Our Breadwinners

For the first five years of our marriage, my husband and I both worked full-time outside of the home. For those first five years, we both earned almost identical annual incomes – our yearly salaries differed only by about $500, making us co-breadwinners.

Then I quit my job to stay at home with our kids (although ultimately I’d pick up some freelance work on the side), and overnight, my husband became the primary breadwinner. On the outside, he took it in stride; on the inside, his anxiety was skyrocketing. He stressed over whether he was doing enough to provide for me and the kids, signing up for what seemed like endless hours of overtime while I was at home, desperately craving some time with somebody other than a pair of toddlers.

A few months ago, I went back to work full-time – as they said in The Godfather, “they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” And once again, the financial face of our family changed overnight. My new job – and the salary that came with it – put me in a position I’d never been in before: breadwinner. Although my husband was still working full-time, my position – along with my freelance work – made me the primary money-maker.

It’s Not Unheard of Anymore

It’s becoming increasingly common to see a woman at the financial head of household (I’m talking from a breadwinner point of view, not a tax status perspective). According to Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In, 41% of mothers in America are the main breadwinners in their family; as of this spring, I became one of them. Sandberg (you probably know her better as the COO of Facebook) reports that another quarter of mothers contribute at least 25% of their family’s income, making them co-breadwinners.

My husband didn’t exactly adjust to being our breadwinner easily; so how would he react to my coup d’etat of the family’s financial power position?

There are a lot of things I love about my husband, but his ability to support me – and my decisions – is far and away his most amazing attribute. When I first brought up the idea of me going back to work full-time (even though I’d be telecommuting, and still doing my job from inside our home), he urged me to pursue this new opportunity… even if it meant he’d have to step up around the house, even if it meant he’d have to assume a more active role taking care of our kids. Sure, there have been some hiccups along the way – he’s learned the hard way that our daughter won’t eat defrosted bread – but he’s been a working mom’s dream come true.

Thanks for reading the RSS version of The Changing Face of the Family Breadwinner which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!

Blog Carnivals that Included MWD

• Carnival of MoneyPros at My Personal Finance Journey
• Finance Carn. for Young Adults at WILDaboutFinance
• Yakezie Carnival at Money Life and More
• Carnival of MoneyPros at Freeat33
• Carnival of Retirement at Money Q
• Finance Carn. for Young Adults at Faithful With a Few
• Yakezie Carnival at Money Reasons
• Yakezie Carnival at Growing Money Smart
• Finance Carn. for Young Adults at The Happy Homeowner
• Carnival of MoneyPros at Master the Art of Saving

Also, as a thank you for reading these carnival updates, I’ll start including at least one giveaway that I’ve seen open recently.  :-)

Giveaways

• Surviving and Thriving is hosting a More Money Please Giveaway until June 11!
• The Debt Myth is hosting an iPad Mini and App Giveaway until June 17!
• The Amateur Financier is hosting a $175 1000 Post Giveaway until June 30!
• Amanda at Frugal Confessions is offering her Kindle eBook, The CVS Drugstore Game, FREE from June 9 through June 13th!!!

Thanks for reading the RSS version of Thanks to These Blog Carnivals – June 2013 which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!

When my husband and I first got married, we allowed ourselves a small amount of fun money. It wasn’t much – maybe $50 a month for each of us – but it gave us the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of our labor, without feeling the need to “check in” with the other person about what we intended to buy with it.

Then we bought a house, a few cars, had kids, and went from a two-income household to something closer to a one-and-a-half income household. Without even saying it out loud, my husband and I realized that our fun money no longer fit into the family budget; it died a quick, painless death, with the tacit understanding that we’d resume the habit once our finances were more stable and our debt under control.

Well, that’s happened. We’re at a point where we feel more than able to give ourselves a little fun money once again. My husband’s having a great time with his. He’s bought himself a couple of grilling accessories, played a few rounds of golf, and treated himself to a few 12-packs of craft beer.

And me? Well, I’m spending my fun money, too. In the last six month, I’ve used my monthly money to:

• Pay for my daughter’s non-refundable tuition deposit for all-day kindergarten next fall
• Buy cupcakes for my son’s second birthday party
• Purchase Mother’s Day cards for my mother, grandmother, and mother-inlaw

Oh yes, as you can tell, I’m having oh so much fun with my fun money. (Can you sense the sarcasm? It’s as thick as San Francisco fog.)

The truth is, somewhere along the way, I completely forgot how to have fun with money. Almost every single financial transaction we’ve made over the past five years has been calculated – to the penny – to help us get to this point: a point where we’re financially secure and out of debt; that’s why we stopped giving ourselves fun money in the first place. Yet somehow, my husband returned to his happy-go-lucky ways the moment he got that cash back in his pocket, while I have continued to treat it like an extra part of the household budget.

I’m sure part of the reason is the inherent difference between men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. As a woman who is both wife and mother, I can’t escape the feeling that I’m in charge of making sure everybody has their needs met. And if my daughter’s school deposit is due and I’ve got the cash in my wallet, why not make the payment in cash instead of credit? To me, it seems like the responsible thing to do.

But when it comes down to it, what I’m doing with this cash is really the antithesis of fun money; I’m defeating the whole purpose. And that, in itself, annoys me to no end.

So I’m here to ask you: do you and your spouse have fun money? If so, how much do you give yourselves each week? Each month? Do you have any rules about how or why you spend it? What do you typically use it to buy? Please share – maybe you’ll be able to help me learn to actually have a little fun now and then!

Thanks for reading the RSS version of What Do You Do With Your Fun Money? which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!

If you’ve been following along, you know we’ve been trying to sell our house. Shortly after my last post, we got an offer.

This was about 60 days after listing. Our agent told us going in that the average days on market for our community was 64, so we were right on track. I will say that after 45 days, each day on the market feels like a week, and each day put us closer to thinking we would never sell it.

I was thinking about having to be a landlord, and with a house three hours from this one, it would be tough to be a long distance landlord. Sure there are management companies, but renting out this house did not seem right. It is my opinion that cheaper homes make better rental properties as they are easier to pay off to start a positive cash flow.

How It Went Down

We listed our house at $143, which is where it was listed when we bought it four years ago. Because our local market is insulated, it didn’t see the large upswings and drops that big urban areas saw. That is why we felt comfortable listing it at this price.

After 30 days we lowered the price to $139,900 to get it below that psychological threshold. Though we were getting a lot of positive feedback, our price point was in a tough spot. Most people were either looking around $125,000 or $150,000. Our house fell in the middle, making it a bit too expensive for the lower end buyers, and not enough house for those with a budget of 150k.

This is one of the reasons I’m sour on real estate and home ownership. The only houses worth buying are foreclosed junk with room to make a profit, or very expensive homes that go up big in value when the market is right.

After the thirty day mark, showing started to decrease. Because we had to move at some point, we decided to lower the price again, to $137,000. This sparked a new flurry of showings, and within a few days we had an offer. The offer was for $128,000, well below our original asking, and slightly below our “break-even” point. Plus they were already talking about more concessions for our cracked driveway.

My first thought was to not even counter, but as I said last time, it’s only money. You can always get more money.

We came back at $132,500 with a 60 day close, and after one counter, we agreed to $132,000 and they would get the washer and dryer. Because they had already laid it out there that they would probably ask for repairs on the driveway, I was not optimistic for a smooth transaction.

More Anxiety

Though the closing date was 7 weeks away, the contract still called for a fairly speedy completion of the Buyer’s duties, like obtaining financing and the necessary inspections (home, driveway and radon.) Specifically, the contract said they had 15 days to complete the home inspection.

On Day 12, they finally called and said the appointment would happen in one week, beyond the 15 day date. I smiled inside thinking that if they came back with a ridiculous list of demands, that I would simply invoke the contract clause that states they waived their inspection contingency since it happened beyond the date allowed. After the 15 day period the contract allowed them 7 days to notify us of needed changes. Once we got past Day 22, I could breathe easier because the contract stated that they must buy the home as-is.

On the morning of Day 23, we still hadn’t heard their demands. They had just completed all the inspections a few days prior, and I was excited at the thought of not having to make any repairs. By midday I had a report from my Realtor that they had gotten their demands in the day prior, on time. I was a bit disappointed, but they weren’t asking for the sun and moon. The damage on my end was about $2,000, half of that attributed to the need for us to install a radon mitigation system.

I asked my Realtor what he thought, since they had missed the 15 day deadline. The contract we signed was a “specific performance” contract, which means that a judge can bind either party to act under its terms, forcing a reluctant seller to “perform” by selling, or a shady buyer to go through with the sale. Furthermore, the contract stated that “time is of the essence,” an important clause that needs to be in their to let everyone know that the dates and deadlines within were important and missing them had consequences. My Realtor told me that I probably did have grounds to refuse repairs, but fighting that out in court could take a year and be expensive.

I chose the easy road and had him negotiate the list of repairs down a bit, with a gentle reminder to their agent how benevolent we were being in choosing not to fight them. In consulting with another friend who is a Realtor and another friend who is a real estate lawyer, it isn’t always as easy at it seems to convince a judge to compel specific performance.

Time to Downsize

Now that the ink is dry and the “Sold” sign is posted in the front yard, the reality of moving sets in.

We are moving to an apartment that is half the size of our house and twice the cost. It is in a highly urban area, where wer are used to living in rural or suburban settings.

We have already started selling items on Craigslist and to acquaintances. Our living room sectional is gone. The remaining two couches are already sold. Our dining room set will be gone in a few days. Bags and bags of items will be donated to Goodwill or given to friends. There will be no more need for my shed full of lawn and garden tools, something that I am 99 percent happy about. Though I like having a small bit of earth as my own, fighting a weekly battle with nature, who is winning the battle with man by a score of 1,343,565,345,435,345,244,554 to 17, was beginning to grow tiresome. For someone like me, too busy to have an awesome yard and too uninterested in the whole concept to hire a landscaping service, an apartment is perfect.

Renting Vs. Buying

The debate over whether to rent versus buy is one of the most discussed in personal finance, and probably the hardest to answer with a “one size fits all” approach. There is no right answer for all scenarios, and rental and housing markets differ wildly across the country.

Things to consider are property taxes, how long you will live in the home, the condition of the home, etc. A couple big repairs like a main sewer line or a furnace can quickly put you in the negative. Because most mortgages have you paying off closing costs and interest, not to mention PMI, at the beginning, chances are if you sell in the first few years of ownership, the equity you think you have is minute compared to what you’ve spent in taxes, insurance and upgrades.

We move about every four years, so I have no intention to buy again until I know where I’m going to be for at least ten years. At that time I’d love to buy a two-flat with the potential to turn the entire property first into an income property, and then convert it to a single family home. That is a prospect that seems so far down the road, and so deep into a life that I have never been able to live.

In five years I could be in Washington DC, New York or London. Or I could be back in the town where I just sold a home. The point is I have no idea what my life is going to look like beyond five years, and I’m done trying to plan for it. It’s better to just live in a camp that can be easily transplanted and enjoy the nomadic life.

Home ownership isn’t for everyone, and it’s probably not good for a civilized society that everyone be tied to one location. Many industries rely on a mobile job force and it’s time I just accept my role at this time.

Thanks for reading the RSS version of We Sold Our House which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!

Maybe it’s because National Poetry Month (April) just wrapped up, but lately, I’ve been silently repeating the old Langston Hughes poem – the one that gave rise to the title of Lorraine Hansberry’s quintessential mid-20th century play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” – over and over and over again. In case you’re not familiar, I’ll refresh your memory:

Thanks for reading the RSS version of What Happens To A Dream Deferred? which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!

Blog Carnivals that Included MWD

• Yakezie Carnival at Family Money Values
• Carnival of MoneyPros at Master the Art of Saving
• Finance Carn. for Young Adults at Hurricanes, Panties 
• Carnival of Financial Planning at Planting Our Pennies
• Carnival of MoneyPros at Making Sense of Cents
• Yakezie Carnival at Thirtysixmonths.com
• Carnival of MoneyPros at Financial Conflict Coach
• Yakezie Carnival at The Ultimate Juggle
• Carn. of Financial Camaraderie at Freeat33
• Carnival of Retirement at Dividend Monk
• Carnival of Financial Planning at Dividend Monk
• Yakezie Carnival at The Frugal Toad
• Carn. of Financial Camaraderie at Making Sense of Cents
• Carnival of MoneyPros at Money Pros
• Carnival of Retirement at Midlife Finance

Also, as a thank you for reading these carnival updates, I’ll start including at least one giveaway that I’ve seen open recently.  :-)

Giveaways

• FREE How to Get Rich: Wealth Building Guide for the Financially Illiterate in Kindle format now through Sunday (tomorrow)!!!
• Bike Lane Living with United by Blue Bike Bag Give-Away! - Two Bags!  Enter by May 13th!

Thanks for reading the RSS version of Thanks to These Blog Carnivals – May 2013 which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!

“He’s a great husband and a great father,” I found myself saying to a few friends over drinks one night, as we discussed the relative merits (and demerits) of our spouses. Then I paused.

“So what’s there to complain about?” one of my friend’s chimed in.

“Well, he’s a lousy head of household,” I replied. My friends just looked at me, an obvious expression of confusion on their faces.

My Head-of-Household Definition

For most of us, our familiarity with that term – head of household – is limited to the IRS’s description of it. My husband’s never filed his taxes as head of household; he never earned enough income to file federal taxes until we were married, and since then, we’ve always filed jointly. What I was talking about here (and what my friends failed to understand) was my husband’s inability to manage our household, at least financially.

In our family, I am in charge of:

• Paying all the bills. That includes everything from our mortgage payment to our daughter’s preschool tuition to the credit card statement. I can’t remember the last time my husband paid a bill, to be honest.
• Keeping track of all our tax documents, then getting them to our tax preparer (aka, my dad).
• Setting our monthly budget and making sure we’re living within it.
• Managing our investments, including our stocks, retirement accounts, and kids’ college savings.

You get the idea.

It’s Not All Bad

On one hand, I’m happy to be in charge of all these financial responsibilities. I’m a money-minded person, after all, and all this comes naturally to me; my husband, on the other hand, is a recovering spendthrift whose parents never instilled the value of money on to their son (they weren’t negligent with their own money – they just didn’t see the need to teach him about handling it). But on the other hand, I fear I’m doing my husband a great disservice. If I were to die tomorrow (my overly-superstitious Catholic-self is performing the sign of the cross as we speak), my husband wouldn’t know where to find half of the accounts in my name – he’d never be able to collect my life insurance policy, because he wouldn’t know where to find it.

It’s not that he isn’t a part of our family’s financial decisions: we talk about money a lot, and make virtually all our decisions as a couple. I don’t even spend my Christmas or birthday money without checking in with him first. But when it comes to executing our financial plans, I’m the real “head of household,” while he’s simply a clued-in bystander.

I know this isn’t the way it used to be. My dad, like his dad before him, is the money-manager in his marriage. Taking control of the family’s finances used to be considered a man’s job, and for some of my friends, it still is. I once had a friend who told me she had no idea how much her husband made, how much they paid for their house or mortgage, how much they had in savings, and if they even had any type of retirement accounts. I found this proposition absolutely horrifying – I’ve never felt that ignorance was bliss, especially when it comes to money – and told her as much. “It’s what works for us,” she replied, neither thrown off by my harsh judgment nor by her own lack of information.

Sometimes, I ask my husband if it bothers him that I tend to take over all our family’s financial transactions. “Not really,” he answers. “You like that stuff; if I did it, it would only be out of obligation. Plus, you’d have to spend a lot of time showing me how to do everything, and I know you think that’s a waste of time.”

This man knows me far too well.

Who is the financial “head of household” in your family? Does your family’s situation ever bother you?

Thanks for reading the RSS version of Who’s Your Real “Head of Household”? which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!

Many of you know that my family is selling our home and moving because I found a new job. It’s been almost two months since the house was listed, and I must admit that it feels like our house will never sell.

We sold our first house in 2008 when all the housing mess was going on, and maybe I’m repressing memories, but it seems like it was easier to sell then. Granted, there was a homebuyer tax credit for first time buyers back then. We were also selling a home within the price range of a first time buyer, so that probably explains much of the difference.

I also read a recent article that said despite overall progress, sales of existing homes are slightly down. The article said also that sales of expensive homes were increasing. What I take from that is a lesson that if you try to play around in the middle, you will get lost in the sea that is the middle. Our house is not priced low enough for a young family, yet it is not expensive enough for the upper middle aged couple looking to expand.

One thing I learned from the housing crisis and the ensuing actions by the US federal government and treasury department: the rich get bailouts, the poor get handouts, and the middle class gets left out.

For those that play around in the middle, and by that I mean live a middle class life, it is tough to get ahead. Hell, it tough to get even, to get back to zero. When we paid off our debt last year, sending the final check on the same day we boarded a plane for two weeks in the sunny Adriatic, it was hard not to experience a variety of emotions. The first was jubilation for being debt free (minus the house) for the first time since graduating high school. That joy quickly turned to “oh shit I don’t have any money saved!” I thought about the two paid-for vehicles back in our garage, and instead of pride I felt fear of what would happen if one just died. A vehicle is a debt, even when it’s paid off, and as I recently wrote, having one can be an intangible asset in our lives, especially if we live in a place with no mass transit options.

So, back to our home selling issue.

We are having a few problems:

• The home is at the higher end of the price spectrum for the neighborhood. It is move-in ready and except for eventually needing to replace the driveway, but there isn’t much needed to do to it. This means there isn’t much room to get your money back on improvements.
• It has a small, crappy yard. We were never dog owners and prefer public parks and fields to backyard activities. We are finding that many people will sacrifice their own comfort (buy a smaller house, etc), if it means more yard for their dog or children. This is something I don’t quite understand, yet I acknowledge that it exists.
• Uncertainty. This means I don’t know why the ‘eff it isn’t selling, and maybe the answer is uncertainty. Maybe there is something about the house we can’t see that makes people hesitant or uninterested?

Despite our lack of progress, we get mainly positive feedback. Positive, yet hesitant. “The house was great, yard not so much.” “House was great but wants the storage of a traditional basement” (Our home is a split level with tons of closet space. I take this to mean that these folks are weird hoarders who hang out in musty basements).

Stay Positive, “It’s Only Money”

Despite all this concern, I am staying positive. We haven’t even hit the Average Days On Market yet, and after all, it’s only money.

We are not underwater on the home and in fact, can lower the price quite a bit and still break even. We aren’t facing the problems many have every day, and for that I’m grateful.

Which brings me back to the point of the middle class – if you can’t have wealth, you might as well have fun. Now this could sound like excuse-making for those who spend wildly and rack up debt, and for many it is. I heard it before: “you can’t take it with you.”

Those who say that are right.

But it is also right to take responsibility for your life, pay off your credit cards and stop living like a drone for Procter and Gamble and Toyota. Take some time to make a monthly budget. Take some time to think ahead. Maybe invest in some dynamic mutual funds.  If you change your expectations, can you retire early?

If I do some research, will I stop repeating the retirement garbage from the retirement-for-profit industry that tells you that you need multiple millions in your bank and coupled with a modest return rate and the right choices, you can die in twenty years with…almost exactly what you retired with?

What fun is that?

We buckled down for quite a few years and made a lot of sacrifices, but that was to get to a point where the problem of selling a home is not a crisis. Even if it doesn’t sell, I can attempt to rent it and cover expenses. I have enough cash saved up to pay on it for over a year before it becomes empty.

This is what financial freedom means. The ability to take a job and move on a whim, and not be tied to a job or a city because of money. The ability to work only when needed.

A wise man once told me: “It’s only money. You can always get more money.” I think that is some of the best advice I’ve ever heard, but it’s easier spoken by someone who has it. It does remind us of those times when we have it, and those times when we don’t. Sometimes life just rains on you and thousands of dollars are sucked out of your bank account for car repairs and broken furnaces.

But if you develop a philosophy of money that allows you to question the rules and motives of those making the rules, you can break free from money and it’s power of people.

Because when that older, wiser man was giving me that advice, it was in response to a story I told him about the mayor of our city killing himself because he squandered nearly a million dollars from his dead aunt’s estate, money that was supposed to go to a religious charity.

“You can always get more money,” he replied, shaking his head.

If you are living in America or Canada or Europe, you can probably always get more money. Our social safety net is not going to let you starve if you are a normal person down on your luck. That gives us the freedom to take risks with our money, or the comfort to punch a clock from 9-5 and retire without a great deal of needs.

If you think of life as a game, it’s more fun. If you play your cards right, you will probably get a great deal of 1-Ups and Respawns, but you will also get kicked in the junk quite a few times as well.

Make sure you take a moment to live your life. Take your vacation days every year. Reclaim your lunch hour. Sit in the sun and leave your smartphone inside on the desk.

Save money in advance for large purchases. Pay ahead of your credit card statement. Start thinking five years ahead, and stop thinking about your next paycheck.

Life is a game. Money is a game. But it’s a game where you can decide when you’ve won, so don’t set the goalposts too far or you’ll wake up one day like Ebenezer Scrooge, too frail to wheel yourself onto a filthy cruise ship for that vacation you never took. Set a savings goal, and once you get there, relax.

Thanks for reading the RSS version of Selling Our House Update which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!

Blog Carnivals that Included MWD

• Finance Carn. for Young Adults at PF Carny
• Carnival of Financial Planning at Making Sense of Cents
• Yakezie Carnival at Making The Life You Want
• Carnival of MoneyPros at The Savvy Scot
• Carnival of Retirement at Midlife Finance
• Carn. of Financial Camaraderie at My Personal Finance Journ
• Carnival of Retirement at Making Sense of Cents
• Carnival of MoneyPros at Family Money Values
• Yakezie Carnival at Young And Thrifty

Also, as a thank you for reading these carnival updates, I’ll start including at least one giveaway that I’ve seen open recently.  :-)

Giveaways

• My Personal Finance Journey is hosting a April 2013 Give Back ($25 to you and $25 to charity) until April 30!

Thanks for reading the RSS version of Thanks to These Blog Carnivals – April 2013 which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!

We’ve been watching a lot of college basketball lately in our household, and one commercial has caught my attention. It’s for a financial services company, and the crux of the ad is “When did you know?” (I’m intentionally not naming the company, number one because this isn’t a sponsored post, and number two because I don’t remember the business’s name.) They’re basically asking consumers when they knew they were responsible adults; my husband and I both agreed that we started feeling like grown-ups when we were able to successfully manage our family’s finances. But we disagree on something to: exactly when that successful money management began.

My Husband’s Case

My husband believes we’ve been successfully handling our family’s finances from very early on in our marriage. We tied the knot during our last few months of school (grad school for me, undergrad for him), but by our eight-month anniversary, we were both gainfully employed, working full-time jobs with benefits. His version of success begins at that point.

My Case

I, on the other hand, think our successful management of our family’s finances started much, much later. Sure, we both had jobs with benefits eight months into our marriage; we bought a house 15 months in; we bought our first brand new car 27 months after tying the knot, and another one just shy of our fourth wedding anniversary – we also had debt, piles and piles of it.

Is that responsible money management? While it may be the status quo for most Americans these days, it’s not exactly ideal.

To answer the ad’s question, “When did you know?”, for me it was the month before our five-year anniversary. That’s when my husband and I sat down, looked at our family budget, and realized that we were wasting great gobs of money on things we not only didn’t need, but in many cases didn’t even want. We were spending over $1,000 a month on child care, while I felt like I was letting someone else raise my child; we were shelling out $200 a month for someone to clean our house, even though I found scrubbing toilets therapeutic. Examining our budget meant cutting out some luxuries, rethinking our priorities, and making some serious changes – changes that put me on the path to leaving my full-time job (the one with all those benefits that made my husband feel like a real grown-up) in order to ultimately become a work-at-home mom.

Over the next six months, we put our family’s finances into real order. We paid down debts; we shopped around for everything from car insurance to Internet providers; we redoubled our efforts to build our nest egg. When it was all said and done, I’d left the rat race behind and was able to find work/life balance doing my job out of my home office.

And that’s when I started feeling like a responsible adult.

What about you? When did you start feeling like a real grown-up? Would your spouse or partner agree?

Thanks for reading the RSS version of Feeling Mature about Your Family’s Finances which originally appeared at Married (with Debt) Please click through to comment if you enjoyed!