Many years ago, I came to the realization that it makes more sense to ask a specialist about something than just someone at random.  I found that most people wouldn’t tell you if they didn’t have the answer and they would rather just make something up than tell the truth that they don’t know.

The experience that taught me this was when I went to buy some plants for my yard: I wanted to know more about lantana care before I bought some.  The store clerk told me that they were just like any other plant and that I shouldn’t have any problems figuring it out.

Boy was he wrong!

Needless to say, all the plants died and so did my landscaping design ideas that I had in my head.  Now, if I want to know more about landscaping designs and plants, I make sure to take advantage of the excellent customer service at the greenhouse – they know what they are talking about.

My wife is amazing.  You see, she not only raises our three young children, but holds down a part time job as a cheap auto insurance saleswoman.  This not only takes up most of her spare time, but it lets her get out of the house and have a break from the kids.

I am just amazed at her ability to keep everything straight when it comes to knowing a cheap car insurance rate from a quote.  I know that I would have no idea what to do and it would be too confusing for me.

Take for example classic car insurance: for me, I would think that it the original car insurance policy that you get.

Well, I would be wrong.  But somehow she is able to keep everything straight.  I guess that is why she is the car insurance specialist and I am not.

I love to stay at a hotel when we go out traveling.  There is nothing like a freshly made bed and a hot shower in the morning.  This is in stark contrast to tenting – you’d be lucky to have a cold shower if one at all.

But, I have noticed that over the past few years that the hotel rates just keep going up.  It has even got to the point where I get worried that I won’t even be able to travel anymore – each night is just too expensive.

Thanks to my thrifty wife and her handy coupon toolbar she has installed on her computer, we have been able to find some great hotel coupons that work at the many hotels we like to stay at.

Now, only if she could find some gas coupons – that would make traveling even cheaper.

My son was recently visiting with his grandparents for the weekend when he came across Grandpa’s stash of money clips. Aaron was fascinated with them and asked all kinds of questions. Grandpa gave one to him and even gave him his own dollar bill to keep in it.

Doing that was Grandpa’s downfall, as I knew it would not stop there. The money clip made my five year old Aaron feel like a man and he decided that he was going to start dressing and acting like one. He found the mens ties hanging in the closet and insisted that he needed to wear one.

As Grandpa was getting dressed for church on Sunday, Aaron saw him putting on his cufflinks and Grandpa shook his head, as he knew what was coming. I am relieved they took pictures of Aaron in church, wearing his “grown up” tie and cufflinks and taking his dollar bill out of his money clip to put in the offering basket.

Well, since it is Sunday, it is time for me to start to think about the upcoming week.  The reason that I do this on Sunday is so that I am fresh and ready on Monday morning with the tasks I want to accomplish.

So I have been sitting down for the last couple of hours planning out the week – and it looks like I will have a lot to do this week.  You see, we have been working on a couple of big projects, and they are all finally getting close to completion, but we still need to get them done.

So, I will be in touch with a commercial roofing Lincoln RI company for the shopping mall that we are renovating, a flat roofing Lincoln RI company to get the apartment roof done and finally a roofing Lincoln RI company for the couple of residences that we are flipping.

All in all, it looks like it is going to be a busy week.  Guess I better go to bed early tonight.

When my son got into a car accident and fell into a coma, it was one of the worst moments of my life.  Not only was our only son’s future uncertain but so was our financial future.

You see, he didn’t have any medical coverage so we were forced to pay for his medical bills with our savings.  If you’ve ever been this kind of situation, you know how quickly your savings disappear when paying medical expenses.

Thankfully, he did come out of his coma and had a remarkable recovery, but it left us in financial ruin.  With our minimum payments for our credit cards getting to the point where they were more than our income, we didn’t know how to reduce credit card debt that was so far out of hand.

We went to talk to a financial advisor about our situation and they suggested that we put ourselves on one of those debt diet plans that you might have seen on TV.  After talking to the advisor for a little bit, he realized that that wasn’t going to work for us as we were past the point that we could handle our expenses.

So, we applied for a poor credit debt consolidation loan which reduced our payments to a level that we can afford.  Even though we a long road before we are caught up, but at least our ship isn’t sinking anymore.

One of the first jobs of my career with the company that I work for was that I was in charge of handling the documents for the company.  This was a very important job in our organization and as such I had to be both knowledgeable and careful with the information under my control.

It wasn’t that I was just managing simple business forms, but I was in charge of the document storage and disposal within the organization.  Included many different things including recruitment documents, employment documents and other sensitive information.

The individual that was in charge of the document handling before me was fired due to shoddy practices and a lack of care when it came to handling our company’s sensitive information.  In fact, their position within the company was terminated due to a leak of one of our key business systems to a competitor.

Even though I was very successful at my job I am happy that I do not have that kind of responsibility anymore.