So….I am working on our taxes and requested the total amount we spent on childcare for our son in 2007. It’s worth every penny considering how great the place is and how much he loves it. But, the sum takes your breath away.

(drumroll)

The McGuires spent $11,775.00 in child care expenses for their child, Teddy from January of 2007 to December 2007.

Remember, we have two children. But Charlotte’s care amounted to ONLY $7,900.

Hey, it’s slightly less than the $20,000 I estimated!

Valentine’s Day is around the corner, which means that I’m getting loads of love and money-related pitches.

I’ve written about my marriage and money in the past. And while we’re pretty compatible, one of these exchanges will inevitably creep into our life from time to time:

Scene: The McGuire’s household on Saturday.

Starring: The McGuires

Him: “I got the car washed.”

Me: “Good. You used the coupon?”

Him: “Yeah, but it was still $28 bucks.”

Me: [I can’t print my reaction on this blog. That led into a rant about coupons and using them only if they save money and use your brain and other rudeness on my part.]

Him: “I know how you get when I don’t use the coupons.” (there is some truth to that)

Me: [digging furiously through the pile of receipts he left on the counter to see proof of the $28 car wash.]

Him: [Slamming the door as he went to return the cheap movies before noon so we don’t spend an extra $2.00.]

Me: [finding the coupon and noticing that he only spent $18 on the car wash, which is still a lot, but oddly I am not nearly as upset by that sum– it was a thorough car wash, after all]. “It was only $18 dollars. Hurry back. Pizza’s in the oven,” I yelled.

Yes, living with a cheapskate is that annoying. But I try my hardest to repress this urge to nickel and dime our finances. I think because we speak openly about money and because our money values are aligned, we don’t fight much about money.

How about you? What annoying financial behaviors do you possess (come on, be honest!)? What drives you nutty about your partner?

Then tomorrow, I’ll share the results of several love and loot surveys that have been peppering my in-box.

I fancy myself a hell of a dealfinder when it comes to groceries. I scour sales, carry a load of coupons with me everywhere I go and try to mix and match offers in order to maximize savings.

So when a reader of the blog mentioned the Grocery Game, which claims to help you save insane sums of money on your groceries, I joined. It’s a $1 per week trial period. After that it’s $10 per 8 week period for one store and $20 for three stores (only Walgreens, CVS and Cub in our area participate).

In my two weeks of using the game for Cub Foods, I must admit I’ve not been impressed. Part of the issue is that I realized I’m picky. I don’t want to buy a bunch of processed crud just because it’s on sale. I’m also already fairly organized and haven’t found a deal I couldn’t find myself with a quick run through the circulars and paying attention to signs in stores.

My other issue is that in order to get good deals you sometimes need to cherry pick, not stick with one store. For instance, I received free bacon and eggs yesterday from Lunds after spending $25 on other stuff (one might argue the prices were higher on the other items so I paid for my free stuff in elevated prices, but I carefully chose my groceries). Then today, I ran to Rainbow and purchased 6 boxes of cereal for $11.75 ($22.50-$10.00-$0.75 coupon)and then received two $3.75 off a gallon of milk coupons.

Add that to my free dog treats coupon and my buy one get one free candy bar that turned into two free candy bars because the store also had a bogo deal and I am feeling pretty darn smug (although I forgot the hummus).

So has my grocery game subscription saved me $2? Not yet, but I’ll give it another couple of weeks before I pull the plug.

How do you reduce spending at the grocery store? I’d also be curious to learn how much you spend per month on food and on eating out and your family size. For us, it’s about $100 per week plus about $25 per week for our meat CSA (we pick up meat from a farmer once a month) and no more than $75 per month on eating out (it’s been less as of late).

So…the last post about financial goals prompted some questions about what cars my family drives. I can see the unasked question lurking in the background– which is, are we saving for the inevitable death of our vehicles? or are we going to have the dreaded car payment?

So here are the answers to all of the above:

We are saving for our car deaths, although not as much as we should.

My husband drives the smelliest (yes, I found a rotten banana under a kid carseat last year), rusty old

I’m sent a gazillion pitches a week about a financial services company launching a campaign to get people to think about retirement or estate planning or what have you.

But this pitch from the insurance company Nationwide announcing the launch of their Have the Talk web site is pretty good. The site urges people to talk about financial matters, no matter how painful.

There are so many tools on that site– from a quiz that helps pinpoint your money talk style and provides individualized advice to silly skits performed by comedian Frank Caliendo (you might have seen him in spots during the baseball playoffs)–that I can’t begin to check them all out for all of you.

Talking to family members about money is a big issue for many of us. Even my family. The only way I found out that my parents haven’t updated their will since my sister and I were kids was when I mentioned my recent column on estate planning while gabbing with them on the phone.

Local money and kids entrepreneur Nathan Dungan just piloted a money show Money N’ Sanity. It runs for the final time at 8pm Saturday on TPT.

The show is sponsored by Ameriprise, which recently came out with a study that found baby boomers are likely to talk with their parents about aging issues that are staring them in the face more than other issues. Respondents also said that we may be gradually opening up more about money from generation to generation.

Are you seeing that in your family? Are you more willing to address money issues with your family members than they are with you? Is the way you talk about money with your partner different than what you saw from your elders growing up?