The cost of my commute to work

With the price of gas going up each week I was thinking about get a gas or electric scooter to get to work. Right now I commute about 12 miles each way. My little car gets about 30 miles to the gallon. I am using about $3.50 worth of gas each day just to get to and from work. With gasoline going up to about $7.00 a gallon by the end of the summer that will be about $6.00 or more each day, or roughly $30.00 just to get to work and back. Now I have not added the trips to the grocery store or doctor and that would add another 24 to 40 miles a week if I do everything in one big trip. So I reckon that $40.00 a week should cover gas for me, but wait I only earn $11.00 an hour and that is considered good pay in my area of the country. I have to work 4 or more hours just to pay for the commute! The cost of gasoline is taking about 10% of my gross pay. What is the cost of your commute?

Saving on your medical expenses

This one hit home a last week. My husbands' doctor wrote him a prescription but my husband failed to ask for a generic equivalent at the drug store. What he ended up with was a prescription that had a co-pay of $45.00! Rather than the regular $5.00 or less he usually pays. Here is a video to prove my point.

Do you have a back up plan?

We have all gotten comfortable in a financial situation at least one time in our lives. There has either been a job we really liked and the pay was good only to have it end unexpectedly or a major customer that suddenly no longer bought from you. In both cases we unfortunately learn to depend on the narrow income lifeline. When that line of income was taken away what did you do?

Most people either panic or scramble to find another job or quickly expand their customer base. In both cases we either jump at the first opportunity or panic some more. Now the BIG question: How well are you prepared for a lay-off or customer loss? Now before you answer that, here are some of what I have gone through and how I survived it.

Getting laid off.

• I thought I was prepared. I had a small business that I could fall back on and in fact I did when I eventually did get laid off.
• The small business never got any bigger and stayed small. The customer base was growing but at too slow a rate. The business turned into a seasonal business where it boomed in the summer and was dead in the winter. I loved the work and it took me 4 years of devotion to finally let go of it. There are times that if you love a job or business too much it blinds you to the fact you are going down the tubes to bankruptcy. Learn when to end such a business.
  
• I went back to school to train for another line of work.

Loosing a line of business income

• I relied on eBay for my main source of income for several years until one eBay user (not even a buyer mind you) decided they would file a erroneous claim that I was bidding on my own auctions. At the time I did not have any auctions listed but they were all eBay store items. This did not matter to eBay and they promptly ended all my listings without a refund. This amounted to 300+ listings. After about 3 weeks of investigation on eBay's part they apologized and told me to re list all the items but still would not give me a refund. So I re listed them. About 2 weeks later the same thing happened again! This time it only took eBay 4 days to fix the problem and again told me to re list the items. At that point I realized I was at the mercy of the whims of eBay and canceled my eBay store and never went back. That episode cost me around $200.00 in eBay fees and an unknown amount in lost customers.
• I started up a store at eCrater.com and have had a small but growing customer base. I soon found out that many other former eBayers had ended up at eCrater also. It is nowhere as large a store as I had on eBay but there are no fees! It is a nice part time business.

That is just 2 examples of what I have gone through and managed to survive it. I learned not to just sell on the internet but have an off line business as well. I also know when to have a full time job and not to become so devoted to it that I ignore having another line of income coming in. Also never rely on just selling at the retail or wholesale level, diversify you income streams. The first business that I spoke of was a service related business where I provided a service the second business was retail. Now I have combined both types of businesses where I provide a service or a product I have also ventured out into the information field such as this blog and I have done some guest speaking at local clubs and schools.

Where to find a products to sell?

One of the main sources to find products to sell in on Thomasnet.com It is listing directory of almost every manufacturer in the USA and Canada. No matter what you are looking for and if it is actually made in the USA or Canada, it will be listed on there. Access to find companies is totally free. I have found companies on there that when I contacted them they wanted me to become a dealer of their products but I didn't want to become that involved with them at the time. Thomasnet.com is a great resource for small and large companies.

Supplies for your business - metals

Since locating supplies for your business can sometimes be a pain in the neck I am going to do some reviews of various sources for business that manufacture items. First up is a metal custom fabrication company. Petro Wire and Steel is located in Texas and can fabricate almost any design that uses metal cloth or perforated metal. They have a wide variety of metals and alloys to choose from. If you are looking to make a prototype of a product out of metal then you might want to check them out.

What goes up must come down

As we have seen in the housing market - prices go up and soon they come down. Most of the rapid price rise in the housing market was not caused by average people buying a home but by housing speculators buying up homes to flip them. You have seen the countless programs on TV such as Flip this House or the infomercials on how to make it big in the real estate market. Well the prices went up too fast and too much, hence the bottom fell out. Unfortunately many people that were just looking to buy a home they could live in got caught up in that mess.

Now that same type of market seems to be happening with oil - the oil speculators are driving the price of crude oil of out sight. I wonder if it happens to be the same people that drove the price of real estate out of sight? They had to go and invest their money somewhere else since the real estate market is now a dud. I wonder if pork bellies, corn a soybeans are next? Yes, our own food can be at the mercy of people buying and selling futures on the commodities market. You would think there would ought to be a law. I think there was a law about the general public not being allowed to trade in the commodities market about 40 years ago but that all changed and now we are paying the price for it.

I wonder how many of you are old enough to remember when it was illegal for people living in the USA to buy and sell gold (as in gold bars). That was limited strictly for the US Mint and for the gold reserves. Times have changed.

One of the ways NOT to ask for donations

The news article below just showed up on the news wires. This has got to be one of the worse ideas for fund raising I have heard in a long time. Almost like Hugh Hefner donating the proceeds of the last months Playboy Magazine's income to house the nuns of the Catholic church.

Outragous inflation in India

If you think that inflation is getting worse in the USA just compare that to India, where the BBC is reporting an increase of 11%! India imports about 75% of it's oil and is held hostage at the whim of the oil producing countries. The Indian government subsidies the cost of oil but now it has to pass along those costs. The result is sky high food costs where most people only earn $2 a day and 50% or more of that goes to buy food.

My thoughts are that the greedy of this world have gone global and their greed for more money will affect people around the world. It has truly become a world economy now. Food costs will go up because of 2 major factors. One of them is the rising cost of oil and the other one is Global Warming that will affect the climate of the crop growing regions of the world. Both of those factors can be traced back to greed.

When will people learn?

An acquaintance of mine recently poured out his gut about how the rising cost of gasoline was getting to him. He lives about 40 miles from work so he has a round trip of about 80 miles each day. He drives an older Volvo that gets under 19 miles to the gallon. He has a large pick-up truck that leaves at home now. I was feeling sorry for the poor man, notice I said WAS.

Yesterday this same man was telling me how he spent his lunch times at work. He has an hour for lunch and he has an office job. He so badly wants to get away from work at lunch time that he jumps in his car and drives around for the hour!!! He says he finds a nice place to park and eats his sack lunch. He told me of a local lake that he found that has a nice city park next to it. I know of the place and it is about 10 miles from work. That is a 20 mile round trip for a lunch time excursion. Does that man realize that he just spent about $5.00 for his little lunch time getaway? Over the course of a year that works out to $1200.00 in gas at the current price of gas.

I am no longer feeling sorry for a man that complains about the rising cost of gasoline when he wastes so much of it. I wonder what he will say when I point this blog post out to him? I really want to know what he could do with an extra $1200.00 in his pocket if he chose to take a walk at lunch time instead of drive around.

Selling on Craigslist

I know many people that stay away from eBay for buying items. They prefer Craigslist over eBay. I guess it is no wonder that eBay owns part of Craigslist, yes you heard that right, eBay is an investor in Craigslist.

Now Craigslist is a great way to list items for sale that you would prefer not to ship to the buyer. Most people that I know have listed at least one item on Craigslist at one time. I know I have listed a few things on there such as a truck, a rabbit hutch and tools. The listings didn't take that much time but they still could have been easier to do, at least in my mind.

There are several software companies that provide programs specifically catering to listing ads on Craigslist. One of them is Craygo and they claim to, and I quote "Craygo has more features than any other craigslist posting application out there" and "Craygo has more features than Easy Ad Poster (EzAdSuite), AdsOnCraigs, AdBomber and AdMaster." Their program features many faster ways to list an ad on Craigslist. Some of the features are (and this is direct from their website) allows you to store your ads for future posting, automatically enters your ad data into the correct forms on Craigslist and properly submits the ads on your behalf. Craygo even allows you to rotate and randomize an unlimited amount of email addresses.

It also has the feature of allowing you to list several cites without jumping around Craigslist to list them on each city site.

If this is the type of program that might interest your business then check it out at adsoncraigs. The prices are geared more toward the person or business that lists a large amount of items, services or products on Craigslist. The price for the basic Craygo program is $57.77 so I would not recommend it to the casual seller on Craigslist. On the other hand if you have a medium size to larger business that might be trying to sell outdated or surplus equipment then this program might be just what you are looking for.

Below is a screen shot of the Craygo program.

Sell your household online

Ok, so the bills are climbing but your salary isn't. You have looked for a second part time job but everyone else is doing the same thing - now what? First thing is to relax, the world will NOT end but things in your world just need a slight adjustment. You just need to sell something to get some extra cash to pay a bill or 2.

Everyone I know has a few boxes of stored items that they just hang on to for no apparent reason. Those items are not family heirlooms or valued antiquities, nope just stuff. My boxes of "stuff" where old magazines that I would never get back to reading but I hung on to them. Those magazines turned out to be worth something. I had about 36 assorted issues of various horse magazines issued back in the mid 1970's. Among them where 3 issues that had stories about Ruffian the ill fated filly that had a tragic end after a match race. I did a little research on eBay and found out that similar magazines were fetching $25 to $500 at auction. So I listed them on eBay and started them off at $5.99 each at auction. The end result was I got more than $30.00 for each magazine with the highest bringing $48.00. That was the direct result of a resurgence of interest in an old news item. Pay attention to the news. If someone dies that you have a book written by, the value of it will go up but sometimes only temporally. If there is talk about an old news item and you just happen to have an old newspaper with the headlines of that news item - cash in on it.

Your results may not be the same as mine but you get the idea that even what we think of a "junk" is not "junk" after all. Even a book with water stains can bring a decent price if it is sought after. Old PEZ containers, instructional manuals and pre 1950 electronics are now in demand as collectors items. Do some research on eBay on what you have and see if there is anything similar on there. Don't put something on eBay just for listing it t0 see if you get any action. Ebay will only benefit from your listing fee. Research your item before you list it.

eBay has become the garage sale of the future. Go make some money on there.

Ready for some free stuff?

There are plenty of free items on the internet you only have to go search for them. The Internet has been a coupon clippers dream. One such fabulous place is DealKing.com This is the website to visit if you are thinking about buying an item at Walmart or some other big store and need a coupon for some $$ off the price. I get Deal King's email newsletter and they keep me up to date on some great specials. Right now Deal King is offering a $20 cash back on an AT & T phone with no contracts. If you want some free sample coupon stuff they have that too.

The Internet is under attack - from Congress

Google's CEO has issued a letter of warning about the Internet's demise, you can read it here. It tells of how there is a bill going thru congress that would put control of the Internet in the hands of cable and phone companies. The Internet would not longer be a platform for freedom of speech or looking up info but a place where you would be charged for access to a limited number of websites.

Looks like someone has found another way to fleece us again.

More on credit cards

Paying interest and fees and carrying debt are inseparable from credit. Credit card debt can makes you feel helpless and eats up a lot of your hard-earned money. This is why sooner or later the credit card holder decides to eliminate his debt and end the unnecessary spending. And in many cases you have a real power to reduce your debt on your own, without debt counseling.

First of all, abolish minimum payments. You can overcome the debt only if you make more than minimum installments, for example, twice the minimum indicated in statement. Many people can say that it is too much to pay on a monthly basis, as they have a lot of other needs. However, it is worth to fight against debt and bankruptcy instead of sticking to your usual spending style. Cut you expense on clothes, entertainment and little treats just for a few months and you will see that you can easily do without them and save your credit from collapse.

To make saying farewell to credit debt easier, work out a payments plan and a spending plan. Keeping to the payment schedule, you will surely get over your debt as soon as you planned. Thus you credit will be significantly improved and you will acquire new spending habits.

If you have good credit now, find out where to get credit cards for people with a good credit score because you can then take advantage of lower interest rates while you lower your debt.

Pick the right bill/debt to pay off first

Often just picking the right bill or debt to pay off first can be a chore. Using your own psychology can work wonders here. For example when you pay off your credit card are you more inclined to say to yourself "I have credit available on this card so I can buy something using it", if you are then you should concentrate on paying off debts that do not involve freeing up credit for spending. If you have that type of mind set then pay off debts that have a fixed amount that needs to be repaid such as medical bills, a car loan, tax payments or mortgage. Pay off the credit cards only if you cut them up first then pay them off. Just before your last payment, call the credit card company up and not only make your last payment but cancel the card at the same time.

Auto loan calculator

Here is a handy little item, an auto loan calculator. I found it on an Auto Loan website. Now that is what I like to see on a website that is wanting your business - a handy financial tool. I like the little tool so much that I bookmarked the page for future reference. Who knows, maybe in the future when my little 150,000 mile commuter car has done it's last trip I might be in the market for another car and hopefully just a small loan. You can never tell if you might need Auto Financing when you have a car with that many miles on it.

Credit card payment VS the mortgage payment

Here is an interesting fact that CNN brought up today - it seems that people are keeping up on their credit card payments and letting the mortgage payment go. This was being reported by Experian. There is a little known fact that a foreclosure on a person's credit report will not lower the overall score as much as several late payments on your credit cards. I would like to know who makes up those stupid rules? I think it apparent that credit scores were designed for credit card companies only and not for general loans.

Insurance for vehicles a necessary evil

Insurance, we all know that we have to have it. It is an expense I wish we could do without but in many places, if not everywhere by now, insurance is required by law. Drivers insurance is demanded by law in most of the states in the USA. You cannot get a drivers license without it in most states. Other countries have similar laws. Did you know that in the United Kingdom that you need to have Van Insurance if you drive a commercial vehicle of any type? Also in the UK a "van" is what in the USA we call a delivery truck like the UPS or FEDEX residential trucks. In the USA the requirements are very different according to each state. The larger "vans" in the UK are called "lorrys" or "lorries" and in the USA they are called either trucks or "semis".

If you plan on using a vehicle for your business, make sure you have checked with your vehicle insurance company before using it in your business. Some, not all, insurance carriers will cover trips that were made to make a delivery or travel to a work site. Also check your vehicle's warranty information. Some manufacturers don't cover vehicles that are used as rentals or as commercial vehicles.

Where are the people now living?

The above question has bugged me since the beginning of the foreclosure crisis in the USA. Where are all the people now living that were kick out of their homes due to being foreclosed upon? Granted, many people were renters living in homes that were bought by investors but in California alone the estimate is that 1 home out of 75 is in foreclosure. Are they now living with friends and relatives? Or are many of those homes simply second investment homes that they have walked away from? Where did all the people go? If they are now renters then the renting market would be very tight and many homes that are in danger of future foreclosure would be saved from that fate. That on the surface does not seem to be the case. I still want to know where these people are now living.

Advancing your career

Not everyone wants to have their own business. Alternatives to being financially independent are career advancements or switching careers. In the course of my working lifetime I have done both. I have switched careers when the market for my type of work had dried up. I have also taken college courses to enhance my career when the company I worked for suggested it and paid for it.

Career advancement in the age of the internet means you can take college or certification courses online through reputable companies. IT and software certification courses are the most common online education opportunities. QuickCert is one of the major online MicroSoft certification companies to choose from. They offer a certification course for MicroSoft engineers called MCSE. Other online certification courses offered are for Cisco systems.

I have learned that it is wise to keep up on your education long after you have been working for many years. You never can tell when the industry you are working in will change dramatically or cease to exist.

Things NOT to do to make extra money

Now this post is not about the illegal or immoral activities that can bring in extra cash income into the household, no this post is about the stupid things not to do. To make it easier I will just list them with a brief explanation.

• Don't breed anything. This includes your cat, dog, snake, horse or whatever. The economy is so far down right now, not even purebred, registered show dogs are selling. Forget about the unregistered but purebred puppies that you see advertised on Craigslist or in the local newspaper for $300. They probably won't sell for that but might find a home for $25 - 4 months later. Don't even get me started on the horse market, where everyone thought that if it was a mare you should breed it. That mentality has dominated the horse world for at least the last 10 years. People are now giving horses away because they can no longer afford them or feed them.
  
• Don't start a business where you have no room for. I know a guy that tried to start a custom made furniture business out of his 1 bedroom apartment. Lugging large pieces of wood from his pick-up truck to the second floor was no fun and he had to find a way to get the finished item back down the stairs again (hitting head to desk now...I still can't believe that one).
• Don't get involved in a business that you don't have some knowledge of. If you couldn't sell girl scout cookies to a starving person then don't get into a business that you have to be the salesperson. If you have no practical background in electronics and hate math, forget about becoming a computer repairman.

Use some common sense when it comes to making extra cash. Sometimes just a part time job at the local theater at night will do.

Private bus lines

With the price of commuting heading out of sight for many people the alternatives for commuting are varied. Those living close to a large metropolitan area have a better chance of finding mass transit or carpooling than those living in out lying areas with distances of 40 miles or more one way to work. It use to be that if commuting go to be too much for a person, either with the cost or the time involved the person could just move or find another job. Not so easy to do nowadays. Selling a home in this market would be crazy and finding another job is hard. So what else is there? Suck it up? I say this situation has opened up another door for a business opportunity.

Here is my idea:
If you have a van, why not start up your own mini bus line? You would need commercial insurance and a business license and not much else. Pick out a permanent travel route that would start early enough in the morning for most commuters. You would only need to run maybe 2 trips in the morning and 2 more trips in the evening. Figure out what the total cost of the fuel, your time, insurance, wear and tear on the vehicle would be per trip and charge the passengers either by the mile or by the trip. Make your passengers become regulars and charge them by the week or month - in advance of course. Add a bicycle carrier to your van or tow a trailer for bikes and that would encourage more riders to use your service.

An oil fact

Did you know that those very thin plastic grocery bags have become such an energy user upper? In China alone the amount of grocery bags used each year will need 37 million barrels of oil to produce them. I wonder what the use is in the USA? China has become so alarmed at the amount of oil it takes to make the bags, it is thinking about banning them all together.

If China bans the bags will the USA follow? I think it is a trend we all need to take notice of. Now if you are entrepreneurial enough you can take it one step further and make reusable shopping bags. Now we would all need to convince the store owners that by taking a reusable shopping bag into a store does not mean that we plan on shoplifting.

Should you replace your car?

Gas prices are climbing daily and most people are feeling pinched every time they full their gas tanks. Do you know how much MPG your car actually gets? Are you sure or are you guessing? Before you jump on the "I have to get a hybrid" bandwagon check to see if you are already getting some decent MPG for the car you already drive. You don't want to have to shop around for a Car Loan unless you really have to.

I was ready to get a hybrid Toyota until I started to track my own car's MPG. What I found out was rather startling. I thought that my little 10 year old Chevy Prizm was getting about 27 MPG but after a little research and keeping track of my mileage and fill ups I was able to access that I was getting closer to 38 MPG. I will be getting a tune-up in the next few weeks so the MPG should improve after that.

When the time comes to replace that car, since it has 150K miles on it already, I am unsure whether to look into Used Car Loans or go through a dealership loan. I do know right now there is a high demand for new and used cars that get 35 MPG and up.

Hybrid cars

Do hybrid cars make sense in the long run? After all they are expensive. Would you be better off buying gasoline or paying a higher price for a hybrid?

Profiting from bad news

The latest bad news comes in the form of tomatoes. A salmonella outbreak has caused a shortage of tomatoes in many areas of the USA. McDonald's announced today that it will suspend using sliced tomatoes in it's sandwiches until further notice.

Now if you have started a vegetable garden already this year, good for you. Did you plant enough tomatoes? If you did then you will probably have no problem selling the extras that your family doesn't use at the local farmer's market. Fresh fruits and vegetables will be high priced this year. California is experiencing a drought and the price to transport produce from Mexico will be going up.

If you have not started a vegetable garden this year yet then it is time you did. Even growing a few vegetable plants in huge pots on the patio will help your food budget. Get together with friends and use one of their gardens to grow food.

My vegetable garden is almost a year round effort with perennials such as strawberries and rhubarb. I just planted tomatoes and pepper plants last weekend and today will be adding Italian green beans. I have a fondness for the more unusual vegetables like lemon cucumbers so they will be grown too.

Last year we didn't buy any vegetables from the store for the months of May - November. That saved us about $25 a week.

Make your website or blog user friendly

As you can tell by now I am in the process of making this blog more user friendly. The number one item I am changing is reducing the number of categories that the blog posts are listed under. No doubt you have visited numerous blogs with a long list of categories on their side panel. Not only does it take up too much space it will wear you visitors out by just taking more time to look for what they are interested in. I plan on having about 15 categories for now on this blog. It will make it a lot easier for my visitors. In the future I may even reduce that number further.

If you have a blog without a search option on it (the search is at the top of the page on this blog) I highly suggest you add one and put it at the top or near the top of the page. The same thing for websites. If you can, add a site map to you web site and put the link to the site map where you visitors can find it easily.

Ebay PayPal Strike - Boycott Anti-American Ebay!

We could all use a little help

Do you know how long it will take to pay off your credit card? Should you invest your money or pay off a bill? Those types of questions are always being asked of the financial gurus on TV. I found a website that can answer those questions. The website has free down loadable financial calculators such as the debt VS investment calculator.

I was playing around with a few of them and really like the options they offer.

Vindale Reaserch a scam!!

I got an email earlier today inviting me to join a survey company that I had never heard of before. Needless to say I checked out Vindale Research and found them to be a very unscrupulous company. Apparently they get you to sign up to take surveys and product testing and get paid from $5-$75 a time. Here is what is really happening (from the many message boards on scams): People sign up with them and then they get an offer of a survey. The offer states that they need to a a credit card on file before they can continue. Now that in itself is a BIG RED FLAG. Don't ever give out you credit card number to a survey company. Well the people that did give out their credit card number were having unauthorized charges being placed on them. Some of them are still getting the run around with trying to have those charges reversed.

BE WARNED - Stay away from Vindale Research

A warning about doing business online

While there are countless great customers that you can encounter with an online business there are always some fruitcakes mixed in the crowd. Take for example the 2 I have dealt with in the past 2 weeks.

One of them claims that I didn't send her the item she ordered. I emailed her back the shipping date and the confirmed delivery notice and the tracking number that shows it was delivered. Next she claims that I sent it to the wrong address! The only address I had was from when she placed the order through PayPal and she would have had to enter the address manually. I think that she got the item and #1 didn't like it but is afraid to send it back for a refund (the item costs $17.00) because she would have to pay for the postage. Or #2, used the item once and only needed the item for that one time use and decided to say that she didn't get the item in the first place so she could get her money back. That screwy person contacted me 30 days after I shipped the item complaining that she didn't get it. Sorry to say it but she is not going to get a refund from me.

The next strange email I get is from a person wanting to know where they can send back their ring that had a stone drop out of it. They wanted it repaired. Well for one thing I had not sold any rings via the internet and had no idea who this person was. Secondly I don't do jewelry repair!

I am wondering if I should even reply to some of these people but my business etiquette tells me yes. Those types of people seem to be rampant on eBay too, so if you decide to sell items on eBay, be fore warned.

Backyard businesses

I think we have all thought of starting a business in our own backyards. Believe me, I was one of them. My hair brained scheme was worm farming. It really made sense at the time. I was in my early 20's and still living at home with my parents. I worked full time and even in those days I yearned to have my own business. We had a decent backyard in suburbia and no one was using it for anything in particular so I decided I would utilize it.

I liked gardening and dad was a fisherman so worm farming was a logical choice for a simple business. I learned everything I could about worms. In those days you had to visit the library for information as the internet was just a bunch of loosely strung together bulletin boards and BBS's.

So I built a worm farm stack and got a batch of worms from the local hardware store that sold them for fishing. My first attempt was awful. The location was too wet and cold. I then moved the location to another area of the backyard. There the worms thrived for about a month when it got too hot. I was finding out that these little worms were not as easy to raise as I thought. 3 months into the venture I gave up. Everything I seemed to do was wrong. I am kinda glad I gave up on that one since I had never even thought about where I was going to sell them if they did multiply like the books said. Talk about lack of business planning.

I think it might have worked out better if I lived closer to a fishing area but our closest fishing hole was over 2 hours away. I don't want to discourage you if you want to try worm farming, it was just that it didn't work out for me. Here is a link to an ebook if you want to learn more about it. Worm Farming

Bankruptcy, things you ought to know

Bankruptcy can be a scary word if you let it. My family went through chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2002 – six long years ago. Our story of why we had to choose bankruptcy was rather a common one. We were a 2 income family and the major income earner became permanently disabled with a lifelong illness that only gets worse. Now down to one income in the most expensive place to live in the USA (California) there was not much choice but to declare bankruptcy for ourselves.

Through regular chapter 7 bankruptcy all debts are wiped clean with the exception of secured debts. At the time it would only allow us to own 1 vehicle and it had to be worth under an “X” amount of dollars. We did not owe anything on either of our vehicles but the thought that they had to be sold because they were just over the amount allowed was ridiculous in my mind. Even if we had sold them we would have still needed to replace them since we did not live close to town nor were there any public transportation in our area. We also had a tractor that we used to put in our large market vegetable farm on our 2 acres. The tractor would also have to be sold.

I had the vegetable farm as small part time business at the time to make up for the loss of one income in the family. I told the bankruptcy lawyer about that and that is when he suggested the chapter 13 for business owners. Instead of wiping out all our debt it would be arraigned that we would pay monthly payments on about 20% of the total amount owed. It took 5 years of $300 a month payments to finally pay back our debts and we did not have to lose our cars or the much needed tractor.

Bankruptcy can be tricky so you need to have a very good bankruptcy lawyer to handle your case. Since that time I know that the bankruptcy laws have changed. Since the bankruptcy law is a federal law they should be the same in all states. If you live in the state of New York you should check out this lawyer at New York debt consolidation. I highly suggest you find a local lawyer in your area for a sit down talk about your situation. Bankruptcy may or may not work for you in your case but you should find out all the facts about it first.

Gasoline usage

I just talked to a friend that works at a local golf course. The golf course has a large RV park that caters to vacationers that wish to travel from golf course to golf course during the year. I was fully expecting her to say that the RV park was empty for this year but no, it is booked solid! She talked to several of the RV owners as they checked in and she asked them about the costs of using the RV. They said that the cost of fuel is only slightly higher than it was last year and it has not made a difference to them yet.

My thoughts on "Scratching out a living"

When I first started this blog it was out of pure desperation of finding a way to earn some extra money. I shared my experiences of trying to start a jewelry selling business, which I might add had some mild success just prior to the holiday season. The jewelry business is now on the back burner because I found that I didn't need to earn extra money, I just had to learn how to manage the money I had coming into the household. Realizing that I didn't have to have another part time job just to make ends meet took a load off my mind. I was almost to the point of applying at the local warehouses to be a forklift driver and have to wear work boots, which being an older woman might not be the best choice of work for me. Although in my 20's I did work in shipping and receiving as an inspector with hard hat and all.

Learning to manage the family's income correctly was the best thing that ever happened to get our family back on track to saving for our retirement and college tuition for my daughter. Changing the very core of our spending habits and where I shop for groceries is where we have shown our greatest savings.

I no longer shop at the regular retail super markets but go to the big discount and second line grocery stores like Grocery Outlet. I now shop within a set budget for groceries every week and stay under that amount. I also look for bargains online for expensive must have items like ink cartridges for the printer or parts to repair an appliance.

I also have found that I have a house full of "junk", things that I bought that I no longer need or use. Friends and family have also given me their "junk" because they no longer used it either. I have a box full of kitchen appliances that people have given me through the years. Soon all those items will be either ending up on eBay or taking a trip to the local charity. Just think of all the money that was wasted on buying those items. I could have probably put that money in a good mutual fund and with the interest paid for my daughter's college tuition.

We all live and learn, thank goodness we learn. So next time you want to blame the world around you for your financial problems just look at yourself in the mirror and there you will find your biggest problem and the person to help you out of your situation as well.

Gasoline calculator

This has got to be the handiest online tool I found today. It is a Gasoline Calculator. It will tell you how much you can save per year by switching to a more energy efficient car. The results might surprise you. I did not get the result that I had anticipated. I thought that I would save thousands of dollars a year and it turned out that I would only save about $406 per year if I bought a car that got 10 miles more per gallon than the one I have right now.

Are you ready for $12 a gallon gas?

Like many thousands of people across the USA, I watch MSNBC for a few minutes before heading out the door to work in the morning. This morning was no different as I turned on the TV for a few headlines of today's economic news. There was a energy fund manager that was predicting that oil will reach $300-$400 a barrel shortly. He said that those prices will come much faster if even a mild hurricane would hit the Gulf of Mexico this hurricane season (note hurricane season just began). The price of gasoline at the pumps could hit $12 to $15 a gallon. He also predicted that there would be surge of new technology to find alternate ways of energy production.

I talked with my Aunt in Australia over the weekend and asked her what they were paying for gasoline. She said they pay about $1.25 a liter which works out to about $5.00 a gallon. They have a huge SUV and might be thinking about trading it in.