This was an email that was forwarded to me and it made me laugh so I thought I’d share it.
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If you had purchased $1,000 of Lehman Bros. stock one year ago, you would have $49 left.
With Wachovia, you would have $16.50 left.
With AIG, you would have less than $5 left.
But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.
Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.
It’s called the 401-Keg plan.
because I’m a bit narcissistic, it’s not unusual for me to google my own name. It used to be that when I googled Courtney Benefiel, I was the only one that came up, which you know, is perfect, because, I thought I was the only one…but lately, another Courtney Benefiel has been popping up, a Courtney L Benefiel at that.
Ok, so maybe I’m a bit self centered for thinking that I was the only Courtney L Benefiel out there. But really, Benefiel isn’t a common name. And even if there was another Courtney Benefiel, what are the chances of it being a Courtney L Benefiel…*sigh* high enough apparently…
She’s messing with my search results.
You’d have thought it was the end of the world by the way I was running around the house this morning like a chicken with it’s head cut off. Yesterday I had been proud to set a new personal record and demolish my paycheck in less than 5 minutes. It was easy to do too. Larger than usual payments to each of my 3 student loans, a significant payment to my visa card, and largely significant payment to my best buy card (the macbook is finally paid off). That left me with the $500 that I had sitting in my account and that would pretty much remain there until the next paycheck. I don’t like to spend that money. With several house sitting ventures coming up I’d have more than enough cash to sustain my needs like food and gas for my car over the next 15 days. I’d have that $500 as a safety net if I needed it. That was the plan anyways.
The freak out occurred when I opened up my bank account this morning and noticed I had less money in there than I should’ve had if all my payments had gone through. Not all my payments had gone though, thank the lord, I was able to stop one of them, but what had happened is I forgot about the all important, it sustains your life, health insurance payment (I hate that payment, I can have a house with that payment, ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but at a minimum, I could have an apartment with that payment).
I’ve never forgotten that payment before, I mean, it’s paying for that insurance that makes sure I get all the supplies I need for my diabetes, that keeps me alive. After long thought, I decided that I was so anxious to pay off my best buy card, which I still owed half of my laptop amount, that everything else basically became insignificant. My little budget and schedule of payments mattered not. I totally broke the teachings of Dave Ramsey on multiple occasions this paycheck. If I had paid the minimum payment on all bills with the exception of my Best Buy card because it’s the smallest amount owed, it wouldn’t have mattered that the health insurance payment was also due. Then, next payday, I could’ve taken that surplus that I didn’t put towards bills and just let it chill in my account and put it towards my Visa card because that’s the card with the next smallest amount. It’s called snowballing debt.
It works when you do it properly, if you get all excited like me to get stuff paid off and you don’t follow the rules then things start to fall apart. Dave Ramsey tells us all the stuff he tells us for a reason. I gotta try to stick to it a little better.
Sue challenged me yesterday, with the Maniac Monday One Word MeMe and yeah, I’m a day late, but yesterday was a little maniacal so it kindof makes sense that this didn’t get done (read: on monday). One word answers aren’t easy for me, I’m a detailed kind of person (that’s why I say challenged), but here we go:
1. Where is your cell phone? missing
2. Your significant other? non-existent
3. Your hair? growing
4. Your mother? dancing
5. Your father? dancing
6. Your favorite thing? bike
7. Your dream last night? unmemorable
8 Your favorite drink? water
9. Your dream/goal? ex-diabetic
10. The room you’re in? mine
11. Your hobby? cycling
12. Your fear? dying
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? ummm
14. What you’re not? ecstatic
15. Muffins? blueberry
16. One of your wish list items? kayaking
17. Where you grew up? NM
18. The last thing you did? blogged
19. What are you wearing? dogtags
20. Favorite Gadget? speedometer
21. Your pets? dogs
22. Your computer? hermes
23. Your mood? emotional
24. Missing someone? yeah
25. Your car? pegasus
26. Something you’re not wearing? underwear
27. Favorite store? REI
28. Like someone? meh
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? today
let’s see here, I choose Jules, Alli, Drew, and Ashley to answer all these questions with just one word. Have fun!
Actually, Ashley, I challenge you even further, I challenge you to answer yours with pictures that you found on flickr (I really enjoy those posts)
And Drew, I’d like to see you answer yours with pictures you’ve taken ;P
Dear Paisley,
Mom took you today to get spade, I haven’t seen you this calm since you were a little puppy, in fact, I’m not sure that you were ever this calm since we’ve owned you except for when you’re asleep.
You’re all of 5 months old, and mom, took you to get a couple teeth pulled and to get a hysterectomy. How nice of her huh?
You’re in your bed, you’re hair is looking magnificent, you’ve got this faux hawk going on and a cone around your neck (I’d show you except I was forbidden to take pictures, in fact, I was warned that if you in the state that you’re in made it onto the internet, that I’d end up on YouTube the next time I’m sick. I asked dad if he’d put a cone around my neck too, he said yes.)
I thought it was a perfect picture opportunity, mom said “you’re not doing that to my little girl”.
Get better little girl, it’s sad to see you all drugged up.
Courtney
Jules,
I think this one is worth remembering:
Me: You have to share.
You: She can’t have that!
Michael: Why not? It’s low carb!
Hugs,
Courtney
Contrary to my normal habits of Christmas music listening, I’ve been listening to it on the way to work in the mornings the last two day. This morning, while listening to Gene Autry’s version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, something dawned on me.
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid and Donder and Blitzen
Actually, I don’t know them.
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?
Yeah, that’s the only reindeer I know. Rudolph. On a good day I can remember Prancer (because of the movie Prancer) and Blitzen, is that the one that Tim Allen rides in The Santa Clause 2 to go rescue his son from the naughty list.
But yeah, we don’t know the normal 8 reindeer. Because when I was in school, we didn’t sing about the other 8 reindeer, there was one song, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and when we sang it, we didn’t sing the part about knowing the other 8, because, well, we didn’t know them.
This is the realization that I had this morning on the way to work…why would we know about the other 8 reindeer, they weren’t “the most famous reindeer of all”…
I usually don’t blog about work, in fact, I never blog about work. But there’s just so much going on at work lately that I feel the need to blog. Today’s work entry comes because several of the employees have “homework” due. There’s a whole group of employees, actually, half of our employees that know little to nothing about Visual Studio, or .NET, or ASP for that matter and so every Tuesday they all get together and one of our senior developers is teaching them all about it.
Me having some knowledge of the above mentioned subjects is disincluded from these meetings and actually has to tend to normal work while they’re all learning something new. Last week, I was feeling a little left out because I wasn’t in the conference room learning something new, but then I found out what they’re learning and I wasn’t feeling so left out anymore.
That was a week ago and it had completely slipped my mind, right up until I hear all these people going into the senior developer’s office to express why they hadn’t done their homework “last minute [insert name here], I know I’m bad, but I can’t do the homework because it won’t open” “I just didn’t have the time, my parents moved their store, and I had to help them”
It’s like being in school all over again, as the senior developer says “face it, you’re not getting graded on it, it exists to help you” the other guy “I know but I don’t want to fall behind” me thinking to myself *then you should’ve done the homework* some other stuff that I wasn’t paying attention to transpires and then I hear “what were we supposed to do again?” and the senior developer, who is far to nice in my opinion on some days, tells the bloke exactly what’s supposed to be done.
They had a whole week to do it and they waited until last minute to do it and instead of trying to do it before handing in their excuses they went forward with their excuses first…I had to roll my eyes and then laugh…
You know, it doesn’t happen often, but it’s happening tonight. I’m just plumb wore out. My mouth aches, I’ve got a belly ache, and mom’s treating me like I have some infectious disease all because I was vomiting. Probably TMI for you, but you know what, this is all I have to say. I’m going to actually leave the entry as is, and go to bed. I’m entitled right? And if it weren’t for NaBloPoMo I wouldn’t have written to you tonight anyhow.
I’ve sat in front of my computer all day today working on posts for my blog. I have 9 in the works, and one masterpiece. Of the 9 non-masterpieces, I’m so unsatisfied with them at this point that they’re deemed unfinished and will not be released until I’m satisfied with them, which means it’s quite possible they never get released. The masterpiece, well, it is a masterpiece and it will be released when the time comes. But until then, I’m all about quality lately and it’s a result of the blogs I read, and me being all about quality brings up an issue. It’s an issue that I’ve seen far to often on blogs that I read and it makes me wonder, am I doing the same thing I loathe. Am I pushing out posts in great quantity and are they lacking in quality. In the past I’d definitely say yes, as of lately I would definitely say no. But I’m the writer and that makes me biased right?
But you, you are the reader, and if I’ve not bored you to tears thus far with this entry and you haven’t closed this window or closed this entry from your RSS reader, I want to know what you think. You read my blog for a reason, what is it about my blog that draws you back day after day to see if I’ve written something new?
Do I have a quality blog? What is your definition of quality? What is it that you look for in the blogs that you read? Am I meeting your needs as a blog reader?
Now, I realize that I write my blog for me, and that there will be days where you’re like, what the hell, why is she writing about this, I don’t care about this, but if you could just get past those entries, or maybe there’s something about those entries that I could write differently.
I’m asking for you, as my reader, to give me an honest opinion. Please take the time to help me out as a blogger and let me know what you think of my blog and why you read it and what you think I could do better. I don’t want to become one of the bloggers that I hate, and I know I can prevent that. But if I could, I’d like to prevent becoming one of the bloggers you hate. Please, leave me your thoughts, let me know what you think.
