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Showing posts from November, 2020

The Investing Maze

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Most of us have investments.  Not everyone treats them 'equal' ..  Some are tuned in to them daily or monthly .. or .. well .. rarely .. if at all. Most of us have IRAs or 401ks or variants.  For the most part, pensions are a thing of the past so younger folks.. .sorry .. ain't gonna happen for most.  For those of us with the retirement investment vehicles, then we've got to select our risk, based on age, retirement age.. or .. our own ability to handle the ups and downs of the stock market.  Then throw in the crypto currency options that are now avail, and ... it's enough to make one's head explode? Me personally, I'm on track now and doing well .. but .. wasn't always so.  The road to the present had a lot of bumps and wrong turns. That's code for f***ing up along the way.  I've written about this before in various posts to various degrees.  Politics, Finances and Religion.. the 3 no no's to discuss.. yet.. I write about them all.  On the

GoFundMe

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Here we go again.   I hate to say this, but most of these make me scratch my head.    I’ve donated to a few where they made sense to me.   Sometimes tragic things happen to folks when they least expect it. Before they are able to get somewhere financially and prepare accordingly.   Sometimes, to folks that had some really back luck.    But …. Lets go look at the George Floyd situation as an example gone awry.    How much was that one eventually? Well as of June 2020 .. “George Floyd's GoFundMe accounts have raised over $13.7 million for his family ... and counting. Two of George Floyd's siblings have posted GoFundMe fundraisers asking for help to pay for the family's travel and legal expenses and to support Floyd's children following his death.”     Think about that one for a minute.   The guy was supposedly a crappy dad.    A felon. A drug user. And eventually died, right or wrong, after his actions put him in a certain situation.   But come on… 13.7M?    WTF?!?!? T

Painful Finance 101

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Debt ....the evil that sometimes tears up families.  Destroys marriages.  Can cause crazy amounts of stress.  I can tell you it caused me some issues early on in my adult life.  I went through periods where I had my act together, and a few runs of far from it, carrying too much debt. Been in a situation where I did consolidation loans, only to fall back into the same trap of more debt.   Crazy. Back around '05 I guess, I had an epiphany...  I was out of the military, making good money, had lots of toys... but the job was high stress and my position was at risk.  I realized then that if I found myself out of work, I would be in a bad situation. Basically, in Deep Shit.  My boat; owed on it. My car; owed on it. My house, owed on it. Credit cards; too much of a balance on them.  Savings account; what savings?   I knew right then and there, something had to change.  I'd heard about Dave Ramsey; now it was time to do something about it.  Got the book, read it.  Wife and I had long

LONE STAR RALLY 2020 - Unofficial

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This is one we've been attending almost every year since 2009.  It's sort of a no-brainer for us once we bought a home on the Island, hence our attendance every year.  I remember when COVID popped up and some douche that lives downtown tried to derail it.  Once I researched him a lil' bit, became obvious he's a 'bike hater' and dislikes the bikes, the noise .. the rally.  But ...  eventually ..  he and other's got their way.  The Rally was canceled... officially.  However, many never canceled their reservations.  Many like ourselves were always headed that way for that weekend.    As it turns out the City of Galveston is expecting THOUSANDS to roll in based on Hotel Occupancy/Reservations.  They are going to shut down the Strand for us in anticipation of the crowds. However, ZERO temp permits for vendors.   So, it'll change things up no doubt, but I think in someways.. for the better?   Allows all the local shops on the  Strand to sell alcohol and keep