Michael & Liz are Bloggable

I should just create a tag in our blog called "Finances" and file this post under it, because finances are becoming a theme with me and the blog lately. Personal Financing has become a passion of mine. Maybe not an obsession quite yet, but passion makes it sound a little more light-hearted. Because of that, Dave Ramsey is my hero and I'll tell you why.

Back in March when we visited Scott and Hillary in Colorado, they introduced us to this guy on the radio. People call in with their financial problems, some much more horrendous than others, and Dave talks them through what they should do. My philosophy when it comes to the radio is that if you aren't singing, you aren't entertaining. I can't listen to NPR or anything on AM and I really don't know why. So while it was good to listen to him while we were there, I didn't actively hunt for his Raleigh-equivalent radio station when we got back.

Then in May when we went to Arkansas, as a groomsmen gift for being in Annie and Jacob's wedding, Jacob got me 2 of Dave Ramsey's books and 2 videos as well. I immediately dove right in because the subject and author intrigued me. I've been hooked ever since. I've read both books twice and I wish he wrote 20 more. I went to the library to find out too.

Then this past weekend I made an amazing discovery. He has a TV show. How did I not know this?!?! Maybe it's because I don't watch news programs on TV. For anyone who is awesome, it's on Fox Business Network at 8PM and 12AM (DirecTV channel 359(I don't think I know anyone who has DirecTV other than Matt and Meg, so that was a plug for them(Matt) to watch it)). The show is awesome. A lot of times he has themes like last night was the "small business questions" and those aren't as interesting because I don't have a small business and I certainly am not a stay at home mother who is looking for a business venture to help the family. But the program is just like the radio program. It's amazing the situations people get themselves into but it's even more awesome the way Dave puts them on a plan to fixing the issues. A lot of the times though, he can't do anything other than throwing up his hands and saying "you need more income, get another job, learn a new skill, get off your butt and work as hard as you can". Those are for the people who call in with a 15K a year job and asking why they have 30K in credit card bills.

Why is he my hero? Dave is smart, always calm, cool and collected and just a flat out nice guy. He never responds as if the people who are calling are the problem, no matter how crappy the situation is. He always says "you've been engaged in dumb situations" but he never calls people dumb. I also really love getting the feedback from the show that no matter what situation Liz and I ever have financially, there is always someone who has it worse. There has been a few times this week when I just looked at Liz and said "we've got it good", because... well... just watch one episode and you'll find out why.

In what ways do I think Dave is wrong? In his "Total Money Makeover" plan he says you should stop all 401K contributions and take out all other saving except for the 401K and $1,000 and pay off debt. In following his plan, we are not doing this. I think it would be a very dumb thing during this time of the stock market to stop 401K contributions, and he said so in his show today. He also recommends this no matter what your company matches on your plan. He's assuming that the motivation of getting more money is more valuable than what you'd get during the company match. I disagree, I'd rather just leave my contributions where they are which is why I've ignored that part of the plan. I'm pretty much following his plan acting like we have no savings and what we get after taxes and savings is all we have to live on.

So for the last week, I have thoroughly enjoyed his show and I hope I don't get tired of it like I got tired of the one-week-wonder in my life called Ninja Warrior. It was an amazing Japanese TV program where people would go through obstacle courses and wipe out miserably. We watched it during pretty much every minute of free time we had that week and it was awesome. It soon got repetitive and stupid.

Notice how in the title I said "my" and not "our". So while I love the show, it isn't Liz's favorite. So every now and then I have to suppress my love of watching The Dave Ramsey show and maybe that will be enough to sustain my interest for more than a week.

*DISCLAIMER*: If I violated some sort of copyright by putting the book picture there, I apologize. Dave Ramsey wrote it, not me. The book is awesome. He is awesome. Please don't sue me.

Here it is Saturday morning and I am awake and blogging at 7AM. What did we do last night? We were up until 2 AM with friends just hanging out and talking. Why am I awake? The dogs barely sleep at night, so how can I? Liz sleeps through everything and I can't blame her, if I could, I would too. I can't even recall how it feels to sleep past 9. I think since we got Daisy, I've done that just once. Which reminds me, we have now had Daisy one full year. I took her to the vet this week and she's as healthy as a horse... or dog.

So what's going on around here? I think the biggest thing is the deck railings. Here is the progress so far:




It might look like the posts are not level but I have made some adjustments and they are all as close to level as I can get them... I don't know if those adjustments were before or after these pictures though. So the things left to do are putting a post in the far right corner near the house and putting the two (or three) posts on the stairs. Then comes the 2x4 connections where you can see the notches, then ballisters, then railings and post caps. Unfortunately, even that won't complete the deck because I still want to put lattice around the bottom and then plant bushes around the deck.

What else is going on around here? Kidstuf started last Sunday and my first performance is tomorrow. I honestly have to say, the production is awfully heavy with a full dose of me. I am in 3 scenes and I think there are only 4 or 5. It should be a lot of fun as long as I can remember my lines and don't get nevous.

Liz is spending more time at choir these days because they are practicing for the Christmas Cantata. It's the reason she joined the choir so I'm sure she is enjoying it.

The Fall soccer season started up a couple weeks ago. I'm sorry to say I am not as thrilled about it as a should be. It is getting in the way of running and for some reason I just don't have the same excitement as previous years. So far Liz and my co-rec team is 2-1 and my men's team is 2-0-1. We always battle with one other team in the league and we tied this week 0-0.

I didn't feel like writing a lot today so I will end the post with some cute pictures.

I have decided that October is my favorite month of the year. Fall is turning to winter, the hot air that might have lingered during September is gone and all you get is the first feeling of cool temperatures. It is the month right before all the holidays start. It is filled from beginning to end with Football. Baseball and it's inclusion of the miserable Reds comes to an end. It also hosts my favorite holiday, Halloween.


When you think of October, you think Halloween. I have absolutely no idea why Halloween is my favorite holiday. It makes no sense. I don't like dressing up for anything with a costume. I don't like being scared. I don't like people knocking on our front door. I don't like socializing with people I don't know, even though I already know what they are going to say: "trick or treat?" The only type of candy I like is chocolate (I can't stand suckers or chewy candy or sticky candy). And yet I still love Halloween. The only redeeming quality Halloween has is that it's an excuse for every single family in America to put up decorations that are orange and black, the two official colors of Halloween?

Orange and Black. In my humble opinion two of the most fantastic colors in the universe. It's obvious that it's because of the Bengals and Virginia Tech. But my life has been so inundated with orange that I just can't get enough of it. My favorite fruit is an orange. My favorite flavor of anything is orange. I love Sunkist. My favorite animal is a Tiger and really any wild cat, and ironically enough I am allergic to cats. Pumpkins and everything about them are awesome, except the disgusting goo inside. Everywhere you look in Cincinnati you see orange, and I love Cincinnati. So needless to say I am looking forward to September passing and October coming.



Where was I going with this post? Really I wanted to give my opinion on how the Bengals are going to do this year. If you asked me in July I would have said, "this team will surprise people, and are going to dominate like it was 2005." Unfortunately things have changed and I see a storm of injuries coming that just ruins the season. Everyone is hobbling but still playing. T.J will miss time with his hamstring issue. Chad will be lost for the season when he hurts his shoulder again. Carson will be fine but has no one to throw to. And my worst prediction of all, Chris Perry will not make it through the season before he blows his knee out once again. I think the Bengals are going to finish in the 6-10 or 7-9 range and it will be an offseason of turmoil once again. The kick in the pants is that I think Rudi will run wild in Detroit. And I think Chris Henry will get in trouble once again within the next year. What else would you expect from the Bengals?

I haven't blogged about how we did during vegetarian month. As far as finishing it, we totally did it. As far as enjoying it, I'm not so sure. Around the 20th of the month we were ready to be done with it. But I will get into why.

The positives were that we really felt like we had control of what we were eating. It got to the point where we weren't even thinking about it. We started out the month really enthusiastic and cooking some new meals but that didn't continue. We made a lot of easy meals like pasta but we were laughing about the fact that we went the whole month without having just a salad for a meal. I also can say that it was causing me to lose weight because we were more conscious of what we were eating. I have a new respect for restaurant meals that I would normally never order. Our favorite meals were without a doubt the fritatta and the mexican pizzas.

I'll honestly say that there probably weren't as many negatives than there were positives, but there were a few. I am tired of cheese. Every single meal had cheese in it. I also was getting tired of beans but we didn't eat those as much. It was inconvenient because meals with meat are much easier to put together. Our restaurant behaviors didn't really change though because we don't eat a lot of meat outside the house anyway. The meals were not as cheap as I expected them to be... food is food, it was just as, if not more, expensive than our normal months of food.

Chances are, we will do it again next year. It was a good experiment and I think we could have done a better job of eating more fruit and vegetables than we actually did. I will also put that blame solely on me, because Liz does a great job. Me, not so much.

One thing that was awesome. I gave blood on August 27th and my blood pressure was the lowest it has ever been. It was 117/71. I attribute that to all the running and the vegetarian diet.

What did we do to celebrate the end? We went to Champps bar at Southpoint and had some wings at midnight (kind of midnight, we didn't make it till midnight, but it doesn't matter). We also took advantage of the free Chick-fil-a chicken strips on the 1st and for dinner we had some bison burgers at Ted's Montanta Grill. We have really been terrible about the happy meat this week but I'm dead set on only eating chicken if I cheat at all. It will be a long time before I eat beef that doesn't come from the farm. I had a spicy chicken at Wendy's this week and lots of wings on Thursday night for the Redskins vs. Giants game. I think we are back to our routine now. I might cheat occassionally but not as often anymore.