Random thoughts: Spaghetti carbonara, slow cookers and irresponsible finances

Feeding the kids: A success story!

I tweeted about this on Wednesday night, but wanted to mention it here as well. Dinner that night was spaghetti carbonara, which I made with whole wheat spaghetti, cheese and eggs. (I'll publish the recipe next week.) Alex actually ate it. And he didn't just eat it, he loved it. We did have to persuade him to try it in the first place, but Marc and I are jointly sticking with our plan to raise healthy eaters. So far, so good! (Although I must admit that I couldn't get Tyler to even take a bite of the pasta.)

Mainstream media is behind the curve again

The LA Times recently published an article about the resurgence of slow cookers. They even mentioned Stephanie from A Year of CrockPotting, but since there were no recipes accompanying the article, it was kind of lame. But maybe it was worth it, because I found an LAT blog post about a non-electric slow cooking method used in Zimbabwe involving pillows. I need to win the Le Creuset giveaway over at GoodyBlog before I can try it, though.

I'm sick and tired of people who are financially irresponsible!

Almost every day, JLP at All Financial Matters posts about how financially responsible citizens are going to be stuck subsidizing our financially irresponsible brethren (like this post on Wednesday), and I have to agree that it's infuriating. I just heard about a friend of a friend who works for a large law firm and has a $6,000 monthly mortgage payment. My jaw dropped. I didn't realize that it's even possible to have a mortgage that big.

I'm guessing that the mortgage must be in the million-dollar range, and the rough description and location I was given match that price. I would guess that this attorney's income is about $250,000 per year. To the best of my knowledge, the attorney is single and lives alone, so there's no one else helping to pay the bills, nor is there another source of income or other assets (e.g., a family trust). If the attorney were fired – and it's not exactly improbable given all of the layoffs happening at firms lately – the house would most likely go into foreclosure.

I just don't understand how anyone could think – even in overpriced LA – that a $6,000 per month mortgage is a good idea. A good-sized condo in a nice area can be rented for $2,000 per month or purchased for $500,000. Even a small house could be purchased for $500,000. Granted, life at a large firm is so miserable, spending money is often the only way to make it tolerable – but in that case, I would say get a $3,000 mortgage, blow $1,000, and bank the other $2,000 for the day you can't take the large firm lifestyle any longer. People are just crazy.