I can remember when I was a high school senior and I applied to go to Virginia Tech. I was accepted to go there, but I did not qualify for enough grants and scholarships to be able to attend – even though I had taken college preparation courses in high school and had received all A’s and B’s on my report cards. My parents were already sending my older brother to college and they said that they could not afford to help me to attend college as well. So, I could not go to college. My life’s dream of becoming a veterinarian would never come to pass. If I had been able to attend college right out of high school, I would have led a much much better life, and the lives of my children would have been much better as well. College is the foundation on which financial stability is built. Our children need and deserve the chance to improve their lives with a good education.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m thrilled that he has finally decided to go to work dressed like a serious businessman. I’m just wondering what in the world changed his mind about how to dress for success! For years now he was perfectly happy to wear cargo pants and T-shirts, but now he spends hours picking out the best looking tie to wear with his gray pin stripe suit.

There are a few things that I collect in this world. And the main thing that I love to collect is purses. It’s just that it’s so much fun when you can wear around your collection! I’m kind of known among my friends for my bag obsession but it’s gotten to a point where I really need to find a better way to store of them so they’ll still be in good quality.

I want to be able to see more of my collection too and was looking for some ideas when I saw information regarding bankruptcy alternatives. We’ve talked about our debt and different options like debt settlement, counseling, and other alternatives for a while and we’d love to avoid it, so we’re going to have to read some more into it.

I found a shelving system that I’m going to try and recreate so that I can keep all of them organized. If only I had a dust bag for each one of them! Maybe I’ll look into that and attaching a picture of the bag on the outside of each bag so I know which one is in which bag.

I immediately started reading an article about how to save money on tools, and enjoyed reading his little story about when he was a little boy his grandfather gave him his first set of tools, and how he and his grandfather worked together on a variety of projects that needed tools. The story brought back memories of my own relationship with my own grandfather and it brought a smile to my face. You see, even though I am female, I was a tomboy, and my grandfather treated me like the son he never had of his own. It was great fun visiting him on his farm and helping him plant seeds in the garden and follow him around in the barn and watch him slop the hogs and feed the cows.

Realizing that I enjoyed his writing style, I decided to click around on his website, and found that the author of the website is offering college scholarships! I found that very interesting that he would do that, and decided to read more about that. Apparently he is going to award two $5,000 college scholarships a year! His requirements for winning the scholarship do not seem to be unreasonable, based on academic history, extra curricular activities, and ingenuity of essays.

That particular article brought back the memory of how my youngest son was able to go to college on a full grant/scholarship to Princeton due to the generosity of one of Princeton’s alumni. A friend came over to visit a few days ago and she was talking about how her son had thrown away his chances to go to college on a full scholarship and how upset she was that he was not taking advantage of the opportunity. Her concerns made me so grateful that my son was fortunate enough to get the financial grants he needed to go to Princeton, and how that college degree will be opening doors for his career for the rest of his life.

I’ve bookmarked this frugaldad.com website; I think I’ll be going back to read it again and again.

Unfortunately this seems to be the story of my life. Whenever I am put on a team project, there is someone who does not do their part. When that happens and I complain about it I often am told “well, that’s part of life.” I find myself asking myself what is the life lesson that I am supposed to learn here? Am I supposed to avoid being on teams? Am I supposed to just be a loner? Should I just assume that I am the only one that will do the work and just do it all myself? Or should I just expect failure?

Lately I find that when I am asked to do something that is a group effort, I find myself reluctant to participate. I’m tired of being the work horse.

The reason that I found that interesting was because for the past two years I’ve been comtemplating buying a few chickens myself. I’m a member of a Yahoo Group of local people who write about a lot of different things and for some reason there is always chatter about chickens for sale, eggs for sale, and how having a couple of chickens in the yard helps to keep the yard free of ticks.

So I’ve started researching the possibility of going ahead and giving it a try. I’m going to have to look into the different hatcheries, what I’m going to need to learn about incubating eggs. I wonder how my grandparents would react if they were still alive if they learned that I was thinking about getting a hatchery and raising chickens!

To make the problem worse, the foods that are good for you are more expensive to purchase than the foods that are not healthy. So when a person is short on time and short on money then they are going to go to the fast and cheap meal. I know that there are families where all of the adults work outside the home and are happy with their jobs because they have rewarding careers and are making great money and can afford to hire people to help raise the children and cook good and nutritious meals, but that is not the majority of the families in America. I sure wish that it WAS the majority of the families, but it isn’t. And now I think that I had better end this post before I start a political ranting that will prove to my readers that I am a nutcase!

Have you ever been the victim of collection harassment for money that you didn’t even owe? Let me tell you, having collection calls from companies when you really owe them the money is bad enough, but when you don’t even have an account with the company that is harassing you it can make you crazy mad! It all started out innocently enough, there was a phone call from a collection agency asking to speak with a person that I had never heard of before. It was one of those recordings, that says “if you are this person, please hold on for an important message, if you are not this person, please hang up now.” So I hung up. And hung up again. And again.

Got to the point where I was hanging up on the collection calls more often than I was talking to people who I actually knew! I had no idea how to stop collection harassment for good with this robo company. Finally I decided that I’d just go ahead and take the call as if I WAS the person that they were looking for, thinking that I could explain to the operator that there was nobody here by that name, and would they please take my telephone number off of their robo collection call procedures. Well, the representative did not want to believe that I was not the person that they were looking for, and gave me a really hard time about it. I asked to speak to the supervisor, and was told that the supervisor was “in a meeting” and could not be disturbed. So I left a message for the supervisor to call me. (Supervisor never DID call me!) But about forty-five minutes later the robo call comes in again.

Margie suggested that I do two things at this point – to Google “stop collection harassment California” and see what resources I can use to make this stop, and to use my telephone features to block the telephone number that the collection calls are coming from. D-UH – why didn’t I think of call-block before? Ah, sweet, sweet peace and quiet; I love you!

Keith has such a strong work ethic that whatever company of Los Angeles movers were lucky enough to get him will certainly get their money’s worth out of him! I can remember one time when Mom wanted our refrigerator moved out from the wall so she could clean behind it and Keith just picked it up and said “where do you want it Mom?” My jaw hit the floor when that happened!

I’m a little bit nervous about the venture because I’ve heard that some states are thinking about making payday loans illegal, but David and Merle are confident that won’t happen in this state. They are already picking out their storefront site and talking about payday loan leads and are very excited about the whole thing. I hope that they are not biting off more than they can chew!