Glen Brammell

Sometimes you just top out at your job, no matter how long you’ve worked for the company and no matter how good you are at your job. At some point, the HR people need credentials to justify giving you a promotion or significant raise. The hard part is finding a way to beef up the credentials while you are still working. That’s why I’m checking into Online Colleges to get my degree. I still need 6 hours to finish up and I’m just going to have to find a way to do that.

I need a college that offers online degree programs in business and then I need to find some financial aid to make it happen. I have been looking at grants and loan programs online, and am not sure which is the best way to go.

The Government has a good web site with some student loan information. I found a free application for Federal student aid http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ and I think there might be a way to get my company to match some of the money with their tuition reimbursement program. There are even programs at the state level because of the lottery money that has been coming in. In fact, making the proceeds available to education was one of the requirements that state had when they approved having the lottery here in the first place.

My niece and her husband are tightening their belts since she is pregnant again and isn’t going to be able to work for awhile. So thinks that they will be OK with bills if hey cut back on a few things and if she takes advantage of coupons and free samples by searching online for deals.

We talked about the real math of what she was earning after expenses and she was really shocked to see how little real money she was bringing home in her paycheck. She took 30% off the top for taxes, then had to take off child care, her car payment/car insurance/gas, oil, tires and then a lot more things she hadn’t thought of. Like the true cost of lunch away from home, the cost of convenience foods for dinners when she was too tired or too rushed to cook, the cost of nice clothes, dry cleaning and pantyhose. The actual net cash she was seeing was less than $50 a week.

We all believe that she could save that same net amount by looking for Free Stuff online and using coupons, and being more budget conscious if she stayed home with the kids instead of working outside of the home.  Finding Freebies is even fun – it is like a treasure hunt. She gets online in the living room while her daughter plays and finds ways to save money. I wish it were that easy for the rest of us!

My dad used to say that there are three kinds of people:

1. those who don’t work,
2. those who work for their money, and
3. those who make their money work for them.

I have always kept that in mind and over the years I have had to work for my money. I plan on working for at least another 10 r even 20 years yet. But I know at some point I will want to retire, and that is when I need the money in my IRA Accounts to start working for me.

When I was a kid, my dad had a list of professionals that he could call on to help him. He had a lawyer, he had an accountant, he had a banker and a stock broker. But now we can do Online Trading and don’t really need a stock broker to handle our investments.

For the times that we do want to talk to someone or get a professional opinion, we can still get online and talk with an Online Broker. With so much information available online, no one has the excuse of not knowing what they are doing when it comes to the stock market. All you have to do is read and ask questions, and then get serious about taking responsibility for managing your money.

Today would have been the deadline for filing taxes, but the Government has given everyone an extra 3 days this year. All the procrastinators who wait until the last day taxes are due can now enjoy the weekend and put off doing taxes until Monday, the 18th.

This is a nice way to spend the weekend – unfiled taxes hanging over your head – NOT.

With the weather finally warming up, I guess I need to spend a day cleaning cars. The cars need more than just a wash – they need a detailing.

I’m embarrassed to admit that before I can even think about cleaning the cars I have to empty them out of all the trash from the back seat and floorboards, and pick up all the loose change that is rattling around in the door wells, cup holders and the consoles.

I bet I find over ten bucks worth of change today. That’s enough for two washes at the automatic car wash down the street.