Reworking the Budget

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Next week I’m sitting down and going over the entire household budget. We need a better working plan for managing our household finances and we need to make a few more adjustments to offset the extra cost of gas, since that has gone up so much this spring and summer.

One thought that is worth exploring is to completely re-evaluate my insurance coverages and premiums. I think that there is a chance to save money by shopping around for a different homeowners policy and also possibly a new car insurance policy. My homeowners has been with the same company on automatic renewal for over 6 years. I think it is time to shop around and make sure I’m getting the best rates and the right coverage. I know I can do it all on the internet now which is easy and more convenient, and I’m sure I’ll save both time and money by getting new quotes and making some changes.

Attacking the Dropout Rate

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Our new mayor is getting serious about his campaign promise to attack the dropout rate in the county. But he might be a little too late. Evidently, the state has taken over the county schools and has their own plan of attack in mind. They fired most of the school principals and moved people around all over the county, giving some promotions and others just re-assigned to where they can do less damage.

I would love to see the schools get serious about making the school campus a safe and pleasant place for our children to spend the better part of their days. If you’ve not been inside a public school lately and seen the awful conditions, listened to the demeaning and humiliating way that the teachers and school staff talk to the students, and actually looked inside their current textbooks to see what they are supposed to be learning – you can’t begin to understand the ginormous problems we are facing in trying to improve or revamp our public education system here.

Who Picked Out the Letters?

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Honesty in a vanity plate, as seen at the grocery store parking lot entrance.

At first I was impressed with the way they worked their religious bent into their business. After all, we are living in the bible belt. So here is Christian Realty. That name itself should appeal to a lot of the people in these parts.

And they have a clever tag in their domain name as advertised on the back end of the SUV: The ONE way home dot com. Very clever.

But now notice the letters on the license plate: BAD DRVR.

At least they are honest.

Who You Gonna Call?

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Working as a reporter years ago, I covered a lot of courtroom dramas and I can tell you the most important thing I learned from all those days of sitting in court taking notes: do not EVER go to court without the best lawyer you can find.

I saw identical “crimes” presented in the same courtroom to the same judge and honest to GOD, the cases where the defendant represented themselves or waived the right to an attorney ALWAYS got a worse outcome than those who came with a lawyer – even with the exact same excuse, I mean, defense. And in most cases, those with a lawyer had the benefit of back room dealmaking so that all the judge had to do was bless the agreement between the D.A. and the defense attorney. Those without a deal got the shaft after their case was heard.

When Part D Matters

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My mother-in-law shocked everyone this weekend when she announced that she’s going to retire. We honestly thought we would never see the day! She has a little store on a charming little town where she knows everybody and although she’ll never get rich, the store brings in enough money that she never goes wanting for anything. So for her to retire we were first shock and then immediately concerned that something is wrong. So the wife and I dropped everything drove down to see her, face to face and make that everything is OK.

Well, she was glad to see us and acted pretty normal, so that was good. But she says she’s tired, tired down to her bones, and she just doesn’t want to run the store anymore. She’s always had a problem finding good help and she’s never found an assistant manager that she could trust completely, so she’s decided to put the business up for sale and become retired.

Of course, that decision has opened a whole pandora’s box of questions and we have to tread lightly so we don’t offend her, but the wife went nuts with a hundred questions and we finally had to leave because I could tell the MIL was getting annoyed. We asked if there was anything she needed help with and surprisingly she asked if we would help her look into MediCare and the Medicare Part D coverage that I vaguely remember hearing about.

Now I’m not sure she really needs the help of if she just came up with this little task to shut up the wife and divert her attention to a little project, but the wife grabbed onto that request like a boll weevil grabs hold of a cotton ball. And off we went.