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!

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.

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.

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.

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

Sis had to come out of retirement and go back to work just to bring in some money and pay the basics, like food and the utilities. But the rest of the bills are getting harder and harder to put off. I’ve helped her out a little here and there, but they are going to need a lot more help than what I can give.

She finally started looking into debt consolidation and counseling, and I’m sure the possibility of filinf for bankruptcy is in the back of her mind, too. There’s a wide difference in the types of debt relief services and I want her to make informed decisions about this important financial matters. It’s bad enough that we are in a tough economy, but with her husband hurt and her two sons in college, she has a lot of worries.

What she might do is refinance her house and use the equity in it to consolidate debt and come up with a schedule to pay off the important bills. But there’s a chance that the real estate market being in the tank will limit how much she can borrow against the house. So she’s busy talking with a real estate attorney and her bank this week.

Cross your fingers that this will all work out for her and her family. Obviously this car wreck has done more than just wreck their car and hurt her husband. It’s wrecking their credit, too. I’m sure the credit will work itself out with some help from the right people. I hope her husband gets healed up and can go back to a normal life sometime this year, too.

Part of my strategy for buying the new house depends on the work I’ve been doing on my credit report. I met with a loan officer and talked about what I need to do to have a good rating and we made a plan that I’ve been working on all summer. According to the loan officer, I need 5 open lines of credit and all of them need to be paid down to less than half of the credit limit or loan amounts.

For that to work, I need two more credit cards and I’m applying for them now. I found a web site called Smart Credit Choices that has information on all the major credit cards and I can sort through the different options, like 0 balance transfers to find the cards with terms that I need.

One of the attractive offers is for a0 APR balance transfer. I’ve seen commercials for those and they promise 0% APR for up to one year. However, after reading the information on this site, I find out that most of them offer the 0% for only 3 months, or possibly 6 months. That is still technically “up to” one year but it’s not the full one year that most people would expect from hearing that commercial.

But I did find a Discover Card that offers no fee balance transfers and 0% interest for one full year. This card also offers cash back on purchases. That’s the one I’m going after and there was a link right there on the Smart Choices website that takes me tot he Discover Card site to put in my application online.

My neighbor across the street says that his trash can that was put out for pick up was knocked over and the trash strewn across his yard a couple of weeks ago. He thought at the time it might have been animals that did it, but it could have been kids trying to pull a prank.

My next door neighbor says that her boyfriend’s car was left parked on the street one night and that the next morning it had been broken into and all the personal items gone through, although nothing seemed to be taken. We doubt that the CD’s with titles like “Country Hits of the 80’s” and “Best of Travis Tritt” had any value for the punks down in the ghetto.

All three of us suspect the new renters down the street or their friends. I’m going to have a little talk with the owners of the two houses down the street and suggest that they run background checks on the tenants who are renting their houses.

It is easy to order criminal background checks over the internet and they don’t cost very much money. I think it is within a landlord’s right to run credit checks and criminal checks on people with whom they are going to be trusting their houses and income. It’s for their own protection as well as peace of mind.

When I have a good idea what type of vehicle I want to get and what the ballpark purchase price might be, I shop around for the car loan before I ever step foot on the dealer’s lot. It strengthens your negotiating position to have your financing arranged before haggling with the dealership. I used to go to my bank and the big finance companies to shop for a new car loan, but they have gotten harder and harder to deal with over the years.

In today’s world it is much easier and faster to go online and find a New Car Loan. On a good web site you can apply online and get approved either the same day or within 24 hours. They make it so easy to take care of your financial matters with a few clicks instead of having to drive all over town to meet with bankers, wasting a lot of gas and time.