@dfbdfb same boat. No accidents/ no tickets/ no claims. Same insurance company for 20+ years and multiple policies with same company. Insurance doubled. Nice surprise was on son’s 17th bday, the premium dropped by $700. He’d had his permit/ license for 2 years and it moved him out of the “inexperienced driver” status.
@RightCoaster My son won’t look at any of the mail but I found that I learned from the mailings. In the last month, the mail is definitely more interesting now that the college admissions officers are ready to focus on the next wave of applications.
@whataboutcollege I never use those id and pw. There was one school that kept sending and resending by mail and email these user ID and pw and then they sent an email that had a subject line that read THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE! I wanted to reply, PROMISE??
A word of advice that a neighbor shared regarding college apps. He’s a regional interviewer and told a group of neighbors that the best advice he could give our kids is to make sure to list the home phone on the apps and NOT their cell phone. First impression an interviewer has of our kids is when they call them to schedule the interview and get a kid on the other end that is highly distracted by their friends in the background. He said it’s hard to get excited about meeting the kid who already gave them a negative impression.
My oldest actually scans all of the college mail she gets, because she’s interested in how different colleges present themselves to attract different sorts of students. The email, though, she’s started deleting un- (or barely) read.
When I was around 4 I figured out how to get the safety cap off of the Flintstones vitamins. I brought the brand new bottle outside, found all my friends, and shared them all around (because I’m a giver, lol).
My mom had to call all the parents once she found me with the empty bottle and figured out what happened. I have a very vivid memory of barfing up Flintstones vitamins and marvelling at how brightly colored it was. (syrup of ipecac).
@paveyourpath yeah the home phone is the only number that is ever given out at our house-I can’t imagine the propaganda infiltrating their phones, ugh.
DS’s phone is always off except for texting me ‘come get me’ :))
We don’t have a landline either. I have a google voice number (for filling in home phone) and it is forwarded to my cell or goes to google voicemail when I’m traveling.
I like it as google will transcribe the voicemail and send me the email.
DS has yet to get the license, but based on what neighbors say our insurance will ** quadruple ** once he does as we are old and cars are older than kids and we carry minimal insurance for now.
@itsgettingreal17 Brilliance on your part with the screenname. I am feeling very much like it’s getting real now. School ended and although my son and his friends should be breathing a sigh of relief, I can feel the stress that they are causing each other over subject test scores, AP scores and final grades (even though we can see the grades online but they are not final so the kids are freaking out. You raise a good point, many people no longer have landlines (and now I am feeling very much a dinosaur) and it’s a good reminder to those kids that are putting their cell phone numbers on the common app to approach each phone call in a professional manner. If the kids don’t see their friends name pop up, they should spend the fall thinking they are receiving a call from an interviewer.
So if you take SAT I and SAT II does that mean you get 8 free score reports that will include both? I think we sent both sets of scores to the same schools, that may have been a waste.
Have been out all day so just read about the recycled SATs. That is HORRIBLY wrong. I hadn’t realized that the old Jan 2016 test was also a recycle.
While I don’t think that anyone could have a copy of the March 2016 exam again, I think it is pathetic that CB recycled a test that quickly, even if to only a small percentage of test takers.
I never liked Flintstones vitamins. But St Joseph’s aspirin was another story. In college we found some type of candy (sweet tarts maybe) that tasted like them.
Ms DS 18 was caught at about age 4 - mouth covered in chewed up Flintstones --a rainbow of colors! I had only turned away a minute or so but the bottle was on the counter! We figured he had at least 5 so called the doctor. She said to watch him - thankfully he was fine though I felt terrible for awhile (guilt!) . He still takes Flintstones in the morning.
@saillakeerie St. Joseph’s aspirin! My cousin and I ate a whole bottle when we were kids. Good memories. And custard baby food…my brother and I would buy it as teenagers. Too bad they don’t make that anymore. I’d like to see if it is as good as I remember. (Who am I kidding, it’s baby food, yuk)
Phones and land lines: H was an engineer at Nokia back when Nokia had the market on cell phones and when they actually manufactured phones here in the US. Those were glorious times and a fantastic job. I got to travel with him to Finland once on a business trip. Even in the 90’s they didn’t have land lines. I distinctly remember watching someone at the airport with their phone listening to music and doing all sorts of stuff on their phone and H said “someday that will be the US, we will use our phones like that and we will not have land lines.” I laughed. Give up our landlines??? And now, here we are.
Vitamins: oh man I loved those Flintstone vitamins! My mom would never buy them so I always had to sneak one when at a friends house.
I have two questions for everyone:
1.D leaves next week for Germany. What is best to do for her phone plan? Looks like we can purchase an international package for one month only with unlimited texting but limited data. She will be threatened within an inch of her life to not overuse the data. I figure we will mostly just text. Is that ok?
Ds admission counselor from her current favorite school will be at a regional college fair this week and he emailed her to let her know. The college fair says it is for "families" with a one hour "applying to college info session" and then a meet and greet with all the reps. I really want to go and want to meet the rep but I don't want to be "that mom." In the past she has attended all college fairs by herself. Thoughts?
I would try to get a package with a lot of data if not unlimited.
I would go. So far D has gone by herself to college fairs but I will attend the next regional fair and will be with her for coffee with the regional rep of one of her fav schools though let her do most of the talking and asking questions.
We used WhatsApp when older dd was studying in Greece. She had wifi in her apartment and was able to find coffee shops etc with wifi when out. Our family rule is to turn data off when leaving the country. (We've used WeChat when we visited China two years ago.)
Go! There's no harm in sitting in on an informal conversation.
We still have the land line because our internet is cheaper with it. Comcast, man. At least I can do lots of nifty forwarding and blocking on it.
Im glad to know I wasn’t the only kid who had a thing for Flintstones, lol.
Wonder of wonders, d17 is starting to get excited about the college trip up to Boston :). My fil booked a sweeeeeeeet hotel in Boston, and D is scoping out places to eat. I lol’ed when she happily exclaimed “they have chick fil a there!”
@MotherOfDragons …Boston is Ds favorite place because they have “Cheeseboy” restaurant which makes the most fantastic grilled cheese sandwich with mac and cheese AND bacon. She makes a beeline for that restaurant every time we go. And then there is Faneuil Hall. SIGH. Is your D into photography? If so, we did a “Photowalk” tour of the riverfront with a photographer. It was interesting and a different take on a walking and listening tour.
@WhereIsMyKindle …ok, we will all download Whats App. The only tricky part is she may not consistently be with Wifi. She is living in the smallest of small villages <600 people where she is living and she is attending school in a village with not too many more people. So I think she will have wifi at the home where she will be living and might be allowed on the school wifi?
