My Daily Domestic Clips 07/31/2010 (a.m.)

• ROI: Why Chelsea Clinton Is Setting a Bad Example – WSJ.com – Annotated Excellent advice about paying for a wedding.

  A year or so ago Calvin’s girlfriend said she thought a back yard BBQ would be a fun wedding. Have I ever mentioned how much I like that girl? tags: weddings

  • 2. Spending a fortune on a wedding is a choice, not a necessity. Chelsea’s wedding is likely to cost $2 million to $3 million, says Ms. Roney. But first daughter Jenna Bush managed to hold a somewhat quieter affair for a lot less when she got married two years ago. She invited about 200 guests and held the wedding on her parents’ ranch in Texas. It was hardly cheap, but at $100,000, the tab wasn’t even in the same ballpark.
  • 3. Spend what you can afford. Sure, the Clintons are spending a lot, but they are rich. Their net worth was estimated at $35 million not long ago. Chelsea is their only child. And Bill gets paid about $250,000 a speech. After taxes, that’s about $160,000. So he could clear a $3 million tab for Chelsea’s big day with 19 speeches. Even at one speech a day, that’s three weeks’ work. The average family maybe earns $3,000 in three weeks. Yet they spend about $17,500 on a wedding.
  • 5. The lifetime cost is off the map. People get angry when I point this out. But if your money earns, say, 4% a year above inflation, every dollar you save at age 20 will grow to about $6 by the time you retire. So that $17,500 will grow to about $100,000. If you’re financially secure, maybe it doesn’t matter so much. But most middle-class Americans are in a far more precarious situation than they realize. They have saved little, if anything, for their retirement, and they are deeply in debt. (Household debts are about twice what they were a decade ago.) And we’ve seen what can happen to jobs and wages in a slump. In these circumstances, saving money instead of spending it matters very much.
  • 7. How do you cut costs and still have a great wedding? Avoid Saturdays and peak seasons, says Ms. Roney. Avoid fancy venues and big cities. Make it more casual: A lot of the money goes toward those big formal dinners. And invite fewer guests. Five hundred people is going to cost you, even if they’re not famous.
• Living Gracefully- prayers for Melanie Pritchard – C-section with complications – Annotated tags: prayer birth childbirth cesarean csection
  • UPDATED AT 8:15PM AZ TIME, 7/29/10

    Melanie Pritchard, Catholic speaker, Pro-Life Educator, Chastity speaker, and a true woman of God is in critical condition after giving birth to her second child. During labor there were complications and Melanie was rushed into an emergency C-section. During the C-section Melanie’s heart stopped beating. The baby was born and is doing great. But Melanie’s condition is very serious. She has now had surgery on her heart and while she is stable on machines, is not recovering well. They are now transporting her to the …

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.