First of all, at 20 years old, he the big black tom, is old. He has dropped from 13 pounds of solid sinewy muscle down to about a 7 # rack of bones. Vets, just like doctors, for a lot of money give you some attention and some drugs. Basically something about pulmonary edema. I was spoon feeding him some salmon cat food mixed with anchovy paste at 4:00AM today. He hadn't eaten for a day or so and I had to put the food on his lips just to get his interest. He ate some.
Sometimes I think too much. Today it was the family finances....so basically it was the same old thing. I don't think of myself, or our family, as "average" in this department. I'd like to brag about our lack of debt, relative to others. So this is where my thoughts went....and the conclusion I came to: the relative debt thing is just as big a trap as is the big nasty plastic monster that almost ate my family. For the first ever we almost couldn't pay the credit card(S)...and that's just it, for the first time ever we were using more than one card. We paid them off, but we can buy nothing for the next two weeks. We have food stored. The other bills can wait. I am not trying to be melodramatic here, but we cut up one of the cards. Some people out there must be in serious trouble.
So what shall we do? First of all somewhere along the line, after kids came along we lost the "pay yourself first" savings religion. We just revived it this AM.
There isn't a lot of fat to cut in our budget, our biggest 3 expenses are the mortgage, taxes and medical insurance . There aren't ways to lean those a bit, and I won't go into detail, but the increases in medical insurance take away any pay raises I receive, the mortgage was refied Jan 2003 (we'll look at that), and taxes are just nasty. Property and income taxes are killing us, I have taken lots of items pretax (401K, medical savings account) and I claim 8 dependents. Property tax at over $300 month is just wrong, but there's not much I can do.
I do advise keeping a budget, no matter how un-anal you are. A VERY healthy exercise, that I just thought up this AM, is to keep and update a top 10 IMPORTANT budgetary matters list. It's amazing what brainstorming with the partner will do, and it really cuts down on surprises and nasty fights. You can believe paying ourselves first is at the top of the list.
On the third topic, I'm giving up on my Amsoil dealership. It's a drain on our budget. I can't even afford the annual dues. I am unable to pay the dues that I owe to support BiTOG, in fact to pay these expenses, I would find it necessary to go into the family funds. I am a terrible salesperson, a true failure, and honestly I can't just call and hit on people for sales. That's the only way to make an Amsoil dealership work. Web sales can work, I guess, but not for me. I thank those of you that have bought from me and to be honest, go with TS or MS - your stuff will ship rapidly out of Portland or Las Vegas anyway. Funny thing Amsoil rolled out an anti-chain store sales policy, but GI Joes still kills me here in the PNW, I mean new folks to BiTOG talk about buying from GI Joes right out of the block, convenient to them and cheaper. I won't say anything too bad about Amsoil, they really aren't pushy, certainly not like some of the big name MLM's. The killer for me is the lack of decent margin, Al makes his margin at dealer prices so he could give a rat. Anyhow, it was sorta fun and good for the cars. I really will need to hang here, because I'm really not sure what oil I'll use....
So the cat ate some, but he won't let the kids feed him now. He's touch and go.
Paul
Sometimes I think too much. Today it was the family finances....so basically it was the same old thing. I don't think of myself, or our family, as "average" in this department. I'd like to brag about our lack of debt, relative to others. So this is where my thoughts went....and the conclusion I came to: the relative debt thing is just as big a trap as is the big nasty plastic monster that almost ate my family. For the first ever we almost couldn't pay the credit card(S)...and that's just it, for the first time ever we were using more than one card. We paid them off, but we can buy nothing for the next two weeks. We have food stored. The other bills can wait. I am not trying to be melodramatic here, but we cut up one of the cards. Some people out there must be in serious trouble.
So what shall we do? First of all somewhere along the line, after kids came along we lost the "pay yourself first" savings religion. We just revived it this AM.
There isn't a lot of fat to cut in our budget, our biggest 3 expenses are the mortgage, taxes and medical insurance . There aren't ways to lean those a bit, and I won't go into detail, but the increases in medical insurance take away any pay raises I receive, the mortgage was refied Jan 2003 (we'll look at that), and taxes are just nasty. Property and income taxes are killing us, I have taken lots of items pretax (401K, medical savings account) and I claim 8 dependents. Property tax at over $300 month is just wrong, but there's not much I can do.
I do advise keeping a budget, no matter how un-anal you are. A VERY healthy exercise, that I just thought up this AM, is to keep and update a top 10 IMPORTANT budgetary matters list. It's amazing what brainstorming with the partner will do, and it really cuts down on surprises and nasty fights. You can believe paying ourselves first is at the top of the list.
On the third topic, I'm giving up on my Amsoil dealership. It's a drain on our budget. I can't even afford the annual dues. I am unable to pay the dues that I owe to support BiTOG, in fact to pay these expenses, I would find it necessary to go into the family funds. I am a terrible salesperson, a true failure, and honestly I can't just call and hit on people for sales. That's the only way to make an Amsoil dealership work. Web sales can work, I guess, but not for me. I thank those of you that have bought from me and to be honest, go with TS or MS - your stuff will ship rapidly out of Portland or Las Vegas anyway. Funny thing Amsoil rolled out an anti-chain store sales policy, but GI Joes still kills me here in the PNW, I mean new folks to BiTOG talk about buying from GI Joes right out of the block, convenient to them and cheaper. I won't say anything too bad about Amsoil, they really aren't pushy, certainly not like some of the big name MLM's. The killer for me is the lack of decent margin, Al makes his margin at dealer prices so he could give a rat. Anyhow, it was sorta fun and good for the cars. I really will need to hang here, because I'm really not sure what oil I'll use....
So the cat ate some, but he won't let the kids feed him now. He's touch and go.
Paul
