The amount depends on where you are and what the relationship really is. And what one can truly afford. I never understood why some tip the mailman, eg.
The no cash thing is often to prevent some inequality in how they treat others. Lots of businesses have some sort of line they draw.
Final day of the estate sale is Saturday, we are not likely to make what the guy hoped for, maybe 60-75% of that 
But we covered his fee the first day and are a couple of thousand to the good, that will help some of the costs of refurbishment. Popcorn ceilings and wallpaper come down Monday!
I believe I said it before, but wow! Nothing we own has any real financial value, this is the home of people who constantly reappraised items for insurance value and who derived a great deal of self worth based on their valuable possessions. Between trashing 50+ years of photo albums (yes, we kids looked at every page and took photos) and now seeing their “valuable” stuff going for peanuts, it’s sad. That St John knit that made her so proud, outdated, that mink coat she preened in, nope, no one wants furs. To look at the money they wasted on ‘stuff’ makes me want to go home and live a life much simpler (hmm, which I do compared to them!)
FIL moved from IL to AL, he is still not adapting well, weird to me that a career military officer is so incredibly resistant to following ANY rules.
MIL is progressing in PT and we had been thinking all along SNF was her only option, but a person at the home told us about board and care homes, we found a gorgeous one in the area they lived and it is just over half the price of SNF, but better than that, it is clean, pretty, nicely decorated, and would provide personalised versus institutional care.
The problem is that FIL will have an absolute tizzy fit when we move MIL to a different location and when he is done with that fit, he will use that as justification as to why he should have his car.
I’ve cleaned out several houses of elderly relatives and it long since occurred to me that “stuff” has no real value. It also doesn’t define you. It’s always the weird things family wants. I kept an old fashioned flour sifter from my great aunt. When we cleaned out my mom’s place it was hard to get rid of things, especially since she didn’t understand her precious mementos and knick knacks were only special to her.
Poor FIL things everything is ‘valuable’ and if we tried to show him the current market for whatever, well, we would not have done a good job finding the right buyer.
My mother: “It’s just a bit sad not to be with family on the holidays.” Huh? For the last 5 of the 6 years she lived nearby, she refused to come to our dinner or let me bring the cooked food and do it at her place, even for an hour. Or even drop off food. Same with Christmas. She did have her new friends where she now lives and a old friend will visit this weekend.
@somemom , I had exactly the same experience re stuff at estate sale. There was so MUCH of it that there was $ at the end, but most of it went for cents. And Mom as well as Grandma were always so “defined” by that stuff. Nasty old furs … even the burning man people wouldn’t take them.
Good for you for getting though it. And yes, my house is “emptier” now too. We are NOT doing this to our kids.
Thanksgiving I had my kids call my mom separately five minutes apart. Then I called her. She said that the food was good an she’d had a call so she had a little family contact. I am sure my brother called her and probably my brother-in-law as well. But the repetition was what was needed to stick it in her mind for a little while.
Interesting about the stuff. I think our parents’ generation is particulaly obsessed with it. My parents and my m-i-l cling to their furniture purchased in the 50s and 60s - it’s like you buy one bedroom set and one dining room set and that’s what you have for your entire life. Even if you move to a smaller place or a different climate.
My mother’s obsession is her crystal. Bowls, seving pieces, cake platters, etc. A breakfront full of heavy crystal. Some if the pieces belonged to my grandparents. Does anyone use this stuff anymore?
We are moving m-i-l from one AL to another. First one was a gorgeous and very expensive facility. She complained non-stop about the food ( they served mixed greens and she prefers romaine, etc,) and there was no one who played bridge! New AL just opened and has more residents - so hopefully she can make a friend or two. The apartment is slightly bigger - which means she is now mad about the stuff we donated when selling her condo. Always leads back to their stuff!
I am at the point of convincing my dad “if you stay at home or not, it shouldn’t be dirty or cluttered either way”.
All of his kids work full-time, and all their spouses work full-time except for one who is a drunk . He has already been robbed, and we are pretty sure it is because he let people into his house to “help clean” without one of us present. He does have a security system now.
He has been very very hesitant to get rid of any of my mother’s stuff. For example, he has her Hummels, but I know that I don’t have any place for them, and I don’t like them that much, so I wonder if I should just photograph them all and put them up on eBay after looking up some values. If we could get 20% of the real value, that probably would be good.
So many cheap paperbacks too.
Crystal! MIL had over 100 pieces of American cut glass from the 1800s, she has multiple appraisals for insurance purposes. A few years ago we took the list and a few pieces to a few antique stores, we pretty much heard the same story- all the little old ladies now 80-90 collected this stuff and now they are all dying and selling off the stuff. The lady was interested in maybe 1-2 pieces, very little of it sold this weekend, the pieces remaining, which was most of it and several of which the estate sale guy had listed for over $100 each piece, yah, they went to the guy who comes and takes all your leftover cr** and takes it away for a couple hundred bucks. If we had not agreed to Craigslist or dump the couches ourselves, we would have gotten $0 from him, as it is he has to dismantle the piano to take it away and dump it
Antique crystal, furs, high end couches, no one will pay much. Many married couples no longer seek crystal, china, and silver, nor do they buy expensive, furniture. I know the high quality things I bought in the 80s don’t hold any value, but it’s hard to know if I should keep the stuff that I liked when I bought it and still like or if I am slowly becoming the owner of an “old lady’s” house!
The same with nice, but not incredible, art work, things by known but not famous people, yah, a few sold, the rest i will either eBay or consign in an auction &, oh, don’t get my started on over priced jewelry, FIL, who is incredibly cheap, has been suckered 6 ways to Sunday on some jewelry, he fell for ridiculous prices on stuff!
The cheap paperbacks that no-one wants - that is easy to donate to library or other place (many public libraries often have a friends of library store or way to get them donated elsewhere).
Hummels have no on-going market. Sort of like the American cut glass. The collectors are no longer collecting. There are also less expensive Hummel-like figurines on the market. I enjoy my collection, and I imagine one of my daughters will want to keep the pieces.
At my mom’s estate sale, I bought a few things that my nieces/nephews wanted (they were timid about bidding on anything) - so it was good they were able to get from me. My brother swiped an expensive jewelry item that was mine, and now, five years later, I have to retrieve it from my niece who he gave it to…ugh…some of the dysfunction of families…niece will understand because she knows her dad…
FIL is making me crazy, this morning one of the church ladies let me know he was trying to get someone to bring him to the house. We told him when he left, and he agreed, that he won’t come back while it’s torn apart. He would have cried to see the estate sale, the prices, the stuff piled up to sell etc. And now it looks sad & empty,
I scurried around, locked all the doors and left, in his car, the one he wants back! I took a run to work off some stress and came back an hour or two later!
I am so blessed that he cannot remember how to work the speed dial, we have gone over it half a dozen times, but he cannot remember, I am thankful he is not calling my mobile phone constantly. He needs to go make friends!
My dad was career military so I am lucky my parents never were enamored with “stuff” as they would have to move it eventually. My problems has been getting them to throw junk away as my father is a cheap!
How many people may be treated for hypertension based on inaccurate office reading
This is how BP reading “should” be done !
^ Also “White coat hypertension,” “a syndrome whereby a patient’s feeling of anxiety in a medical environment results in an abnormally high reading when their blood pressure is measured.”
I don’t understand the insistence on avoiding the caffeine for the reading. To be sure, caffeine can make blood pressure go up, but if high blood pressure per se is bad and the patient habitually drinks coffee, shouldn’t they be tested in their normal caffeinated state?
I had a blood pressure home meter that needed to be adjusted - our readings at home were higher than the doc office, so we finally went in and got the issue solved - our family doc had a tool to adjust the cuff meter. I had never heard of this happening, and I am a RN. The cuff was new - poor quality control from mfr IMHO. So now our readings at home are correct.
^Agree about how BP ‘should’ be done.
My mom was with us for Thanksgiving. She was much better than during her last trip. Seems to not be taking too many prescription painkillers, and her depression seems better. But her memory is not improving, and she is malnourished. She also has COPd and emphysema, and smokes a LOT. She’s is serious denial with the COPD and emphysema. I feel bad. Her sister sent her with a laptop (did I mention the memory issue?) and she has no idea where she left it, but it did not make it out of security with her. She would eat when I made her food, but I’m guessing she doesn’t have enough energy to make herself food at home. Fortunately she lives with people who will fix her meals. When she left I was feeling like she was greatly improved, but after writing this I think I’m depressed… I’m really looking for advice, just helping myself work through what needs to happen with her.
Making Sense of a Father’s Death (With Baudelaire’s Help)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/fashion/mens-style/charles-baudelaire-fathers-death.html
1214mom, hugs, can’t really ssay how you can help yourself deal as we all deal in many different ways. The yo-yo of she’s better, she’s worse is the hardest thing to keep a handle on for me, too. You are not alone if that helps.
@somemom, recovered from the estate sale yet? Did you end up OK? I still am grateful for the estate sale doing it all for us (after we did the skim of course and after DH hauled the 3 tons (by literal measurement) of garbage out.
The guy who took all the leftovers was supposed to come back Monday because the estate sale guy left the gate locked and he had to take the piano out! The piano and some other backyard stuff is still there
Plus one couch I thought I sold Sunday never got picked up.
Not happy about that, but we are working it through