Chris

My mother in law has been in the hospital 4 times the past 2 months and has a long list of ailments. My wife and I have to help her with several things and care of her house and animals when she's in the hospital. We have a house, kids, jobs, and pets of our own, but not enough time because we're constantly helping her.

We are considering buying a bigger house and inviting her to move in with us and charge her rent of $800-1000 per month.

We could use her (when healthy) to get our kids off the bus when they're old enough, she would cook some meals, be home to let our dog out while we work all day, and she would help us financially. However, our family dynamic would change and we don't want it to affect our marriage. I'd like to hear from anyone that has lived with an in law. What were the best parts about it and the worst parts about it?

My wife is in a department with 5 other women. 2 of them in their 30's call themselves PB&J, they text each other, e-mail each other, make fun of coworkers, talk about inappropriate things like their sex lives.

One of them gave Christmas cards to everyone but my wife and another coworker. The other invited all but those 2 to her birthday party. There was a big fight on Thursday at work, and then a Facebook war on the weekend.

I'll spare the details, but their manager said management can't solve personality conflicts. However, all this personal stuff gets them behind and my wife is the one that has to help each of them hit their deadlines, which makes her fall behind in hers and she gets no help. Should she go above her boss's head to the next boss?

I've been a financial analyst with my company for 12+ years. A controller position became available and I applied. When I finally got an "interview" 6 weeks later, the boss' first words were "we got your application, and we hired someone else."

I have taken on more responsibility without a raise at least twice. Any salary guide I look at doesn't even list my salary on their range. That tells me that if I go to another company, I should be able to make more and better support my family.

What's the best way to ask my boss for a raise? Do I talk face to face, hand in a formal request? I have the main points written out already. I have the salary guides. I have an e-mail from a recruiter looking to place me elsewhere for a $90K salary.

My cousin is getting married next Halloween and wants everyone to come in costume. However, I have 2 small children and had the time of my life this past Halloween taking my 2 year old daughter trick or treating. I don't want to miss that next year.

Is this a valid reason to skip the wedding and go to the reception later? I am not especially close to this cousin, I see her 3-4 times a year maximum.

In nearly every mock draft I see, the first 10-15 picks are all RB's. I've been out of fantasy football for 10 years, but I was curious. ESPN's rankings have the 30th best RB (McFadden) ranked ahead of the 10th-12th best QB's (Kaepernick, Romo, and Luck.)

Why do standard league setting favor RB's so heavily?

10 days ago, I had a sore throat. It's usually sinus drainage this time of year so I started taking some Claritin. When that didn't help, I looked in my throat and noticed some white sores so I went to the doctor. It wasn't strep and I was prescribed augmentin for 10 days. I'm on day 6 and notice no change. As soon as a white sore goes away, another one seems to pop up. They are all near my uvula. I have 3 or 4 that I can see. They are very small, but painful. I just called for the throat culture results and it came back normal. I've been gargling with warm salt water several times a day.

I can function fine and sleep ok with the pain so I don't need pain relief, but would like to know what else this could be or what some other remedies I could try to get rid of these sores. I do have a bit of sinus drainage, but that hasn't caused these sores before.

Our 20 month old is getting progressively worse at bathtime. She screams whenever it's time to rinse the shampoo out of her hair. After she started hating water being poured on her head while she's standing up, I started laying her down and holding her head up so the water doesn't get in her eyes. She used to have a 10 second limit and then she started panicking. Now she panicks right away. What are some other methods we can try to rinse the shampoo out?

My wife and I have a money discussion every couple months. She gets frustrated when I tell her we're spending more than we can afford to. She then gets defensive and tries justifying all her purchases. (They are valid, she's not buying too many non-necessities.) Whenever I bring up a possible solution like lowering our car payment, I get no response. My guess is because she knows when my car is paid off, we're getting her a new one.

My frustration comes partly out of jealousy. I make 75% of the money but spend nearly nothing. I work 5 days and she works 3. I pack my lunch to save money, yet we still spend as much or more than we make. I cannot get her to understand that I'm not attacking her purchases, I'm pointing out that if we bring in $700 a week but have $800 in expenses a week, that's a problem (even if the $800 are necessary and justified.)

When you and your spouse can't see eye to eye on money, how do you resolve it?

My wife and I will have a son in about 4 months, around the same time our daughter turns 2. We're both curious as to how this will affect day to day life. Our daughter likes to help, but also is used to our undivided attention. There will be jealousy issues, I'm sure that's normal. What was the transition like for you when you had child #2?

After the Boston bombing, I thought of an idea for a horror movie. Some of history's mass murderers could team with Satan to find a way to escape Hell and attack Earth. Does anything like that currently exist?

A coworker's boyfriend who is unemployed and trying to get on disability, food stamps, whatever he can for free, recently had a hospital stay and my coworker is writing a letter to lie about his life so that they don't have to pay their hospital bills. She's going to say they don't live together and his parents don't help him at all. He has a boat that should be repossessed if he's not going to pay his bills. She already had a mechanic pad the estimate when she got in a wreck so she didn't have to pay a dime for her wreck. Is there any place I can report her? I have insurance and pay my bills, and I believe she should too. She buys fast food every day, orders things online, and then complains about having no money. I don't buy ANYTHING for myself just so there's enough to pay the bills.

My friend and I have formed a Yahoo Group for people that feel like they're always on the outside. You can ask for advice, give advice, share stories, and get to know people just like you.

If interested, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/outside_in/

My wife and I just found out we're pregnant with our 2nd child and are extremely happy. It took over 4 months to get pregnant. However, telling her brother and sister in law one day will be rough. They've been trying IVF unsuccessfully for the past year. They are borrowing money from family, and using their 401K's. They are in their mid to upper 30's and time is running out for them to have their own child. It hurts them to see a kid and they went through a phase where they avoided our 1 year old daughter for a month. Is there any good way to tell them when we know they're understandably not going to be happy about it?

My wife and I just found out we're pregnant yesterday with our 2nd child. Our families keep a close eye on my wife's drinking habits, and whenever she doesn't drink at a family get together, they assume she's pregnant. It's way too early for us to be telling people. Any tips to make it through the holidays without letting everyone find out we're pregnant? Everyone knows my wife does not refuse alcohol when she's not pregnant.

I work full time and my wife works part time. I'm a saver and she's a spender which leads to some frustration by both of us. She thinks we're fine because we have retirement savings that we contribute to, and put money in our savings account when there's extra. I think we majorly overspend and need to cut back. She spent $40 on a meal Friday with her friends, she spent $30 at a craft show Saturday morning, we adopted a dog for $150 Saturday afternoon, bought a $489 freezer Saturday afternoon, and went out to dinner for $45 Saturday night. I only got an $8 burger and glass of water to try to limit the cost. How do I even bring up this topic without offending her? Last night I found a McDonald's bag in the garbage can when she said she ate crackers and a granola bar for lunch. When she's spending money and lying about it, that's when I need to do take action.

If a widow dies and her will is clearly written out to divide her assets between her two children, how long would it take for the children to receive any money or property?

My wife may be losing her mother soon, and depending on the timing, I may encourage her to quit her job (that she hates) and spend the time with our daughter. But we still have bills to pay and my salary alone won't cut it.

My wife and I have a 1 year old daughter. My wife works about 25 hours a week and I work full time. On her off days, she goes shopping, visits her mom, goes swimming. Our families are very demanding so we visit each family every weekend even though they both babysit for us during the week. But that's another issue.

My question is: how do you and your spouse divide household chores if one works more hours than the other? If my wife stayed at home taking care of our daughter, I would be more willing to split the chores 50-50. Since she uses her free days to do fun stuff and I have no free days, it's getting overwhelming to have half of the chores and virtually no free time.

My brother in law and his wife have been going through In Vitro Fertility treatments for months and he had a low sperm count which has improved. His wife seems to be unable to produce many eggs, and her estrogen level can't be sustained. She is 37. They have had 2 implantations cancelled due to lack of eggs. They go back & forth on other methods and think they may regret any other option even though they want to be parents so badly.

Has anyone out there adopted a child or used an egg or embryo donor? Did you ever feel like it wasn't yours? Or were there issues if the baby was biologically the father's, but the mother's egg couldn't be used? It's hard for them to believe my wife and I because we were fortunate enough to get pregnant a couple weeks after we got married.

My wife and I went on our monthly date night and we alternate babysitters between my family and hers. Her mom came over to our house and was carrying our 11 month old daughter, tripped over our baby gate, and fell to the ground with her. She said she protected her head on the way down, but the next morning our daughter cried every time she tried drinking. We spent part of the day at the hospital to find out it was an ear infection and the timing was just a coincidence.

My wife and I are realizing that our parents aren't that reliable. Her mom is getting too physically frail and is a bit careless. She let our daughter fall off the couch twice before by leaving her during naps. My parents don't feed her enough healthy food and my mom won't put her to bed because she wants to watch her to make sure she's breathing. My question is: do we lay down the law to my parents and say here are the rules if you want to babysit? Or do we find another sitter and offend our parents?