I'm not sure how to break down what our heat alone costs. Our house is a ranch with over 5200 sq ft finished (in northern Wisconsin), and is all electric except for the gas fireplace and the cooktop. Our heat is provided by geothermal. We do have a back up furnace, but we've never used it. We keep the temp between 68-70 during the day, and 64 at night. Outside temps vary considerably in our area. Today it is in the 40s, but the high tomorrow and Monday is supposed to be -1. Yes, the HIGH is expected to be 1 below zero! Our total utility bill is close to $250/month which includes our electric bill and approx $80 for water treatment (we have horribly hard water). We will probably purchase our own water treatment appliance in the near future; we were just trying out this service to see if it really made a big difference. Our hot water heater is the super-insulated 105 gallon Rheem model. We turn it off when we go out of town, and if we are gone 7-10 days, we still have water hot enough to shower when we get back. Very energy effecient. One other thing, we are on some kind of energy rate with our electric company, and they will turn off the electricity to our heat pump and hot water heater for 4 hours at a time. We never notice when it's off; the house stays toasty, and we always have hot water. We live on wooded property, so if electric rates go way up, we would probably start using the wood. We have a perfect place for a wood burner. Although, to be honest, we really don't want to bother with the mess at our ages (late 60s).

With family... totally stressed. I'm the type of person that seems to need everyone else happy, then find myself unhappy. How stupid is that?! Anyway - it was a good holiday. Had 12 people to my house for dinner! Ugh. I really don't like Christmas! Barbara

I can't spare you some of the agonizing, but it might help you to separate out one type of concern from another and so maybe whittle down to the real priorities. Since it sounds like you are buying the piano to really play it, and you have the ability to detect differences in pianos and what you like and don't, I would first focus on that--the piano you would most like to play ( that fits in your house, of course!). Holding value (monetary value) has some importance but maybe less for pianos than for cars, say, since most people go through several cars for themselves, kids, etc. and get future benefits from a good trade-in. You might not end up buying the piano that you most love to play if it in fact is so expensive it would hurt your finances in some way. Everyone has some price that is too high--though the number of OO's might vary a lot! Or you might determine that you simply don't VALUE the very best piano. I bought a guitar a while back and I knew I did not need or want the "best" guitar and did not need to impress anybody with how cool my guitar was. Also I am a beginner and knew I might not become a real expert. I did buy a better guitar than I expected, and maybe I should have bought one much cheaper until I learned more, but the price was okay for my finances so I made a "match". If I were actually a good guitar player, I would not hesitate to buy a much better one than I did but again, I think the focus would be on what played the best, felt the best, that I myself got the best sound from, and that might be different for me than for another musician. I am sure that must be true of pianos to some extent. So if there is one single piano you keep going back to because you love how it sounds/plays and you "can" afford it, buy that one. If there are a couple that are sort of equally good but in different ways--and I mean in terms of musical quality, not prestige or later value ( I had that dilemma with guitars) , that is where I would get some feedback from another musician/piano expert. The car price comparison is fine as long as you look at in the right way--you don't value European sedans (neither do I) so you drive something cheaper and buy pianos. For other people it is the opposite and that is perfectly fine. You might enjoy reading some things by Amy Dacyzn (The Tightwad Gazette). She is or has been an extreme saver and re-user and most people would not want to do as much of that as she does. But that was not her main point or her greatest strength. Her mantra was, save on everything that you can that really has no value or benefit to you if you were to spend more; don't let your money just slip away on this and that. Don't buy things just because other people do if you really want something else. Decide what is really important and don't whine that you can't afford it, because it is likely that if you really focus and avoid daily spending traps you can afford a lot of really nice things--just not EVERYTHING. Her deal was empowerment to be in control of spending. Several posters above gave good examples of that. Typical examples that have been used in some budget/happiness books is a person who wistfully says they would love to take a trip to Europe,it's their heart's desire, but just can't afford it--said while sitting on their new sofa that cost $2000. So your situation is an extension of that--there are people who have your same income who actually cannot afford a major piano purchase because they have a huge mortgage and have bought cars, and furniture, and jewelry instead. Which is perfectly fine unless all they really want is a piano!

Thanks Rita Re alternate cooking weeks: some things you do for maintaining marital harmony :) because our grocery shopping, meal palnning, our cooking styles and our clean up routines are so opposite to each other.. in fact that's true for a lot of how we both think and work... so different .... reminds me when we were at Sedona many years ago and got our auras read(it's the new age method where they read the energy you generate as colors ). And our aura reader was amazed that DH and I were Married because our auras were so contrasting, none of our colors matched..except this teeny tiny bit of green ..and she claimed that's what made us click in the cosmic sense. We both had a good laugh about it afterwards anyways back on the kitchen : our current kitchen is one cook\one eat space. Wonder if our cookin schedules will change with our new kitchen ....