leaving the scene. We filed a police report after the fact, and it appears that this is why our insurance got raised AGAIN, even though we made no claim since the damage to the rear bumper was cosmetic and was $500, the deductible. They say that ANY activity such as a police report of an accident counts as "activity", and they can raise our rates. So I told them that this will cause me to shop around, even though previously I had wanted to just stay with them since things had always gone well before.