Hello Again Folks,
Well I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. Mine was pretty mellow, even if it was a T.M’s house, she of the Frozen Cheese Lasagna of two years ago come Christmas.
I have to say things have improved ever since her daughter took over the cooking arrangements, I only had to bring baked yams, which is not hard to do, and some soda, which if you get it in Liter bottles is a lot cheaper than buying by the can.
The food was good and arrived at the table warm, well above room temperature, things were wet where I live, but frankly we need the rain, I just hate the wind and cold.
And speaking of cold, I’ve come down with one, I know it’s a cold because my sinuses are running and I cough because the stuff tickles my throat, but I do have a lot to be thankful for.
We can at least pay the bills, stay warm and can buy food, everything else we use it up, make do, save for it, recycle it, fix it, or do without.
A really good bit of philosophy in the long run, but I just hope the state government doesn’t come along and muck things up. Just when you think you can “dog paddle” along, the government has to come and mess things up, raising rates or doing something stupid that they think is great, when it isn’t.
And they seem to keep changing the rules mid-way through “the game” now that is not fair.
I know of a number of people that are leaving this golden state which isn’t so golden anymore, because of all the stupidity done by the government and the Feds aren’t much better.
One family I know of managed to sell their house, pay off what they owe; they sold their big fancy cars, bought a mini-cooper and a big rig to pull a gently used 5th wheeler. That is their home and it’s much cheaper than their old house. The kids were not happy when their fancy cell phones were discontinued, and their video games were sold off as well as all the fancy furniture and such.
But their parents told them to face life; it was either this way or being homeless for a long, LONG time.
They did a lot of other sacrifices as well, of course the kids belly ached and complained because they lost the life style they could not afford----well too bad said Mom and Pop.
They moved out of state, and found a place where things were affordable and Dad got a full time job and Mom managed to get a part time job where she can be home when the kids get out of school.
I got an e-mail from them not too long ago, and they’re saying they wish they’d done it a lot sooner, but they are making do and don’t live too far from the Wife’s folks, which is good. And the kids are discovering ‘board games’.
Because Mom doesn’t work a full time job and can keep an eye on them, their grades have gone up, and they’re not into so much mischief. Of course the kids are not happy with the new rules but their parents sat them down and said things are changing for everyone so it’s gotta be this way.
Heck, I could have told them that years ago.
This morning I was writing up the bills (and coughing and sniffling) and I was thinking about all this Krap junk mail, all these changes that the Banks and Credit card companies are doing so quickly that it’s impossible to keep up with it.
I was even looking at the phone bill, and it’s getting to the point where do I need to have internet at home? Can I do without this and that? And some of it has come back as “yes”.
I mean I seriously started thinking about what we can do without; do we need Cable or Satellite T.V.? Do we need a fancy car? Do we need a swimming Pool or hot tub? Video games? I mean stop and think Folks, what do you really, really need?
Well of course you need an income, and you need medical and dental insurance, and you do need auto insurance, and if you own a home you do need home owners insurance, so those are givens, they are the needs that one has to have.
Now I have a friend of mine, she got fed up with her house that she called a “Money Pit” and sold it, put her funds into something for her retirement. She too sold off most of her furniture, and rented a large studio apartment. She has said that if it can’t fit into a large trailer for her to tow then it’s too much.
She doesn’t entertain at home, but will meet friends at a favorite spot. She looked into renters insurance and figured that if anyone stole her stuff they were welcome to it. And she told me she is much happier because she has the mobility that she didn’t have before.
In some ways I wish I was just as free as her, but one makes choices and one has to deal with them.
I’m selling off my old 1963 Chevy Nova, hated to do it but I had no choice, I even took some old antique stuff to this Auction house and they told me what it was worth and could auction it off for me. I need the money.
Because we just got a bill for a medical service done in August and they are finally billing us now, nearly $400 dollars, for What!!?? Just to say that my Hunka Burnin’ Love snores??? And there’s nothing they can do about it?
That was a waste of money because I could have told them that!!! So the Money I was hoping to save to cover the cost of the License of the SUV is going out the window, because my Hunka snores!!!
I told him that from now on we weight each thing very carefully, because we don’t have that much funds left. The only thing we need to do right now is watch to see what we are going to have to do when we replace his pacemaker. We Have to do that, don’t have any choice.
And I’m going to have to negotiate with them because we can’t pay $400 dollars all at once. That is going to be “fun”.
Maybe we should have socialized medicine, if our medical system was like Kaiser, we’d be in good shape, they’ve treated me real good and I have a very low co-pay.
That’s it; just do it like Kaiser Permanente, instead of the government sticking their nose into it.
They stick their nose into areas where it’s not wanted and enough is enough.
Mean Kitty signing off.
