Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Not Feeling Gassy

Y'all this might be old news for you. Sam is in the Middle East with family right now and he says the Atlanta gas situation is on the news there. Simply put: WE HAVE NO FREAKING GAS!!!!

Thank goodness I telecommute. I am one of those really lucky people who, if she doesn't go anywhere out of the ordinary, can get by on one fill up per month. IF I am careful and I consolidate my trips. I am lucky. I am fortunate. It almost make sup for the fact that I have not gotten a raise in 5 years of very hard work and personal sacrifice. I have just under half a tank right now and have started looking. But metro Atlanta has no gas. We do have some diesel but no unleaded. You drive by 10 or 12 gas stations and all the prices on their signs are blank. This is the major sign there is no gas. Although you can't be sure unless you drive in and see the bags over the nozzles. Because sometimes they get some gas in and don't have time to get the prices up before they are sold out again. You can really only be sure when you see a block and a half of cars lined up to get what they have. People are getting nasty. People are unable to get to work.

On the upside - my yard is knee high with grass and no I have not mowed and have no intention of doing so in the near future. Because I might have 1 mower tank worth in the mower and damned if I'm going to use it until the last possible moment. I might need it to put in my vehicle to get me to a station once the supply starts flowing again.

This has been a bad 2 weeks with the stock market and the bailout thing (I still don't know exactly how I feel about that and think there are good arguments for both sides but I think it's another instance of media manipulation. Whether we like it or not this country will slow to a standstill if we don't do it and yet it isn't right and it should not be up to the government and the taxpayers to fix the faults of a few. Also I think Barney Frank said it best.) I am really concerned about my 401(k) which is so small it is hardly worth mentioning but it is what I have and what I have accomplished. Thank goodness what goes down will eventually go up. I only wish I had a shitload of money sitting around to buy buy buy right now because this might be the lowest the stock market will go in my lifetime. At least I hope so.

The really funny thing to me is in the past 2 weeks I have had an increase in credit line on two of my credit cards!!! One is entirely paid off and one I should be able to pay off in 4 months. Yeah. Like I'm totally going to go buy new living room furniture right now. I am happy to have a lot of unused credit "just in case" and even happier when it sits unused as I pay off what I do carry because it increases my FICA score but I laugh at this blatant crap from the sharks.

Y'all, it took me 37 years to learn this. Credit is good. Lots of available credit is good. Using it is not good. Using it means having to use stupid math to figure out plans and all and that gets in the way of life. Using it is good if you can pay it off in a month. Or two. Without using more.

And if the US school system does not begin TEACHING this shit at age 10 with an emphasis on it in math classes through high school graduation we are all screwed. I read the classics in school. I studied the physics of light and sound. I studied nutrition for chrissakes. I can to this day break down a recipe to its individual components and give a basic synopsis of nutritional and caloric content. But until I hit financial bottom at age 36 I could not have told you how credit could negatively affect my future. This is so wrong. I would give Jane Eyre and Moby Dick and all of Margaret Atwood and Yeats and Donne to have known about credit when I graduated high school.

At age 44 I learned that if I had worked and saved $2000 per year beginning at age 14 I could do this for 5 years and retire without saving another fucking dollar the rest of my life. To put it in religious terms which is all I can come up with right now this is kind of like being a devout Christian all your life. You are an acolyte. You show up every week. You volunteer. You bring cans to the holiday drive. And then 44 years into it you find out you are fucked if you didn't dance naked in the backyard every equinox. HUH? WTF??

I am not a mother basically beacuse I married two very screwed up men but that's another story. If you are reading this and you are a parent you really need to educate about this because our schools will not because they think Moby fucking Dick is more "educational."

If it were up to me I would have all high schools teach nothing but finanace.

And this is from a girl who begged her way through passing most math classes she ever took.

Wish those buzz cut horn-rimmed glasses wearing teachers could see me now. They might have hope for me. I certainly see the value now of what they were trying to teach me then.

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