A bicycle is many things… a wonderfully elegant example of human ingenuity and craftsmanship. An efficient form of transportation. A builder of self-confidence, health, and wealth
A bicycle is a wonderful learning tool, providing valuable life lessons in personal limitations and how to overcome them. It is a tool for self-confidence
And at any age, a bicycle is freedom. As a child, a bicycle opened up my world from a few square blocks to a few square miles. As a young adult, a bicycle provided freedom from the stress of college and the workplace. And later, a bicycle helped enable freedom from the need for income
I look forward to making many more great biking memories
The University of Washington (Winnie’s Alma Mater)
With a child on the way, we have lots to think about. What to name him/her, how to get all the proper nutrients, natural birth vs. C-section, and how to pay for college
It might be a little early to be thinking about college, but that is the point of biggest concern shared in comments on the blog and on reddit about our estimate for the cost of raising a child. In general, people are concerned that I am too optimistic about stock returns and not pessimistic enough about the rate of growth in tuition
“Hey, Congratulations! You are going to have a baby! How exciting!”
“Does this mean you are going back to work?”
We’ve been asked this question a lot recently
(The answer is no, but thanks for asking)
After all… raising kids is expensive… isn’t it? The USDA estimates that (on average) raising a child to age 18 costs $245,000. Add to this the average cost of a 4-year degree, another $100k-$200k, and kids look like a guaranteed financial disaster
In the face of these incredible costs, what is a family to do?
Do we want to have a child? We discussed this topic many times over the years. For a long time we both thought the answer was no, but… then things like maturity, love, and a strong relationship happened
Like most people, we knew how to make a baby the old fashioned way. But no matter how hard we tried (or how many times), it just wasn’t happening. Perhaps this had something to do with the vasectomy I had about 12 years ago?
Determined to extend our family, we explored our options, comparing costs, success rates, and convenience factors.
Although we had health insurance at the beginning of our journey, it seldom (or never) covers the costs of infertility treatment, so cost efficiency was important. Why pay more than we had to?
Somewhere in the deep recesses of childhood memory, I vaguely recall a fuzzy black & white Lee Majors sprinting across the television screen at incredible speed in the TV show The 6 Million Dollar Man.
We Can Rebuild Him
For the unfamiliar, Majors played Steve Austin, an astronaut who was severely injured in a test flight of an experimental aircraft. Rebuilt by the government with a bionic body, he had superhuman strength and speed, infrared and zoom vision, and the greatest in 1970’s fashion.
The total cost of this life-saving operation? 6 Million Dollars. That’s a lot of money to create one amazing human being. With inflation, that 1973 procedure would cost more than $33.5 million today. Or would it?
Over the past few months, using the latest in modern technology, we have managed to create an amazing little human of our own at an expense of slightly less than $7,000 (although certainly that is only the down payment)
That’s right, Winnie is pregnant! We are both pretty excited
