May 29 2019

Culture (Five Minute Friday)

This week the word prompt is culture. Hubby used to say that I was “culturally deprived”. I didn’t grow up going to the ballet, symphony, opera, or fancy restaurants. We grew up poor and were only exposed to the “arts” when we went with school field trips.  The fanciest restaurants we went to when we were growing up were places like MCL Cafeteria, Ponderosa Steakhouse, Gray Bros. Cafeteria, and Famous Recipe Fried Chicken. I don’t blame my parents for this. They had two adults and four hungry kids to feed and we didn’t go out very often, probably not even once a month. There certainly wasn’t any extra funds to pay for cultural events. If we wanted things while we were growing up, that was fine, but we had to earn the money to cover the cost ourselves. I began working when I was about ten years old delivering the afternoon newspaper six days a week. We went on very few vacations because dad was a barber who worked Monday through Saturday and delivered the morning newspaper seven days a week. It was too expensive to pay someone to run the routes for a weekend and then it was difficult to find someone who cared enough to do a good job as a substitute carrier.

Yes, I grew up poor, but I didn’t realize it at the time I was living it. I asked hubby again just now if he would still consider me “culturally deprived” and he said, yes because I still haven’t learned to appreciate the finer things in life. For what it’s worth, I think he is right about me being culturally deprived but not about me not appreciating the finer things in life. I do appreciate them, but perhaps what I consider the finer things isn’t that same as what other folks would consider them to be. Perhaps culture is over-rated.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Culture
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Culture (Five Minute Friday)
May 23 2019

Review: Everyday Millionaires

If you are a member of the over-fifty club like I am, you are probably pre-occupied with figuring out how much longer you will need to work for a living before you can reasonably retire and do whatever you want with your life. After reading the book, Retire Inspired (affiliate) by Chris Hogan, I began to think about retirement in a completely different way. Chris says that retirement is not an age, it is a financial number. I love that! I have also listened to all of his podcasts and was looking forward to his most recent release that came out in January, Everyday Millionaires (affiliate) by Chris Hogan. After hearing the commercials for the new book on his podcast  a bunch of times I decided I could spare the $20 and buy the book, especially since it came with so many cool bonus freebies and was less than I would likely have paid if I had waited and bought it from any bookstore, and then I wouldn’t have gotten all the bonus things with it. So I caved and bought the book.

I loaned the hardcover out to my sister so she could read it too and thought perhaps we’d have a book club type discussion about it, but I delayed getting started reading the ebook or listening to the audiobook mostly due to technical issues and not taking the time to figure out how to get them loaded onto my phone so I could get started reading. My sister read some of it but I think she got sidetracked and has yet to get back to it. I finally got the audiobook loaded and ready to listen to before a road trip in early April but then next thing I knew, the trip was over and I never started the book. Procrastination is nobody’s friend!

I finally got around to starting and before I knew it I was finished. Whoever said “Begun is half done” was so right! The book was a lot like listening to his podcasts with loads of stories from everyday millionaires. It was really cool to hear how normal people like you and I saved and invested and stayed debt free long enough to become net-worth millionaires. Reading this book really gives me hope that us normal working class people can become millionaires too if we stay focused. I really enjoyed Everyday Millionaires, but I honestly liked his first book, Retire Inspired so much more. I felt like my thinking was adjusted more after reading Retire Inspired than this book. But both books are well worth reading. Best $20 I ever spent and now I have a hardcopy I can loan out once I get it back.

Here are some books by Dave Ramsey that, while a little older, are still super valid and worth reading also.

Have you read these or any other awesome financial books that you would recommend? Please share them in the comments below.

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Category: Book Review, Goals, Money Saving, Review | Comments Off on Review: Everyday Millionaires
May 22 2019

Promise (Five Minute Friday)

Has anyone ever told you that you have promise? Maybe as a way of describing some moderate amount of talent or skill? Have you ever promised to do a favor for a friend? Of course, you have. Promises are all around us. They are part of wedding vows and contracts. If you have bought a house or car on credit you likely signed a promissory note. That is a fancy word that means you promise to pay it back with interest.

You may be wondering if any of our promises can be believed in the world we live in today. If you have been lied to before, and honestly who among us hasn’t at one time or another, then you may well have trouble trusting anyone at their word. Your word is your promise. If you break your promise, your honor is at stake. We were raised to believe that honesty is always the best policy. While I still believe that with all my heart, I can also make a case for those little white lies we tell when someone asks if the pants or skirt they have on makes their read end look big, for example. We were taught to be nice, and that if you can’t say anything nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all. It is tough to be nice and yet never tell those little fibs that avoid hurting someone else’s feelings. When you go to court and get sworn in, you swear/promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God, all while your hand is on The Bible.

I do my best to keep my word no matter what and I try to avoid telling fibs just to avoid hurting someone’s feeling. It isn’t too difficult. You can usually think of something positive to save that is true, and thus avoid telling even the tiniest of lies. Once someone has been caught in a lie, it is very hard to trust that person at their word the next time. Let your word be your bond that guarantees you will do what you have promised. It makes life so much easier when you don’t have to remember which stories you told to which friends or family. Just tell the truth and the truth shall set you free. Mom was right, honesty still is the best policy.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Promise
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Promise (Five Minute Friday)
May 16 2019

What Matters Most

When it comes to organizing, one of the most important things we can ever make the effort to organize is our lives. Get your ducks in a row. Get your sh*t together. However you say it, you need to actually DO it. I recently had the privilege of listening to my library’s copy of the audiobook, What Matters Most by Chanel Reynolds (affiliate link). None of us is getting any younger. We all think we are too young to need a will. I know I thought this back in the early nineties when our kids were still babies. We loved our kids, so we did it anyway. We went to a lawyer and had our wills drawn up, the whole nine yards. It was such a relief. It wasn’t terribly painful or even all that expensive when you consider the peace of mind it gave us. But here we are some twenty-five-ish years later with the same wills, never giving them a thought. When your life changes and your family grows up, things like our last wishes need to change too. We need to update them to reflect the life stage we are in now, the assets we have the people in our lives. All of these things change with time and as we age.

I don’t want to spoil the book, but I will say that this book is written by someone who went through the worst and lived to tell about it and use it to help others learn from her mistakes or oversights. She even includes a 31-page checklist that you can use to get your own sh*t together before you find you needed to but never got around to it.

There is a website called Cake that helps you through the process and gets you started.

If, like me, you still have work to do in the Get Your Shit Together department, you really SHOULD read this book. This book was published 3/19/2019, so it is likely to be the most current book on the subject. Do you have to read the book? Of course not, but it is an excellent book, so why wouldn’t you read it. Ms. Reynolds has shared the most painful part of her life with us (when she was too young to have to deal with this sort of thing) in order to show us how important this is. You could just click on all the links, download the checklist and work your way through it, but it won’t seem as imperative to get this stuff done if you don’t read the book. If there is ANYone in your life that depends on you or that you depend on, just do it. Do it for them, do it for yourself, but you need to do it.

Each of the links on this page leads to an awesome resource to help you through this process. By sharing them with all of you in this post, I can no longer use the excuse of having forgotten or lost them. With any luck, I will have spurred at least one person to get their sh*t together because I took the time to share this subject with you here.

Feel free to check back in with me and keep at me until I can honestly say everything is in order and up to date. Hold me accountable, please! I have mentioned to Hubby that we REALLY need to update these legal papers, and sooner rather than later. Maybe we need to make a list of all the things we have been putting off that we need to do during a typical business day and then make the appointments and take that day off work together and just get it all done. Our reward for a day of doing stuff that sounds like something less than fun could be dinner and a movie afterward.

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Category: Book Review, Depth Year, Goals, Organizing, Planning, Review | Comments Off on What Matters Most
May 16 2019

Practice (Five Minute Friday)

As I sit here writing this on my front porch, I practice feeding the little squirrel we have dubbed “Buddy”. He nervously comes to grab peanuts in the shell from my outstretched hand. Yes, this takes practice. I have to steady my nerves so my hand won’t shake while I wait for him to grab the peanut between his teeth. It takes practice trusting me to feed him and not harm him. It is a relationship that has built up slowly over time. It began with a sweet little squirrel we dubbed Suzy, but we haven’t seen her around for a few weeks. Buddy is definitely NOT Suzy. He doesn’t quite trust us as fully as Suzy did yet. Suzy would come running when Hubby or I walked out of the house and called, while the other squirrels would run away in fear. For a while we had both Buddy and Suzy visiting us on the porch at the same time.

The storm really whipped up quickly to the point that the rain was blowing in on my turquoise table as I sat writing. Because I didn’t want my computer getting wet, I had to take cover in the house instead, but not to worry I left a big hand full of peanuts on the porch for Buddy. We can practice again another day.

In case you are curious here are some videos of either my Hubby or I feeding our squirrels.

This is the first time I caught a video of me feeding Suzy. I’ve been touched by a squirrel!

Here is My Son feeding Buddy. My Son is the one that named him Buddy and Suzy was on the porch that day too. As you can see, it takes practice, patience and most of all trust on both the feeder and the squirrel’s part to make this work.

This is me feeding some of the backyard squirrels we call them the fake Suzys. They are way too skittish to be the real Suzy.

Here is Hubby feeding Buddy. He is getting a little more comfortable around us every day.

Many things in life take practice, and of those almost all take patience as well. What have you decided to practice lately? Care to share? If you want to share, please do so in the comments below.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Practice
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Animals, Family, Fearless, Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Practice (Five Minute Friday)