- RT @Dave_Champion Obama asks DOJ to look at whether AZ immigration law is constitutional. Odd that he never did that with #Healthcare #tcot #
- RT @wilw: You know, kids, when I was your age, the internet was 80 columns wide and built entirely out of text. #
- RT @BudgetsAreSexy: RT @FinanciallyPoor "The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money." ~ Unknown #
- Official review of the double-down: Unimpressive. Not enough bacon and soggy breading on the chicken. #
- @FARNOOSH Try Ubertwitter. I haven't found a reason to complain. in reply to FARNOOSH #
- Personal inbox zero! #
- Work email inbox zero! #
- StepUp3D: Lame dancing flick using VomitCam instead or choreography. #
- I approve of the Nightmare remake. #Krueger #
Working My Life Away
Since J. and Crystalare playing, and I don’t have a post scheduled for today, I thought I’d share my work history, too.
There are a couple of interesting things about my work history. Job #1 started when I was 6. Job #9 started when I was 21. I’m 33 now.
- Paper route. I delivered the local ad-rag. The route was split with my brothers. When I was 6, my share of the route was just the street we lived on. I think I had 8 papers to deliver. Later, that expanded to almost half of our tiny town.
- Odd farm jobs. I spent some time doing whatever needed to be done on a local hobby farm. That means everything from helping shore up a sagging wall in the barn to raking walnuts off of the yard.
- Dishwasher at my school. My freshman year, I gave up a study hall to wash dishes and serve lunch. My school was K-12, so I’d eat at the same time as the little kids, then wash their dishes and serve lunch to the rest of the students for $4.25/hour. I kept at it until my senior year, when I decided to relax a bit.
- Construction. Working with my Dad, until I fell off a ladder and severed a tendon in my finger when I landed. Easily the most difficult boss I’ve ever had, but it was excellent preparation for every other job I’ve ever had. His philosophy was that if he had to ask for it, I should have already known he needed it. Try carrying that training into another job and see if they complain.
- Dishwasher/Cook. I turned 16 and needed a job to afford a car that I needed to get a job. Nasty cycle. It took a couple of weeks of looking. Apparently, if a teenager puts on a nice shirt and shows up to the interview on time, he is way ahead of the curve. It took about 2 months to go from dishwasher to cook, and I kept the job until I was 18. I was working full-time all through high school.
- Palletizer. I spent 9 months standing at the end of a conveyor belt, picking up 50 pound bags of food powder mixes, taking 3 steps, and putting them on a pallet. We averaged 1500 bags per night. Fifteen years later, I still can’t comfortably button the cuffs of most shirts. When I flex, my forearms look like I have an unhealty “adult” internet addiction.
- Cook. While I was palletizing, I had a second job as a cook at a bar, working for a guy who was trying to avoid turning a profit by drinking his main product. This was 5 miles from the other job, and my car died right after I started, so I biked from job to job. In Minnesota. In the winter. I was a lean, mean popsicle.
- Machine Operator. I moved from the sticks to the Minneapolis area and was immediately hired to be run a CNC machine based on a friend’s recommendation to his boss. The pay was great for an 18 year old with no skills. I worked 5 twelve-hour graveyard shifts. The job mostly consisted of putting a little chunk of metal into a machine, closing the door, pushing a button, and sitting down for 15 minutes. This is the period of my life that trained me to shop for books based primarily on thickness.
- Bill Collector/System Administrator. After Brat #1 was born, 12 hour graves got to be a big pain. I’d work from 5 to 5, come home and make sure my wife got at least 4 hours of sleep, then I’d sleep for 4-5 hours and go back to work. Brat #1(who is now 13 and about 6 feet tall) needed to be fed every hour, so solid sleep didn’t happen for months. I took a pay cut to work normal, day-shift hours. I ended up working my way through college by collecting on defaulted student loans. Shortly after I graduated, I got promoted to be the system administrator of the collection system, responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of debts flowing into and through our system correctly. I had a security clearance allowing me access to the Department of Treasury’s computer system. After a few years of this, the company decided that there were too many people with the same job description, so 5 overworked admins got laid off while the 6th got screwed with far too much work.
- Software Engineer. This is now. I write cataloging and ecommerce software, while managing a small team of programmers. I spend half of my day working on customer software estimates, training, and assisting on sales demos and half of my day writing code. I’m kind of a big deal.
That’s it, if I don’t count my side hustles. I’ve been earning a paycheck for 27 years, and have only had 10 jobs.
When did you start working? How many jobs have you had?
I’m the Bad Guy
My wife and daughters are active in a saddle club, even though we don’t own any horses. We’ve been borrowing them for shows when my girls compete.
My wife’s cousin has been trying to sell one of her horses for a few months. Because this horse has alpha-male problems, it has to be kept in a stall. Stall boarding runs $450 per month as opposed to $200 in a group paddock.
Since my girls love this horse, Cousin continually tries to convince my wife to buy it.
My wife’s response is “Jason won’t let me buy a horse, yet.” Then all of her friends get to complain about how I’m not supportive.
Uhhh, no.
We are $10,000 away from paying off truck. We’re $23,000 away from being mortgage-free. After that, we’re planning to rent out the house we’re in and buy a hobby farm.
Yes, Mr. Unsupportive is planning to uproot everything and move to the country so my wife and daughters can have horses on site.
Shame on me. I’m such a jerk.
In a couple of years, I want to buy a $450,000 spread on about a dozen acres and let my wife’s dreams come true.
Or, we could buy a couple of horses now and never have the money for a down payment.
Or, we could buy the farm now, buy the horses now, spend every last cent of our savings on a down payment, spend more than half of our income on our mortgage payment, never get ahead, and end up losing everything.
Such a jerk.
This is a case where we have to do everything in the right order, or it will all come tumbling down on our heads in a few years. If I have to be the bad guy to avoid screwing ourselves later, so be it.
Consumer Action Handbook
The Consumer Action Handbook is a book published by the federal government for the express purpose of giving you “the most current information on all your consumer needs.” In short, the Consumer Action Handbook wants to help you with everything that takes your money.
The best part? It’s free.
The book covers topics ranging from banking to health care to cell phones to estate planning. It covers both covering your butt in a transaction and filing a complaint if things go poorly. It explains the options and pitfalls involved in buying, renting, leasing, or fixing a car. You can learn about financial aid for college and maneuvering through an employment agency. And more. So much more.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I spend quite a bit of time explaining scams and how to avoid them. This book has provided some of the source material for that theme.
It’s 170 pages on not getting screwed, either through fraud or ignorance. Every house should have one. Really, the list of consumer and regulatory agencies alone is worth the price of admission, which–if I wasn’t clear earlier–is $0.
To get yours, go to http://www.consumeraction.gov/caw_orderhandbook.shtml and fill out the form. You can order up to 10 at a time, so pick a few up for your friends and family. They won’t complain, I promise.
Budget, updates, and the future
I have recently reworked our budget, including a new spreadsheet, sorted by categories. It’s a Google Doc template available here. I will dive into each section in detail in coming weeks.
My wife and I had a long conversation about what has worked and what has failed miserably regarding our debt and repayment plan. The results of that conversation will be the subject of a few posts over the next couple of weeks.
Our destination hasn’t changed. Our map hasn’t changed. We are making some changes to the route we take, to allow better for our strengths and weaknesses, both as a couple and as individuals.
Homeschooling for Free with Khan Academy
If you are a parent who is planning to home school your children or if you are already involved in homeschooling and seeking additional resources, using Khan Academy online is highly recommended regardless of the type of material you are trying to teach or learn. Learning with Khan Academy is possible for students of all ages as well as individuals who are simply seeking new methods of learning without having to pay for the education.
What is Khan Academy?
Khan Academy is a free online resource for anyone interested in learning new material in a wide range of subjects. Whether you are a parent who is planning on homeschooling your children or if you simply have an avid interest in science, mathematics or even art history, using Khan Academy can ultimately give you the knowledge you need for any reason.
Khan Academy operates as a non-profit organization and offers all courses and materials absolutely free of charge. Using Khan Academy is ideal if you are actively seeking out new lesson plans for your own children but you are stumped for ideas and material yourself.
Courses Available From Khan Academy
When you sign up for Khan Academy you can immediately dive into various lessons depending on what you want to learn. Whether you are seeking out assignments in math, science, humanities or even economics and finance, there are plenty of courses in different areas of education. You can also learn all about computer programming and various levels of specific subjects based on whether you are teaching your children or looking to learn something new for yourself.
Why Learning Online From Home Works
Learning online from home is a way for you to incorporate well-developed lessons into your everyday homeschooling lesson plans at any time. When you choose to use an online community such as Khan Academy there are also no deadlines or restrictions on the lessons you want to teach or learn more about yourself.
You can also hand pick specific lessons to help with individualizing each one of your children’s educational outline and plans. Depending on the age of your children and their own interests you can choose from a variety of lessons for beginners and those seeking more advanced work.
Teaching your children new material with the use of the online Khan Academy is a way for you to ensure they are truly understanding the lessons before moving on. Additionally, using Khan Academy is ideal if you are seeking educational content that is sourced, referenced and completely free of charge. Khan Academy lessons and content is and always will be free as this is one of the main missions of the academy itself.
Knowing the benefits of using Khan Academy and how it can help you or your children grow educationally is a way to truly take advantage of the services and lessons being offered. Using Khan Academy when homeschooling brings expansive lessons into the home regardless of your own knowledge and areas of expertise when you begin to teach your children.