Who's ideas?
Why the Governments of course.
Even though the law has been passed and signed many years ago that the Federal Government is supposed to balance the budget every year, can any of you think of a time when that has actually happened?
I ranted a little on Red Hill Kudzu today about some of the shine they try to put on their numbers for the sake of those who are still true believers.
You can google the Chart on the budget and deficit for your self.
The question is....Are you trying to do the same thing with your finances? Does there seem to be just a little too much of the month left when the budget runs up against your stops.
If you are not in that position now......how many paychecks would you have to miss to reach that point?
It's not uncommon......I've been there. I know what it feels like to be pulling out the cushions on the couch for loose change to pay the light bill with on the day before they cut them off. I've been behind on the mortgage......far enough behind that I got those lawyer letters; and not just on one mortgage.....on two or three at the time. (I once had seven mortgages at one time) The banks reached the end of the line and sold my property (63 acres0 on the court house steps along with one of the rental properties I had. I sold two properties for $20,000.00 less than I owed on them just to get a little breathing room. Had to pay off the balance at $500 a month for another 4 years. This month was the final payment. (Thank you Lord) We sold the remaining property worth at least $100 K for less than $20 K and moved into the only rental property I had, which thankfully had a 30 year fixed rate mortgage on it. The renter was behind anyway and so was I. The end of the rope was slipping out of my fingers. There didn't seem much reason to go on other than the fact that if I ended my own life I'd leave my wife in a worse situation than if I lived. Alive, there was at least hope..
...as well as a burning determination to turn things around.
We're still in that house (although we have a dream of moving one day), the mortgage is caught up (we're paying a little extra each month) The taxes are paid and the insurance is withdrawn automatically each month.
I'm not bragging, just letting you know that I've been there, seen the movie and ate the popcorn.
When the end seems near you have to really decide what is important in your life. Most of the things you think you can't do with out.....you can. Food for your family first, secondly a shelter of some kind for them, third some source of income to keep the first two thing a part of your life. Everything else comes next.
We were fortunate, while I had not much education beyond high school, the time in the army and all the business I'd been in over 35 years taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to. One thing I had picked up was a small skill that could literally be used almost anywhere. I had for all those years been learning new things, taking on new challenges, then when I had a passing acquaintance with that one going on to the next.
Are you a one trick pony. Have you only one thing you are trained for? Better make sure it's a good one then. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to take a correspondence course in your spare time..
...a couple hours a night for however long it takes. It is too late for that when everyting is falling down around you.
What are you doing to prepare for whatever may come? I'd love to read your ideas.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
I'm not jealous
...really I'm not.
But Pam just has a better way of writing and describing someone than I.
Partying Pig Pelosi at the Taxpayer Trough: Hundreds of Thousands on In-flight Booze and Food
But Pam just has a better way of writing and describing someone than I.
Partying Pig Pelosi at the Taxpayer Trough: Hundreds of Thousands on In-flight Booze and Food
With No Money
If you lost all you had in your bank account and had to leave your home to foreclosure, what would you have that would allow you to start over.
It may not be in the immediate future for you and pray God it never does, but it might be worth while to give at least a little consideration to the question.
The Bank I have been using for checking and savings for at least 5 years was closed by the GA Regulatory Commission and assumed by another bank yesterday afternoon at 5:00 pm. Of course no one at the bank called ahead of time to warn me. Of course through friends who also bank at other branches I had been hearing rumors for a while and one friend called yesterday and passed the word that is would be taken over yesterday.
I hustled my butt down and drew out all but enough to cover any check outstanding. Not so much worried that I'd lose any of my very small account (that's what the FDIC is for, doesn't that make you feel better) but the fact that I prefer to bank with a local bank and this bank while a large bank with quite a few branches, it had a reputation of value in the local town where it originally started.
But suppose you had to leave your home with no bank account? Would you be able to provide your family shelter the next evening? Could you purchase food for your children? Would you have enough money to put gas in a car.
It might be a good idea to have something portable you could take with you that had some value. A stack of money you'd hidden under your mattress, maybe a pocket full of silver coins to use as trading goods. Maybe a single gold coin tucked under a flap in your wallet. Maybe just a laundry basked of canned goods and a few matches.
Maybe it's past time you started asking yourself some of these questions.
It may not be in the immediate future for you and pray God it never does, but it might be worth while to give at least a little consideration to the question.
The Bank I have been using for checking and savings for at least 5 years was closed by the GA Regulatory Commission and assumed by another bank yesterday afternoon at 5:00 pm. Of course no one at the bank called ahead of time to warn me. Of course through friends who also bank at other branches I had been hearing rumors for a while and one friend called yesterday and passed the word that is would be taken over yesterday.
I hustled my butt down and drew out all but enough to cover any check outstanding. Not so much worried that I'd lose any of my very small account (that's what the FDIC is for, doesn't that make you feel better) but the fact that I prefer to bank with a local bank and this bank while a large bank with quite a few branches, it had a reputation of value in the local town where it originally started.
But suppose you had to leave your home with no bank account? Would you be able to provide your family shelter the next evening? Could you purchase food for your children? Would you have enough money to put gas in a car.
It might be a good idea to have something portable you could take with you that had some value. A stack of money you'd hidden under your mattress, maybe a pocket full of silver coins to use as trading goods. Maybe a single gold coin tucked under a flap in your wallet. Maybe just a laundry basked of canned goods and a few matches.
Maybe it's past time you started asking yourself some of these questions.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Starting Over
The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
Rough weather ahead for tonight. Supposed to just miss us to the north; sure hope so. I generally don't pay the weather much attention now-a-days. Not like I did years ago while running the dairy farm. Back then I carried and listened to a weather radio at least twice a day, especially in the summer and fall when we were cutting hay or getting in other crops.
These days if it's cold I either stay inside or put on more clothes....if hot I stay inside in the air-conditioning and dress a little more lightly when venturing outside...although through habit of many long years and in remembrance of my skinny legged youth I never wear shorts...
today the whiteness of the skin would blind anyone within 300 yards...back then I didn't want to be teased about my knobby knees or be told only sissies would wear shorts. Try bucking alfalfa hay while wearing anything less than denim jeans for a while and it begins to make a little sense.
Oh yeah......Starting Over.
A couple years ago I thought to start another blog chronicling the efforts to start over from nearly scratch and the thoughts on what it would take and any successes or further failures.
Didn't last long as I often have not much to say here less success there. Mostly just a little ranting or observations.
Today, however, the starting over has been much in my mind as when turning off the by-pass onto 441 N I had to stop on the exit ramp behind a semi waiting for the light and noticed a young woman standing in the cold shivering and holding a very small sign made of a single sheet of notebook paper. As I stopped behind the trailer I shouted out the window, "trying to get somewhere"? She shook her head No.
It was not until she stepped closer that I could make out the sign that read "Homeless need help". Not an apparent derelict, wino, druggie, just a young woman probably less than 30 years old and the cloths were neat if perhaps a little less than the weather might have called for.
I reached in my pocked and pulled out a couple sawbucks to give her..to get a 'God bless you' as the truck pulled out and I followed.
As I pulled away heading about a mile north to AirGas to pick up a set of new regulators for my torch I caught myself doing a little mental ass kicking....both wondering if she was just a moocher or if I should have done more like call my buddy who's tied into the local shelters and churches which might have been of a little more help to her.
I decided to make my return trip go past the intersection to stop and ask her if she wanted me to contact my friend........but, she was no longer there. Perhaps the $20 was all she needed to get her next hit or she'd gone down to the convenience store to warm up with some coffee, or maybe something warmer at the package store next door.
Whatever.....I wish her well. But the incident made me think of how close we've been to that same scenario and of all the people in the country right now who are in the same boat or only one paycheck away.
It can be hard to start over.......or it can be a very liberating experience. One can literally put everything but your thoughts behind you and strike out to stand or fall by your own efforts........or perhaps the charity of others.......and in this country now-a-days the generosity of the government who have no compunction about taking the fruits on your labor through the force of law to give however the bureaucrats decide is most politically productive.
I'll probably mull on this some more here in the world wide web. I'd appreciate your thoughts.
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
Rough weather ahead for tonight. Supposed to just miss us to the north; sure hope so. I generally don't pay the weather much attention now-a-days. Not like I did years ago while running the dairy farm. Back then I carried and listened to a weather radio at least twice a day, especially in the summer and fall when we were cutting hay or getting in other crops.
These days if it's cold I either stay inside or put on more clothes....if hot I stay inside in the air-conditioning and dress a little more lightly when venturing outside...although through habit of many long years and in remembrance of my skinny legged youth I never wear shorts...
today the whiteness of the skin would blind anyone within 300 yards...back then I didn't want to be teased about my knobby knees or be told only sissies would wear shorts. Try bucking alfalfa hay while wearing anything less than denim jeans for a while and it begins to make a little sense.
Oh yeah......Starting Over.
A couple years ago I thought to start another blog chronicling the efforts to start over from nearly scratch and the thoughts on what it would take and any successes or further failures.
Didn't last long as I often have not much to say here less success there. Mostly just a little ranting or observations.
Today, however, the starting over has been much in my mind as when turning off the by-pass onto 441 N I had to stop on the exit ramp behind a semi waiting for the light and noticed a young woman standing in the cold shivering and holding a very small sign made of a single sheet of notebook paper. As I stopped behind the trailer I shouted out the window, "trying to get somewhere"? She shook her head No.
It was not until she stepped closer that I could make out the sign that read "Homeless need help". Not an apparent derelict, wino, druggie, just a young woman probably less than 30 years old and the cloths were neat if perhaps a little less than the weather might have called for.
I reached in my pocked and pulled out a couple sawbucks to give her..to get a 'God bless you' as the truck pulled out and I followed.
As I pulled away heading about a mile north to AirGas to pick up a set of new regulators for my torch I caught myself doing a little mental ass kicking....both wondering if she was just a moocher or if I should have done more like call my buddy who's tied into the local shelters and churches which might have been of a little more help to her.
I decided to make my return trip go past the intersection to stop and ask her if she wanted me to contact my friend........but, she was no longer there. Perhaps the $20 was all she needed to get her next hit or she'd gone down to the convenience store to warm up with some coffee, or maybe something warmer at the package store next door.
Whatever.....I wish her well. But the incident made me think of how close we've been to that same scenario and of all the people in the country right now who are in the same boat or only one paycheck away.
It can be hard to start over.......or it can be a very liberating experience. One can literally put everything but your thoughts behind you and strike out to stand or fall by your own efforts........or perhaps the charity of others.......and in this country now-a-days the generosity of the government who have no compunction about taking the fruits on your labor through the force of law to give however the bureaucrats decide is most politically productive.
I'll probably mull on this some more here in the world wide web. I'd appreciate your thoughts.
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