O-Dark-Thirty

This is The Only Financial Advice You'll Ever Need . If you can follow one simple rule your financial life will be forever simplified. Ready? Here it is: Don't buy something if you don't have the money. If you prefer more positive statements: Only buy if you have the cash. Everything else is commentary, including the dozens of techniques which tell you how to manage your money so that you have the cash. I don't use the common phrase "only spend what you make" because too many people get a nice job making, oh, say, $40 thousand a year and think that means they can go spend it all right now. Buy a new car. Buy a bigger house. That's incorrect logic. You don't have the money if it isn't in your bank and available to buy what you want. If you have debts, your money is earmarked to pay someone else; it isn't yours to spend. Don't spend the money you need for this month's rent or car payment or groceries or utilities or ch...

I don't usually blog about what and where I eat. For one thing, that would be a lot of blog posts. For another, I don't want people to know what I'm eating. Besides, I need something for Twitter! Yet, tonight we just had the best ribs I've ever eaten. Let me explain. Darling found a coupon for ribs at the local Spring Creek Barbeque, a buy one Rib Meal at the regular price, get one free. Today was the last day for the coupon, so we had to go – use it or lose it. We decided to use it. We've eaten there once before and it was okay. I had the beef, and we had a salad. That seems odd for a BBQ place, but I felt like a salad that day. They brought fresh bread to our table – little loaves hot from the oven. I'm not supposed to be eating much bread, but I couldn't resist those. They smelled just like the bread my Aunt Nora used to make for us as boys. If you've ever seen the movie Ratatouille, when the food critic is transported back to his childho...

A million dollars for a couple of days in London and Paris for the Vice-President? Are conservatives crying wolf again? Let's remember the conservative pundits who claimed President Obama's trip to India in 2010 cost $200 million per day. That quoted cost was ridiculous and thoroughly debunked by Anderson Cooper. No one knows the actual costs, but it was probably closer to $50 million for the whole trip. We do know some figures that are not in dispute: 04-Feb-2013 Hyatt Regency London for $459,388.65 and 05-Feb-2013 Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand for $585,000.50 . Okay, I'm trying to be fair here. Mr. Biden is the Vice-President of the United States. We respect the office and that respect should reflect on the person in office. We elected him, so we owe him that. He deserves protection. A lot of people in this world are unsavory characters and might try to harm him. It probably won't be anyone working in those two hotels, though. He deserves so...

I remember Spam™ but as a food that Mom liked and we boys tried to avoid. Avoidance wasn’t always possible. Mom always shopped at the Base Post Exchange (PX) for food. I remember those trips, especially when I was a little older. We went to the base in our station wagon, Mom and me and my three small brothers. I remember Barry about five, Dave about three and Tim two. That would make me nine or ten. Mom would get two carts and put Tim in the seat of one of them. She put Dave into the seat of the other. Barry sometimes sat in the cart itself, but mostly Mom required him to just walk next to one of the carts and hang on. He wasn’t supposed to let go, and he usually didn’t. I pushed one cart and Mom pushed the other. I had to make sure that Dave and Barry didn't do anything wrong - though Dave was pretty well secured and Barry came back every time he wandered away. He was careful that Mom didn't see him for the wrath of Mom was always to be avoided. The goal was to fill the...

The musical notes of his cell phone pierced his sleep. Frank sleepily picked up the phone next to his bed, expecting another call from work. "Mr. Jackson?"  The voice was quiet, yet sultry. Frank thought it probably belonged to a slim, athletic brunette. He smiled at the image in his mind. "Yes, this is he. How did you get this number? It’s unlisted." He tried not to sound sleepy, pitching his voice a little lower than normal. "Actually, I knew it was you, sir. This is the Psychic Hotline calling." Frank gritted his teeth and almost ended the call, but being awakened by a crank call, regardless of the voice, was just too much. "Listen..." he growled into the phone. "Please, Mr. Jackson, don’t be angry. This is not a crank call." The voice sighed quietly. "Haven’t you always laughed at the commercials for the Psychic Hotline and said ‘If they were really psychic they would call me ?’" Frank bit back a retort, r...

I admit it. I talk on the phone in my car on the way home from work almost every day. I do it hands-free, of course, and wouldn't even consider talking on the phone if I didn't have some sort of hands-free device. For the longest time I simply used my upgraded Apple™ headphones, the ones with the soft earpieces that should have been included with all their phones. For the last month or so I've been using my new Bluetooth™ LG HBS730 (yeah, I mentioned it in the last post, too). I discovered I like not having wires. So I usually talk to Darling on my forty-minute commute home. What does this have to do with electric cars? I don't have an electric car. I have a white 2003 Toyota Camry which I bought at CarMax (and then removed the "Max" part of that). I like my car. It's getting a little old but it runs well and I'm comfortable with it. Darling would like me to get a new car. I don't really want one. As I explained to her, if someone bump...

Two days ago I received my Pebble ™ watch in the mail. I was one of the 68,000+ Kickstarter ™ backers and have kept an eye on the progress of Pebble since the crowd-source funding succeeded. A fascinating business case, I watched the memos from Pebble™ as they finished the planning, the designing, the manufacturing and the inevitable redesign and streamlining before the final production run. So now, a few months past the expected delivery date, I received my watch. I'm not in the least bit disappointed. A couple things you need to know about me if you don't know already: I like gadgets and I like watches. I get gadgets all the time, so Darling says I need to stay employed just to buy my toys. I haven't worn a watch in about twenty years, ever since I removed a wrist watch given to me by a couple that I dearly loved and it was stolen from my desk. Still, I have quite a few watches I don't wear. I like pocket watches, too. I have one that belonged to my Grandfat...