Bluehost Sucks!!

As you may know, Grump recently decided to quit his job, ("retire", in his overactive imagination).  Since he wasn't going to be stuck at work anymore, he figured he would finally have some time to work on his websites, particularly his Tea Universe site.

Ha!

On July 26th, his web hosting company, Bluehost, sent him an email informing him that his account had been "hacked", and that all domains associated with it would be disabled until he resolved the problem.

So he called their tech support number, asking what he should do.

The proposed solution was to run a virus scan and firewall on each of the FOUR domains he had registered with them.  Sounds reasonable, huh?  The problem was that this would cost an additional $30.00 per domain, per month.

That's an extra $120.00 per month!!

I can understand if this was maybe a one time charge of $30.00 for the whole account, but attempting to shake him down for an extra $120.00/month is ridiculous.  Besides, shouldn't a web host be running virus scans and putting up firewalls anyway?

Grump never uploaded any files to his account other than .JPG pics and Wordpress approved plugins, so he doesn't think he added any contaminated files to his account.  The techies at Bluehost seem to think the hackers exploited a vulnerability in one of his plugins.  (Maybe, disturbingly, Wordfence itself, which is a plugin that is supposed to help prevent this type of thing.)  Regardless, he believes that they should take a greater role in keeping paid-for accounts safe, rather than using a successful hack as an excuse to charge their customers more money.

So poopy on you, Bluehost!  You can keep your stupid domains!!

By cancelling his account with Bluehost, (and I have to add that, to their credit, Bluehost did refund him over $400.00 for unused hosting), Grump has wiped out the following:

tea-universe.com

tea-universe.net

buyingnirvana.com

arph001.com

The loss of tea-universe.com is the most painful, because this was his money site.  He is starting a new Tea Universe site, (https://tea-universe.biz), but it will take some time and effort before that site amounts to anything.  August/2018 update: the "new" Tea Universe never got off the ground.

As you can imagine, we STRONGLY recommend that any-and-all NOT sign up for web hosting services with Bluehost, and we are NOT ALONE.  (Check out this article if you don't believe me: http://ohsheblogs.com/bluehost-sucks/)  Unless you are very, very lucky, you WILL be at best disappointed, and at worst out lots of money, or without your websites.


Which then begs the question: why do so many prominent bloggers recommend Bluehost?  (That would be you, Pat Flynn.  And you too, Mr. Money Mustache.)  Well, I hate to be jaded about this, but have you seen how much Mr. Flynn makes from Bluehost monthly affiliate commissions?  A HUGE hooray to him for acknowledging this, (he posts monthly income reports showing how he makes his money), but wouldn't it be even more wonderful if he recommended a web host that was actually pretty good, instead of a cruddy one?

As with all things, buyer beware. These days I would probably say that you need to TRIPLE that for anything you stumble across online, as the internet seems to be a breeding ground for not just blatant dishonesty, but also harmful "sorta truths". Be careful!!

Why We Will Never Be Rich - Part 03 of an Ongoing Series

https://thinkprogress.org/ketchup-sandwiches-and-other-things-stupid-poor-people-eat-41617483b497#.vapn93dq5

You can tell a person's true motivations by their actions, rather than their speech.  Based on our actions, I am forced to conclude that we want to eventually wind up like the majority of Americans, namely almost broke, and dependent on government social programs for our survival.

I say this because we have been doing a fine job this year of spending down the PRINCIPAL of our savings.  Which is exactly what anyone who wants to be poor should be doing.

We cashed in stock funds on the following dates:

07/01/2016 ............................................................... $2,500.00

07/25/2016 ............................................................... $3,300.00

09/01/2016 ............................................................... $2,500.00

10/05/2016 ............................................................... $7,000.00

                   TOTAL ................................................ $15,300.00 !!!

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!  While fifteen grand certainly isn't chump change, we also managed to blow through some money returned from called bonds, about another $5,000 or so.

So let's just round it off, and say we've spent an additional $20,000.00 this year OVER AND ABOVE   what our income sources can cover.

Ugh!!

The only way to sustain this behavior in the short term, (it's unsustainable in the long term, of course), is to print money, which just about any national government you can name is already doing, quite vigorously I should add.  But since we can not print our own money, we will soon run out of it, and then must turn to our dear Uncle Sam with outstretched arms, begging for a handout.

Do you want to live like this?

A Dream of Paradise Shattered?

For years now I have had this dream, (fantasy? illusion?), of someday moving to another country, where the day-to-day expenses are lower, and my "estate" could support me and my family longer.  Added to this was my dream of "earning money on the internet", (to date this has been a bust!), which created an image of yours truly sitting under the coconut trees*, laptop on my lap, idly pecking away at my keyboard while the dollars flowed into my bank account, and I lived like only the super rich do back in the USA.

There are plenty of websites touting the expat lifestyle, but one which early on caught my eye was Bob Martin's http://liveinthephilippines.com.  My wife is also from the Philippines, so getting her to move back there would be much less of a struggle than, say, getting her to move to Panama.

Bob seemed to have it all going for him.  He was a successful internet marketer, making "big money" (?) online for years, all while living a great life in Davao City in the southern part of the Philippines.  (In case you didn't know, Davao is the city the Philippines current president, Duterte, used to be mayor of, and is considered one of the safest cities in Asia.)  He was a guy I was going to emulate.

Then all of a sudden we get this:  https://www.gofundme.com/2qjcm7as?utm_medium=wdgt.

First of all, if you are able, I hope you can spare Bob a buck or two.  I don't know him personally, only through his website, but as best I can tell he is a decent human being.

But getting back to the point of this article ....... this really sucks!!

I know medical expenses are a dreadful thing, (medical expenses have destroyed our budget this year), and I believe they are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the USA, but I thought Bob had all this covered.  I thought he was keeping his expenses low, and his income high, such that when bad luck drops a figurative brick on our head like this, he would be able to handle it.

I guess not.

My first reaction is to have the inner skeptic in me start screaming.  Maybe Bob didn't really make all that much money online?  Maybe his claims to be running a successful internet business from the Philippines were just BS?  Or maybe he was a fool, and spent all his money, and didn't have any insurance or savings for a rainy day?

Or maybe he was a smart, successful guy, who just got hit with a perfect storm of expenses?

I guess no matter where you live, or what your income level is, health care costs can devastate you?

Ugh!

The "good news", (such as it is), from all this mess is that, in his latest update, he indicates that PhilHealth will be paying him some money towards his life-saving heart operation.  Hopefully Bob will continue to get more and more good news like this in the future.

So .......

The takeaway from this awful experience is that, when planning your escape to your particular paradise, PLEASE remember to have a contingency plan, and the cash or credit set aside to help fund it.


* - Although "those who know better" laugh at me, having been around real coconut trees, and seen how high up in the tree the coconuts are, there is NO WAY I will ever, ever, ever sit under a coconut tree!

Online Income Statement - June, July, August/2016

It's a good thing I don't count on online income to pay the bills, because for the last three months it has been a constant zero!  And this isn't for lack of effort!  (A lack of intelligence perhaps, but I have worked at it.)

I sincerely hope I am the least successful internet affiliate in the world, because if other folks are doing as poorly as me, then there's a whole lot of effort being wasted online.

Well ...... maybe it's not a total catastrophe.  I do have some money queued up in my Amazon affiliate accounts, and once one of them breaks the $10.00 limit I should get a deposit in my Paypal account.  Still, $10.00 isn't exactly a huge amount of money.

Things got so bad I even go back to Clickworker from time to time.  And this is Clickworker WITHOUT access to UHRS, (which is where most of the money is made), because I refuse to back to working on a Windows PC.  (We use Apple PCs in our household.)  So I "earn" pennies a day.

Ugh ......

But the internet gods apparently haven't finished humiliating me, because just recently I updated the software on my tea store, ( tea-universe.com ), and now ...... the site doesn't work anymore!!

My store uses WooCommerce, the WooZone plugin, (to grab products off Amazon), and the Kingdom theme.  Two days ago I updated Kingdom to version 1.7, and everything went wonky.  This surprised me, as I thought all three pieces of software were written by the same group of folks, (AATeam, or something like that), and so would play well together.  Ha, ha .... jokes on me!

IMHO Kingdom is a hard theme to work with.  Or maybe the problem is WooCommerce?  At any rate, all this stuff combines into what ain't a normal straight-forward WordPress page.  But after fussing with it a bit I finally got the appearance of the store pretty well stabilized.  In fact, I kinda like how it looks now better than it looked on the older Kingdom theme:

The new appearance of tea-universe.com

The huge problem is that, once you attempt to checkout with items added to your cart, by the time you're redirected to Amazon the cart is somehow empty!

What happened to the items in my cart?

So what I have now is a nicer looking store that no one can order anything from.  Phooey!


I've paid $5.00 on Fiverr to some guy in India who claims he can debug WooCommerce problems.  We'll see if anything comes of that or not.

In the meantime ...... does anyone happen to know of a way to fix this problem?  

Earn money in your spare time on the internet, huh?  Nonsense, I say!

=================================================================

Update: the guy from India directed me to some documentation, which helped, and made some suggestions, which so for haven't worked.  So what I have done is disable the shopping cart altogether.  Now you simply click "buy product" and get redirected to Amazon to complete the order, (add it to your shopping cart, and check out).

If I have time I may fight with this crazy software some more, but in the meantime at least tea-universe.com is functional again.

Why We Will Never Be Rich - Part 02 of an Ongoing Series

One of the main reasons we will never be rich is Old Grump's continual careless, immature, and just plain STUPID behavior.

This idiocy has recently cost us nearly $500!!  Allow me to share with you the sorry details.

1. A few months ago Grump wrote a check, admittedly under duress, (it was for a product being sold through Kuya's school by a company* he doesn't like much), using the credit union account from his icky job at the Lizard Pit.  Soon thereafter he managed to get another job, enabling him to leave that miserable place.  (Hooray!!)  After waiting for all the checks from the Lizard Pit credit union to clear, he happily closed his account there.  And all was well in his world.

Except ...... he forgot to write down one or two checks, and one of these, (yep, you guessed it - to the company he dislikes anyway), got returned.  That was several months ago, and we knew nothing about it until early last week, when Grump got a letter from a collection agency** asking that payment be made for the original purchase, PLUS AN EXTRA THIRTY DOLLARS FOR BOUNCING THE CHECK.

2. As part of getting a new job, Grump got a new bank account to have his paycheck deposited into.  This new bank does some things a little differently than Grump is accustomed to.  For example, when making a payment online, this payment is not always immediately deducted from your account when sent.  Grump makes lots of payments online, and is used to checking his account online to reconcile how much money the bank says he has with how much he thinks he has, and then making any necessary adjustments in his records.

This past week, he screwed up and bounced an online payment.

What happened is that he made several online payments at once, then when he checked back a few days later saw that the bank said he had about $70 more dollars than his records indicated.  So he adjusted his balance up by $70, and went about happily spending, drawing his account down to the last penny right before his next paycheck, due on the 15th.

Of course, when the one online payment that had never posted, (for about $70!), finally showed up, (two days before he got paid, of course!), he didn't have enough money in his account to cover it, so he got whacked an extra $35 for an overdraft.

Grrr .......

3. The final act of stupidity was a whopper!  After driving home from his job on the other side of the state, and being tired and grumpy from a persistent head cold, Grump drove out with Sweetie to get some pizza for dinner.  What happened next is so stupid you probably won't believe it: Grump got mad at his car, and broke off the turn signal / headlights lever!

Grump holding the fruits of his labor

What a fool, huh?

As they say, as fool and his money soon go separate ways.  This little temper tantrum cost Grump $418.36!!  

The newly installed turn signal / headlights lever

The bill!!

So in less than two weeks, a pathetic Old Grump has managed to waste nearly $500 .

It's not like we have a ton of extra cash to burn either.  We just recently had to take $2,500 out of retirement savings to help pay down some credit card bills.  Flushing another $500 down the toilet of childish behavior isn't going to help us at all.

Financial responsibility requires mature behavior.  If you want to remain an irresponsible teenager your entire life you may do so.  Just don't act surprised when you wind up broke.

* - if you really want to know, the company is Scholastic Books, who in his opinion sell a mediocre, over-priced product under the pretense of "helping your school".

** - this is the first time any of us have ever been contacted by a collection agency over an old debt.  The original check was for a grand sum of $21.00 !!

Why We Will Never Be Rich - An Ongoing Series!

When I read the blogs of financially successful folks such as J. Money, ( http://www.budgetsaresexy.com ), Mr. Money Mustache, ( http://www.mrmoneymustache.com ), James Collins, ( http://jlcollinsnh.com  -  you GOTTA read this: http://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/ ), Jeremy and Winnie, ( http://www.gocurrycracker.com ), and lots and lots of other money savvy folks, I get a little jealous.  They have money, enough money for financial independence, and the FREEDOM that this money buys them.  I, on the other hand, have bills and debt.

Money, Money, Who's Got the Money??

It ain't fair!

Well, no ..... that is absolutely wrong.  It is TOTALLY fair, because we all have a CHOICE in how we can live, and what we will spend money on.*  My wife and I CHOOSE to spend our money, rather than save it.  Here are a few examples from just this weekend, (rounded off for ease of addition!).

1. Saturday

Admission to the Atlanta Zoo, and snacks while we were there:  $130.00

Goodie from the Buford Highway Farmers Market:  $80.00 (at least - my wife paid this)

Dinner at the fantastic Grits Cafe in Forsyth, GA:  $140.00

2. Sunday

Admission to a movie for me and my older son, popcorn, and a soda:  $30.00

A new MacBook Pro laptop for me to use while I am working out of town:  $1,200.00


That's a total of at least $1,580 USD for just this past weekend alone!!

Okay, now I admit that we won't be buying a new laptop every weekend, (we couldn't if we wanted to!), but it seems that every other week we have some new fantastic expense to attempt to pay off.  And except for our older son's unfortunate emergency medical expenses, these are all purchases we voluntarily make.

Saving money really is simple.  It's the discipline NOT to spend that is the sand in lotion!


* - Okay, this assumes you are of sound mind and body, which MOST of us are.  (No whining please!!)

Stupid Persistant Debt!!

Although there are five of us, (two children and three adults), only Old Grump has a job.  Thus we are highly dependent on him staying employed, which some days doesn't seem too likely.  (Yikes!!)

Reviewing our finances, it occurs to us that if we could cut down some of our debt, we could survive on our savings much longer, should Old Grump ever get disgusted and part ways with his employer.  (Our version of "F--- You Money".)  Thinking about this got Old Grump excited, and he came up with this document, which he and Sweetie both agreed to and signed:

We, the undersigned, hereby agree to the following:

  

1. NO more eating out at any restaurant other than fast-food, (take-out).

2. NO vacations, other than visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Florida.

3. NO more clothes purchases, other than required clothing for Kuya or Dodong.

4. NO trips to the movie theater.  If we want to watch a movie, we will rent a DVD.

5. NO purchases of Christmas gifts.  We will MAKE gifts to give to each other for Christmas.

6. NO more use of the credit card to buy food or other items at the grocery store.  If we don’t have the cash for it, we won’t buy it!

7. ALL miscellaneous purchase will be PAID FOR IN CASH.  If we don’t have the cash for it, we won’t buy it!

Although the signed document is now taped to the bedroom wall above our desk, resistance is already beginning to bubble up.  "What about dining out for birthdays and anniversaries?"  "Are we really going to "make" Christmas gifts?"  "That watch I've been wanting to buy for several months now is on sale for 75% off at Belks!"

Sigh ..... Getting rid of debt is so simple, yet at the same time so insanely difficult.  If we don't stop making new purchases, we will never be in a position to pay off the old ones.

While I think purchasing the watch ain't gonna happen, it does appear that #5 on the list above, (no Christmas gifts other than what we make), is ridiculous and will be stricken off, and even #1 will be voided for special occasions.  (Guys, I DARE you to tell your wife that your anniversary dinner will be cancelled to meet your budget!)  But I am hoping that we will adhere to our agreement more often than we will ignore it.

I'll let y'all know how this works out for us.  Wish us luck!

Stupid Debt!!

GRRR!!! Will we EVER get out of debt!!

Just last week we had raided Grump's retirement account "yet one more time", and cashed in $3,000.00.  The plan was to finally pay off the American Express credit card, (current balance $2,000.00 +), and sock the rest away in our short term savings account, where it would be ready to be thrown at the next bout of nonsense.  I had anticipated the next batch of "nonsense" would be the roughly $800.00 we owe a lawyer for drawing up an estate plan for us.  Which means we would be close to eliminating all our high-interest short term debt. 

Ha, ha ..... jokes on me, only it's not funny at all.  In the mail today we just received a bill for $1,200.00 from the dentist, which apparently is the remainder due for the broken tooth incident Grump had in early June.

We just can't catch a break on these unexpected, large expenses!  Start with our car troubles, add in Grump's busted tooth, and finish with Sweetie's Sister's medical emergencies, and since spring of this year we've had $5,000.00 - $6,000.00 of unplanned debt.  YIKES!!

But we can't do anything about it other than keep pounding away at the debt, and hope these rainy day expenses eventually dry up and blow away.  Grump is getting heartsick at all the repeated withdrawals from his retirement savings, but what can we do?  Credit card debt costs us 18%, more or less.  There is NO WAY we can consistently earn that amount in the stock market.

Clarifications for the curious:

1. The "retirement" accounts we are cashing out are NOT tax qualified.  They are simply mutual fund accounts Grump has built up over the years.  While it sickens him to withdraw money from them now, we do not pay a penalty to do so, and it does make financial sense to whack high interest credit card debt, even with money you've saved for the long term.  Grump is just concerned about the "moral hazard" of these withdrawals becomming a habit.

2. The estate plan is being set up to help shield Sweetie from request for financial assistance from back home.  Grump is older than her, so hopefully she will outlive him.  We have already taken a financial pounding from her sister over the years, (don't even ask!!).  Once Grump is out of the picture, the pressure on her to "loan" money to the friends and family in the Philippines will be enormous. 

Actually, in a way we have been lucky here.  We haven't been put in the situation where someone's hope for survival is in our hands, thank God!  What do you do if someone urgently needs to go to the hospital, but you are the only one who can pay for it?

Family Obligations and Debt

We've been spending a bit more than we should, and a car and a tooth misbehaved, but after Grump cashed in some savings it appeared we were FINALLY getting our debt under control.  Then just this past weekend, while we were in Jacksonville visiting Grandma and Grandpa, we got a fateful text.  Sweetie's sister in the Philippines needs to go to the hospital for some expensive surgery, again.

The only silver lining in this cloud is that medical costs in the Philippines are much less expensive than here in the American Empire.  We estimate our total costs will be less than $2,000.00.  We already sent $1,500.00 tonight, wired over via Western Union.

So what are we to do about this?  Grump considers the sister a "financial black hole", but even he is not heartless enough not to help her.

I suppose the only humane response to this is to put aside the financial concerns for the moment, and just thank God that we have the savings to be able to help her.  The fact that we seem to pay out thousands of dollars in medical costs for her every other year is a bit irritating; the fact that we are still stuck paying off some of her STUPID husband's debts is extremely irritating.  (Only $1,000.00 left on that mess, thank God!)  I wish she could somehow get her life together and stop being such a problem, but honestly I'm not sure she ever will.  And despite Grump's bitching, we will help her.

Maybe someday Grump will finally learn that it is not his money that he is saving, but rather God's money that has been entrusted to him, and that it is truly a BLESSING to be able to help others?

If you're the praying type, (and if you're not, WHY THE HELL NOT?), please pray for us, particularly Sweetie's sister, that her physical (and financial) problems heal, and that Grump changes his attitude, and realizes what a gifted position in life he has.

Weekends and Credit Cards, Part 02

History may not exactly repeat, but future behavior certainly mimics past behavior.

Just like we did a few weeks ago, today we went on a "spending spree" with our Ameican Express credit card.  Now I admit that today was special: Lola is coming back to live with us!  But still, it would be nice if we could find a way to celebrate, to enrich our experience of being alive, without necessarily spending money.

We easily spent over $450.00, $400 of which went on the credit card.  This is bit of a bummer, because after the balance had creeped above $2,000.00, I had scrimped and saved to knock it down to under $1,400.00.  Now it's headed back to two grand, and what concerns me is that I know we are in the midst of a roof repair which will pile on another $700.00 or so.

Grrr!!!

But you have to keep these things in perspective.

1. I still have my job, which even though it has run me absolutely ragged the last few weeks, (sporadically working weekends and into the wee hours of the night), is a very nice source of income for our family.  (And I was even given a teeny-weeny raise recently!)

2. I've been able to increase my 401K contributions at work to 5%, and in six months, (God willing!), I'll be 60% vested in the employer 401K "match", which fantastically is 10% of my salary.

3. We are all in good health, and my job provides us with excellent health insurance.  A bit diminished due to Obama Care, I must confess, but still a very, very good plan, and one that I could never afford on my own.

4. Our condo is still rented out, and the tennent pays on time every month!

5. LOLA IS BACK!!  This should help our finances, (we've been eating out a lot recently  -  besides our extravagant lunch today, we ate dinner out last night), and nerves!  With the recent crazy demands of my job, poor Sweetie has been on her own with the two boys all too often.


I want to end this with some links to a few personal finances websites I think are worth reading:

1. http://www.becomingminimalist.com/   -  I found out about this website thru http://rockstarfinance.com/, (more on that later!), specifically this entry: http://www.becomingminimalist.com/financial-freedom/ .  While I enjoy reading the various "financial independence / quit work early" blogs, I have to admit that I believe this guy has a more constructive attitude towards money and work.

2. http://jlcollinsnh.com/  -  I like this blog because the author is an old fart like me!  Too many of the personal finance, (particularly the "retire early"), blogs are written by young 'uns who, quite frankly, are at a difference place in life than me, and may have different wants and needs.

3. http://rockstarfinance.com/  -  how else are you going to find out about cool sites like http://www.becomingminimalist.com/ without checking this site?  I check this site, along with another of J's sites, http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/ , at least every other day or so.  Lots and lots of good links here.

Another Weekend Day - Another Addition to Credit Card Debt

Gosh it's hard to get out of credit card debt!

Today was a weekend "shopping" day.  We went to Babies R Us to buy food for Dodong, stopped at T.J.Maxx to get a nice shirt for Kuya, paid for gas, then, (because Sweetie was tired to the point of exhaustion), went out for a nice dinner.  Total damage to our credit card was about $300.00.

The Babies R Us vist was by far the most costly, being within pennies of $200.00.  Add in a dining out experience of about $60.00, and we easily hit the $300.00 mark.

And there was nothing extraordinary about the day!  It was just another Saturday when we decided to go shopping for some necessities, then treat a very, very tired mother to a meal out of the house.

The truth of the matter is that with our expenses, (and believe me, they could be much, much worse!), Old Grump's salary just quite isn't enough.  We're hoping later in the year, once Lola is back and Dodong is weaned, that Sweetie can get at a minimum a part time job.  Even if she only earns a few hundred dollars a month, it will at least help us pay off her sister's debts back in the Philippines.

After scrimping and saving to knock the credit card debt to a little over $1,600.00, it is now soaring back over $2,000.00 again.  Poop!!  While I know that Mr. Money Mustache would just tell me to "suck it up!", I don't have his prodigious self-discipline.  So, regarding our credit card debt, sometimes I feel like these littles guys, running and running, but getting nowhere:

Online "Income" Statement - February/2015

Well, February was kinda more of the same of January, meaning my "income" was basically a rounding error.  Phooey!

Here is what we currently, (yeah, this includes several days in March  -  I'm late doing this, okay?),  have in our accounts that we've earned via our webpages:

Adsense  -  $4.56  (Up 10¢ from January.  Woo hoo!!)

AdFly  -  9¢  (The money continues to POUR in!  And to think I get billionths of a penny by forcing viewers through an irritating link!)

LinkBucks  -  NOT EVEN A PENNY YET!  (And everything I said about AdFly applies here too, only more so.)

Clickworker  -  $.10  (After signing up, and taking an English language compitency test.)


Well how about that?  In less than one hour I made more with Clickworker than AdFly and LinkBucks combined, and I didn't irritate any of my viewers by sending them to possibly virus-ridden sites by doing so.  I think it is time to kick AdFly and LinkBucks to the curb!

Okay ...... no more AdFly or LinkBucks links.  I'm too lazy to go remove all the old links at the moment, but if I ever get the time, (probably around the same time there is lasting peace in the Middle East!), I'll go do it.

Interest Paid on a Credit Card - GRR!!!

If you're read some of our prior posts, you know we have some credit card debt.  No matter how we attack it, a balance always seems to stubbornly remain on our American Express credit card.  Anytime we knock it down close to zero, some new bizarre expense comes flying down from the stratosphere to land painfully on our heads.

My guess is that we're not alone, that this tends to happen to most of the rest of you too.  I guess the powers-that-be consider dealing with financial troubles good for your soul.  ("Hey, that one's getting a little uppity.  Let's zap his car!")

Be that as it may, the net result is we pay interest to American Express for the ability to spend money we don't have, (yet).  Here is how much we've spent in credit card interest last year, and so far this year:

Total Interest Paid in 2014:   $239.76

Interest already paid in 2015:  $66.16

At the risk of being rude, let me just state right now that THIS IS F@(KING STUPID!!

Maybe $240/year doesn't seem outrageous to you, but it should.  It is money WASTED!  It is money paid to American Express for the privilege of being financially irresponsible!

And if $240 doesn't ruffle your feathers, how about more than $400, which if we don't clean up our act is what we are on target for paying out this year?

So ..... our #1 goal of the year is to get our American Express credit card completely paid off, then not carry a balance on it again.  EVER!!

Granted, sometimes life will interfere, (sh!t happens, ya know), and we will get slapped with a true emergency.  But then our goal will revert to paying off this money-sucking leech as quickly as possible.

Oh yeah ..... what about the "emergency fund"?  Ha, ha, ha!  That poor thing gets sucked dry as soon as we fund it.

It's a nice thought, this "emergency fund", and maybe someday if we don't have so many unfinanced obligations and unforeseen expenses it will be useful to have one.  But for right now it is just a daydream.

Random Quotes

Some random quotes I copied from somewhere, sometime, someplace.  Enjoy!


In times of change, learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. – Eric Hoffer

Everybody's got a plan until they get hit. – Mike Tyson

Nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eyewitness. – Mark Twain

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible. – George Orwell

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first. And, whatever you hit, call it the target. – Ashleigh Brilliant

If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow. – William McFee

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. – Malachy McCourt

A country can get more real joy out of just hollering for their freedom than they can if they actually get it. – Will Rogers

Today’s payslip has more deductions than a Sherlock Holmes novel. – Raymond Cvikota, U.S. writer

I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There’s a knob called “brightness,” but it doesn’t work. – Gallagher, U.S. comedian

People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they don’t want it. – Ogden Nash, U.S. poet

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. – Ayn Rand, Russian-American writer

Some people say they haven't yet found themselves. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates. – Thomas Szasz, Hungarian psychiatrist

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." – E. Roosevelt, U.S. first lady

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. – Bertrand Russell, Welsh philosopher

Blessed are the young, for they will inherit the national debt. – Herbert Hoover, U.S. president

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor. – Sholom Aleichem, Russian author

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices – just recognize them. – Edward R. Murrow, U.S. journalist

What we actually learn from any given set of circumstances determines whether we become increasingly powerless or more powerful. – Blaine Lee, U.S. consultant

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind. – Samuel Johnson, British writer

People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. – Peter Drucker, U.S. consultant

We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place. – Edward de Bono, Maltese author

Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing. – Harriet Braiker, U.S. psychologist

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings." – Dave Barry, U.S. author

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. – John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian-American economist

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. – Edmund Burke, Irish statesman

If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect. – Benjamin Franklin, U.S. statesman

‘I have done my best.’ That is about all the philosophy of living one needs. – Lin Yutang, Chinese writer

We are told that this is an odious and unpopular tax. I never knew a tax that was not odious and unpopular with the people who paid it. – John Sherman, U.S. politician

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. – Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman author

Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back. – Harvey Mackay, U.S. author

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. – Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer

A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself. – Lisa Kirk, U.S. actress

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly. – Francis Bacon, British statesman

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. – Benjamin Franklin, U.S. statesman

The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one. – Oscar Wilde, Irish writer

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it. – Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president

A single man has not nearly the value he would have in a state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors. – Benjamin Franklin, U.S. statesman

If you would like to know the value of money, try to borrow some. – Benjamin Franklin, U.S. statesman

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. – Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist

Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice. – Dave Barry, U.S. humorist

Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently. – Henry Ford, U.S. entrepreneur

I used to sell furniture for a living. The trouble was, it was my own. – Les Dawson, English comedian

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. – Albert Schweitzer, German philosopher

If at first you don’t succeed, take the tax loss. – Kirk Kirkpatrick, U.S. executive

The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often even more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are. – Niccolo Machiavelli, Italian philosopher

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. – William Blake, British poet

The "Lack of Time" Problem

As I whined about a few days ago, I just don't have the time to putter around online like I'd like to.  For example ....

I wanted to post an article on the 40th anniversary of the stupid "Roe vs. Wade" decision to BuyingNirvana.  Unfortunately, (okay .... actually "fortunately"; I need to get my priorities straight!), life and family intruded, and I was only able to get the article posted today, a few days after the event.

Even now, as I type this, my eldest son is sitting next to me, trying every few seconds to get my attention to watch some YouTube video on Paw Patrol toys battling a giant spider, or something like that.  It's yet another "Engineering Family" video that my son seems to love.

So I have to ask: have any of the "successful bloggers" achieved their success while also raising a family?  It seems to me that blogging is a profession for young adults or single people, retirees even, but NOT for anyone with a spouse and kids vying for their time.

More of Our PAA Posts Have Been Deleted!

More of our posts at PAA have recently been deleted.  Grrr!!

This is discouraging, because we were linking to those posts from other blogs/posts.  Now we have to go change all those links.  What a hassle!

The irritating part of all this is that we starting posting to FoK and PAA because of the promise of PASSIVE income, namely, write your article once, and potentially get paid for it forever.  It was bad enough when the admin of those sites stopped paying on articles more than six months old.  Now he is also removing articles from PAA.

I suppose it is just a matter of time before he starts removing articles from FoK.

The moral of this story, boys and girls, is that if you are going to write articles that you would like to keep, post them to a site YOU control.  Otherwise, like me, you'll be in a panic someday frantically copying them before they get deleted!

Busy, But Nothing Much to Show For It Yet

For the last few days I've been trying to clean up our various blogs and websites while I have the time off from work.  Progress, if any, has been slow.  Not the least of my obstacles has been a nasty head cold I picked up after all the nonsense that occurred last weekend.

These are the things I am trying to accomplish:

1. Continue the "A Day in a Year in a Life" posts, but this time put them on my  http://www.waypatas.blogspot.com/ blog.  I chose to stick them there rather than PAA, (where they were for most of last year), because PAA seems to be getting unstable again; the admin has been deleting old posts for obscure reasons, (at least to me!).

2. Update/Cleanup http://www.arph001.com/ .  The main goal here has been to improve the http://www.arph001.com/day-in-a-life/ page, as the purpose for the other pages, (drive views to old articles), has evaporated since FoK and PAA no longer pay views on articles older than 6 months.  So much for passive income!

3. Update/Cleanup http://missingmusic.blogspot.com/ .  This blog, amazingly, seems to actually get some views, so I'd like to keep it in the best shape I can.  I recently added some music from Ken Still to the blog, music which as far as I know you can find nowhere else!

4. Make money with AdFly.  This is a service that sticks an ad on your links, like this: AAAAHHH!  The trick is to balance between making a fraction of a cent here and there, and not to piss off any prospective reader in the process.

5. Make money with affiliate sales.  This we are attempting at http://buyingnirvana.com/ , but as you can see if you read the FAQs, we have been spectacularly unsuccessful.  I'm not sure where I am going to go with that website.  Right now, it is mostly serving as a landing page for AdFly links when you click "Give Us Money", (or something like that), or when you click on a link to a deleted PAA post.

6. Do something, (what?) with http://mgadamgo.wordpress.com/ .  Possibly I'll put the drooling rants I used to put on PAA here, but more probably I'll do little or nothing with it.


Lots and lots and lots of things to do, and just wee bits of time to accomplish them in!  I'm not sure how successful I'll be at any of this, but I'll give it a go.  And if, miraculously, I stumble across some way to make a bit of money in the process, I'll let you know!

PAA and FoK Cut Off Payments After Six Months

Well phooey, again!  Even though FoK and PAA have been functioning without malware for a good while now, it looks like once again the guy who runs the site has modified the rules, and is only paying for views on posts less than six months old.

This is kinda cruddy and deceptive, IMHO, as one of the unofficial slogans of FoK was "write once; get paid forever".  I guess "forever" in this case is finite!

I'm not too thrilled with Adsense either.  I have it on some of my blogs, and after seven years, (yes, seven years!), had accumulated a balance of $3.00 .  Then when checking my account a few days ago I saw I had been dinged about 40 cents for "illegal activity".  WTF?  I guess I should consider myself lucky that I even qualified for Adsense, but it sure seems like they use a similar business model to those other crooks, namely the jerks who run Bubblews.

 

Hi .... Quick Update

Hello Earthlings!

It's been a while since I wrote anything on this blog.  The reason is that I got disgusted and frustrated with the whole "write on the internet for money" gig.  After FoK and PAA got hacked, I stopped visiting those sites.  My last payment from then was a measly $0.17 back in early July.

In the last month or so it appears that the Crazy Texan, (Aaron, owner/operator of FoK and PAA), has his sites back on track.  Neither has malware attached to them anymore, and folks are slowly coming back to submit articles.

Exciting, huh?  Well .... I'm just not so thrilled about writing for "money", (more like peanuts!), anymore.  I'll write some stuff if I feel like it.  But it the spirit don't move me, I'll just lump it.

All-in-all, I think I get more "bang" for my buck watching porn!   :-)

PAA and FOK are Still Down!

PAA and FoK are STILL DOWN!!  I briefly peeked at FoK, (don't go there - malware is still popping up), and folks are complaining about lack of access, and the sex ads that are popping up.

Aaron, (the owner/operator), better get off his butt and fix those sites quickly, or he's gonna lose all his audience.