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Showing posts from November, 2008

Joy and Gratitude

I used to have a lot of days where I felt down and out, and pitied myself for my hardships and tribulations. Then I began a program of recovery that encouraged me to write a gratitude list whenever things felt too overwhelming for me. At times I would feel so bad that all I could come up with was "a roof over my head." It can be a really difficult exercise if you're not used to doing it. My original intention was to write three things on my gratitude list each day. That lasted for about three days, so what I've decided to do is write three things each week. Today my gratitude list includes: 1) my employment situation: I make union wages at a part-time job and I pretty much set my own hours. I have daycare at my work so I am never far from my son. I have relative job security thanks to union membership, and full health benefits. My employer deducts 6.5% of my gross pay and matches it in a pension plan. I also have use of an employee assistance program, which includes p

Adding my two cents to two common financial goals

For months now I have been reading many many personal finance blogs, and I have learned so much. It seems as though there is a real swing towards frugality, saving, and reducing debt. I have been so inspired that I now have a plan of my own, and over the next few weeks will unfold it here. Two popular discussion items in personal finance blogs are 1) Increasing income and 2) Reducing expenses My personal plan is to start with item #2 and work my way into item #1. How have I been reducing my expenses? I have always been a shopper and my weaknesses are handbags and shoes. I have made several purges of my stash but it never seems to make a difference, I always have quite a selection of purses, shoes and boots to choose from. I have three or four pairs of sandals. I mean, c'mon, sandals?! I began to observe that I would head to Winner's or other similar store at least a couple of times a month, usually when I was feeling stressed or especially after dropping my son off with his da

Somebody took all our furniture off the porch

Early this morning I looked out my living room window and saw that all the furniture had been removed from my front porch. All that remained of the two chairs, small table, and two shelves were one of the shelves and a moldy straw mat that I left out by accident. Even the two-legged kitchen table was removed from my front lawn, and the other two legs that were left on the small table were gone as well. I was excited. A good friend of mine is shooting a film about 45 minutes from here and needed old furniture to fill up her set, and I offered everything on my porch, and the poor broken kitchen table that had been living in my shed for over a year. One of the legs was already broken and the second one broke off when I dragged the table through the snow, down the driveway, to the front of my house. I hope my friend's set designer will be able to attach them back on, and that all this old stuff will be useful for once. I barely even used the front porch of this house in the fourteen mo