I am going to my class reunion next week. We can go and stay at my FIL's duplex for free, but it is about 25 miles away from the town that i graduated from. So, I booked a room at the Holiday Inn in my old home town.
My dh wants to stay with his father and I want to stay at the Holiday Inn.
Which would you do?
My FIL is like a typical floridian and keeps the house set on about 90!
I cannot stand hot weather at all. Last January we were there and the temp. was 75. They were wearing coats and we had on shorts.

Last week I wrote a letter to my FIL. If you remember, he asked us for $12,000 to put a new roof on his house.
The house was deeded equally to his 3 sons when his wife died 15 years ago.
Since his other sons live in the same town and we live 600 miles away, I suggested in my letter than my dh quit claim his share of the house to the middle brother.
Middle brother lives on the lake, drives big fancy cars, has 5 horses and I just found out also has developed 7 more acres on the lake to sell.
So dh called his father last night, hoping he would not be mad. He wasn't, he liked the idea of middle son inheriting the entire house. He has already given him a bunch of antiques including several old packards.
I am not sure how my dh really feels about this, but I am glad to not have to worrry about keeping a house maintained that is 600 miles away.
We had rentals once (3) and we learned our lesson the hard way. We wound up losing money on all of them.

I have been playing bridge all day, but I did notice that the dow hit an all time high today. For most of us, that is very good news. Most of my money is in mutual funds and they should have done real well today!!
I am waiting for my new money market that I opened at Vanguard to show up on the computer! I need to transfer some money there to earn the 5% they are paying now.

Well, the dow is closing in on 14000 today. That is a good way to start the last quarter!

Welcome to October. This is one of my favorite months. I just love Halloween, it is my favorite holiday. I love getting dressed up and going to parties.
One of our friends is famous for her halloween parties and I won first prize last year.
This year she has had surgery and will not be giving the party. However, we are still dressing up and going to the Halloween for kids down on our town square. Then we will go out for dinner, still dressed like the goofy people that we are.

Well, my husband did. He went and put a built in heater in the bathroom wall of an 84 year old lady. Hers had not worked for a while and she wanted a new one. I say good deed, cause he did not charge her anything.
She is kind of all her own and I am amazed at the things she can still do on her own.
Holly and i went along for a visit, but other than that, I had a no spend day.
I am even fixing supper tonight, dh had a craving for meatloaf, so meatloaf it is!

My home depot check was waiting for me when I got home yesterday. The company made an offer to buy back the shares. I have not been happy with the store and the service for a long time, so I decided I did not want to own the stock any longer. I am going down to the bank and put the money in my money market account. Then I think I will dollar cost average it into my vanguard star fund.

Depressed, yes that is how I am feeling this morning. I am not the type of person who feels depressed very often.
I did not have a perfect life, but who does? I am so grateful for all the wonderful things that I have in my life.

So, I hope some of you can send me some cherry thoughts.

When we got home last night there was a call on the answer machine from FIL.

Of course, my dh called him right back. It seems that his house has a bad leak and he needs a whole new roof, not just new shingles. It will cost $12,000.

Of course, he does not have the money. (I don't know why, they have been toHawaii 4 times the past 6 years)

DH has 2 younger brothers, but the youngest is a real bum and probably does not have $50.
The other brother has his own tile business, lives in a lake front house, has lots of big vehicles, owns 5 horses and vacations all the time.

Ok, my dh said he would give his father half the money for the roof. FIL says no way does son #2 have the money for half. Dh has to pay for the entire new roof.

There is no way FIL can ever pay us back. He is 85 and he and his girlfriend live on social security only.

So, I am depressed that I work to save so hard and now I have to basically give away $12,000 to people that don't try to save anything.

I know you all probably will understand. We clip coupons, take surveys, do anything we can to save a few dollars. To give our money to a good cause makes us happy, but to give it away to people who squander their money everyday on lottery tickets and cruises makes me feel depressed.

I know, I will get over it and I should just be happy that I have the money to give!

I just checked my money market accounts and they have changed the interest they are paying. I have been getting 5.25% in my local bank for over the past year and I noticed that they lowered the rate to 4.64% durn, I was having fun watching that interest add up.

I was looking at the paper and all of the homes for rent. I had no idea that rent was so high. Most homes were renting for $1000 in this area. How do people afford this?
That is $12,000 a year. The most I ever earned in my life was about $8300 a year. I guess if I was single today, I would be homeless.
I feel so sorry for people who are working minimum wage jobs.

We went to court today. It was small claims court, but you can sue for up to $15,000. My husband was an expert witness because he is a licensed builder and has been for over 20 years.
I went along for moral support cause he gets so nervous.
This was not the first time he has gotten called to be an expert witness but we hope it will be the last.
Sadly, this house was built by a first time, unlicensed builder and the house was caving in. There was nothing supporting two of the main walls in the house. The whole house was sagging.
The owners paid $400,000 for the house about 2 years ago.
Please be careful when you buy a house. Get to know the builder and his reputation. None of the builder's in our area are licensed because it was not required, so my dh got licensed in No.Carolina which is only 10 miles away. A Licensed builder had to build by southern standard building code and must have the assets to be sued.

Gosh he is going to be in the news again for the next year?? What do you all think about him??

The bill for repairs on my dishwasher and ice maker came to $380.00
The bad thing is, the dishwasher is not fixed at all and will have to be repaired.
I just came home from a very long 3 hour lunch and after 4 hours, I do not have one piece of ice.
So I paid $380 for absolutely nothing. I am going to try not to let that ruin my day!
I did have a lot of fun at lunch and met two new nice ladies!

After working on my dishwasher for an hour and a half, the repairman has decided he does not know what is wrong. The switch that we waited on for 3 weeks has already been installed and has blown the minute we turned the dishwasher on.
His advice was to buy a new dishwasher.
I said that a month ago.
This has been a very annoying morning! I was looking forward to a pleasant lunch out at the local park with friends I met on my local forum. I sure hope I can still make it.
The next step is that the repairman is going to try and fix the icemaker.

I went to my finance class today. He was discussing money market accounts and made the statement that they were NOT fdic insured.

I told him that my money market accounts at the local banks were all fdic insured.
I think what he meant is that money market mutual funds are not fdic insured and they are not.
But I guess he really thought that ALL money market accounts were not fdic insured.

I will be in class most of the day today. We have a talk across the table bridge class this morning. I really love to play bridge, but some of the people really should not be in this class. They belong in beginner's class. When you get stuck with a person like that all morning, it is not much fun.
My second class is about finance. I enjoyed the first class.
I feel sorry for the teacher. Only 4 people signed up for the class and he advertised in the paper too.
No one is interested in finances. I don't have one single friend that I know that is interested in how to manage their money.
I guess that is why they don't have any money!

I just got a call from my broker. He is sending me a check for my shares of home depot.
Several weeks ago I got a letter from Home depot asking if I wanted to sell my shares for $37. They are buying back their own stock.
I am a buy and hold person, but I have not been happy with the service in the Home Depot store that we visit in our home town. The last time i took something back, there was one register open, the return register. So if you were buying or returning, everyone had to stand in the same long line. There are hundreds of cars in the parking lot, but only one register open.
My dh goes there everyday and it is so frustrating to him.
I loved home depot many years ago; the service was great. Now it is not.
I bought my stock in the 90's, so I will make a profit on it, thank goodness.
Plus, I am getting $37 a share and right now it is selling for $34 a share.
I think I will put the money in my Vanguard Star fund.

Please take a moment to think about those who died on September 11, 2001. That was 6 years ago today. I am sure you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the terrible news.

My husband went to the dentist yesterday. The bill was $108 for cleaning his teeth. I have a medical savings in my checking account to pay for anything medical for us, including the dog. I try to put away $100 a week into this account, but when there is a smaller paycheck (like this week) that account does not always get funded. DH took off 3 days this week to go to Gatlinburg and being self employed, he never gets a paid day off.

We just got back from our trip to Gatlinburg. It was fun, good food and my dh loved the car show. But it is still so good to be back in my nice BIG house instead of in a small motel room. Because we take our little dog, we never seem to get a nice BIG room. I didn't go to the car show cause it is out in an open field and way to hot for me!!
However, there is NO place like home!!!!!!

We are leaving today to go to a car show in Gatlinburg. So, we will spend a bit of money, but we have not had a vacation in over a year. We usually go in May on our anniversary, but we had an elderly ailing dog and we could not go.
My husband has gone to this car show every year for 28 years. I hope he does not find a car that he "has" to have.

The finance class is great, plus we got a great big workbook to keep. I know pretty much everything he is teaching but I am enjoying the people in my class. Too bad we have such a bad turn out. Everyone seems to stick their head in the sand when it comes to talking about money. It is like a taboo subject.

I just got an e mailed from my best friend. Her husband died last Friday and they had the service on Sunday. She was telling me of the costs; $7000 for the funeral and $3800 for the plot, plus $1600 for a marker (not headstone)
I had no idea a plot would cost so much.

when my father died, my mother bought 4 plots. She and my father are buried in 2 of them and I have the deed to the other two.
I do not plan to ever move back to Florida so I guess I should sell these plots. I don't know what a plot would cost around here. I guess I need to check into that. Depressing thought!

I am taking some classes at one of the local churches starting today. The cost is $25 but you can take as many classes as you can fit in the day. They are held on Thursdays only.
So I am taking bridge classes this morning and then I will take a finance course this afternoon.
I will let you know if I learn anything new.

Today should be a busy day. I have to take my little dog to be groomed. The guy that does the grooming lives quite a few miles away.
I usually drop her off and make a liquor run to Murphy, N.C. but we are going to Murphy on Friday, so I guess I will just come back to town and run errands.
The groomer charges $32 to bathe and groom Holly. I don't even want to know how he gets her to hold still. She won't sit still for me or even allow me to touch her tail. It is definately worth the $32.

I hope everyone has a great labor day. My dh has always treated labor day as a day to labor, so he has gone off to work. But we did attend two cookouts this weekend, one on Friday night and one last night.
We will cook out on the grill by ourselves tonight!

Last night we went to a hot dogs and beer outside party. It was lots of fun and actually cool enough on top of the mountain, to have a fire in the fire pit.

When we stood in line to get food, I could not get the mustard bottle to work, so as usual, my husband put the mustard on my hot dog.
I thought about most of my girl friends and the friend whose husband just died on Friday.
I would be lost without my dh. He is a perfectionist. Perfectionists do everything themselves so it will be perfect. When my dh gets inside a house he is building, he does all the finish work himself, no help at all. The painting, the trim, the hardwood floors, the tile, the cabinets, everything.
At home, he does everything, the yard, the housework, the cooking.
A month ago, we were invited to a party and I got a platter of sandwiches from Blimpies to take to the party.
Then sandwiches were not cut in small enough pieces and I mentioned that on another forum. One lady spoke up and said, well why don't you cut them smaller. I said, goes my husband is going to want to do that.
Just for a test, I called dh on the phone at work and asked him if I should cut the sandwiches smaller. He replyed, no, I will do it when I get home. After 30 years, I know that he prefers to do everything, so i just let him.
I certainly hope that nothing ever happens to my dh, I would be completely lost without him. I would, however, know how to handle the money!!

We are invited to a hot dog and beer party tonight! Time to sit and relax after a very busy day!

My best friend took her husband off the ventilator on Thursday afternoon. Friday morning, he passed away. It was such a peaceful death, I wish we could all go that way. I don't know what she will do next. She will probably continue working because she has to. They were never good with money. They just recently (last year) purchased their very first home but it was a bargain at $86,000.

Well, Happy first day of the month. I hope it starts cooling down. It is 63 here right now.