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Update

September 24th, 2008 at 05:21 am

First of all, if I offended anyone over on the forums, I am sorry. I was trying to defend someone and went too far. I am glad that Jeffrey cleaned up that messy series of posts.

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Now that that is out of the way, let's get updated. Like I mentioned, I got my house sold a few weeks ago. I sold it for about $1500 more than I bought it for, but I paid $4000 in closing costs, paid 6% for the real estate agent and sprayed for termites, so I ended up walking away with about $13,000. I put down $17,000, so I lost $4000 from when I bought it 2 years ago. But, that is only $166 a month, pretty cheap rent Smile Let's look on the sunny side of this!

$9900 of it is earmarked for the land payment at the first of December. I transferred it to our online savings account so I won't be tempted to spend it on other stuff before then.

Before, I was allocating $900 every two weeks for bills between the two houses, and now, including the $25 a week rent I am paying for my room (yep, only $25 a week! I get cable, internet, a bathroom to myself and a place to do the three s's (shit, shower and shave) for that) is only $410 every two weeks.

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Because of all the extra time I put in last weekend and last week, my boss let me take my normal day off on Friday and let me stay home on Monday and come in at noon on Tuesday. Awesome! That is a nice way to recognize someone's work.

So, I told DH that, and he said "great! I have lots of swathing for you to do." Hee hee. He also liked that I would be around for longer Smile I got home Thursday night and then spent 4 days in the swather. We got a lot done...we figured I did over 200 acres and he was baling at the same time. We are charging $10 an acre and $8 per bale, so I alone brought in $2000 this weekend! I don't know how much he did...our bale counter over counts sometimes, so we have to wait until we move them to count them. We probably put in $400 worth of fuel for the swather, though.

That is what we should have been able to do this whole summer. But the rain has stopped us from doing that. We probably lost a month and a half where we couldn't get in the fields because it was too muddy. What a year. It would have been a lot different had the wheat not gotten hailed out and if we could have had even $1000 weekends all summer.

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I ended up getting reimbursed for the mileage for when I went to the java class. I accidentally paid for the rental car on my credit card instead of the company card, so they had to reimburse me for that. Got reimbursed a total of $632.58 to me, with $434.42 the rental car, so almost $200 for the mileage. It all went to the credit card.

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I had an offer in the mail about a 0% interest 0% balance transfer credit card for an entire year, but I can't find the offer now. My two 0% offers end in December, and I need to get them transferred over here pretty soon so we don't have to pay interest on them. It is bad enough I haven't paid off my normal working credit card for a few months now. I kick myself every time I think about it, but I don't know how else to hold this ship together for now.

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Ok, why is Living Almost Large trying to pick another fight? On the "Do you NEED 2 incomes" thread, she posted this:

Question, do people when considering staying at home for a child, make a non-gender based decision? Meaning that person staying at home has the lesser income whether or not they are the husband or wife? Or is it decided by gender?

I have to wonder why people on a financial board typically tell a woman to stay at home if her income doesn't cover daycare. But if it's the man who earns a lot less, rarely is it force your husband to stay at home.


Well, I'm going to respond here, but I'm not touching that in the forums with a 10 foot pole. The following are stereotypes, but sometimes, stereotypes become stereotypes in the first place because they are true.

First, they are called boobs. Babies do best with breastmilk, and men can't make that. If you can give your child breastmilk for a year after birth, that puts them on the best track for the rest of their lives. The simplist way to deliver said breastmilk is for the mom to be there holding the baby. What a pain to pump and freeze and defrost and warm up and wash bottles, etc. Not that a family can't choose to do it that way. Go ahead! But it is undeniably easier to pull down your bra and let the little bugger go at it.

Second, "maternal instinct" is not some myth or some way to keep women in their place. It is real. Women tend to WANT to stay home with their children. And, babies/children tend to want to be with their moms. Again, if someone chooses to do it differently, fine. But if the mom wants to stay home, why is that bad and the husband in that relationship automatically labeled a woman-hater or a pig?

I am not a feminist. That much is probably pretty clear. But, I think any woman is capable of, and should, do what she can do. Some women can do a lot. Some, not so much. Same as men.

Each family should let the person that does that job best do it. But THEY should decide, regardless of political leanings.

It seems like to acknowledge your femininity and natural predilections and tendencies offend some people. Like biology, culture and personal preference has no say...to be a "new" woman you have to forsake all womanly characteristics and emasculate your men (or not have one at all) to prove something.

And any woman can decide for herself and each family can decide for themselves, what is best for them. Because a woman decides to stay home does not mean she was forced to.

It is sooo funny that someone called me a misogynist. Dude, do you know me? I grew up on a farm, doing actual farm work, not just living there. Working in the field on a tractor by myself by the time I was 10. Rode horses, worked cattle, harvest, all of it. In high school, I worked for my uncle and dad roofing. We had 6 girls in high school (two cousins and me and my 3 sisters) on that roof, and lots of people came by just to see us working up there...they had never seen anything like it before. Played 3 sports in high school. Played basketball against the guys almost every Sunday night at the open gym. There would be 15 guys and 3 girls playing (my two best friends and me) and we just shot free throws to determine teams and no one complained when we were on their team. I played two sports in college. Majored in math and physics and got a 4.0 GPA. Got a math masters degree in theoretical algebra. Now I work in IT and farm with my husband. I got an award a few years ago called the "Women who soar" award from work because of my leadership and I just get crap done. I didn't get married until I was 30 because I wouldn't settle, and I did just fine on my own, thank you very much. I like to hunt with my husband and his friends, play video games and hate cleaning the house. I am the definition of an empowered woman.

But I don't lean left at all, so I will not be called a feminist. It is too bad that in order to be a feminist, you have to be willing to kill babies before they are born, want special treatment for women on the job, want all gender roles flipped upside down and reject God because he is the ultimate patriarch.

Wait a second, maybe I'm a "Sarah Palin Feminist." We have to come up with some other term for that, to get the F word out of there. No wonder I want to vote for her.

8 Responses to “Update”

  1. merch Says:
    1222262621

    I stayed away from the 2 income thread. I figured that opening my virtually mouth would be a no win situation.

    My thoughts are that it is up to the couple to decide. Every family is different and every family has different priorities. Some families may eat at the table together for every meal, some might want to be able to afford more opportunities, some might want their children to have more experiences, etc. Each one of these factors causes us to have a different point of what we consider balance.

    In my view, when you are married, it is a partnership. A true partnership. You are equals. Each has a say and a view that should be respected.

    With that, it is up to the family to decide if 2 incomes or one make sense based on their balance point. My wife and I decided that we wanted to raise our kids and one of us would stay at home. It just matched up with our priorities.

    The next question was who would stay home. The answer was not who made the most or gender based, it was based on what we wanted and needed as a family.

  2. Live Free Says:
    1222270731

    Good post, Cptacek. Congratulations on selling the house and getting the hay baled.

    Yes, you are a perfect example of an impowered woman. In life, there are always people who take action and those who call others names.

    I, too, am a woman who is a farmer. It is hard work and I wish you and your husband the best.

  3. compulsive debtor Says:
    1222274146

    I'm just not even touching this issue here because the whole Sarah Palin/feminists killing babies, etc. think is just going to send me off on a rant. ...

  4. fern Says:
    1222282499

    Well, first of all, feminists don't support special treatment on the job; they support equal treatment.

    Secondly, feminism has nothing to do with faith in God so why throw that in there?

    I really couldn't vote for Palin because I know very little about her. That's becus the McCain people are being very careful to keep her from the media, lest she say something embarrassing and mess up his chances.

  5. cptacek Says:
    1222307880

    @compulsive debtor: Every self-identified feminist I have ever known/heard has had "reproductive rights" as their most important issue. That is code for abortion. I am against abortion, so that means I can't be a feminist.

    @fern: When I say special treatment, what I mean is that lots of feminists trot out that tired old argument that women earn 75% of what men do. If you do a correct statistical analysis, you will find that that is simply not true. But they want employers to feel guilty about this "stat" and rectify it by paying women MORE than what they pay men.

    Also, I have read lots of drivel saying that the Bible hates women, priests hate women, God hates women and in order to be a feminist, you have to change what the Bible says or reject God outright.

  6. fern Says:
    1222349753

    Sorry, but that stat of roughly 75% IS still true, even today. For instance, I learned that my good friend and colleague at work who has the same job as me, makes $10,000 more than i do and he's been on the job about a year longer than me. I have been told by several people that i'm the best at what i do, and even the man i just mentioned admitted that i was a better writer than him.

    Women have grown up thinking that if they just work really hard, their contribution will be recognized with better compensation. That's baloney. Companies will want to pay the least amount of $ they can get away with and women tend to be less assertive and confrontational than men so they often agree to whatever's offered. It's just the way we're raised.

    Women take off to raise children and once you do that, it's hard to re-enter the workforce at the same pay scale.

    You're using awfully strong language to describe how "God hates women" and so on, and i don't know where that's coming from, although i would say that any religion that doesn't recognize women as equal partners with the intelligence to play a leadership role in the church is not one i'd care to belong to.

  7. cptacek Says:
    1222401168

    @fern: Coming up with an example that does not hold true to a statistic doesn't automatically mean that the statistic is false. That is why I said you have to do a correct statistical analysis. And, in fact, if you do better work than him, don't take it lying down. Either ask for a raise or find another job (which I know is harder than it sounds) instead of complaining about it. Make your boss face facts. That is the only way to cause change.

    Please look at this article:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201262.html
    and tell me why it is wrong. Really, I would like to know your opinion on it. I think it makes sense and is logical, so I would like your opinion.

  8. fern Says:
    1222448806

    As is so often the case in life, there is no black and white. I'm sure there's truth in what we're both saying, and i really have no beef with what your article says. Women do often choose to make "trade-offs" in choosing to take time off from work for parenting, or in choosing to work for a lower-paying non-profit job. Still, pay inequities continue to persist. I'm not saying it's part of some grand conspiracy, but it's there.

    I can only speak from my own life experiences. It's easy to find stats that support your case regardless of what side you're on so i don't put a lot of stock in statistics except as a general rule of thumb. I speak from my own life experiences.

    You're making a lot of assumptions here without knowing the facts. I am not "complaining about my salary." I have in fact asked for a raise. After learning there would be no raises given in my company until year's end, i spent a weekend feeling grumpy and then resolved to put it out of my mind, becus a bad attitude is not going to help me improve my compensation here. I brought it up as an example since you seemed to be confusing "special treatment" with "equal pay for equal work."

    I'm sorry, but you can't chalk up every pay disparity by saying it's due to individual preferences in occupation.

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