Entertainment
“I Chose to Stay Home With the Kids. Now I’m Freaking Out.”
A few months ago, we asked you what money questions are on your mind. We got nearly a thousand responses, and one theme that came up over and over was the financial trickiness of being a stay-at-home parent. Today, we turned to CPA Ariel LaFond to help answer one reader’s query about maintaining security and independence as the non-earning spouse…
CoJ reader: I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for eight years, since my first child was born. I made this decision; my husband has always been 100% supportive of any choice I make about this. While this setup still feels best for our family, I’m now completely dependent on his income — and I have no idea what I would even do if something happened to him. I don’t like this feeling, but I’m not sure how to get around it. I’m the primary parent — responsible for getting the kids to school, taking care of them when they’re sick, handling sports practices, homework, and playdates, and carrying most of the housework and mental load. Those things don’t leave me with much bandwidth for a job that would earn more than ‘fun money.’ Did I make the wrong call? Help!
Ariel: There’s actually no ‘wrong’ call here. For many families — and for many reasons — it makes sense to have one parent stay home. Depending on what you each earn, it’s often the most cost-effective route. But you do have to game it out over the long haul, which often means considering the uncomfortable “what if” scenarios. In an ideal world, all prospective parents would hash out these details before kids come into the picture. In reality, no one wants to talk about that stuff!
In other words, you’re not (at all) alone. Many stay-at-home-parents find these worries creeping up on them several years in. So do many working spouses for that matter — this is a family issue, and both partners need to be involved. When couples come to me for advice, here’s where I tell them to start:
Step One: Have a chat. Both partners, working or not, should have a clear picture of the family’s finances. If you don’t, there’s no need to approach with panic (even if that’s what you’re feeling). Instead, try leading with curiosity. It’s tax season — no better time to say, “Hey, how’d we do last year? I’d really like to have a better sense of things.” Just knowing what you have together is a great first step. Be honest about your concerns: “I want to be more involved. Some people lose their spouses and are left unprepared. I want us to feel safe.” Money talks can be stressful, but they’re a part of life — and marriage. Approach it with a team-minded attitude, because that’s what you are: a team, working toward the same goals.
Step Two: Have a checking and savings account in your name alone. If you’re the non-earning partner, or you’re planning to be, you should also plan to have some money in an account that only you have access to. There are a lot of reasons for this, because there are a lot of ways that money — even in a shared account — may be temporarily inaccessible. You don’t need to go down every rabbit hole of possible scenarios (medical incapacitation, desert-island shipwrecks — are you terrified yet?). Just ensure that you can pay the bills if something happens to or with the person whose name is on the paychecks. You’ll both sleep better!
Step Three: Create full visibility, and a routine to maintain it. On that note, make sure you know how to pay the bills. Many people tell me they don’t actually know how the mortgage or rent gets paid. Both partners should have a clear sense of the family’s day-to-day expenses and income. I suggest a monthly meeting, just to look at bank statements, bills, etc. Know the logins and what gets paid from what account. Make sure you understand your partner’s salary, as well as any changes that may come on that front. At the risk of stating the obvious: Just because you’re the non-earning partner right now does not mean you have no responsibility when it comes to family finances. Do not abdicate that position.
Step Four: Have life insurance and/or disability insurance. This is another scary chore no one wants to deal with, but you should absolutely have life and/or disability insurance. A policy on both the earning and non-earning spouse would be ideal (families often need urgent childcare in the wake of a primary parent’s death or injury), but everyone’s situation is different. If you can’t afford to insure both partners, I’d typically suggest prioritizing the earning spouse. Many employers offer life insurance, but not all policies are created equal. Read the fine print, and consider whether or not you need to take out an additional policy to ensure you’re truly covered. Again, no one’s favorite task, but trust me, you’ll breathe MUCH more easily once it’s done!
Step Five: Have a retirement plan (for you!). It’s easy to forget about saving for retirement once you’re out of the workforce, but the good news is it’s also easy to start again, and it’s a great financial move for your whole family (team spirit, right?). Spousal IRAs enable the working partner to contribute to the non-working partner’s retirement account. I know the idea of “getting paid” by your spouse may feel awkward for some. But contributing to your retirement account means more tax-free dollars in the family pot. And if the end goal is a comfortable retirement together, this really is a win all-around.
Finally, if I were to suggest one optional Step Six, it would be this: Don’t write-off the “fun money” job. It’s not so much about the income, but the potential value of keeping a foot in the door. And by the way, you may find you don’t even have the bandwidth for that right now, and if so, that’s completely valid. Let’s be real: The full-time parent often has the harder job than the employed one, especially during certain stages of parenthood. But if you do find yourself with the energy and inclination to engage in the workforce in some small way — whether it’s maintaining a credential, taking on a short-term project, or just having coffee with an old colleague — it could bolster than sense of independence you’re missing. Furthermore, it’ll mean one less barrier to entry, should you one day decide to start working outside the home full-time again.
It doesn’t mean you have to, or that you won’t have other opportunities down the line. This is just another option to consider. That’s the main takeaway from all this advice: You have options. You did not make the wrong call — you made a call. And now you get to make more.
Ariel LaFond is a CPA, fractional CFO, and tax planning expert, who advises both businesses and individuals on financial growth. She also writes the newsletter dumb rich, sharing advice and explainers on all-things finance. She lives in New York with her husband and rescue pup, Lucy.
Thank you so much, Ariel! Do you have a money question you’d like help with? Please let us know in the comments.
P.S. The 30-second habit that helped me stick to my budget, and do you talk to your coworkers about your salary?
(Photo by Alina Hvostikova/Stocksy.)
Entertainment
Mortal Kombat II review: The bar is in hell for video game movies, huh?
How many times do we have to go through this?
Yes, Mortal Kombat has been a massively popular video game franchise since its spawning in 1992. Yes, its over-the-top kills and thrillingly scornful catchphrases make the fighting games incredibly fun. But despite several attempts including 1995’s Mortal Kombat, 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and the 2021 reboot, also titled Mortal Kombat, not a single good live-action movie has been made from this IP.
Yet here we are again with another ugly, nonsensical mess, this time called Mortal Kombat II.
Mortal Kombat, the last film in this much-flubbed franchise, centered on Cole Young (Lewis Tan), a descendant of Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), who’s a fish out of water in the titular fighting tournament world. This time, he’s relegated to a tertiary character, so the sequel can pivot to a new fish out of water, Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), a washed-up ’90s action star who’d rather crush a beer than a spine. However, when a malevolent conqueror named Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) threatens Earthrealm, it’s up to Cage and a coterie of super-powered fighters to win a Mortal Kombat tournament to save their world.
Wisely, Warner Bros. led with Cage in their early promos, releasing teasers that showed a cheeky self-awareness of the Western martial arts movie while suggesting Mortal Kombat II would be funnier than its predecessor. Frustratingly, this is another example of good trailer, bad movie. And a big part of why is that Cage feels like he’s been wedged in, rather than centered on, for a new perspective.
Mortal Kombat II is a befuddling eyesore with sub-zero emotional depth.
Adeline Rudolph as Kitana.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Mortal Kombat (2021) director Simon McQuoid is back with muddy CGI settings, rubbery CGI fighters, and much of his movie’s cast reprising their roles. Along with Tan and Taslim, Jessica McNamee is back as Sonya Blade, Josh Lawson as Kano, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Tadanobu Asano as Raiden, and Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi / Scorpion.
Joining the fighter line-up opposite Cage are fan-wielding Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), staff-armed Jade (Tati Gabrielle), the many-fanged Baraka (CJ Bloomfield), and Ford as brutish conqueror Shao Kahn.
Now, you might think that’s too many characters to create meaningful story arcs over the course of a 116-minute runtime. And you’d be right!
Sure, screenwriter Jeremy Slater could have narrowed the focus to Cage’s experience to better create a moving narrative, while still folding in the requisite fighting, brawlers, and game allusions. But hey, why not split the story focus between Cage, whose gruff has-been attitude pitches Mortal Kombat II toward a promising Galaxy Quest vibe, and Kitana, whose rebellious warrior princess thread is reminiscent of Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Gamora as she battled Thanos and her “sister” Nebula. But here, Thanos is Shao Kahn, who murders Kitana’s dad in the film’s glacially paced opening sequence. And Nebula is Jade, Kitana’s bestie/guard since she became Shao Kahn’s prisoner as a girl. (If you want more backstory, fret not, there’s plenty.)
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Tati Gabrielle as Jade.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Cage won’t even show up for the first 14 minutes of Mortal Kombat II. In that time, the sequel plunges into the same grim and self-serious atmosphere that made McQuoid’s first Mortal Kombat a bore. Sure, the fight scenes are really violent and bloody, befitting the film’s R-rating. But the fights feel disconnected from the storytelling. Worse yet, these battles are shot with very little visual logic, meaning some big blows just don’t hit.
And yep, there sure are recreations of memorable characters, their costumes, weapons, and catchphrases. But the major important distinction between this rebooted movie franchise and the games is, the games were fun.
The most fun Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II can offer is Kano, the only character who resolutely refuses to take things seriously.
Karl Urban shines, but Josh Lawson is Mortal Kombat II‘s MVP.
Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, and Josh Lawson as Kano.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
As Cage, Urban brings with him an American arrogance that shakes up the seriousness of the Earthrealm battlers. He’s snarky where they’re stern, creating a feisty dynamic that borders on amusing. But as Cage’s clichéd plot line demands he become a selfless, brave hero, he becomes more grave and less giggle-inducing. Thank the gods for Lawson’s Kano.
This crusty criminal and unrepentant asshole died in the last movie, but like other MK fighters, he’s resurrected for this sequel. Thankfully, rather than being brought back as another humorless revenant, Kano is as chaotically insulting as ever, slinging barbs with reckless abandon. When he mocks necromancer Quan Chi (Damon Herriman) for his “eyeliner,” I howled with laughter. And for a brief moment I thought that between Cage and Kano, this movie might actually begin to get fun!
Alas, my hopes were squashed like a skull under a warhammer. Kano and Cage get to be comic relief, while Kitana broods and a new quest kicks off to heist a magical gem from Shao Kahn, which he effectively uses as an immortality cheat code. Again, life-or-death battles and a heist into the heart of a tyrant’s castle? This should be exciting and entertaining!
Inexplicably, McQuoid bleeds any tension from these sequences with a mangled visual language that makes fights hard to follow and the quest feel like an afterthought. Suspense cannot build because in every other scene, Slater’s script delivers another exposition drop to explain the tournament, the realms, the revenants — on and on! Video games are a visual medium. Movies are a visual medium. Yet much of this movie feels like I got locked into a tedious podcast.
In the end, Mortal Kombat II feels like the wretched compromise of two movie pitches. One is a sequel that closely follows the saga and dolesome tone of the last movie. The other is an action-comedy in the vein of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Whether it’s Kano reading other fighters to filth, or a sequence where Cage is chased around a village by a rampaging Baraka, there are moments where Mortal Kombat II flirts with not taking this IP deadly seriously. But then McQuoid pivots back to a tone that’s less Shogun and more Iron Fist. And as sloppy and artless as this adaptation is, it probably won’t matter.
Gamers need to demand more of video game movies.
CJ Bloomfield as Baraka.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
It’s long been a cliché that video game movies are traditionally bad. I was recently disappointed by the Until Dawn movie and moved to consider my own mortality over the vacuousness of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. And yet, studios keep plugging along with these movies “for the fans.”
Don’t be fooled. That’s a cynical sales pitch that assumes gamers love the source IP so much that studios don’t need to bring skilled filmmakers or spend the money on top-notch fight choreography, stunts, or visual effects. They believe the fans will come regardless of what they actually put on screen. And maybe they’re right! After all, critics warned that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie was a soulless sequel with more allusions than entertainment. But it’s nearing a billion dollars for worldwide box office. So, why should studios change strategy?
Warner Bros hired a commercial director to make his feature directorial film debut with Mortal Kombat, and now he’s back with a muddled vision that’s an ugly and lifeless slog. But if fans go to the theater or stream this exhaustively on HBO Max, like they presumably did its predecessor, then the bar is in hell, and it won’t be raised.
At least we have more Last of Us to look forward to, right?
Mortal Kombat II opens in theaters on May 8.
Entertainment
This robotic pool vacuum is basically a Roomba that can swim, and it’s $449 off today
SAVE 35%: As of May 6, you can get the Beatbot AquaSense 2 for $849 at Amazon, down from $1,298. That’s a 35% discount or $449 savings.
$849
at Amazon
$1,298
Save $449
I don’t have a pool (well, not a personal one, anyway; I live in an apartment complex), but I do have a robot vacuum, and I know the joy of watching a little machine clean my floors while I do other things. If you apply that same logic to pool maintenance (which I imagine is a lot more annoying than keeping your floors clean), then investing in a robo pool cleaner makes a lot of sense.
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And, right now, you can get one of Amazon’s top-rated models for a fraction of the price. As of May 6, you can get the Beatbot AquaSense 2 for $849 at Amazon, down from $1,298. That’s a 35% discount or $449 savings. It’s also the lowest price we’ve seen this model go for. The only problem? Amazon marked this as a “limited-time deal,” and the countdown clock shows it ends in about 16 hours.
This thing works just like an indoor robot vacuum; it maps out its cleaning path and then uses an onboard 4-core CPU and 16 sensors to navigate using an S-path for the pool floor and an N-path to scrub the walls and waterline. It also has a “Double-Pass Scrubbing” feature for the waterline, so it’ll get the grimiest spots twice per pass. Bonus: When it’s done cleaning (or when the battery runs low), it automatically parks itself at the surface of the water so you don’t have to go diving to retrieve it.
Entertainment
Grandma Anne’s Secret Jell-O
I love making food that people appreciate — the kind of meal that makes the whole table go quiet at the first bite. But you know what I kind of love more? Making food that makes the whole table shriek like kids chasing the ice-cream truck.
So, when I happened upon a “secret Jell-O” recipe in chef Hillary Sterling’s new cookbook, Ammazza! — titled for the Roman slang term, which roughly translates to “wowee!” — I knew I had to share.
“This was the defining treat of my childhood,” explains Hillary. Growing up, her Grandma Anne always kept a bowl of Jell-O in the fridge. “She added halved grapes, and they’d hover in the middle while it ‘jellified.’ It tasted so cool, refreshing, and delicious.” As adults, Hillary and her sister tried to replicate it, but never managed to get the taste just right. That’s when their grandpa clued them in to Grandma Anne’s secret ingredient: sweet liqueur. “Turns out, our favorite childhood dessert was one part Grandma, one part frat party.”
Hillary’s own adaptation is a little more cocktail-party than frat, but just as festive: a ruby-red confection, studded with plums and served in a champagne coupe. Plus, it’s incredibly simple, with less than 10 minutes of active cooking time. And while I’ll give Grandma Anne the benefit of the doubt, and say she probably wasn’t trying to inebriate her grandchildren, this recipe has almost a shot’s worth of brandy per serving (wowee, indeed!). So, let’s maybe keep it at the grown-ups table.
Grandma Anne’s Secret Jell-O
from Ammazza! by Hillary Sterling
Serves 4
1/2 cup (115 g) prunes*
3/4 cup (180 ml) brandy
1 85-gram package cherry gelatin
*It’s true, prunes are dried plums. Here, they’re essentially rehydrated in the cooking process.
In a small pot, combine the prunes and 1/2 cup (120 ml) of the brandy. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat low, and cook until the prunes absorb all the liquid (about 5 minutes). Set aside. In a separate small saucepan, bring 1 cup (240 ml) of water to a boil. Place the gelatin in a heatproof bowl, then pour the hot water over it, whisking until fully dissolved (about 2 minutes). Stir in the remaining 1/4 cup (60 ml) of brandy and 1 cup (240 ml) of cold water.
Divide half of the gelatin mixture evenly among four glasses, filling them about halfway. (“This is the time to break out your heirloom wine glasses or champagne coupes,” says Hillary. “Style and presentation meant everything to my grandmother.”) Arrange the glasses on a small sheet pan for stability. Refrigerate, uncovered, until just set (about 1 hour).
Finally, divide the steeped prunes evenly among the glasses, gently placing them on top of the set layer. Top each glass with the remaining gelatin — the fruit will “float” as it sets. Cover and refrigerate until firm but still jiggly (about 1 hour more). Serve, and enjoy!
Thank you so much, Hillary! And congratulations on your beautiful cookbook.
P.S. More fun party recipes, including a chaotic pavlova and a pasta cake.
(Photos by Kelly Puleio. Excerpted with permission from Ammazza!, on sale now from Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Copyright © 2026 by Hillary Sterling)
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