Gamecock's Mind over Money

While living in Texas and living with little internet (yup- out by the pool again), I have taken up some financial readings.

First- I committed the cardinal rule for people trying to save/keep their money. I bought two books-brand new-from a bookstore. Had I been in FL, I would have gone through ebay, I swear! But right now I cannot rely on the mail system to keep up with me.

I bought one book by a man, I forget his name (some random finance man)called "Money and the People You Love"- good title, same old, same old information. I THOUGHT it would be about issues I struggle with now with my fiance. Issues like: getting on the same financial page, making saving money a priority for both of us, not letting ourselves get caught up in spending because we are 'together' and feel we want to spend money for 'quality time together.'...but no. The book with the great title was about mutual funds, annuities, 401K's and just basic explanitory stuff. The author said he named the book "Money and the People You Love" because a majority of people want money so they can take care of the people they love. Hmmph. I feel cheated. I read the book anyways. I'll sell it on ebay when I'm back in FL.

The second book I bought was "The Millionaire Women Next Door"..I thought it was by the woman who has a great "Millionaire Woman" blog out there that I have read a few times. I dont know-I thought she kind of owned the term 'Millionaire Women" or something. Silly me..Had I looked at the cover I would have seen it was written by a MAN! Some Stanley Ph.D who also wrote another millionaire book. Well...this book reads a bit like one of my grad school studies.

It's a study of Women who are millionaires and the author attempts to extract common threads among the women- not so the reader can become a millionaire- more so that the reader understands millionaire women. I read that too. I didnt really like it. It's a bit one sided to me. The author profiles only women who became millionaires on their own, no help from anyone, and only talks of their virtues. Kind of subtly exhaults the women.Since this is supposed to be an objective study using percents, averages, and high tech formulas, I didnt like how ethnographic it got in the middle of the book.

One tidbit I pulled from the book, a bit of an "Aha!" moment was stating that a big indicator of future millionaires is living on one income in a two income partnership. I.E.Living 50% below your means. Kind of "Duh!" but it worked for me. Rather than trying to save 10% of Baseball boys salary, and I save part of mine..and we both actively deduct the amounts each paycheck...I think it might be better to just bank the paycheck that is smaller.

I brought it up to Baseball boy today and he is fine with the idea. (But then- he is fine with "ideas"- its when it cuts into his fast food and video games that my ideas suddenly become problematic.)

P.S.- one reason I *think* this might be possible for us is because Baseball boy currently makes so little money. He netted a little over $10,000 last year- so for readers who are not familiar with my ongoing chronicle of life- we are not currently living off several thousands of dollars a month that will be drastically cut down. Once I get a full time job- I think I should AT LEAST be earning the same amount he does.

Of course, saving one paycheck is a bit off in the future...I need to get a job first. We need to clear the hurdle of this massive wedding first. We need to track our spending so we can "see" how much money we need- and if this will work. But I am thinking it might be a good thing to get off the ground before we get a mortgage. The first year of homeownership will likely mess up this plan-alot- so if we can get into a routine first, we might get a lesser standard of living going.

Or I am thinking I might have to wait till AFTER our first year of home ownership. So we are not creating goals we can not remotely reach.

So I have listed it as a long term goal so I do not put to much pressure on us. Merch was wanting me to get some long term goals going...and I like this one. Alot. I can't implement it now- at all- but I think if I have it in the back of both our minds as a long term goal...we can reach it within a few years. I think I am lucky I am trying to get a sucessful money lifestyle going now- before the mortgage and kids- because with either of those two loads on my back- I dont see how this would be possible (going from 2 incomes to 1). But without those two biggies- Baseball boy and I can plan to accomodate the 1 income and buy a house accordingly and plan kids accordingly. I hope.

Thats my piece. One other thing. I dont really want to be a millionaire. I mean- I wouldnt mind it. But it's not one of my lifetime goals -to die a millionaire. I really just want a lifestyle that is more 'fun' than 'work' and think that developing sucessful habits with money will get me there eventually. I just thought it interesting because this "Millionaire" author kind of wrote like being a millionaire is an ultimate achievement- rather than a piece of the process for living a great life.

He defensively states that the millionaire women live greatly satisfied lives (to the attack that they work all the time)-but not that they live great lives and are also millionaires. See what I'm saying? Anyways..I could be picking on this poor author because I am jealous of these women profiled. One symptom of jealousy is rejecting the item/person you are jealous of.

Also- one last piece before I sign off- The author admiringly states that none of the women have ever paid more than 300,000 for a house (he was explaining their frugal lifestyles)- but all women he profiled were close to 50 yrs old or older (much older). Now, I think thats alot misleading considering the price of real estate has drastically increased in the last 10-15 years-(Doubled? More?)and this author is implying that it is excessive to purchase a home for more than 300k. He implys- "Hey..if the maximum amount spent on a house is 300k is good enough for our millionaire women...it should be enough for you-dear reader who does not come close to the wealthy status of these smart people."

Hey guys,
I'm not back-back, but I stopped in for an hour or so to read some blogs and write some sad news. (It's not terribly sad, just some regression for me.)
First, I read some of ya'll latest entries and I feel I have missed so much! I am looking forward to having internet again.
Second...ugh. I dont like saying it. I dont like it. But I have been thinking about it the last 2 days...(I even wrote a hypothetical 'dear Suze' letter-just to step back from the situation and try to see it from amore logical perspective.)...I think I am taking money out of the house savings fund to pay off the danm credit card. It jumps from 0% to 20% in a few days, it's at $2400 right now...and since the summers over I wont be able to make huge payments on it anymore. I starter out in late June with a $5600 balance, and now its at $2400. That's $3200 I was able to chip away at in 2 months...I guess a good consolation victory there.
House fund is at almost $38,000...I will bring it to about $36,000- still a good chunk of change- but it feels like a major blow. I tried to calculate a debt repayment plan to myself, but to get that 2400 back, I need to pay myself $200 amonth FOR A YEAR. $200 a month is doable...for a freakin year??!! Seems like forever just to get back to where I am right now. Sigh. But I made the bad...time to lay in it. And once I have paid off the card IN FULL NEXT WEEK...it's going in the freezer.
You know...I think I'm upset because I feel I am taking the easy route. Just taking $$ from savings to pay the debt. Then its gone and there is little consequence/little lost. It seems a cheap victory. I wanted to pay it down through patience, discipline and taste the satisfaction of making the final payment. But I ran out of time. I bought 2 pairs of jeans that I shouldnt have. I ate out to much. And I know better than to pay 20% intrest.
And just a quick note...still tracking expenses...we spend a hella lot more money than I thought we did...this has been the best financial excercise ever! I'll show the ugly rundown when I have steady internet again. I am worried about being able to track expenses come September because Baseball boy and I will be back in FL and we wont see each other nearly as much as we do now. He's not on board with the tracking expenses- I think he thinks I will yell at him or give him a guilt trip over every purchase- so I have been tracking his expenses because we share a car and therefore when he buys, I am right there with him. Thats it, I'm off now to read more of your blogs. The apartment complex pool has internet connection, so I'm out here enjoying the evening for a few hours.

Just wanted to give a shout out that I am alive and ell in the lonestar state!
I drove to NE to pick up Baseball boy and he drove through the night to get to TX. We got here around 10am.
We have been stayoing in a hotel with no internet service, then moved into an apartment yesterday. To save $$ we opted to only turn on electric and forgo cable and internet.
I'm at Starbucks now, and gotta run...I'm not sure when I will be back to the blogs, but things here are going well.
Baseball boy has been a superstar on this team, they are going to the playoffs, and hopefully soon I can start exploring.
I have been tracking our spending...but it's not pretty. I will catch up with ya'll later!

I'm moving to Texas! Baseball boy was traded this morning. He's on a road trip in Nebraska right now, so I gotta pack and move by myself.
He flys to TX in the morning, I am gonna leave in the morning, by car. No idea how long the drive from MN to TX is...but it should be BEAUTIFUL!

So- financially- this is a wash. His new team is in a playoff run, which means extended weeks of pay for him, and possible cash if they win the series- but me driving from MN to TX will be a couple hundred dollars that is not reimbursed since the team is paying to fly him.

But sometimes you cannot put a price on life experience, and this is one of those times. The drive will be stunning, and I have only been to Texas once. Now I get to LIVE THERE! Whoohooo!

Well first of all, I must say that I do love my new blog colors. I smile everytime I open up the page.

Last night’s blog entry was kind of heavy. I was in a weird mood. Probably from watching too much TLC.

But last night got me thinking about other weird idiosyncrasies I have. I do plenty of odd uniteresting things, but one of my more annoying fears (for Baseball boy at any rate) is that after watching "Law and Order", the news, or a lot of "Lifetime" on TV, I become paranoid that Baseball boy is going to kill me.

LOL. I have learned to avoid those types of shows because it takes a good ten minutes for Baseball boy to reassure me that if he ever wants to leave me, he understands that he can just walk out the door, he does not need to plot my death. And even if there were large sums of money involved, all he does is have to tell me he was thinking of killing me for the money and I would just give it to him.

His obligatory "I love you, I'm not leaving you" falls on deaf ears. He does not understand I am not concerned about the LEAVING part; it's the KILLING that has me worried.

LOL. It sounds dramatic but I have heard that it is somewhat of a common fear. I blame Scott Peterson and all the drama he caused.

So, that’s it. I am still tracking my expenses and doing well.

I am watching TLC's "Help! I am a hoarder!" (Dont deny it- you have watched it too- at least wanted to watch it.) Now here is my little confession- this is the 2nd time I have watched it. I just find this lifestyle fascinating.

Now here comes my bigger confession- My mom was a hoarder of sorts and I am very afraid I will turn into one myself.

My mom was "diagnosed" with Bi-Polar about 3 years before she died. I quote the 'diagnosed' term because according to her therapist there is no way to really tell if you have the disease, they diagnose you if you display symptoms and respond to treatment. My mom never really responded to drug treatment, she just yo-yoed all around on different drug cocktails. And the therapist who 'diagnosed' her happened to be a Bi-polar specialist.

But who knows? She could have legitimately been Bi-polar. And the diagnosis brought her peace of mind and freedom to continue her ways, so there it was.

I compare my 'Bi-polar' mother to the hoarder because my mother was the shopaholic type. I bet she would have been 'diagnosed' as a shopaholic or compulsive spender if she had seen a different specialist that day.

Anyways, the house was filled to the gills with 'stuff'. If it was old, she kept it. If it was broken, she kept it. If it was useless, she kept it. On top of that, she was shopping constantly. It would take many many paragraphs to really convey how 'hoardishly' serious the situation was. Just 'stuff' piled to the ceiling in every room. All of it with price tags still attached!

After she died I did educated guessing based on receipts, paperwork and bank statements. The last few years she was spending nearly a hundred thousand dollars a year. She still had about 1 or 2 yrs left before she would have cleared her retirement account bone dry- the scary thing was it was escalating! Like the last year she nearly DOUBLED her spending!)

During this time I had no idea the numbers was that high. I was convinced I would inherit debt, but we had the typical mother/daughter relationship where she treated me as a child, and I acted like a child. I threw up my hands long ago and let her spend, spend, spend. Because she loved it so much and it kept her out of my hair.

Now, I see little 'hoarding' tendencies maybe coming out in me. I have kept a lot of my toys from childhood. (I cannot picture a situation they would ever come out of the box again, but I refuse to let them go.) I got rid of more than half the stuff, but kept about 2600sqft worth of stuff that I refuse to consider getting rid of. (It's very high end stuff and I cannot recoup a reasonable amount of the money.) But really, there is zero chance I can afford 2600sqft of living space when house hunting. Baseball boy and I argue back and forth if the guest bedroom will be filled ceiling high with 'stuff' or if we should get a long term storage unit. In the interest in saving money I argue against the storage unit.

And I combat the fear that I will turn into my mother by routinely going through all drawers, paperwork, freezer, closets- everything- and regularly clear everything out to bare necessities.

Baseball boy is constantly annoyed I have tossed something he needs. But clutter makes me anxious. And clutter in drawers is the worst. I 'know' if a drawer is 'junky' and it irritates me so badly.

And the most ironic part of all is that if I do end up having a hoarding problem, or a bi-polar problem, or a whatever mental problem- there is no way to even know! Baseball boy has repeatedly assured me he will sit me down for 'the talk' if he ever thinks I am mentally 'not right.' He met my mom, saw the house. It's really overwhelming to an outsider. Neither of us wants to deal with that again. I was never terribly sympathetic towards my mom, and wouldn’t it be karma for me to get the same tendencies as her.


So yeah. That's my little story. It's not at the fore of my brain regularly, but shows like this TLC special reminds me that my brain might be a time bomb waiting to go off and lead me down a very destructive path. Yeah. I have weird paranoias.

I'm changing my blog colors. There are just way to many pretty colors in the world to stick with pink and purple.

Other than that, not much to report. Baseball boy is gone for another week long road trip. He has not been performing well this season and I feel for him. For myself personally, I try to look at this as a positive thing. Since I plan to be working full time next season with little or no vacation days earned, I may not see him play at all next season. But since this season has been pretty poor on almost all levels; financially, performance, and making friends...I wont feel like I am missing much next year.

Our roommate’s car was broken into two nights ago. They got his stereo and navigation equipment. I think it's the same guys who took my wheels. They leave the cars pretty pristine minus whatever they took. They know how to remove just what they want without damaging anything else.

I am still tracking the budget. Still afraid to look at the list though.

I recently contacted a new realtor about possibly buying our first home. The first realtor was great, the one time we saw him. But he was not very good at really working on his end, earning the commission. He responded to my e-mails in a day or two, but the answers were short one liners. He never sent me any listings as he promised he would, or inquired when I was coming back to visit the city. I only emailed him once after meeting him last month, requesting him to put me on his mailing list that would alert me to new properties hitting the market- but he never did...and he never responded to that, come to think of it.

This new guy seems pretty involved in real estate. He is a realtor who also invests in fixer uppers. He writes a weekly blog about the real estate market in the city. So *fingers crossed* maybe he will be the fountain of knowledge we really need right now.

Financially we are in a good position about buying. There are pros and cons to both buying and not buying. We can stay in FL and just save money for however long we need to- or we can buy if we find the right place in GA. Yeah~ I think I am sticking with Ga even after all your suggestions. So we plan to take our time and really learn all we can. I think my biggest nightmare would be to get in over my head housing-wise, and I trust my cautious nature to guide us into the right situation.

This new realtor gave me the standard response of "well, it might be hard to find what you’re looking for in your price range, but I will see what I can do." I am wondering if that is a pretty standard selling technique. This being my second realtor- I have little first hand experience- but I took that sentence as a method for instilling fear in me and either increasing my price range (not going to happen)or feeling grateful towards whatever he shows me and buying it pretty quickly. (Also not going to happen.) I am very sentimentally attached to this down payment money and refuse to trade it in for a possible buyer’s remorse later. If I don’t think the places in our price range are worth the money, then I will save and bump up to the new price range. But we will see. I have enough other things going on, like the wedding, moving, getting a FL job to keep me occupied and away from 'house buying' fever. Although I still have it a little bit. That’s about it for now.

Here it is a week into August, and I have been doing well tracking all the spending. I have not really looked at the list. I am kind of afraid to look at it. Already I can tell we spend a lot more than I previously thought we did.

Things with Baseball boy and I are going well. We are growing. I think it's important to remember that we are both evolving, so the outlook each of us has now is not going to be the outlook we have next year. Our priorities will be different, our spending habits will be different and our wallets will be different.

In the meantime life is going to throw up a good number of financial obstacles we will encounter and learn from. They will teach us about ourselves and each other, as well as give us tools to use in the future. I will use these oppertunities as a chance to try different things, while venting my frustrations and encountering setbacks. I am glad I have a community here who will cry with me and can offer guidance when I don’t know what to do.

I am trying to be very self aware in my financial choices, and I believe Baseball boy is getting there too. He might not share my philosophies with money but I need to remember that I am really a baby in money management. He might not make all the right choices, but neither do I.

There are no cardinal rules in money management. If there were, then I would follow the existing guaranteed model for living wealthy and make baseball boy follow it as well. But since it seems financial success is a different path for everyone, I will continue to 'experiment' with money and blog about my success/failures.

Although Baseball boy and I don’t share the same financial pages right now, we are both trying to get there. I believe he wants the same things I want, but his ‘awareness’ and enthusiasm to get from ‘here’ to ‘there’ is not a priority right now. I think that following all my plans, charts and websites exhausts him. He has left the finances to my domain for now, allowing me to try different things, and once I have a strategy that works he will enthusiastically get on board.

I wish he would take initiative himself; it frustrates me when he mismanages money or we don’t share the same outlook, but that does not make his choices, his journey or his perspective bad. It just means that we are both on an individual journey and are actively trying to get to the same point by using different paths. If I felt that he is selfish, irresponsible, or that we don’t want the same things in life, then I would have left him years ago. If I felt that I was beating a dead horse, that he will always be a dead weight for me to drag around, then I would not still be with him. But I do see improvement. I do see enthusiasm. I do see comprehension and effort. Sometimes I don’t understand his logic, but it comes from a good place and I cannot assume that I am the only one in the relationship capable of seeing the big picture.

I believe in Suze Orman's philosophy that there is a lot of psychology behind money and how it gets used. This blog was started for me to understand my own psychology with money, and to develop a working relationship with it. I want to be active and aware with the money in my life, and become as educated as I can so I can make the money work the hardest it can for me. I want to understand tools for using and saving money while trusting the methods I use to employ those tools.

This might take a long time for me to understand my own psychological issues with money. It might take me a year or two to develop a reliable and trusted money model that works for me and my family.


In addition to chronicling my own journey, my goal is to bring Baseball boy into this level of financial awareness I have found. He has his own relationship with money, and his own money issues. Because I don’t think he is deeply "in touch" with his finances, it is hard for me to learn his financial ways. I am an outsider watching him as he kind of reacts with his money, rather than consciously plans for his money. Since he is not "connected" to our money, either enthusiastically or educationally, it frustrates me to see how he chooses to use the money because I see no deep thinking or long term strategy for the money.


I look to forward sharing with Baseball boy everything I have learned. To awkening the same goals and desires I have; to understand money, its impacts, and to create a strategy that will maximize the money that enters our life.

But first I need to learn it. First I need to understand my own money "issues" before I can tackle and work on his.

So it looks like we will have some problems. We will waste and lose some money. Hopefully save and invest some money. I will be counting on others in this community to help me avoid the pitfalls of money mismanagement that surrounds all of us on a regular basis. I will be reading your blogs to increase my financial education and maintain my "financial awareness" so that Baseball boy and I do not become a statistic that you all read about and wonder "what were they thinking?"

Eventually we will get to where many of you are. We will have a tried and true system that we both understand and believe in. We will both be "plugged in" to our finances and together we will be planning a lovely picture of our future. I look forward to it, we will get there eventually. In the meantime I hope I dont lose to much money.

Well, I have missed 2 days of blogs. And trust me, I really did 'miss' them!
Baseball boy had some time off so we have been doing 'stuff' and I find I enjoy getting on this website when I have an hour or two alone to really read the blogs, comment and get into the 'saving mindset'.
Saving money does not come naturally or effortlessly. Checking my credit card statements, calculating intrest, and determining net worth are not things I naturally do while Baseball boy and I lay on the couch together.
I do that stuff with the help of you guys, and it puts my mind at ease enough to enjoy laying on the couch with baseball boy later.
But trust me, I have clicked on this website a few times in the last 2 days and saw all the deliciously juicy new blogs- but had to exit out of it because I knew I would get irritated at all the interruptions.
I have not even read all your comments to my last blog. I'm going to address it later this afternoon. Looking forward to it!

I am still thinking about Baseball boy’s money habits. You know what? I think I am being a tad unfair.
I KNOW what he gets paid. I am in charge of the bank account and so I KNOW how much money is in it. I KNOW that the FL bills are about $700 a month, and that the travel money provided by the team will come up short during the drive. And lastly, I KNOW that Baseball boy will not take out a pen/paper and run numbers to see where we are at, where we need to be.

Yet, did I plan for our return trip back to Florida? No. Did I mentally figure out how much money we need in reserve to get back on our feet in Florida? No.

I have been living in the present, living in "lets pay off this credit card bill, and lower the wedding expenses, and start looking at classifieds for Florida jobs" when that is all good, but I shouldn’t be relying on Baseball boy to be able to cover all the upcoming expenses he promises to cover when I can see the bank account and can see its not going to work.

Sure, I can be frustrated that Baseball boy promised me $300 to go towards the wedding then took it back to pay for upcoming bills. I can be frustrated he talked me into an expensive tricked out phone that he really did not have the money to pay for, but, Hello! I have been tracking stuff and should have realized long ago that the season will end, and we better be able to cover the expenses.

I think that during this season I have not approved of a few of Baseball boys purchases, only about $200 altogether (not including the phones)and to retaliate I held him to his word that he would pay all expenses this season. I did some things frugally, like conserved gas, and skipped some meals, but I have still lived a pretty healthy version of my normal life.

Now, here at the end of the season I am getting frustrated that he is concerned about the money needed to get back to Florida and such, and I am annoyed he did not plan for it.

I think I am annoyed with both of us. I am annoyed because he mentally spends money before he has it. Telling me he will pay all of "our" expenses this season so I can focus on the wedding. Previously telling friends that he will pay for this or that before even finding out what the cost is.
So what do I do? I try to get him to change his ways by manipulation. (Though it was all subconscious-I swear!)
I don’t like a few of his purchases but I hold my tongue to try and "show him how he needs to change his lifestyle" by not really altering mine and showing him he cannot afford what he thinks he can afford. Then I let him get in a bind just to get him to reach that financial level of concern, to try and get him to get active and take a role in finances. I want him to feel uncomfortable the way I feel uncomfortable when I look over our spending habits.

Ohhhh. I am an evil evil woman. Iset him up to fail. I didn’t even realize I was doing all this till I started blogging just now. I don’t like admitting my part in all this. It is easy to blame Baseball boy and only point out his faults. But I have financial faults too- and part of my reason for blogging was to discover those faults. I just found one. I am not proud.

And any of you saying "what the heck?" to yourselves; read my previous entry to catch up.

grrr...Baseball boy is taking his stimulus check away from me.
I am fine if he wants to keep it for himself- just don’t promise to give it to me!

For months now he has told me it is mine for wedding planning every time it gets brought up. I was planning to put it toward credit card debt so I would have money to spend on the wedding!

Then it arrives yesterday in the mail and suddenly he says, "well, we can use it to pay the FL lawn service for this month, and I will keep the rest for savings."
Me: "I thought you were giving that to me for the wedding?"
Him: "I can’t. The season ends in 3 weeks and I want to return home with $7-800 to use as a cushion in case I don’t get a lot of work when we get back."
Me:"grrr..."

I am all for him having a cushion of cash. It is after all, his money. But this is a trend I have started noticing emerging this season. This promising me money that never materializes.

Hmmm...how often did this happen?

*Before the season started, he told me I don’t need to work; he will pay for everything to let me just work on my credit card debt. What happened? The 1st week of the season we suddenly learn we need to pay for an apartment and Baseball boy does not have enough cash to cover the 1st months rent, not last months rent. I'll be darned if I am paying both. So I make him withdraw 1st months rent from his signing bonus money. I pay last months rent. My $800 credit card payment goes to pay the rent. Never to be seen again.

*We move to Minnesota and once again, he will pay all the bills. Well, he must have forgotten the FL bills because when I add up the $300 in FL bills due, suddenly it’s- "I can’t cover all that." $150 credit card payment not going to the credit card.

*Our cell phone contract is up and we need new phones. Baseball boy wants the tricked out phone. I want that phone too but would rather get a free one. "I will buy it for you for your birthday" he says. So we each get the phone. $415.00 (plus $150 in rebates). Suddenly he is concerned about the price and it's lockdown on all future spending. If I had known I was going to have to either pay up for future wants, I would have just taken the free phone! $100 of credit card payments gone.

And now this- stimulus check gone

I should have known. I am actually really annoyed at myself for all this trouble. In the past, Baseball boy has done this- promising financial things that never materialize. Just not to me!

You know when we were first engaged, and we started talking about the wedding, we were planning a resort island destination wedding- well he gets on the phone with his good friends from high school and starts spouting off: "We will pay for your flights. This is going to be awesome." I had to be like, "SHUTUP!" We had been DISCUSSING paying for everyone’s flights if we could get a group airline discount, and if we had the money- it would be a nice thing to do. But to actually tell people and get them all excited about it??

And when we were first talking about buying a house, we initially planned to get a large plot of land and have a guest house on it. We wanted Baseball boys best friend to live in the guest house because he has been through a lot and we want him around us- well Baseball boy gets on the phone with the friend, "...and we are going to have a guest house. You can live there for free. All you have to do is mow the yard." WHAT???!! We are both against making money off this friend, but I am not about to be struggling financially to pay for this friend!

I just get annoyed when Baseball boy THINKS he knows what something will cost, and then just assumes it DOES cost that amount, and starts actively planning for it to cost that amount.

I need to just get over the Stimulus check. I am over it. I am just not over his money logic. $7-800 is NOT GOING TO COVER HIM when we get back. It is going to be $400 in gas to get back to FL, plus $100 for 1 night in a hotel, plus we have FL bills waiting for us. He doesnt think this through. He makes money promises, or committments that he does not PLAN for!

Baseball boy has been living paycheck to paycheck for awhile now and since I no longer do, I am getting real tired of him doing it. It really costs us money living that way.

grrrr...

Well,
You have learned my secret. I am a recovering party girl. More like a party girl grown up. During my early/mid twenties, I lived by the rule that you are only young once; better get it out of your system now.

Now I am older and less interested in the partying, but my old ways still come out to party occasionally.

But today I think I crossed the border from party-girl slowdown, to party-girl gone. I turned down an invitation to go to a high school friends wedding. The wedding is across the country and in a month. The invitation kind of came out of left field as we only recently reconnected and its 5 weeks away.

But it was an opportunity to meet up with all my high school friends and just spend the whole weekend partying.
I went back and forth but ultimately said I can’t go. I just have way too many cross country trips coming up in the next 6 months, plus my own wedding.

I thought "hey, it's only a $300 plane ticket then everything is free to me all weekend (my friends take good care of me). And it's a once in a lifetime event"(actually, I think divorce is in this couple's future but I doubt I would go/get invited to the next wedding.)

But considering I am not yet sure how I will pay for the events I have committed to, and my own wedding is going on a credit card for a few months...I can just see this as being a trip that tips the scales and leads me into credit card debt and way off my path to achieving all those goals listed on the left-hand side.

It's too bad, it would have been fun to have one last 'girls trip' before I got married. But I have had plenty of those.

Well...here is a money saving idea when throwing a party- Kegs! Who would have imagined they were so cheap compared to cans? The team bought a keg Friday morning and brought it out to the pool area of our apartment complex. Everyone chipped in $10 for as many drinks as the keg will hold. That damn keg was still over 1/2 full by nightime! So it got wheeled in again the next morning where we enjoyed it for another full day!
-no gas was spent after getting the keg
- no electricity was used except for a stereo
- and we all had some healthy fun outside in the sunshine, making up name games, and swimming for 2 days.

PS. unexpected price of a 2 day party:
-pedialite, fruit smoothies and gatorade for the girl who ended up throwing up- she will remain nameless but you all know her.
- chineese food because the greese and noodles is all her upset stomach will handle the next day
-extra shampoo spent getting vomit out of hair

Anyways, I have been bad not checking in with you all, I will catch up and read your blogs tomorrow!

A few years ago I was warned that when random websites ask for information like my name, address, birthday, whatever- it risks me for identity theft. Therefore I have trained myself to list August 1st as my birthday on all computer websites.
I just logged onto Facebook to find a giant banner that says "Happy Birthday Gamecock!!" and seriously, my heart did a double beat. I was like, "What? Today is my birthday? Already? How come Baseball boy and I dont have any plans?" (Literally, all those thoughts went through my mind before I remembered that no-it's not really my birthday.) LOL.
Just wanted to share. And for those of you who are wondering- No. I have never been the victim of identity theft. Coincidence? I think not.

Manny Ramirez is going to the Dodgers. As a Boston Fan I am glad to see him go. He has talent, but it's not worth the money he was making. And if you dont appreciate Fenway and the prestige associated with the Red Sox then go. Give the position to someone who will work for half the pay as hard as they can just to keep their lucky stars in line.
I think Manny will fit in less with the Dodgers than he did with the Red Sox. Constant complainer, that one. Glad he is someone elses headache.

Thats my piece. It's not financial related but I got nothin. I am in the middle of a No Spend Day and tomorrow I get to start tracking expenses.

Well, Merch seems to think that if I developed some goals then I wouldn’t be using Baseball boy’s parent's approval as a benchmark for whether I have achieved success or not. I agree, but wow, creating goals seemed like such a monumental task. And then the confusion that would set in if things changed on me!

But by assuring me that it is possible to have crazy things happen like get married, lose/gain jobs and have kids, and STILL be able to work towards goals, I have decided to take on the task.

To the left, you will see all new information. They are my 2008/ 2009 goals. They are really what I was planning to do all along, but now they are on paper rather than in my head. I tried to put them in a timeline order to organize them. And I am not sure if they are kindergarten-y and 'not real goals' or not. 'Buying a house with 20% down' is a real goal. 'Adopting a pet and paying all costs upfront' is...kind of common sense for a person who lives in SavingsAdvice-land. But each of those little goals is a $4-500.00 expenditure, so it will be a little tough for me to come up with the money over and over in the next 5 months.

I must say that it was easier than I thought, and much more satisfying than I thought it would be.

I thought that because my fiancé has such an unstable career, and we moved around a lot, and I am not sure what or where my lifestyle fits in, that goals would be impossible. Right now, Baseball boy's job is priority number 1 and everything else kind of falls into the cracks.

But I was able to make goals! And just to brag a little, but I am impressed with myself for being in a position where I think I can get these all done. I am excited to get started. I can see the upcoming financial roadblocks now, and I can actively plan for them, rather than know it's some expense coming up in the not to distant future. And I can see how faltering at each of these roadblocks could set me on a path to debt, so maybe these goals are important to overccome.

I think there is something to say for writing down goals and accomplishments.

Thank you Merch. I know I need long term goals too, but I am taking a break on the goal thing for a little while. And thank you everybody who has taken the time to read my thoughts and give me honest feedback.

I am 28 yrs old. I always thought that was definitely an adult age. But Suze Orman said that 28 yr olds are "still just kids." I am not offended by this. I kind of like the idea that I have some more 'wiggle room' to make mistakes and not have 'adult expectations' placed on me.

I definitely don’t feel that I have the knowledge or skills that a 28 year old should posses. That’s almost 30! But I look around at my friends, and they don’t seem to have the skills that a person nearly 30 should have either.

I am not talking maturity. Or maybe I am. It's just that there are 'expectations' for age ranges. When you are in your early twenties you are supposed to be starting your career, possibly with a good chunk of debt, and spend the next few years working to become debt free.

When you are nearly 30, as I am, I thought that people (family, elders that I respect and want to please) expect me to have a house, and be really independent so they don’t need to worry about me.

And in the next few years is family time. Where the cycle starts again, and people stop talking, worrying about me and focus on my child and how they are developing and growing.

Right now I feel that people still talk and worry about me and Baseball boy. I think Baseball boys parents think we are still somewhat of a burden. They have the mentality about Baseball boy and I that many blog readers do about their finances. That we are 1 screw up away from ruining our lives. Or thats how I feel. Baseball boy's parents are very "in our business" and micromanage things. "What did you do yesterday? What time did you get up this morning? So you have practice at 2pm then a game at 7 pm? Against who? Are you ready? What are you going to do for dinner?"(my mom had enough trust in me to stop worrying about me the second I drove off to college). Maybe that why I am so anxious to buy a house. To just prove to Baseball boy's family we are ok and they can be proud when other family members ask them "how is Gamecock and Baseball boy doing?" and the parents can say, "oh they got a house down south and Gamecock has a full time job being miserable in a cubicle, and Baseball boy is feeling all this pressure to stop playing baseball for financial reasons but at the same time knows how disappointed we will feel that he is no longer playing..." and then the family will cluck amongst themselves at how responsible and grown up we are, and Baseball boys parents will beam that their son was a success and chose a great daughter in law. Then as the family leaves my parent-in-laws house, they will lower their voices and talk about how we couldn’t really afford a house and are in debt up to our eyeballs, and that they hear our house is really very small, and that my miserable cubicle job is really a telemarketing job and how boring is that?

I have written off track. Sorry about that.

I guess I am trying to figure out what expectations Baseball boy's family has for me right now. I normally don’t care whatsoever about who thinks what of me. I really don’t. But for some reason I want to make his parents proud. And I have no idea why.

Up until this point, this year of being 28, I feel like I was quite successful at making his parents proud. I graduated college, I got a full time starter job, then my mom died and I took care of all that, then I started my masters and recently graduated in May. Now I feel like its time to do something else they will be proud of. Something else they can tell the rest of the family about.

You see, their family is a little...well-gossipy. Maybe all families are? It has always just been me and my mom with zero extended family so this whole big family is new to me. But I like it. Baseball boy grew up with lots of cousins and now that everyone is adults, the elders are great friends and the 'kids' are too.

But...when you ask how so-and-so is doing, you tend to get a very detailed account of what that person is doing in life, what is wrong with that person's judgment, and how that was a bad decision. It’s not hateful at all. It's just...showy? I guess.

I don’t want to be the loser in the family. Everybody is impressed with Baseball boy. He can ride this baseball carpet for years and no one will question it. But as the woman, the wife, I feel that I am responsible for the 'home' part of our gossip accomplishments. If we don’t have a home by now then it reflects badly on me, because people wonder "just what is gamecock doing?"

Anyways, that my vent. Or my question. When I was 20 I thought I knew everything. When I was 23 I realized there was a lot to learn but I had time to learn it. Now that I am 28 I feel that I should know at least the basics. So am I an adult who is slow, or a 'kid' who is over achieving?

I am not trying to make this some type of pep party, or get down on Baseball boy's family, I am trying to figure out the 'net worth' of my 'life status'. Where I am. If I am ahead, behind, and what is expected of me.

The 'kids' in Baseball boy’s whole extended family is each doing their own thing, everyone is done with college, many have finished masters...but as the oldest 'kid' (even older than Baseball boy) I feel I should be ahead of them. Maybe thats why I feel pressure. All the 'kids' in the family are about the same age. So it's easy for the 'adults' to compare us against each other.

This is all pretty petty stuff going on here. I realize that.

First, Thank you guys for responding with your favorite American city. You reminded me that there are so many places I have never been (like the entire west coast!), and maybe I still need to move around a bit more before settling down. I don’t know.

In good news, Baseball boy got a Win last night after the baseball game went into extra innings and he was called in to pitch the 11,12,and 13th innings. He is used to pitching just 1 or 2 innings, but last night he just got better and better as the innings wore on. He really found his stride. Its times like that that makes me completely forget about the poor pay, poor future employment opportunities, and general exhaustion associated with this job. Last night was a great night.

And financially, I found out I don’t qualify for a stimulus check . I didn’t earn enough money last year. Baseball boy qualifies for a $300 check that has yet to arrive. He already promised the check to me to put towards the wedding. And he gave me $150 yesterday that he earned for working a baseball camp for the past 4 days.

And!! Today I was able to put $491.00 towards my Discover card. I don't think it will be gone by September, but it should be down to about $1500.

That’s about it. But I did want to give a shout out to all the new (and old) bloggers on this site, it really reaffirms that while some people are ahead of me, some are behind me, but we are all learning from each other and it is possible to be debt free and live a normal life.

If you could move to any city/town in the USA, where would you move to?

It seems that we are all raised somewhere, we choose to go to college/or not around home or far away, we meet a partner and decide to settle down. We get a job somewhere and stay there for years...It seems that people THINK they control their destiny, but destiny controls them. You THINK you have all this freedom to go anywhere, live where you want, but in reality we all have many ties that keep us, move us somewhere that we may not have anticipated.

People return back to the hometown they grew up in. People stay in the city they went to college. People settle down once they land their first big job. People meet a partner, a spouse, a soul mate and follow that person so they can live their lives together.

People move somewhere, planning to be there a few years, and before they know it they have put down roots, they made friends, they develop a routine, they find a favorite restaurant and they realize they have too much invested in that area to ever leave.

Then there are vacations. People take vacations to see the 'exotic other' to get a taste of a different life. People travel to visit friends and see the other options, choices in life. Sometimes we love the new location, sometimes we hate it. But as a person gets older, the opportunity to move and uproot your life comes less frequently, or we have more invested and choose not to consider those possibilities.

I have lived in so many places and never put down roots. Never invested in a community, and never made lifelong friends that make life worth living. I have great friends, but they are all over the east coast, and now it's time to pick a spot on the map and settle down. The problem Baseball boy and I have is that we love many areas, but find fault with many areas. In the face of really choosing where we want to live, with no ties or roots anywhere, we have a tough decision to make.

We are in agreement with Savannah GA, and have focused our game plan around that city for almost a year now, but recently a friend who heard my gripes about the high real estate cost in Savannah suggested Macon Ga. Then someone familiar with Macon suggested Athens Ga. My poor computer is tuckered out running around finding web descriptions of all these cities. And it became clear to me that though we love Savannah, we are like hobos. We are open to anything, anywhere. We know nowhere is perfect, and therefore what one city lacks, another city will have in abundance.

I am not the most traveled person in America. I love Savannah. I love Atlanta. Every city in between- I have no clue. I love everywhere I move. Baseball boy does too, for the most part. I love it because it's temporary. You can love anything knowing it's not a life sentence.

But now I am very much in 'settle down' mode. I have been nesting for a year, trying to plan to settle down. Get my ducks in order, pick a spot on the earth, and grow a garden. I worry that once I get a full time job, maybe get a kid or two- before I know it, 10 yrs will have passed and the decision on where to spend my life will have been made for me.

So to be proactive, I throw the question out to you guys. What is your favorite city or town? Why? Maybe your description will fit the description I am looking for. This will save me from road tripping all over the country to choose a city to live in.

Normally something, a job, friends, family, kids make the decision on where you should live a no-brainer. I consider myself lucky to have a chance to choose where to settle down, but I feel I have barely covered 5% of the USA. How to make an informed decision based on that research number? Yet it would take a full lifetime to really make an educated decision. I figure I will just steal a bit from all of your experiences and cheat the learning curve a bit.

So throw out your opinions. A few things about Baseball boy and me, we heart the south. We are united against snow. He wants to be on/have access to water for fishing/boating, I am very outdoorsy and like hiking, green spaces, parks. We are somewhat 'green' and I am trying to become more green- so pollution, litter and clearcutting land is not my ideal. We both want a city that is walking/biker friendly, IE. not too metropolitian with traffic and large crowds but has an urban feel where there is a good congragation of people clustered in a downtown area of shops and bars. We are young, and like to be around other young people. We both love history and think it would be neat to live in a historical area.

I'm gonna end up somewhere. I'm ready to close my eyes and point to a place on a map.

Hi guys,
I think I have figured something out in the housing market. I am posting it here, to see if my line of thinking is right (or not).

Now, many of you know me and Baseball boy, and do not think we are ready to buy a home yet. I am still enthusiastic about buying a home, but not 100% committed to it either. I am still just watching the real estate market, and trying to see how Baseball boy and I fit into it. When the timing is right, I am confident that all this market watching will educate me to know it is time to buy.

We have been looking to buy our first home for almost a year now. We have been looking for an older home (pre 1930's), because we love the historical feel, especially Victorian architecture.

Several of the homes we initially saw on the market around christmas time are still on the market today. However,there have been NO PRICE drops in the 8 months we have been looking. "Where are these big discount deals?" we wonder.

I thought maybe because the town was not vulnerable to the flipping mentality, maybe the economy didn’t change so dramatically during the boom that people were buying into the alternative mortgages expecting their incomes to increase, maybe people who buy older homes stay in the homes much longer than people stay in newer homes, maybe because the older homes are 'specialized' in a way and the owners wait for the ONE buyer who will LOVE their house...I don’t know.

I have come to the realization that maybe the fact that it's an OLDER HOME we are looking for is the reason for the steady home values. All these 50-100k price drops are on NEW CONSTRUCTION which was built on city outskirts when there were large population fluxes and economies were booming and job growth in the towns was increasing.

Now jobs are declining somewhat or holding steady, and people are no longer moving to the suburbs because there is plenty of housing available in the cities. And older homes tend to be located in the heart of cities.

So...maybe these big price drops I have been waiting for are never going to happen for me?

I wonder then if my fiancé and I should actually change our dream to accommodate the current economy and the deals available.

It seems stupid to buy a high priced home in a land of incredible deals, but it also seems stupid to buy a deal of a home because it cannot hold its value.

We are looking for our 'forever home' and plan to stay in this home for at least 6-7 yrs, then we are planning to rent it out if we need to trade up for a bigger home/better school system due to family needs. We can’t predict the future, there is a possibility we will need to move, but we still plan to keep this home in our possession for decades regardless of our circumstances.

So do we give up on our plans and learn to love new construction? Or buy a more expensive home that is 'not on sale' because it has proven it will retain its value?

But since it is our 'forever home' then resale value is not very important, or since it is our 'forever home' then we should buy what we want?

Oiy. These are new concerns for me. I wish I was like so many others I know who just go out house hunting and come back 2 weekends later telling me they made an offer on a house and it has been accepted. Housewarming party is in one month.

So Baseball boy and I went out to The Mall of America again today, this time with Baseball boy’s parents.

The parents wanted to see the Mall of America, and Baseball boy and I were interested in getting new cell phones. We are all on one family plan, (there are 5 of us on the plan). And usually once every few years we trade in our old phones for new phones, and get a killer deal because we are re-newing the cell phone contract. I think 2 yrs ago it was 5 phones for $250.00.

Anyways, now there are no deals going on for renewing the contract. One phone gets $100 off, and each other phone is $50 off. So the phones we were looking at was $250 each- it would have been around $700 for new phones, not including the contract! There was no real incentive to us to renew our plan.

So we are all going to look online, buy our phones separately at whatever deal we find. I'm thinking eBay. The parents are going to ask some other carriers what they can offer us in the meantime.

There were no other deals either going on. We went all over the city, looking for one thing or another, and there were no sales, no discounts for big purchases.

In this economy, why are businesses not begging for our business? I guess to make money, businesses have taken away their discounts and deals...it just annoys me.

Consumer spending is way down, businesses are concerned, so what do they do? The just eliminate their sales to make money!

I am planning a wedding, no deals to be found anywhere there, no deals in cell phone -land, no deals on clothing (we looked for Baseball boy today but all brands he likes are regular price), and the cost of resteraunts have gone up. These are LUXURY ITEMS! I guess America has become so 'want' based that the luxury items (weddings, phones, clothing, and resteraunts) have become staples and these industries are not affected.

Yup. I am paying off the father in law. I withdrew the money from the bank today. Baseball boy's parents just came into town and we plan to give him the money tomorrow morning.

I'm not sure how much we owe him though. Since the mail forwarding got all mixed up some bills from our FL house have been lost in the mail system and I am probably getting all kinds of late charges added onto them, and other bills arrived in NC (to Baseball boys father) and he paid them for us because the bill was due in a day or two. So there was no time to forward the bill to us to pay. I dont even know the bill situation completely, FIL would just sometimes comment to me, "oh, I paid your electric bill today." and when I was presented a stack of mail from FIL yesterday, there were some bill stubs, but not all of our regular bills. So I sat down and tried to guestimate what FIL has paid over the summer for us.

I paid all of Junes bills personally, because the mail forwarding was working back in June, so I just included an extra $200 for July bills. No one is living in the house, everything has been unplugged and the air conditioning is set at 80 degrees. I think $200 should cover the month of July. Then I have no idea how August will work out, but it's only one more month of suffering through this weird mail situation.

I think FIL never thought he would "see" the money back that he loaned us. He paid some bills for us generously thinking he was helping us, but I hate owing people money and have harbored a torch to pay him back as soon as we could. The money has been sitting in the bank all summer. Finally! It's gone and off of my 2Do list!

Baseball boy and I have not figured out a way to give it to FIL in a way that he will accept it and not "leave it behind" for us. In the past we have tried to give him money for something and he either talks us into keeping it, or leaves the money untouched on our kitchen table.

I understand it comes from a good place, this wanting to let us keep the money, but that drives me crazy, and I try to avoid borrowing money from him at all costs in the future, knowing that it will be hard to pay it back. I want to just give him this money, and be back on a clear slate with him.

So, thats my thoughts for today.

I just recieved this forwarded e-mail. I wanted to post it for ya'll. I dont know how true it is, like many Americans I have never researched this type of information or thought much about it~ Some of it may be a little nationalistic and biased, but I opted not to delete anything because I am not sure what is fact or fiction:

"Are you aware that the Saudis are boycotting American products? In addition, they are gouging us on oil prices. Shouldn't we return the favor? Can't we take control of our own destiny and let these giant oil importers know who REALLY generates their profits, their livings? How about leaving American Dollars in America and reduce the import/export deficit?
An appealing remedy might be to boycott their GAS. Every time you fill up your car you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just purchase gas from companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis. Nothing
is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill up my tank, I'm sending my money to people who I get the impression want me, my family and my
friends dead. The following gas companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell.. 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco..144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil...130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway..117,740,000 barrels
Amoco..62,231,000 barrels

CITGO oil is imported from Venezuela by Dictator Hugo Chavez who hates America and openly avows our economic destruction! (We pay Chavez's regime nearly $10 Billion per year in oil revenues!)

The U.S. Currently imports 5,517,000 barrels of crude oil per day from OPEC. If you do the math at $100 per barrel, that's over $550 million PER DAY ($200 BILLION per year!) handed over to OPEC, many of whose members are our confirmed enemies!!!!! It won't stop here - oil prices could go to $200 a barrel or higher if we keep buying their product.

Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:
Sunoco
Conoco
Sinclair
BP / Phillips
Hess
ARC0
Maverick
Flying J Valero
Murphy Oil USA* Sold at Wal-Mart, gas
is from South Arkansas and fully USA owned and produced. Not only that but they give scholarships to all children in
their town who finish high school and are legal US citizens.

All of this information is available from the U.S. Department of Energy and each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing."


I only have a BP near me on the American list, but I will try and use them as often as possible just to keep the dollars in America and maybe help the economy.

Wait. I must be missing something. I'm confused. It's my credit card statement.

I paid the full $524.00 balance on my Visa card last month but then got hit $75 in interest fees. I planned to pay it in full this month (July) and close the card down.

Well, since my paycheck has not arrived I have no money to pay the balance in full and was checking my online statement today to see what the minimum balance due is to see if I can scrape up $5 or $10 to keep up to date with the card and not miss a payment.

Heres where I am confused~
The TOTAL BALANCE on the card now is $85.75
The minimum due is $43.00??? Why are they requiring me to pay over 50% of the balance due??? Is it because it's interest?

And wouldn't you know it the minimum due is due TODAY. bah! My internal money clock has been hounding me all morning to check my finances and this is why. I inherently knew I needed to paya bill. I just wish my internal money clock gave me more than 12 hours to figure out what I am gonna do.

Does anybody know of a store I can go to to pay my VISA card? Like the way I go to Sears to pay my Discover card.

UPDATE: I went ahead and transferred the balance to my Discover card. I dont know if it will count as "balance paid" today though, the "fine print" on the transfer said it can take up to 2 weeks to transfer the balance! I REALLY hope my credit score doesnt get dinged for this.
AND
My Visa card stopped offering reward points! I'm not sure when they stopped that but I looked everywhere to collect on them before transferring the balance, and they are not being offered.

Hey guys,
I have not been around the last few days; I have been sight-seeing. I plan to go check out some waterfalls today.
When Baseball boy was released and the wheels were stolen off my vehicle 2 weeks ago I got sidetracked from recording our spending and want to get back to that. I will start it up again on the 1st of August.
Baseball boy got his check from the workman’s compensation and it was for $450 instead of the $600 he normally gets.
And my monthly income, my rental check I get every month from a property I inherited is not here yet.
I am so annoyed because I have been making last months check last all last month and all this month. Then last week I have resorted to the credit cards.
I know it is not my renters fault, she is always on time, and it’s the dang fact that I have my FL mail forwarded to NH where Baseball boy’s parents live. Then they mail the mail to us at whatever address we currently live at. For some reason this season, the mail has not been getting to NH. It's been an ongoing battle, bills are not coming in as they should, neither Baseball boys nor my stimulus check has come in, and now my paycheck has not come in. My rental property HOA bill has not come in yet either. (Not like I have money to pay it when I have no income). Grrr...I have to get on the phone tomorrow and call everyone and get bills and checks re-sent. This season is just not going well. I keep waiting for everything to settle down and get into a routine, and it's just not.

UPDATE: I called the renter, she is sendin me a new rent check DIRECTLY to the field here, and if the HOA really wants their money, they have my phone number.

Well, I still have plenty of economic questions, but today I don’t have much time to read and comment on the answers, so today's blog will be a bit lighter.
Yesterday Baseball boy and I scanned the internet to see about getting a new dog, since our beloved rottie passed away last month.

It is an exciting process, to pick out your new family member and anticipate all the precious memories you will build together.

I started out with the criteria that I want a guard dog. As I get older, and see more things going down around me, my "fear of the world" instincts have risen. I am too aware of being alone in underground garages, driving through hostile neighborhoods, and being alone in new apartments while baseball boy is on road trips.

Our rottie gave me the security due to her size. With her by my side, I knew no one would consider approaching me to do harm. But even she had her shortcomings. She was just the most people loving dog I have ever met. If someone actually did try and enter our apartment, I have a suspicion she would be the type to wag her little tail nub at them and follow them around trying to entice the intruder to pet her.

So new criteria, a dog that is a bit more aloof. A one man only dog. I have the years behind me to deal with a bit more of a guard dog than a lap dog.

My other criteria are to get the dog at a rescue. For me, the idea of buying from a breeder just means you are taking a home away from a dog sitting in a shelter cage, or abandoned on a road somewhere.

And ideally we want a dog that is around 1 years old. Our rottie was about 9 months when we got her and we lost sunglasses, a baseball glove, a retainer (ewww), and carpeting due to her chewing.

I have an application in to a swiss mountain dog rescue but since those dogs are not typically the type that needs rescuing, I could be on their waiting list a long time.

We looked at rottie rescues, but found a lot of half breed rotts, or rotts that were marked as not getting along with other dogs, kids ect. Plus, looking at some of the rottie faces- just opened up the wound on my heart from our last dog. I don’t know if I could bring another rottie into our house, let it sleep on our bed, eat from our dog dishes, and sleep on our couch without feeling I have replaced our previous dog.

A different breed seems like a different experience and a new dog. Not a replacement dog. Baseball boy has his heart set on another rottie though. I think he feels that no other breed will give him as positive an experience as our last dog did.

And then we looked at dog shelters in the surrounding area. We came across a few pit bull terriers that are definitely worth considering. The pit bulls are not very big, they average about 50 lbs, but I have met plenty of pitts and love their personality. I know that they look intimidating even though they are smaller.

A few problems with the shelters. Most won’t adapt to people who live 60 miles outside of their radius. I don’t know if Baseball boy and I count because we are here now, but will be moving cross country at the end of August.

Second, the adoption fee for one dog we really liked is $310!!! Oh Boy. For that price I could go to a breeder! I understand the cost of food, vets, housing and would gladly pay the organization in exchange for what they do to help the animals. But in another breath I really wonder how much of the general population they are turning off from adoptions?

Baseball boy and I ran the numbers, and $310 adoption fee, plus $50 to take new dog to the vet for a check up, plus $30 a month in food, plus $50 in dog toys/treats- that’s one hell of a start up cost to get a dog.

We decided to shelve it and wait until the season is over to re-asses our situation.

After my history lesson from yesterday combined with the numbers of today, I feel reassured that we are just hitting a low, but the ship is not sinking.

I do have some money in the stock market and honestly, I feel that I have no business whatsoever being in the stock market.

The amount of money I had in stocks in 2005 rose gloriously, tumbled a bit, went up a tad, tumbled some more, tumbled some more, and is now sitting in the stock market at the exact same amount I had in 2005.

I am not a financial whiz, but common sense tells me that if the money had been in some type of bond or money market account I would have been better off than I am now.

I invested in those diversification stocks, the kind where it's hundreds of little shares wrapped up in one stock that you buy. And I have not touched it. The money is earmarked for retirement and I have heard the old saying "what the stock market is doing now is not important compared to how its doing 2 or 3 years before you retire." Or some variation of that advice.

So yesterday's question(s) was a bit aimed to try and see if the world was falling and my money would be gone or worthless when I retire. I gather it will be ok. Yesterday I was researching (not just on this blog) just what I should do with my nest egg sitting in the stock market. I feel like I came up against a wall.

~The stock market is expected to continue to go down. But how much down and for how long, no one is sure. I have read somewhere that for this year, the stock market went down almost 20%. And I know from Suze Orman’s little demonstration that when you lose 20% you must earn 40% to get back to where you started.

~Inflation has been going up quickly. Inflation is outpacing interest rates, so investing in treasury bonds or high yielding anything, you will still be behind the inflation curve.

So I am guessing everyone is just losing money right now? And no one is pulling ahead because there is no vehicle in which to invest to make money? I don’t know. I just can’t help but wonder if there was some point in the last year or two when everyone saw a big flashing warning sign that I missed telling us to pull out of the market. But I missed it. And now I’m not sure if I should stay in because I have 30yrs to let it rebound, or if it goes down another 20% then that’s a lot of percentages I will be ”hoping” to make up.

Because in the stock market I feel clueless. I feel like I am sitting around month after month “hoping” that this months number is higher than last months number. At least with money market accounts, CD’s and bonds I understand what I am doing and feel that I have some sort of control over my money.

I have only been trying to learn about stocks for 2 ½ years now. From what I have seen, it goes up a tiny bit at a time, but goes down a lot farther than it goes up. But I am assuming over the long run it goes up more than it goes down? Or is it savvy investors that are constantly buying/selling that win in the stocks? And they tempt the little guy (me) to get in the stock market by all their wild tales of making thousands of dollars in a few months. When in reality it is like the housing boom was, prosperous for a few people who knew what they were doing, but bad for everyone else who thought they just had to get a house and watch as their equity rose.

I am pretty uneducated as far as money goes. I am trying to learn as much as I can. But I worry that my lack of understanding will lead to me mismanaging my way to the poor house.

1.So stock market. Best left to experienced financial whizzes or safe for the common gal?

2. Am I on par that my 2005 investment amount is my 2008 amount or is everyone else way ahead of that number and I screwed up somewhere along the way?

3. If diversified and left alone, over the course of 30 years, will the stock market on average go up more than it goes down? Or do I need to be heavily involved to make that happen?

4.Was there a big flashing neon sign telling people to get out of the market? Has that sign flashed lately? Is there a formula to follow, like there is to see if buying a house is a better financial move than renting?

5.Are these questions way to heavy to be asking on a little blog? Once again my age is working against me and I have no idea if the things I see are alarming or just part of a historical trend.

Thanks once again for your input. I appreciate it.

This is one of those times where I feel my age is working against me. It's the economy. And the fact that I don't have the hindsight to see how bad things might get.

The housing market is declining, causing a credit crunch and banks to become unstable. The cost of oil is predicted to nearly double in price, the stock market is declining, and people are losing jobs. And now I have heard that Israel is planning to go to war with Iraq.

So...here’s my question~
As a (relatively) young person who has never seen the economy bad~ I might have been alive for it, but I was unaware of it~ is "this" (waving my arms to gesture towards everything around me) "bad"?
The last 10 years have been pretty good for me by my terms. I was always able to earn enough money to put a roof over my head, and food in the pantry. Many years in a row I also had plenty left over to go to restaurants and vacations too.

This year I have seen the cost of everything rise. But I still have enough money to put a roof over my head and have food in my pantry. There is just less money left over for extra stuff.

I have heard the economy will get worse. I am wondering how much worse. I obv. Wasn’t alive back then, but in my perspective the Great Depression is about as bad as it can get.
~Will it get to be like another Great Depression worse,
~or worse like I am able to put a roof over my head, food in the pantry but money is so tight that there nothing extra?
~Or will I NOT be able to put a roof over my head, food in my pantry without raiding my savings?

Another question, Short of nuclear war, is there a "perfect storm" for our economy? Is it possible for America to collapse? I know there are safeguards now in place to protect the economy, but are we in a position where we will soon be utilizing those safeguards? With the Indymac bank needing FDIC help, are we already starting to tap into the safeguards?

With our economy as intricate as it is, is it possible for anything to collapse?
I am just wondering if we are riding a downward wave and in 10 years we will be headed back up, or if America has cycled through its era of supremacy and is on it's way to being recorded in the history books as "it WAS a great nation."

I know the economy is cyclical, but I wonder if it is possible for our economy to just get off the track and run a whole new uncharted course. Or have these "things" (once again waving my arm around to everything around me) happened before where banks become unstable, oil becomes unavailable, large amounts of jobs are lost, ect.

Thanks for your input.

I broke down. I had to do it. I couldnt stand it any longer. I bought a vacume cleaner.
Every season I have always managed to either ignore the dirt or borrow a vacume cleaner. Not this year. I guess I must be getting old, because the dirt is getting to me. It got to the point where I was showering twice a day because sitting in this apartment made me feel that dirty.
So I bought a dirt devil hand vacume. Hopefully we should have room left in the jeep to take it back with us next month.
I feel so much better! I was on my hands and knees all morning long vacuming the whole apartment.
It was $53.00. I have no money left after making a hefty contribution to my credit card debt, so this purchase came from Baseball boy's account. He wont mind.
Ahhh! I feel so good. I'm going to take one last shower now because I am covered in dustand grime from vacuming all morning.

I have been told by a few people that I should write a book on the "real" minor leagues. Not the groupie, cheating, drinking drama, but the "real" stuff that the players go through. Like the draft, the promotions, tensions between the wives, steroids. Ext.

Although I have toyed with it, I never went through with it because 1. I don’t think I have the discipline to write nearly 200 pages about anything. And 2. Baseball is such a political field where it’s actually a bunch of sensitive pansies that run it. Baseball executives are very high and mighty and are willing to blackball anyone that insults them. Even if you are really just producing a mirror to show them what they have been doing all along. I would never risk getting baseball boy into any kind of trouble. On field actions such as stats and percentages are rarely the reason for promotions or releases. And it’s this kind of information that I explain to all incoming wives but have been told I should explain on a broader scale. Even baseball boy told me I have way too much knowledge about the industry, it's a shame I can’t find some outlet to capitalize on it.

So last night I was talking to yet another incoming baseball wife about some aspect of the minor leagues and it was brought up again. She said I am basically echoing her thoughts, at the same time I am providing huge chunks of information that was missing for her.

I began to think that maybe I should write a book. Or not a book. But maybe a blog. And get paid for it. I have never blogged before this savings advice one, but you guys seem to like me, so maybe others will like me too? Maybe that’s what I can do to bring in money while I live on the road?

Last night I did a pretty exhaustive search to see what was out there. Aside from one or two well written- ok. Just one-blog, the rest are all pretty catty and immature. It seems that the internet is inundated with websites designed to make scathing remarks towards "groupies", and the "groupies" have likewise posted some pretty serious websites designed to tell the world how "fat and ugly" the wives are. LOL. I think people will appreciate my sticking to real topics.

However, my concern is for Baseball boy. I would be reporting on some not-so-pretty topics regarding the baseball system, as well as lighter topics. I am not very computer savvy. So is there a way to keep really savvy computer people from uncovering my identity? And how would I go about getting paid for it? I just start it up, find my own readers (that should be easy, I think members of these silly baseball websites would be relieved to see someone talking about real issues) and then look for advertisers once I have a solid list of followers?

Confession- Just to see if I could do it, I kind of already started it on a Google website called blogger. I like it! So should I keep doing it? Should I be careful of anything? Should I get a whole new email address to keep the site under or does that not matter?