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Book Review: Dead Man’s Debt by Elliot Kay
I just finished my second read through of Dead Man’s Debt by Elliot Kay. For the sake of full disclosure, I know the author, and the first time I read the book, it was as one of his beta readers before he published. That said, I can honestly say I enjoyed the book. This should not come as a huge surprise. It is the third book in the series, and I would not have volunteered to be a beta reader if I had not enjoyed the first two books. Dead Man’s Debt is the continuing adventures of Tanner Malone and the end of his time in the Archangel Navy. While…
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Blast from the Past: A Budget is NOT the First Thing You Need
Originally published April 14, 2011 on The Dog Ate My Wallet. Edited and updated on May 25, 2016. Let us start with the very basics. Everyone always says you need a budget, and you need to stick to it. Which is generally good advice, but not if you do not have the tools to create a realistic budget. Without the right information, people end up creating budgets that will not get them where they want to go or that they cannot stick to. And that is if they even create a budget in the first place. So what do you need before you create a budget? Information. For an entire…
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My Husband, the Bum
If you ask C what he does, he will tell you he is a bum. If he is a bum, I do not care. It does not bother me that he spends a good part of every day sleeping or playing video games. Because here is the thing – he deserves it. He EARNS it. I love Pop Tart. I love her more than just about anything, but there is a reason I am the breadwinner in our family and C is the stay at home parent. I get home right around 5pm. That means that by the time I walk through the door, he has been dealing with whatever…
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Blast from the Past: My Money Philosophy
This was my first post on The Dog Ate My Wallet. Similar posts had appeared on my earlier (and since deleted) blog Baking the Budget, and a LiveJournal account also called Baking the Budget. This has been my general money philosophy for a long time. Oddly enough, it mirrors my philosophy about a lot of things (and kind of explains why I am a blogger) – which is that the world would be an easier place for us to navigate if people were more willing to talk about the difficult and taboo subjects. And I am in a very different (and better) place financially in 2016 than I was in…
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Blast from the Past: Book Review – Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
As I mentioned yesterday, I have almost 3,000 posts still up online from various blogs. I thought it might be fun to share some of those. My very fist LiveJournal post was really just – hey look, I have an LJ now. But my second post (big surprise here) was a book review. Originally posted May 10, 2005 on LiveJournal. Edited May 17, 2016. Last time I was in need of a new book to read, I decided that instead of going through multiple boxes to find one of the science fiction/fantasy books I have not read yet, I would try one of the many books C and I still…
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My Writing History
Earlier today, on a facebook group dedicated to bloggers, we were asked to post our favorite thing we have ever written, whether it was relevant to the general theme of the group or not. I did not post a link. I posted a 50 word piece of micro-fiction I wrote back when I was hosting a micro-fiction contest. But here is the thing, that question made me realize how long I have been doing this, how much I have written. I started on LiveJournal 11 years ago, and my first blog around 6 years ago. Between LJ and the blogs I still have access to, that is almost 3,000 posts.…
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You Are NOT Paying 35% in Federal Taxes
On April 15, 2015, a guy named Mitch Wade posted a series of pictures on Facebook regarding taxes, and how much the government steals from the ordinary person. I did not see it in 2015, but it has made its way around my wall this tax season. And let me be honest, it is a TERRIBLE infographic. It just is. Mostly because it is misleading enough that it might as well be lies. I used to write a personal finance blog. Financial literacy is something that is incredibly important to me. I honestly believe that as a country, we would be in infinitely better shape if we got rid of…
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Reminder: Next Year, Skip Mothers’ Day
Mothers’ Day sucks at our house. This is something that simply is. Nothing can be done to fix it. In fact, attempts to fix it just make it worse. We knew to skip the first Mothers’ Day Pop Tart was with us. She had been placed with us on April 30. She came to us from a disrupted placement – meaning it was supposed to have been an adoptive home, but then things went sideways. She called the parents in that home “Dad” and “Mom”. So, we knew. When I sent a note to family and friends to tell them of the placement, I also specifically asked them NOT to…
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In Praise of the Routine
Two weeks ago, I woke up on Monday morning in a condo at the beach. I do not remember exactly what time, though it was not that late, as we got up in time to go swimming in the indoor pool and take a soak in the hot tub before making a few more s’mores over the gas grill, packing up, and heading out to the beach. A week ago, I woke up on Monday morning in a four star hotel, about an hour later than I usually do. I watched some TV as I took my time getting dressed and then went downstairs to partake of a free breakfast,…
