My TV's remote control is broken. 

Which means, I actually have to GET UP AND WALK TO THE TV to turn the channel.

Sheesh.

I thought those horrid days of the past were long gone!

Gather around you snot nosed whippersnappers . . . I've got a tale to tell!

When i was a kid, we used to have walk across the room to the TV to change the channel AND adjust the volume!!!

In the snow!

Uphill!

Both ways!!!!!

Kids today . . . they have no idea how we have SUFFERED  in the past.


 

;-)

Free books, baby.

Free. 

Word.

Working in non profit, ya never know if you are gonna have a gig next week, so I'm always anxious. But, well honestly . . . not TOO much, as I have been here for nearly 20 years, and I am a department of one. Just me.  There are other bloated departments (marketing, development) that I think would have position cuts prior to cutting me, plus my boss LOVES me, and he is one of the big honchos here . . .but still . . . ya never know, ya know?

I have decided to really set some stiff financial goals next year (2009) in terms of Savings. I want to have a mini Emergency Fund, stocked at $3000. Just sitting there, not tied up in anything, in case of big and "real' financial emergencies. I have been very lucky in life to never have had credit card debt and with the crazy interest rates shooting higher on credit cards these days, I dont want an emergency to happen and have it hit my credit card. So . . . gonna sock away $3000, in a separate savings account just in case.  (Why $3000? No clue, but that seems good amount to me. Worst case scenerio, i lose my job, I got $3000 to pay the bills for at least 5 or 6 months.)

I also contribute pretty heavily to my 403B (10% of each paycheck) and my TIAACREF (6%, plus 6% company match) as well as $200/month to my ROTH IRA.  So, retirement-wise, I do okay.  It's just that nagging "what if" in terms of needing money and not having a mini fund to go to . . . so, a $3000 Emergency Fund oin 2009 is a must for me.  Would prefer $5000, but will shoot as my goal to be $3000.  Will still keep up contributions to Retirement, cuz the one good thing about this economy, is that stocks are LOW right now, and buying em low now (which is what my retirement set up is) is good.

Another goal (which will be tough as I raise the monies for the EFund) is to increase my 'available' savings. Savings that I can use for things like travel, which is a MUST for me.  Currently, I have some monies socked away in Short Term (1 Year) CDs. These get much better rates than my Savings account, and plus it's sort of out of sight out of mind, ya know? I can't spend it without making a honest conscious effort, cuz it's tied up with a penalty to withdraw early.  So, I have those, but I don't have their maturity dates 'spread out.' So, right now, February and October are maturity dates for me. And I need to spread that out, with maturity dates happening every month of the year. So, gonna work on that, spreading out what I already have (creating a 'CD ladder' as it's called --google it, if I am unclear, its actually quite a brilliant savings strategy) as well, as increasing these savings by $6000 this year. Basically 6months of alternating maturity dates. Too bad CD rates are no longer at the glorious 8% days of past (my friend Mark remembers 18%!) . . . the average 1 year CD rate is around 3.00% to 3.50%, but that is still much better than my 2. 75% in my regular Savings account.

So yep. 

Also, a friend issued a single challenge to me, and I think i wanna give it a go for 2009.   No clue how it will go, but gonna give it a try.  For every single $1 bill I get, to put it into savings. So, at the end of the day, empty the $1 bills out of my wallet into a piggy bank and at the end of the month, put those $1 monies into Savings.  So . . .you have NO $1 bills ever.  $5. $10, that's okay, but $1 bills gotta go into the piggy bank at the end of the day.  Sounds fun, actually. Might give it a go.  Plus, if anything, it makes you REALLY think prior to buying something that is .75 cents.  (Breaking a $5, for a .75 candy bar . . . right there, that's 4 $1 bills you gotta put into the piggy bank at the end of the day. So, in a sense, your .75 candy bar is costing you $5 of pocket money, do you REALLY want that candy bar?)

I know a lot of people use debit cards (which I think are evil ;-)) for day to day purchases, but I'm more of a cash gal, and use my credit card only for larger expenses. (For example, I would never put a $3 coffee on my credit card, like my friend Davia does - I would just pay cash.) Also, gonna really try and track what I call my 'out of pocket' expenses, things like lunches, coffees - and try to cut back where I can.

Anyhoo . . . that's a lot of blathering, but in a nutshell . . . just gonna try and be more cognizant of money in this economy for 2009. I always have been pretty money savvy in the past,, but I think with the craziness of the economy, it couldnt hurt to be extra vigilant with savings.

Been reading too many financial blogs, I tell ya. ;-)

 

Here is a list of books that Sarah Palin tried to have banned from the Wasilla Public Library, according to the official minutes of the Library Board. When she was unsuccessful at having these books banned, she tried to have the librarian fired.

 As many of you will notice, it is a hit parade for book burners.

 

 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

  A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

  Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

  As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

  Blubber by Judy Blume

  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

  Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

  Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

  Carrie by Stephen King

  Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

  Christine by Stephen King

  Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Cujo by Stephen King

  Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen

  Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite

  Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck

  Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

  Decameron by Boccaccio

  East of Eden by John Steinbeck

  Fallen Angels by Walter Myers

  Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland

  Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes

  Forever by Judy Blume

  Grendel by John Champlin Gardner

  Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam

  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

  Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

  Have to Go by Robert Munsch

  Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman

  How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

  Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

  Impressions edited by Jack Booth

  In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

  It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein

  James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

  Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

  Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

  Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

  Lord of the Flies by William Golding

  Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein

  Lysistrata by Aristophanes

  More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

  My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

  My House by Nikki Giovanni

  My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara

  Night Chills by Dean Koontz

  Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

  On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer

  One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

  One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

  One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Ordinary People by Judith Guest

  Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective

  Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

  Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

  Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz

  Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

  Separate Peace by John Knowles

  Silas Marner by George Eliot

  Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

  Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

  The Bastard by John Jakes

  The Catcher in the Rye b y J.D. Salinger

  The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

  The Color Purple by Alice Walker

  The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth

  The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs

  The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

  The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

  The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

  The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder

  The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks

  The Living Bible by William C. Bower

  The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

  The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman

  The Pigman by Paul Zindel

  The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders

  The Shining by Stephen King

  The Witches by Roald Dahl

  The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder

  Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume

  To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

  Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

  Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster

  Editorial Staff

  Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween

  Symbols by Edna Barth