If you read my blog yesterday, you will remember that my husband tried in vain to buy me the birthday card, that when opened, plays "wipe out" It is my favorite song to dance to as everyone who knows me, knows.
This morning, on my way to the bank, the radio started playing "wipe out" When was the last time you heard that playing on the radio?
I turned my radio up full blast, but durn, I could not get out of my car on the highway and dance!!!!
Thank you to the unknown radio person who played "wipe out" for me.

President Kennedy was killed. Most of you were not born, but if you were, you remember where you were when you heard the news. I was in college, but working full time as a cashier/bookkeeper at a restaurant across from the college. One of the cooks called the restaurant to tell us the terrible news. It was Nov. 22, 1963, the day before my birthday.

I have not gotten gas in about 2 weeks. I am so happy to watch the prices fall. I was able to fill up, about 6 gallons of gas for a little over $13. (My car holds 18 gallons)It is under $2 a gallon here, but since I use premium, I paid $2.19 a gallon. I know this is really easing things for some people. I think I can lower my husband's allowance!! (He probably won't like that)

I heard on the radio that spam is really selling now a days. The factory is working overtime to make the stuff and more and more spam is being sold.
Do you like spam? My husband does. He frys it in a pan and eats it with eggs for breakfast.
I wonder if spam has become more popular because of the economy?

That is the name of a book I saw being promoted when I turned on the tv this morning. It was on an infomercial on CNN. The author was selling it for $29.95. He says, it is not your fault if you are in debt. Buy my book and I will show you how you can reduce your debt immediately.
He was telling people that he could cut their debt in half with just a few phone calls. Pay off their mortgage in half the time.
Sorry, but anyone buying that book is only going to reduce one thing, the money in their wallet.

I had someone on another forum say they thought it was terrible for me to go to a "poor man's dinner" party. They said it sounded like a bunch of rich people getting together to make fun of poor people.
I think what the hosts of the party were thinking was that the economy has taken such a hit; everyone has lost money in stocks, mutual funds, roths, ira's, etc.
So we are all poorer these days, but we are NOT making fun of poor people.
Heck, I don't know anyone who has been poorer than me.

My father died before I turned 10 and his retirement check for serving 32 years in the army, ended. In stead my mother started getting a check from the VA (veteran's admin.) in the amount of $25 a month.
Imagine 3 people (myself, my mother and my older sister)living on $25 a month? That was for food, phone, electricity, heat, gasoline, insurance etc.

That is exactly what we did for over 2 years til my mother found a job. We barely had enough to eat. There was never any snack food or soda to drink.
At age 12, I got a job and worked full time during the summer and holidays and on weekends when I went to school.
My mother was never able to buy me anything. I bought my own clothes, shoes, school supplies , etc. ( I earned $3 for a 9 hour day)

I actually am glad that I had a rough childhood cause it taught me to be frugal at a young age and I just kept on being frugal. We have never earned the big bucks, but we have always been big savers. No, I will never make fun of someone being poor.

I wish my father could have lived til I was older and could have asked him about his army experience. (I was not quite 10 when he died)
I know he was in both WWI and WWII. I think he had to lie about his age to join the army for WWI. That is ok, there were very few birth certificates back then.
I know he was in Germany and France during WWII. I am pretty sure he did something pretty secretive cause my mother was never allowed to know where he was or what he was doing.
All in all, he was in the service for over 30 years and retired a captain.

This summer, I started keeping track of how much money I was spending on gasoline. I keep a small notebook in the car, so I write down the date I get gas, how many gallons I get, how much I pay and the odometer reading.
I stopped to fill up the tank today. the last time I got gas was Oct. 4th, a month ago. I got 5.3 gallons and paid $13.93 for the fill up. I paid $2.59 a gallon cause I always get premium.
So whoo hooo, $14 bucks is not bad for a month's worth of driving!! All those stay home days really help out!!

I am feeling a little nervous about this election. I have voted for president many many times, but this is the first time that I am worried.
I played bridge yesterday and all the women that I played bridge with said the same thing. They did not like either candidate. Not enough experience. So, two of them said they probably would not even vote.
I don't feel that way at all. We all must vote and must chose the better of the two candidates, I voted two weeks ago. Now, I can just hope that this country will be ok for the next four years. God Bless America!

Well, I bit the bullet and figured out our net worth this morning. I didn't even bother to write it down last month. so, now I know the bad news. My net worth went down over $100,000 since the stock market tanked. The good news is that I did earn $2208 in interest in October. For once, I am glad I keep so much money in cash.

I am sure we are all glad that October is over. They say that the month will live in history. For all of us that have stocks and/or mutual funds, it will be a month to remember. I did not do my net worth last month. I don't know if I will do it this month either. I just don't want to really know the bad news. I know most of you have many years to make the stock market loss up, sadly, I don't . When we retire, we will have to live on our savings!

DH took first place as the funniest looking at the Halloween party last night. He had to compete with 92 other people. He really was funny looking. we are going to dress up on Halloween night and go down to the square in our little town. I was funny looking too, but not as funny as he was. I kind of hate that all the women think they have to dress up as something cute! Halloween is about scary and fun, I think! Anyway, we did have a real good time. I was a little disappointed in the music. I won the dance contest last year (rock and roll) but this year they played disco mostly. To me, disco is pretty dull.

I am having a real cheap day today. wwe went to a cookout for lunch, just a mile down the road. Tonight, we will be having our "dinner" at a Halloween party. My husband is going as an nutty, fat looking, redneck with "bubba" teeth.
I wish I knew how to put pictures on here. He is so funny looking. Everything will be supplied at the party, even the liquor!! Sounds like a great day!!

Today is October 25th. Just two more months til christmas. Are you ready??

That is what my little dog Holly, is on right now. A heating pad. She sleeps in the pantry at night on a heating pad on top of her little chair. In the morning, she gets in be with me, under the covers. When I get up, she usually gets on top of the couch and stays there most of the day.
However, I have not yet turned on my heat and it is pretty cold here in the mountains. So, she has been going back to her heating pad and laying there. I don't blame her.
As long as she is warm, we are both happy and saving a little propane!

I checked my local saving account this morning and I earned $329.02 in interest this month. My account has been going down lately cause we had to buy a new tile saw, parts for my husband to fix the old corvette and of course , buy a new refrigerator this week.
I am happy to see it heading up. Now, i wish the stock market would.

Just wanted to get your attention. I wonder how many of you remember when a refrigerator was called an "ice box"?

No, I never had one. I am not quite that old. However, we did decide to go to Sears last night and order a new refrigerator. The ice maker is leaking and my husband cannot get it to quit. I know I could call a repair man, but the frig is over 12 years old, so it is time for a new one. I hate having to take even more money out of my emergency fund this month, but it cannot be helped.
I was surprised that this refigerator was no more expensive than the one we bought 12 years ago, about $1000.

Also, this one has the ice and water on the door, my old one did not. (I really did not want this feature but without it, the frig cost $2200) How do they figure that??

I have my own private handy man working today. A few days ago, we discovered that we had a leak in the wall behind the refrigerator,probably going to the ice maker. Dh cut the line and capped it. Today, he came home early from work to try and repair the damage. Right now, he is tearing off the trim on the wall behind the refrigerator.
He thinks it has been leaking for a while. We had a problem on christmas day last year. The water line ends right here in my yard, for the whole subdivison. Last christmas day, it blew up. It caused several problems for us with a leaking problem in the upstairs bath room. I wonder if this is the cause of this problem?
Anyway, it sure is nice to be married to a man that can do "almost" everything.(and it saves a lot of money)

I admit it, I have a fetish for ice. I use a lot of it. Remember ice trays? I am so glad that refrigerators have ice makers in them now. I have to have two refrigerators to keep up with my love for ice. I use to have a stand alone ice maker. Take it from me, they are expensive and have to be fixed completely. The other day, we noticed water on the kitchen floor. Turns out we have a leak behind the wall. We had to cut off the water to the ice maker and now I am just down to one ice maker in the refrigerator in the garage. Plus, we have a big mess to fix, drywall and trim. Lucky I am married to a handy man.
Dh takes a cooler full of ice every day for work, so that is why we use so much ice. Also, while you are enjoying your coffee each morning, the first thing I do in the morning is drink a big glass of ice water. I drink it all day long too. I just love ice!!

That is just what the news channel on tv just said. Obama is spending 4.5 million a day on tv ads for his campaign. Someone sure has a lot of money in these trying times!!

BTW, it is in the 40's here and I still have not turned on the heat. It is supposed to get down in the 30's in a few days.

I did my grocery shopping today because we have a festival going on this weekend and it is hard to even get to town. When i put away my groceries, I noticed that I did NOT have the potatoes I picked out. However, I was charged for them. I am not going to make a special trip, but I am going to take my receipt back to them next week and ask for my money back. I bought a box of chocolate mints last week and when I opened them, they were all melted, so I took them back. I am tired of throwing away my money at the supermarket. Do you take things back too?

Dh took the new car in for it's first oil change. The cost was almost $72 because it uses synthetic oil. However, you only have to get the oil changed about every $10,000 miles.
Actually, this is the NEW yellow corvette. However, it will be 1 year old this week. (Oct. 19th) The car only has 3700 miles on it, but we decided that the oil should be changed at least once a year.
I, personally, have only driven the new corvette about 3 times. Why drive a yellow corvette, when you can drive a red corvette.
Dh, ordered a bunch of stuff from Eckler's to restore the blue corvette so he can take it to local car shows. It has a bad transmission leak. Dh is talented with old cars like the 78 vette.
We are a happy 3 vette family. (not to mention that we also have a 33 ford victoria and two work vans.)

I have been receiving the end of the quarter statements for all of my different mutual funds this past week. Normally, I open them right up. This time, I am just putting them on a pile on my desk, unopened. Is anyone else doing this??

Well, we have hit the middle of October and I have not turned the heat on yet. It has gotten down into the 30's so far and right now it is 46 degrees outside at 11 am. I filled my propane tank up and paid out $1832 to do so.
Gas is still going down. Dh can now get gas for his van for $2.99 a gallon, I am still paying $3.19. But I have cut my driving way down, so when I filled up yesterday, it only cost a little over $10.
I checked my vanguard account yesterday. I have all my funds listed there so I only have to look one place to see how I am doing. My funds and the stock market are down about 30% this past year.
Hopefully, things will improve!!

Well, I was suppose to play bridge all afternoon but someone cancelled at the last minute. so, I watched the stock market today and it was exciting!! The dow went up 932 points, the most ever in one day. I am glad that I got to watch it.

I got a statement from Wendy's today. It is now the Wendy's/Arby group. I got 4.24 shares for every Wendy's share that I owned, so now I own 588 shares of wendy's. Too bad that it has come down so much in price just like all the other stocks.
So when you eat at wendy's, just think of Ima!!

I am kind of in shock right now. I just found out that a very well to do couple that I know is filing chapter 7 bankruptcy. I am not quite sure what chapter 7 means cause I have never known anyone to declare bankruptcy.
Can anyone enlighten me about chapter 7?

I hate to spend money, but we needed a new heating pad for my little poodle, Holly. she has always slept on one to keep warm. I noticed yesterday, that the heating pad she is sleeping on, has a "hot spot" and it seems to bother her.
So I bought a new one today.

If you go to rite aid on the first tuesday of the month and you have their senior discount card, they take 20% off of all your purchases. So, I did save $3 off the price of the heating pad.

Does anyone here play bridge? I do and I love it. I got a great hand today. The person on my left opened with one club, my partner passed, the person on my right bid one heart and I bid two diamonds. They really wanted the bid, so they kept bidding me up, with 3 clubs, 3 hearts, etc. They finally got me to bid 5 diamonds (we only needed one for game) and then they doubled me.
My partner laid her hand down and she had NO points.
Here was my hand.
spades- Ace and King
hearts= queen, jack, little, little
Diamonds- Ace, King, queen, ten, nine, eight, seven
Clubs- none

They immediately took the ace and king of heart, then led the ace of clubs. I trumped, pull out all the other trump (my partner had 2) and took all the other tricks, making 5, doubled!!
Wow, it was a fun day to do on such a down day.
Right now, a mama deer and her twins are eating corn in my back yard.

I saw a very old movie last night, Pollyanna. Do you remember it? Pollyanna always played the "glad game" and tried to find good in every situation.
Believe it or not, that movie affected my life when I was younger. I always tried to look on the bright side of every situation and as a result, I have always been a very happy person.
I think, in this economic crisis, it is time for all of us to take a minute out every day and play the "glad game" Count your blessings!!