Financial Freedom - 3

Well, we are nearing Christmas and New Years. This is a time of year when most people really go into debt, but Cathy and I made teh decision tihs year that we weren't going to do that, and we really stuck with it. We had a set amount we were going to spend, and we spent it. So that was a plus on our part for helping with our bills.

Another plus that I found is a slightly quicker way of paying things off. I've ran our bills through the various dept reduction calculators online, and although they sped it up a little bit, none of them really got it paid off too much faster. So I sat down and started figuring some things out on my own. I found a way to pay our bills off a few months faster then what any of the calculators could give us.

One thing none of the bill calculators take into consideration is the fact that most people get a few "extra" pays through out the year. If you budget like most on two pays a month, then there is twice a year that you get three pays. So that means Cathy and I get a total of four extra pays.

So then if you use those "extra" pays to make extra payments to bills, they will get paid off that much faster. So if we use the four "extra" pays each year to pay a bill a month ahead, nad stay ahead, then we will get things paid off about 3 months faster then any of the online calculators could do. So this is a plus for us.

Here are our updated graphs:

Bill Goal:

10.92%

Savings Goal:

5.03%

And again, if anyone wants to help is out, you can read my previous posts on ways to help me. I am willing to do odd jobs, but if you just want to send us money to help we would take that too. Feel free to email us @ mikesmeandering@gmail.com for more information.

Financial Freedom - 2

I've been thinking about this for a few days now, and I thought I would post a second post to my "Financial Freedom" series. As I've stated in the previous post the things that need to happen in our country for the whole country to get back on track is we need to help out our friends and neighbors in any way we can.

One of the things that Cathy and I have done recently was the coat drive. This is a great opportunity to help people out, and it was started by a series of mistakes made by Dave Price of The Early Show during his No Way Home series. More about that can be found on his website at: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/earlyshow/series/nowayhome/main504503.shtml. This was a fun time, and possible a once in a life time opportunity to meet Dave Price.
Although Cathy and I maybe struggling at times, we thought this was a great way to help people out. But this caused me to get thinking about how people help each other out. In this case Cathy and I were kind of guilty of what is bugging me. Have you ever noticed that people, and often time churches, will give help often times to total strangers, and not to their friends, relatives, or neighbors?

I took a very unscientific study and found that in most cases people found this true, and found that they would do this. A tragedy happens in another country and what do they do, they send out money. But a neighbor loses their home due to a job loss and where are they? Usually no where to be found.

Another thing I've found is that people will keep complaining that they "can't make ends meet", but they are constantly buying new things. I know of a few situations like this. I won't ever mention any names, but I know of someone who has been known to say they don't have any extra money to help people out, but yet they buy new things they don't need(at some times even items such as new cars).

If you have extra money to do things like this, then you have extra money to help people out. Also I've heard people say, "I only have $20 extra a month after paying my own bills. How can this possibly help anyone?" Well, if you have a neighbor that can't pay their bills, that extra $20 could go a long way. If they are only short $5 a month on paying all their bills on time, a person with $20 extra could help them out, and still have extra.

But this brings up yet another problem. Often times people aren't willing to ask for help, and people aren't willing to ask if someone needs help. This causes no one to be helped. Another problem that I've seen is people think, "Well they've gotten themselves into that mess, they can get themselves out." But how do you know what caused the "mess". I know of a person who had a $75,000 a year job, and lost it due to the company downsizing and moving part of it overseas. They ended up only being able to find a job paying minimum wage, and really have to struggle each month. Was this their fault? Did they cause the "mess"? Of course they didn't, but we don't see that side.

Another thing I've heard people say is, "No one ever helped me out." This maybe true for most people, but this is something I think we need to change. We need to start helping each other out, and turn this negative spiral around. So I want to ask that if you can help out just one person in some way, then please help them out.

Like I did in my first post I'm going to publish my graph of how much we have paid off and saved. If I am that person you would chose to help, then great. If not, please just help someone out that you can find in need.


Here is our up to date bar graphs:

Bill Goal:

7.28%

Savings Goal:

5.03%

Two Weekends of Hockey - Part 2

This post is a little later then I wanted it to be, but I just couldn't seem to find any good pictures for it. So now I decided to just post it without any. This is about what we experienced at the Hershey Bears games on the weekend of 11/20 & 11/21.

The game on 11/20 started off as a bad on, and continued on that way. We weren't having the best day before even arriving at the Giant Center. Due to some people not knowing how to do their jobs correctly I ended up getting out of work later then I planned. We still made it to the Bears game in plenty of time, but it was after the main doors were open.

Since the main doors were open, and there wasn't a line, we decided to go in through them. This was the next part of our bad day. As we went in the security guard asked Cathy to shake our season ticket holder cups, so she did. Well, I guess this just wasn't good enough for him. He grabbed a hold of our cups, and shook them violently in her hands. It was to the point that she thought he was going to break a finger.

As we walked through the doors Cathy said to me, "This is idiotic." Well, the guard spun around and yelled at her, "What did you call me?!?" And of course Cathy yelled right back to him, "I didn't call you anything, I said 'this is idiotic'." Well, I guess that wasn't good enough for him either, he just kept yell at her asking what she called him, and saying she called him an idiot. At this point not only was he yelling in my ear, he was pushing against my back.

After a few minutes of this he finally gave up and told us to "Just go, get out of here." So we continued into the Giant Center. Well, this was kind of embarrassing for us, and for Hershey. We found out when we got to our seats that the season ticket holders that sit behind us were coming into the building when this happened. Although they found it funny, and agreed Hershey was in the wrong, others may not have seen it this way.

With working for Hershey, I knew what he did was wrong for several reasons. I was going to type all that out here, but I decided not to waste the time again, and just go on with the next part of the night. And that was how bad the Bears played. WBS scored first that night, and it seemed that the only way we could tie up the schedule was to do it on a power play.

After two periods the game was tied 1-1, but it was obvious that the Bears weren't playing to their potential. WBS scored two more in the third, and again the only way we could come back to within one was to do it on a power play. But yet again WBS scored, and we were down by two. We did draw another power play, and again we did score and come to with in one, but they just couldn't pull it out.

Now on Sunday's game things went a little better. When we arrived we went in through the season ticket holder doors. This time the security guard only asked us to turn the cups upside down. So I did this and he was fine with it. So this was a much better entrance into the Giant Center.

Then the Bears played better that night too, although we didn't think they would. The first period ended scoreless. The second period though the Bears came on really strong scoring four goals to Hartford's one. So going into the third we had a great lead.

But in the third the Bears again didn't seem to be playing as hard. They ended up allowing Hartford to score two more goals this period, and didn't score any them selves. At least they still had a lead though and were able to win this game 4-3, making the night better.

Then we went down for the autograph session. Waiting in line was fun, we ended up behind a rather funny guy and his mom. This was the second time we were behind them in line, and have found they are great people to talk to.

The autograph session itself was a usual session. We did have one kind of funny moment when I couldn't get the camera to work. It turned out that it got out into favorites mode, and Cathy had to figure out how to get it back out. Overall though this was a really fun night, and brought a fun end to a bad weekend.

Two Weekends of Hockey - Part 1

Ok, I was going to write this blog all in one part, but didn't have the pictures I wanted for the second part. So this post is going to be for the weekend of 11/14. This was a mixed night at the Bears game.

One of the things when we arrived that took us off guard was the fact that they security guards were checking season ticket mugs to see what was inside of them. From what I've gathered since then security thinks it is a major problem of people sneeking things in, but yet I've talked to many season pass holders and none of them know of anyone who is doing it. So I'm wondering if security is just blowing a one time thing out of proportion.

But the night got better, while we were in line getting a snack we were approached by two of the interns. They asked if one, or both, of us wanted to play a game on the ice during an intermission. We asked what game they had in mind, and they said it was the Sync The Rink game. This is the one where you are blindfolded and you have to find Coco on the ice. I decided that I would make a fool of myself and do it. It really wasn't as hard as people always made it sound like it was.


This night was also a good night because it was ZooAmerica night, and they had several people and animals from the zoo at the game.

Of course another great aspect of this game was the fact that the Bears won the game 8-3. Details of that can be found on the game sheet at: http://theahl.com/stats/official-game-report.php?game_id=1007553.

Then after the game we stopped in at the autograph session that the Bears do on most Sundays after the game. It was a fun time time both in line and getting the autographs.


I even found the look for my Christmas tree this year:
Even though this week's Bears game was mostly fun and games, that quickly changed for the Bears games on the weekend of 11/20 & 11/21. That is what I will get into when I post part two of these blogs. I hope to get part two up in a day or two, and when I do people will see what I mean about how quickly things can change.

Financial Freedom

I've been thinking about this blog post for some time now. In this day and age, and with the economy the way it is, everyone is looking for financial freedom, and I'm no exception. Some of the people who read this post know Cathy and I personally, and some don't. Some of you know Cathy and my financial situation better then others. There is a lot of things that Cathy and I would like to do with our lives, and a lot of things other people want us to do.

I want to address where Cathy and my lives are going. To this I really have to say we don't know. Most people don't want to hear this, but its the truth of the matter. I know some people out there really say we should purchase our own home. This is something we would love to do, but financially right now we can't do it right now. Another thing people want us to do is start a family and have children. This is something that we've talked about briefly, but haven't really decided on. But again we know this isn't something we could do with our finances the way they are now.

Now some are probably wondering what our finances are like, well that is something I'm not going to directly tell. I feel that the exact numbers are something that should be private, so I've devised a way to display this with out showing numbers, and that is with a bar graph. I'm going to use one to show what percentage of our goal is paid off, and a second one to show what percentage of our savings goal we've met. I've then decided to post blog posts on a regular basis(hopefully monthly) that will show our progress. One thing anyone who follows these posts may notice is the fact that our savings bar will go up and down. Although we are putting money into the savings, we will pull out from savings when needed to pay bills. Here is what the bars will look like:

Bill Goal:

0%

Savings Goal:

0%

As we approach our goals these bars will fill up, until they are eventually full meaning we are debt free. Now do we have a goal to get out of debt? I think I've set one. For those who read this that don't know I'm currently 35 years old. If we are to start a family I feel we need to do this with in the next five years. This being said I would like to get our bills paid off and reach our savings goal with in the next three years. This then gives us two years to look into buying a house, and starting a family.

Now you may be wondering where you come in on this. I don't want to look for hand outs from people, but I would like to look for help. The way the economy is many people have turned to our government for help, and although it is great that they are there for the people who need it. But we shouldn't have to do this. We should look out for our friends and neighbors. If you know someone in need help them out, if that someone is me, then please get in touch with me. If you have an odd job that needs done, and don't live too far away, I can make arrangements to meet up with you and do the work.

If there is someone else in your life that you wish to help, then please help them. If you wish to help me, then please contact me. You may be wondering though if I plan to help anyone else, and I do. There are several things I am thinking. First, we are helping out by donating old coats to the needy. I know this may not seem like much, but for those who need a coat for warmth it is. Also once we get our bills paid off, and money saved up, we then will look for friends and neighbors that we can then help our ourselves.

So if you are now wondering are we anywhere near our goal, I'll give you an updated bar graph for this blog post:

Bill Goal:

5.63%

Savings Goal:

5.03%

So we are slowly on our way to our goal, and god willing with your help, we will reach that goal faster. If you can, and wish to help, please contact me. You can contact me either through the area where you saw the link for this blog post, or directly by email. my blogging email is: mikesmeandering@gmail.com.

Snow

Ok, I thought I would just do up a quick blog post about the snow. Here in my area of central PA, we got well over 2 feet of snow. I know when Cathy stepped into the snow to check how deep it was, it was up well past her knees.

We went out a little early in the day and cleaned off the walk out front and the steps out back. That didn't seem all that bad. It wasn't until we decided to go dig out the cars that we really had to work.

We had to dig out from where we park, to the alley, then through the packed plowed snow at the alley. It took us almost three hours to get everything finished. But we figured we had to get it done. We didn't know if they Bears game was going to be canceled or not, which it turned out it was, but everything needed shoveled...

GC1ZQKH - Puttn' Out at the "Put In"

This was my last find for the day, GC1ZQKH. This one almost threw me as well. Again with my GPS not being the most reliable at times, I was a short distance away from this one.

After some searching, and letting the GPS get a better fix on my location I was near a tree that had something that just didn't look quite right to me. I investigated it, and there it was, my fourth find of this day.

GC1KHDH - Oh What a View

This was my third find for the day, GC1KHDH. I drive along roads near this location on a regular basis, but I had never headed back the road this cache was on.

The day I headed back it, it was trash day for the people along the road. First I had to pass the trash truck to head out the road. Then I pulled off to start looking, and he went flying past me. But that didn't really take away from the view of this location. It was a nice quick find to add to my day.

GC1RBPF - Post Office Box Series #1

The next geocache found that day during my travels was this one, GC1RBPF. This cache was the second part of a puzzle. I've looked for this one several times, and never seemed to be able to come up with it.

I thought that since I was passing the location where the final cache should be hidden, I would try again. I looked around where my GPS was putting me, and again I couldn't find it. But I also know my GPS can be off by as much as 30ft at times. So I started walking between the locations it was taking me too, when I located something that just didn't look quite right to me.

So I walked over to the area where I thought it could be, and got lucky with the find. I will say that when I was looking in the spring/early summer for this one, there may have been too much growth for me to find it.

GC1YQEN - Get Charged!

While out geocaching a week or so ago i came up with another four finds, the first of which was this one GC1YQEN. I had to run to the local Wal-Mart, and on my way home I started at this location, since it was the closest.

Even though the GPS I currently have isn't always the most accurate, it did lead me almost right to this one, and if you read the clues, you know exactly what you are looking for. This was a nice quick find for the day.

Verizon

I've been debating about doing this post for a while now. But I just have to get my thoughts out about the way some customer service works. The one that is on my mind is Verizon.

We've been noticing for a while now that our phone has been staticy. The other weekend it was just way too bad, we didn't have a dial tone half the time. So I tried calling into them. Well I'm going to assume that they were all off on the day that I called, because all I could get was their automated system. It said that it tested the lines and that the problem was outside the house on their system. The best the system could do was tell me that it would be fixed by 715pm on Wednesday night.

So Wednesday came and the phone wasn't fixed, so we figured that would be the day the guy would be out. He was to call my cell phone to tell me he was here, and that he was working on it, and if it was fixed. Well, the next thing I know the phone just started ringing from a blocked number. When I would answer it they would hang up.

Eventually the guy from Verizon knocked on the door. He said that he tested everything outside, and that the problem was with the lines in the house. So he tested out main phone jack, and found that it was somewhere between the box outside, and the main jack. He also insisted that the main jack was wired wrong.

So the guy proceeds to rewire the main jack. Then he said he was going to have to track down the problem, and insisted to me that the line went thought the apartment below us. I knew he was wrong. I told him that if he went out and traced it he would see it runs under the siding.

After he does this he came back to tell me that he found a break in the line that wasn't fixed properly. So he said he would go back out and fix that, and then call me to see if the problem was fixed. So a few minutes later the phone rang, and i answered it, and it was the tech. He said the phone should be fixed, and since I didn't hear any static, I figured it was.

I didn't think to check all the other phone jacks in the apartment. A little while later the phone rang again, and I noticed that the caller ID didn't come up on our TV like it usually does. But I thought maybe it was just a problem with the satellite. So I checked the satellite setting, and everything seemed to be fine.

The next morning I got an error on the TV saying that if we didn't connect a phone line to our satellite receiver we would be charged a monthly fee. So that prompted me to check the phone jack, and what did i find? There was no dial tone. So I checked a few other things, and found that the living room phone jack wasn't working at all. So I called Verizon back.

I told them that if we didn't get the line connected that we would be charged a fee from our satellite provider. I explained that it was their tech's fault that it wasn't working. The lady argued with me that it wasn't an emergency, and didn't need fixed. I finally thought I had her convinced that it did need fixed that day, and she said the guy would be out between 8 and 5.

Even though I didn't want to sit around all day, I figured I had to. Well, I noticed that a Verizon van was across the street working on a house there. I hoped when he was done there he would come here. Well he never did. The day slowly ticked away, and he never showed up.

Well we gave him until exactly 5pm, and then Cathy called this time. What did we find out, the lady in the morning put it into the system as a next day fix, and the guy wouldn't be back out until Friday now. So Cathy argued with them, and tried to get them to come out that day yet, but they couldn't get a free tech to stop by.

So the lady assured us we would be person one or two on Friday, and that if we were second the guy would be here by 10am at the latest. So I had to sit home again on Friday. Well, 10am came and the guy still wasn't here. I had already figured I was only giving them to noon, and then calling to tell him to shove their service and shut it off.

Well at about 1045 the guy finally showed up. He took the jack about to see what was rewired, and looked kind of confused about it. Then he tested the line for our DSL modem and could only get a week signal, and asked to see the living room jack. I showed him that, and he tested there, and got a strong DSL signal. He then went back out to the main jack, and told me that the tech that was there two days ago wired it completely wrong, and he was ever surprised that we had DSL. So he rewired it, and was here and gone in less then 10 minutes.

The only good things that came out of it was the fact that we got a $25 credit for our troubles, and a credit for the week we were with out proper working service. I guess what really bugged me though was the fact that the first guy rewired the jack when it didn't need it, then the lady lied to me about someone coming to fix it that day. I just wish people would do their jobs right, and not lie to people...

GC1F022 - Those Who Served Our Country

I went looking for this one, GC1F022, while I was out heading to Staples. This one was a pretty good one.


Although it didn't take me long at all to find it, I did like the hiding spot. Plus while I was there, I paid my respects for those who are serving our country. This was one of two that I've looked for, but the only one I came up with that day. I'm sure in the future I'll find the other ones I've been looking for. :)

GC1A4TF - The Old German Cemetery!

I was out on Sunday looking for some caches with my dad. Of the two we looked for we only were able to find this one, GC1A4TF.

We looked around for a few minutes, and the GPS took us over to a large tree. My dad noticed some rocks that were kind of stacked weird, so I pulled them out, and there was the cache. I showed him the log that people sign, and signed it myself.

I then pulled out the travel bug, Rzinkains Batmobile, I was carrying. I explained what the basics were with trackable items such as travel bugs and I placed it into the cache.

Since I don't have any pics of this cache, I'll add a pic of the travel bug to this post. :)

GC2306B - Pendrgn's First Hide

Ok, this one isn't a cache that I've found. This is the first one that I've hidden, GC2306B. After some work I found a location that was more then 528 from another cache, and really close to home. I placed it, and unfortunately it went missing in less then a day.

So I went back out, and I replaced it. This time so far it hasn't gone missing. I've had several people find it so far. I would like to congratulate djs167, for being the first to find it.

If you are into Geocaching, and you are planning on looking for this one, then you may not want to look at the pictures below. I figured I'll at least post a pic of what it looks like. I was going to post a pic of the hiding place, but I decided against that. :)

GC19GBP - Pigsqueak Stay Away

My second Geocache find of the day was this one, Pigsqueak Stay Away. I had searched for this one over a year ago when I first started looking, and never seemed to be able to find it. The really funny thing is I was standing right next to it. It could have jumped out and bit me.

When I found this one, it looked like it needed a little work. The hiding place was starting to fall down. I tried to fix it, but didn't have the tools on me to do so. I am hoping the cache owner will be able to get out and fix it before too many others go looking. I'll have to admit that the problem with it did make it easier to find...

Over all, I think it was a good day with two more finds. There are others I want to find, but I figure I'll have to wait until another day, and possibly until the snow melts totally....

GC1FTYR - Hedwig is Watching You...

I went out to do some more Geocaching again today. I was lucky enough to come across two more. The first one was this one, Hedwig is Watching You....






When I first want looking I found a tree that seemed to match the description, but according to my GPS I was about 50ft away. So I decided to listen to the GPS, even though I know it can sometimes be off by that much, but not always. Then I came across the actual site of this Geocache, and at first I thought it was muggled.

But after searching I found that it was still intact, and I was able to grab this Geocache and head out...

GC22C6H - An Ammo Can Outdoors & Rzinkains Batmobile

My third Geocache find,An Ammo Can OutDoors, was over a year after my second one, and brings me up to date. This find was a nice one for me becuase it was the first time I was able to get any travel items.

In this case I found a travel bug, Rzinkains Batmobile. Like my first Geocache post, I'm sure some people reading this will knwo hwat travel bugs are, but some won't. So I'll take a few minutes to talk about them. For more information about them you can go to, Travel Bug FAQs , but I'll still talk a little.

Travel bugs are trackable items that moves from one cache to another through the different Geocachers. Usually the travel bug owner sets up what they want the bug to do, and then the Geocachers try to help acomplish those tasks.

Although this was a nice Geocache find, I forgot to take my phone, and camera, with me. So unlike the previous Geocaches I don't have pictures of this one. But since I do still have the travel bug with me I took pictures of that, and I'll add them here.

Finding this Geocache, and this travel bug, was a great find for me. Once I get a chance to head up towards my parent's house I'll pass on the travel bug to another Geocache location...

GC1WRWF - Pipe Down And Don't Pop Your Top

My second find was a few weeks after my first find, http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=097ec2a3-f17c-4da1-a9b0-57fd1ec34606. I was surprised when I found it, since it was a nano, and didn’t think I could find a Geocache that small.

I had some time after work one night, and thought I would go looking for it. I drove around and got as close as I could on the road. Then I started looking around. Since my GPS isn’t the best for hiking/off road it doesn’t always get me as close as I would like at times.

But I searched and finally found it. When I saw it I didn’t think it was the correct place/item. I guess I just wasn’t expecting what I found. But I signed the log and got a second one under my belt. Unfortunately that was all I was going to find for a while, since it was actually over year later until I was able to start looking again, and get another find, but that will be another post.


For now I’ll just give you the few pics I took of this one.

GC1KRZJ - Naftzinger Ridge

The first Geocache I’ve found was this one, http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=7b9ba0c6-7809-4dc4-ab62-170878e73292. I had been searching for a while and couldn’t seem to come across anything, and was starting to think I was doing something wrong. But then with a little luck and looking I found it.
It was a nice location in a nice small cemetery. Finding this Geocache gave me some encouragement to keep looking for other ones, but with work and other things going on I had to take a few weeks off from the searching, but I was able to pick it back up later, but that will be another post.
For this post I will add the few pictures I had. So if you are reading this, and you haven’t found this cache, and you intend to look, don’t look at the pictures. :)

Some tombstones that were near the geocache...

A big spoiler, picuters of the hiding place and container...

And finally a picture of a sticker in the logbook...