u/hinogoodbye

Now my husband seems frazzled and hesitant about our plan to start trying for a baby next summer. Obviously MA is a high cost of living state, and our combined income is about 170k right now. We’re hoping that will be closer to 180-185 in 2028 through promotions.

Is this true? I know a lot of people say you never feel 100% ready, and I don’t need to have the top of the line baby stuff, but we need to be able to afford our mortgage, necessities, part time child care, etc. My worst fear is waiting to start trying for the perfect time and then what if we have trouble?

We have a couple of people we need to buy house warming gifts for and I had the idea of doing a “cleaning basket” with a gift card to a local restaurant. I’d include multipurpose cleaner, Clorox wipes, dish soap, etc—stuff everyone needs but isn’t the super fun stuff to buy for a house.

When I bought my house I felt I needed to scrub every inch of it to get rid of the old owners, so I thought it would be helpful. However my husband said this could be offensive because they may think I’m implying that they’re dirty or their new home is dirty. Thoughts? Would you like this gift?

I recently purchased a home and one of the first things I did was get on a pest control prevention plan. I hate bugs and rodents and this is an old home so it’s not exactly air tight. Overall they’ve been really great so far. The one thing I’m getting frustrated with is we have so many stink bugs in the house, mostly on the top floor where it gets warmer. When I said this to our pest control guy, he said they’re “overwintering insects” and there’s not much you can do about them other than let them out-they’re just trying to leave. Okay, fine, I wouldn’t mind letting one out through the window here and there, but it’s really unsettling to go upstairs and see 7 in the hallway and another 4 in our bedroom.

Is there anything I can do to combat this or anything they can do that I can push for? They’ve emphasized to not try to do my own pest control (they said for example when people have roaches and they use raid it makes their job harder) but it is only getting worse as the weather gets warmer and I’m so sick of it! Any tips?