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Entries from September 30th, 2008

Pass the Bailout

September 30th, 2008 No Comments

I thought the bailout plan would pass, and by Sunday, given the compromises all sides had agreed to, I hoped it would.
Over the weekend I absorbed hours of commentary on the big-picture reasons to take action now, which boil down to easing panic, shoring up confidence, and getting banks back to their normal day-to-day operations [...]

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Cleaning Service: Stay or Go? NEW Vote!

September 26th, 2008 10 Comments

Tug-o-broom
Image from PicApp: “Couple Holding Brooms”
Since we did the 60 percent exercise — that is, trying to get our committed monthly expenses closer to that number than to the current 79 percent — we’ve been ping-ponging around what we could cut out of our monthly budget. We’ve hit our first snag over our bimonthly cleaning [...]

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Goodbye, Free Kitty Kitty

September 24th, 2008 No Comments

My kids were so ga-ga over Luna, the cat we were watching for my parents, that I feared masssive grief when we we brought her over to their new digs the other day. It was all “Woo-na,” and “Meow” from my toddler, first and last words of the day, every day. (In truth, Luna is [...]

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Trickle Down Bailout

September 23rd, 2008 2 Comments

Is this really happening before our eyes? Congress is just going to make a lot of noise and then pass this massive bailout, which may or may not do anything to stop this crisis and shore up the economy, and which gives yet another murky agency with no oversight carte blanche to do whatever it [...]

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Check Out This Week’s Personal Finance Carnival

September 22nd, 2008 No Comments

Aryn over at Sound Money Matters kindly included my most recent post, The 60 Percent Solution and Mint.com, on her site this week as part of a carnival of personal finance, or roundup of posts by other bloggers. (I’m under “budgeting.”) I’ve just started following these carnivals, and they’re a great way to learn a [...]

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The 60 Percent Solution and Mint.com

September 19th, 2008 5 Comments

Given the tsunami of bad on Wall Street right now, it seems a little odd to be blogging about how we’re going to rebuild ourselves a safe haven with savvier saving, budgeting, and investing. Kind of like hammering away on the frame of a house in the middle of Hurricane Ike.
But, not everyone can tap [...]

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Movin’ On Up

September 17th, 2008 2 Comments

My parents are in the process of moving in, so things have been a little quiet on the personal-finance front, even as the economic world around us seems to be imploding.
Actually.
This is not entirely true. We finally had the chance to crunch some numbers last night. I just don’t have them in front of me [...]

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Deemphasizing Retirement Planning, For Now

September 15th, 2008 No Comments

One of the top financial goals on my to-do list has been to start maxing the contribution on my IRA for retirement. We haven’t actively contributed to it in a few years, since I started working less than full time, and I assumed, given the constant “Save for retirement” drumbeat, that this was very bad.
But [...]

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Tax Cuts: Obama vs. McCain

September 11th, 2008 2 Comments

I’m not feeling very hopeful today, on the anniversary of 9/11, so I’m going to try to turn that around.
I love people who are into thinking about “how did we get here,” and especially when it’s from an unexpected source, like Craig Finn’s lyrics from the Hold Steady song “Positive Jam”: :
“Woke up in the [...]

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What I Should Have Said to the Guy Asking For Change

September 9th, 2008 2 Comments

Yesterday as I was getting out of my car a man approached me with some story about trying to get to a hospital.
At first I thought he just wanted directions. Then I realized I’d heard his story before:
Trying to get to a hospital. Ran out of gas. Need some help. I’m not threatening you.
Several years [...]

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