Christmas at Home

Looks like I’m the only one who won’t be gathering with the family at the homeplace this year. Everyone in my family lives within an hour or two of my mom’s house except for me. It is a 14 hour drive to get to mom’s house, door to door, which is a long hard day of driving, and to be honest, I’m not up for that long of a drive in one day. I would need to stay overnight at a roadside motel to get some rest and not take the chance of an accident due to driver fatigue.

The cost of gas has risen so that just paying for gas up and back is cost prohibitive. It costs $70 to fill the tank and I estimate it would take 3 tanks to get there, one tank to visit locally and then 3 tanks back. That is a lot of money for gas that could be better spent benefiting my family instead of some Arab sheik.

So we are staying home this year and I guess we will get everyone on the video cam sometime around noon to exchange Christmas wishes among the family.

Merry Christmas to all!

What You Don’t Know About Lawsuits

Most people think that getting an attorney and starting a lawsuit means they will be coming into money in a few months. Wrong.

In today’s world, finding a lawyer and getting a good lawyer are two different things. For most cases, if the lawyer doesn’t think you have a good case and a chance of winning but they are desperate for money, they won’t just work on a percentage of the case proceeds when you might win. Most want their expenses covered and often an hourly fee paid each month as time goes by whether you win or lose your case. And if you are lucky, and have a good lawyer and a good case, you might come out with some money in about 2 years. But 95% of the lawsuits end up with little or no money actually ever collected.

Online SAHMs

I have a friend who would love to start blogging but she has no internet connection at her house. She is a stay at home mom, which is an important job, but let’s be honest, it doesn’t pay the bills. So I recognize the sacrifices that she and her husband are making for her to stay home and be a full time mother to her kids.

Still, I can’t help but think that there might be ways to help her without chipping away at her dignity. If she had access to the internet she could do so much – save money on things by comparison shopping and printing coupons, finding lots of free entertainment and activities for her family, blogging to stay in touch with family, and even taking some online college courses if she wants to.

Last Minute Savings

Yesterday started off like a normal Sunday, woke up and made coffee, walked the dogs, turned on the computer to check emails. That’s when everything went downhill really fast. I had an email from my sister that her husband had died the previous night, they had tried to call but my cell phone went right to voicemail, so they resorted to email to get the word to me.

Of course, I dropped everything and made arrangements to go to Maryland to be with the family. Thankfully, I was able to find some coupons online to take care a lot of the details for this unexpected trip and I saved some money. First of all I wanted to arrange for flowers and the coupon site had a link to Proflowers, so that helped right at the start. All I had to do was select the sympathy arrangement and place my order, then enter ProFlowers promotion code coupons from the coupon site to get the bargain rate.

The coupons site also has bargain rates for hotels, like Ramada Inn and Holiday Inn.I probably would have stayed at the Holiday Inn, but this way I got a $50 gas card in addition to the best room rate because I made the effort to check the coupons available before making my reservations.

Since I have to fly to Baltimore and the family is already occupied with funeral things, I decided to rent my own car instead of asking someone to pick me up at the airport. I found a discount coupon for Dollar Car Rental and saved an extra 15% off the weekly rate.

It saved me a lot of time by not having to check a variety of other sites. I just go to one place with the confidence that I am getting the best deals. And I can find a better use for all the money I saved by helping my family in this important time of need.

College Bound and Down

My step daughter had decided to become a professional student. She goes to school for a bit, then quits. Then a few months later she regrets having quit and signs up again. Then she find a reason to not go. Then she hears about a scholarship program or student loans and she goes again. I think she will be 30 before she ever actually finishes school.

My son is much more serious about getting a college education and we are in the process of evaluating the different colleges and universities to see where he would like to go. Of course, I would prefer an in state school to help save on tuition and take advantage of the scholarships available to residents through the lottery funded programs. But if he gets his heart set on an out of state school then I’m down with it and will find a way to get the money for him.

There’s a cool website that helps kids with their college applications called CollegeZps. They have tips on their site for students who want to get help with the college application process from CollegeZapps. Here are their top tips:

1. Proofread your applications for spelling and grammar
2. Read the instructions carefully and all the way through before beginning
3. Type the applications and write legibly
4. Apply to several schools
5. Don’t use a silly nickname in your email address – get a free email account using your first and last name to appear more serious and professional