Kelly S

I know it is paid from lowest debt to highest debt, but I have a question about that. My husband and I have mainly student loan debt. We have 2 different loan companies: Chase and National Education. Each loan company has 2-3 seperate loans each (for the different years/semesters of college). Do we consider all of my National Education (2) loans as one loan, and all of his National Ed loans (3) as one? OR do we consider it 5 different debts and list them each individually? When we have our payments autodrafted - it comes out as 2 payments - one for him, one for me. But on our credit report - they are all listed individually. Thanks for the advice!

My husband and I moved into my grandmothers home to tide us over until we buy a house. The house was built in the 50's - so the bedrooms are tiny! Anyway s- we put our queen mattress in and found out that the only option is to put it right in front of this big bay window - which is fine - it doesn't look bad at all. The problem we have - is the 2 dressers - and the nightstand. They just don't want to fit. The one on the right side of the room is a dresser/nightstand for me (antique - must use). The other two are a tall chest of drawers and a two drawer night stand. I can't put the dresser near the closet because I can't open the door or even get into the closet if it's there. If infront of the bed you can barely squeak by the bed to get to the other side of the room. Any advice?? Sorry for the TERRIBLE drawing but it's actually pretty acurate! The rooms looks awkward righ tnow - and I really want my husband to have a nightstand to use. The window on the left is the problem….

PHOTO of DRAWING: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44339892@N06/58806804...

My husband and I combined make 92,000 a year (will go up to 100,000 next April). Our curent debt to income is 27%. We have terrible credit scores. His is 520 and mine is 562. We just began checking our credit report and making payments on medical bills (from complicated pregnancy) that went to collection and a student loan that went past due that we didn't realize came out of forbearance. Everything will be caught up on in a month or two. We'd love to buy a house - and we are meeting with a lender to make plans for the future next week - but I'm anxious and curious to know what we need to do to be at a place where we can buy a home. How much % wise do we need to put down (min. but we'd like to put down more). Renting is killing us because we pay so much more to rent and we want our daughter (and ourselves) to have a home of our own. Any advice?? Also - how long does it usually take to see a score improvement? We each had about 2-3 negatives but now are down to 1 and 0 negatives.

Thanks so much for your advice in advance!

We are moving into my grandmothers house and would like to pain the living room. My grandmother and grandfather built the house so it's a bit dated but we are renting so we can't do much but add some color. The living room has beautiful oak hardwood floors, currently white walls, and the more unattractive part of the living room - it has two walls that are Oak. They aren't panels - it's actually the wall but it looks like oak wood paneling. We can't paint the wood or take it down so we have to make it work. We have dark cherry living room furniture and black couches. What color paint and accessories (color scheme) should we go with. Thanks!

Also - the rooms are small and sort of dark so I'm thinking something lighter would really open it up since no overhead light and only one large window.

In a nutshell - here is the background info:

Husband and I have known each other for 7 years, married 2 years, and have a 10 month old daughter. His parents have always been hateful to me, lied to us, are just not my idea of nice people. Luckily, they live 12 hours away. we had my daughter in July and now they are trying to be nice to me in order to see theri grandchild - but they end you still being hateful and so I've pretty much pushed them out of my life. My husband by the way sees NOTHING they've done wrong and things I'm ridiculous. My inlaws are our ONLY problem as a family - they make me uncomfortable and I can't stand them anymore.

So we get a thank you card in the mail today that is from his mom saying "thank you for the card and earrings and then our names." Number one - I don't like him putting my name on anything for his parents but the main thing is he NEVER told me about this. We are struggling with money right now and I could only get my mom a bottle of lotion and here he is buying his mom Earrings and KEEPING it from me. HOW do I handle this??? I'm so irritated!!! I ask him to communicate but he wants to keep everything involving them a secret because he thinks he can get away with it.

My husband applied for a position that he will receive a company car. He'll have to pay a little less than 200 a month for personal useage but will not have to pay for gas or for car insurance or maintenance. We currently have two car payments. The first is my car which we pay 180 a month - I owe 6,000 more on it which is less that the value of the car. Also it gets good gas mileage. We also have my husbands current car - a vehicle I regret getting - it's an SUV we owe 18,000 more on (husband says this isn't the pay off amount) and right now we owe a lot more than the car is worth if it were sold. This is the family car since it is large enough to tote around baby stuff and groceries, etc, but it gets like 12-13 miles to the gallon and we pay 475 a month for the payment.

My question is, if he were to get the position - as far as getting rid of a vehicle is concerned, which vehicle should we get rid of by a fincial point of view? He will be making a lot more money - but we are trying to get out of some medical bill debt and student loan debt and we really want to buy a house within a year. Just looking for some financial advice!

The lease on our apartment runs out in July. We are tired of "apt" life and want to move to a rental house so our soon to be one year old has outdoor space and our dogs can run around. We have two options…

One is a nice 1920's house that my dads boss is remodeling. It isn't done - and may not be done until after our move out date in which we'd have to either do a month by month lease at our current place or live with my folks for a few months until it's complete. Rent may be less than what we are paying but we are thinking it'll be around the same ($1,000/month). We would have the option to buy it maybe in a few years if we liked it.

Option 2 - is to rent my grandmothers house. She recently moved to assisted living and my grandfather died about 3 weeks ago so she is just going to stay there. They haven't sold the house because my grandparents built it, every nail. They said they want to rent it ot family. My mom thinks that my grandma would be okay with us paying her 700 dollars a month and a majority of the price (400-500) going into an account for the down payment to buy the house, to help us out. Not our dream home by any means but it's cheaper than what we have now - and it's a decent place with good memories.

We have a lot of debt from school and medical bills - as well as one credit card that we are trying to pay off and 2 cars. Is it smarter to give up the better home for a home we could 'deal' with in order to pay off our debt sooner? I'm so conflicted. Advice?

Im planning on making a doctors appointment as soon as they open up this morning but I need some opinions.

Lately I've been having this dull to sharp pain in my left lower abdomen... where I imagine my ovary would be. It's actually tender to the touch if I press on the spot. Anyways, i got it again last night and along with the sharp and dull aches and pains it also has the feeling of trapped gas. I keep thinking I need to go to the bathroom but I can't and bearing down just makes it hurt worse. My lower back aches slightly but it could be from laying in bed yesterday (naseua from possible stomach bug that my husband and daughter had)

I'm so nervous because I had a kidney stone last year 5 weeks after giving birth to my daughter, but I don't think this is that again - that pain was unbearable.

Any ideas??

Also - would it be better to see my OBGYN or general doctor? I don't know if GYNs would be able to dx a stomach problem but my general doctors are terrible at DX women issues.

My daughter will be 5 months old tomorrow. I have this strong feeling about wanting to be pregnant again. We just can't afford it though and I've always said I want my kids to be atleast 2 years apart. I just can't shake the feeling. I get jelous around pregnant women. It's an awful feeling.

How can I manage these feelings of wanting another child. My daughter is wonderful (and easy) and I love being a mother so much... it's like my maternal feelings have gone craaazy!! But as I said, we just cannot have another so soon.

Any advice on how to get rid of this feeling?

I'm a blogger and I've decided to use my blog to help moms learn to take photos of their kids. Growing up my parents couldn't afford proffesional photos. Now that I'm a mom I'm so grateful that I can take the photos myself because we just can't afford to have them done either! So I was wondering if other moms out their would utilize this blog? And also - how can I get my blog out there so that moms are "following" it? I don't get paid to blog so I need enough readers to make it worth the time! This is the blog:

http://anderson-va.blogspot.com/

I have a blog and I've found that using blogger is a pain in the butt. The online program is just so time consuming - when I add photos it puts them at the top of the blog and adds space in between my paragraphs and I have to spend so much time placing the photos and cleaning it up! Is their a free program that works with blogger that you can make your blog offline and upload it to blogger??

My daughter is 4 weeks old - since she was 2 weeks old she has been able to push herself from her belly to her back -- when she started lifting her head at 2 weeks we would do some tummy time - which she doesnt like - and would flip onto her back. Thought it was a fluke but she does it EVERY time we put her on her belly... is it normal for such a young baby to be able to roll from tummy to back??

I had a friend bring me these amazing cookies (they are more like clusters) and they had peanut butter, mini marshmellows, white chocolate chips, and I think rice crispies... may have had something else but I can't remember -- anyways - they were so good and I want to make them but I can't find the recipe... and I can't reach my friend to ask -- does anyone know what these are called?? They look like lumpy clusters when they are done.

I'm being induced on Thursday morning. Last week I was 3cm... 90% effaced... and the baby was suppper low down - so low the dr had to read way around the babys head to get to my cervix. The only thing is... my cervix is still up really high and hard to reach. everyone is saying that because I'm so far dilated (i'll find out tomorrow how much more I'm dilated) then my induction should move quickly as long as it doesn't stall out at all...

Question is...

Could my cervix being still very high cause my labor to be long or is this something that changes quickly?

Also - how long from start to finish was your induction -- how far dilated/effaced were you?

I took my BP at my parents house this afternoon and it was 133/96 - mine usually runs 110/65. My mom send the BP cuff home with me and I took it about an hour ago and it was 130/100. I'm laying around and decided to take a hot bath because I feel yucky... and right after getting out my BP was 123/86... can showers lower your BP?? I'm afraid maybe I've messed up the experiment to see if I need to call my doctor on call to see if I need to come in... they have been watching me closely due to swelling. I have afelt pretty achy the last few days and have been feeling a bit sick to my stomach. I wasen't stressed at all today (was my last day of work so I'm on maternity leave now so i was feeling pretty good.) -- It's great if its down but is it only down because of the shower??

I just got back from my 39 week appointment. They said Im just about 3 cm, 80-90% effaced, and the baby is SUPER low... but my cervix is still high -- she had a hard time reaching around the babys head to check.

I know that you can walk around for weeks like this - but are their any good stories of those who had these stats and went into labor shortly after? I'm being inducced next Thursday but i would LOVE to go inot labor naturally so I'm walking and plan to try having sex... But I need encouragement... seems like everyone wants to tell you how they did not progress, haha.

For the past few days I've had wet undies.. I'm 38 weeks pregnant. During the day I just get a large wet spot that doesn't dry because it'll continue to get wet - but it's not a TON. At night - when I wake up to go to the bathroom and go lay back down I can feel more coming out -- by the morning my undies are usually soaked. I'll change my underwear and it'll do it again.

Is it possibly to have a leak and have it present itself more at nighttime than during the day? I'm asking because I read where you can lay down for an hour and then stand up to see if the fluid "pooled" and then came out. It's clear and watery... i can't really tell what it smells like -- it's not urine but I can't tell if it's just increased CM that happens to be clear and watery or if its amniotic fluid. I have a doctors appointment this evening so I'll kjnow fr sure, but I'm thinking about moving my appointment to this morning.

I am going to the doctor on Wednesday - it's my 38 week appointment - although I'll only be 37 weeks and 5 days. I've been in and out of labor and delivery with false labor - this past weekend I have had constant contractions - 3-5 min apart the have increased and are painful - last nigth I went to L&D and they checked and monitered me, and after 4 hours of contractions that got worse and closer together - I had made NO changed. I'm currently at 2 cm - 75% effaced and -1 station. I'm so exhausted and in pain.

I'm thinking about asking about getting my membranes stripped. I'm being induced at 39 weeks because of some problems I've had but I'd much rather "go on my own." has anyone had their membraines swept at 38 weeks?

I'm wondering if anyone has induced their labor with sex at 2 cm and 75% dilation? Over the past few weeks I've steadily dilated and effaced but haven't tried sex yet as I wanted to wait. 2 weeks ago I was a fingertip/20% and soft, last week I was 1cm/40% and soft, and today I was 2cm/75% effaced. Baby has been in position and dropped down - and I've already lost my plug.

I'd just like to hear if sex worked for you if you were around 2cm/75%.

I've heard of women going in for their normal routine weekly appointments and their doctors sending them to labor and delivery because they were dilated and effaced enough....

How far dilated and effaced must you be for your doctor to do this? My doctor has been wanting me on a birthing ball all this past week to help dilate my cervix... I didn't realize that they would just send you on over so I'm curious at what point they would.