BALANCE THIS! 2/9/06

This morning I just stopped off and filled my old car’s gas tank for close to fifty dollars. Then I stopped at our mailbox and picked up our mail or I should say bills.

Thumbing through the pile I spotted the monthly health insurance premium notice of $800.
Our property tax statement was there, add another $2,800 along with our monthly electric bill of $90. Add Direct TV for $45 monthly. And yes this is the heating season so I opened the lid on the LP Propane tank and surprise, you need a fill of 400 gallons at $1.70 per gallon. Add to this the need to eat….$$$.

This retirement thing isn’t quite going the way I thought. Rosebud, the wife, and I sat down a few years back and looked ahead. We wrote a budget of living expenses to see what the future might have in store for us… plan ahead, her father use to tell me. Whooooa. I thought I had.

Now I’m not saying that we are selling pencils on the street corner, but underestimating a few things didn’t help… the same holds true with those clowns in Washington no matter what color signs they wear. We’ll get by, but for the next generation, I have a bad feeling in my gut that the back door to the store was left open for years and the shelves are being emptied.

Then every four years a new fellow get up and tell us they have the plan to close the store’s back door, but someone’s foot is always in the way. I have half a mind to give someone hell, however that would leave me with no mind at all and the only thing I hear would be my own echo.