Wow, I didn’t expect to be able to post here again! I received a perma-ban notice in spring 2022 with no apparent way to resolve it. I decided to look at the forums today as a guest, on a whim, and apparently I was still logged in. Hi, all!
I’m still in metro Detroit, still married (hit the 20-year anniversary last year), still in a little house (also hit the 20-year mark on that mortgage last year), still driving a now 12-year-old Prius and 23-year-old Chevy. Frugality has been a great boon for us; my income has gone up by about 50% in the last few years, which has allowed us to save quite a bit as we didn’t increase our spending much. Husband’s company was sold and then went through several rounds of restructuring, and he was caught in the most recent round of layoffs. Frugality means that his unemployment benefits cover our health insurance with a decent amount leftover, and all other bills and monthly savings and investments are easily covered by my salary. He’s working on a software certification that should give him access to a much wider (and better-paid) range of jobs, and we’re grateful that we can easily afford for him to take that time. Thank you all for your advice and example over the years.
We’re trying to survive a very gloomy MI winter and are looking forward to expanding the big vegetable garden that we set up in our yard last summer. We really need to speed up using the frozen basil pesto, adobo sauce, and zucchini and jars of various pickles from last summer’s bounty to make room for the next round. I’ve spent much of my free time this winter improving my gluten-free bread baking and spending probably too much on good cheese to go with it (no regrets).