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.