Breaking point? Accepting government programs?

So I don't know if I am at a breaking point or what. For years my wife have done things on our own. When my wife became pregnant I got a second job. When medical bills came up I picked up more hours. When I needed formula or food, when all of my money went to rent expenses or medical bills I donated plasma. I didn't ask the government for help like so many others did. I didn't go to my parents or my church. I looked at my situation and found a solution knowing that some day some how I would come out ahead of those who have chosen the easier path. My choices would reward me right? Last year it seemed as if that was becoming true. We started out the year deeply in debt a 520 credit score a car loan and no idea if our plans of moving were going to happen. Slowly yet quickly my credit healed. Bills were paid off. Credit cards that have had balances for half a decade finally were paid off and we're paying me money and finally after 8 years of being slave to my car lender I was free. I quit my job and have been a stay at home dad for the last year. Yeah you would think that I have finally been rewarded for all of my standards yet have you ever been given something with restrictions? For example; a nice restored car but you can't drive it. A free vacation package that's only redeemable if you fly out a certain day oh and by the way airfare and food are not free and they cost more than the vacation itself! Thats what the last year has felt like. I bought an ATV, fixed it and it BROKE. Can't try to fix it because I have so many other things breaking. Right before a trip my newer van breaks. Spent all summer toying around with it finally take it to a mechanic. They charge me 400 dollars and 4 week's later it's toast! My other vans power steering goes out. I took it to a mechanic who says it will cost 1000 dollars to fix it. Anyways nothing is getting done I'm ranting and complaining again so I'm finally caving. I'm done! I need help and until this start heading in the right direction I will try hard as I can to get that help. My kids are getting free lunches at school and soon I hope to get them on chip insurance. I've tried doing it the right way but continually I and my family are being punished. I have 10+ goals in life. Not one of them said not to work not one said that life should be easy. I want a few amenities some relaxation and a freaking honeymoon!! That is it. Come on universe. Some LUCK and good FORTUNE my way would be nice please! Here I am saying this while people are losing their homes and livelihood in Texas. I hope they rebuild soon. Yes their problems are worst than mine but still I've had almost 10 years of non stop restrictions. 10 years of bad luck. My savings is drying up and I just need help. I'm finally caving for any and all help. Not to depend on but to build me back up. It's my turn to have my Facebook plastered with good things. It's my turn to go on coveted vacation. It's my turn to have fun.

And that concludes my rant.

I believe in good luck.

I have a confession, I buy lottery tickets. Sometimes I myself wonder why...
If luck were on a scale from 1 to 10 where 10 was the luckiest such as your lottery winners or the people who win vacations and trips all the time and 1 was your unluckiest of people who simply do not buy tickets because they always lose. The people who try to call the radio station or will put in for free stuff but will never win. I would probably put myself at a 2. Maybe a 1.95. I'm not lucky! My wife is not either. I have probably put in and called to win at least a hundred times. In all I have won once. And that was a t shirt! As far as the lottery goes, I again probably win around 20% of the time. Yes I do have my lucky streaks but they're not life changing and the value of them are minuscule even compared to some of my friends who have won bigger prizes.

Do you know anyone who is simply lucky?

Do you believe in luck? Do you believe some people are just lucky?

I do and it sucks sometimes. I mean come on UNIVERSE. Why them and not me? Why not spread some luck around.

I have 10 goals in life I would like to see happen in my lifetime. I'm adding one more today.

THAT IS..

To have some financial lucky thing happen to me that would be either life changing such as financial fortune or the more likely version of winning a top prize from some sweepstakes such as a dream vacation or even a disneyland vacation or some type of cruise.

That's never happened to me and yet I still believe it will. That is why I buy lottery tickets.

Before I get to my stories of luck (obviously from other people I know) I want to address a saying I've seen on Facebook. That is that the lottery is a poor man's tax. Ok I agree with you that your chances of getting wealthy are very very slim and the vast majority of people who do play the lottery lose especially when it comes to such games as the power ball or mega million. Then there are those who are addicted to the lottery who simply should avoid it at all cost. What those friends of mine on Facebook should do is go to an actual lottery winner and say that. Yes you may become rich through hard work and such but there is no way you can become instantly wealthy overnight unless your stock skyrockets or you win the lottery. That is again why I play. Yes it's a small minuscule chance.

But it's a chance!

And I typically have around 2 days of dreaming of my winnings before the disappointment begins. Yet my day dreams are great..... until I read off those numbers.

I myself have a few stories and again I will get to those after stories of some people I've met and some people I know.

Hmm where to begin..

How about a short story.

You know how much I love a good vacation right? Once at work the lottery topic came up. After sharing the most I've won a guy next to me said he won a vacation prize worth 28000 dollars. That included cash hotels airfare shows and much more. He enjoyed a 2 week vacations with just him and his wife living it up in Europe.

2 weeks is a bit extreme without my kids but still 28000 dollar prize?! As in the words of Napolean Dynamite, LUCKY!

In between these stories of luck I have decided to share my stories of how unlucky I am.

Summer/Fall 2006. My wife's father invites us to go to an air show outside of Pheonix Arizona. There was a vendor there who was advertising their company by giving away a cruise my wife and I are not interested in the product so we pass but still put in for the cruise. When I turned around after filling out the form my wife claims she saw them throw away that form. Too bad camera's weren't as popular as they are today. There are laws against that! My guess is they were acting like they were following state laws on sweepstakes with NO PURCHASE NECESSARY to avoid a gambling fine yet they were not going to give away a trip to a person not interested which is illegal yet still my luck.

We have these friends from our old ward who again seemed to have around a 6 or 7 on my lucky scale. Always winning at company parties even a few radio station prizes. At one company Party they won a pair of bikes among other stuff. There was a charity event we all went to. This was back in the days of us having no money and constantly fighting off medical bills. Our family and their family had both purchased raffle tickets for several prizes. The top prize was again a cruise. (I'm beginning to think I'm forbidden to win a cruise.) That family won something we didn't. The top prize actually went to the main organizer. Scam? I don't know everyone knew she deserved it for her efforts but again come on. Spread some luck my way universe.

We had these friends durring our early years in our marriage who had been to the CMA'S twice. Yes twice! How? No they don't have alot of money. They won both trips two years in a row from two different radio stations! The trips were all inclusive too! Airfare food and tickets to the CMA'S. Two years in a row!!

Do you remember the pepsi promotion in 1998? The Pepsi pop culture game where you collected phrases such as "As If" "Shop Till You Drop" "Talk To The Hand". If you found all of the words to the phrases you won a certain prize such as a shopping spree, trips, or even a brand new jeep wrangler. Now for this next part of the story I have to go on what I remember and what I heard and experienced. Looking back now I kind of doubt everything I am going to say is true but then again....... I don't know!
Anyways here is the story as I remember it. By this time I had been getting into snowboarding a little bit. I had been about 3 times and liked the sport and wanted to be better so the only prize I wanted was the snowboarding trip to Vail. From what I remember the phrase was "Been There Done That". The hardest word to find was "Been" The trip was several nights at some lodge in Vail Colorado for 4 people and included 5000 dollars spending cash. While I was at school I found out a friend of mine had "Been". He found it in a 24 pack. We decided to split the trip. We would both bring one friend and split the 5000 dollars where each of us would have 1250 each. If this actually happened this would be by far the best materialistic thing that has happened to me TO DATE that money can buy.
Well it never happened. Apparently after trying and even physically fighting his sister for two days his sister hid the promo word and he couldn't find it. As far as I know she didn't even cash in the prize which makes me question if it was real or not.

I apparently have more unlucky stories so here another one of mine.

My wife's grandma (step grandma or nana to be more specific) took care of an older lady who had a house in Staton Island. She was also very wealthy. She would hire my wife's grandma to take care of her cat's in Staton island. Yes you read right, cats! My wife's grandma could not go so she asked if her granddaughter could do it. She would get airfare and several grand per week by simply feeding cats! This was durring the summer after our second year of college. We also called up a summer camp to see about being camp counselors and we secured a job in New Jersey. The plan was to live at the cat house together for 3 weeks and then move to summer camp for the rest of the summer and eventually fly back home.
Again it didn't happen.
Once again our bad luck prevailed and we had to cancel the whole trip.

My wife won a thousand dollars from taco bell once. Apparently she found a game piece and left it on her dresser. When she returned home from school it was gone and her mom pulled up with a new car. Yep you guessed it she stole the game piece cashed it in and put a down payment on a car. Here's the real kicker she never admitted to doing that. She claimed for years that the game piece was lost. It wasn't until years later after talking to an aunt my wife finally realize that she had lied. She did in fact cash in the game piece that belonged to my wife.

For a grand opening of a new Papa Johns Store we were giving away free pizza and a bike. An older lady came in to enter the drawing. Before leaving she said with confidence that she would be back for the bike later that day. My boss smiled and wished her luck. Later that day she came back and WON! Later on I found out she is one of those lucky people who really do always wins. She's won anything from cash to trips including a few cruises. Again UNIVERSE you think you could let me have her good luck for 10-20 years while she has mine.
My hometown did a Christmas drawlings one year. They gave away alot of good presents that kids in my town could only wish having. At least my brothers and I wished we could have them. Did not win a thing. Hard to watch the snobby kids from school take home their build a monster kit or Legos they just won.
Speaking of Christmas my home town would do a coloring contest around Christmas. After both my sister and my brother won I decided to focus on one stores picture more than any other one so I could win a prize. I used colored pencils and really focused on staying inside the lines. Even used a brush to even out the colors. But again NO PRIZE!

Since writing this I've had tools I've needed stop working or break. My van that needed a new ac pump is not working and still has no ac, my wife has broken her 5th or 6th mirror she just got and my outdoor umbrella snapped in half.

Again just wishing for more ALOT more luck.

I think for now unless I find more stories I'll leave it at that. Life is full of unfortunate events that let us down and I still believe some of us gain our luck someday. I was just telling my wife we should endure our hardships well because it's training us with sympathy charity and management skills for the luck and blessings thar lie ahead.

Have a great weekend people and good luck to you.

My rant to Tran

On the show New Girl, Nick while trying to be alone has an Asian guy (Tran) come sit next to him. The scene is absolutely hilarious with Tran not saying a word yet Nick is able to solve his problems as he talks to Tran.
https://youtu.be/5iO1B5WRnoU

I feel like this blog is my "Tran"

It's cheaper then counseling and yes I have solved alot of problems through writing and quite frankly miracles have happened after this blog was created

And still I have things I need to talk or rant about. So let's start a new session shall we?

Tran?

So it's no secret that I have had many frustrations with my inlaws. They have spent their money with no thought of how it might affect them in the future. They have credit card debt student loan debt car loan debt and yet they still push themselves further in debt. 2 years ago my wife and I unknowingly put ourselves in debt by purchasing 2 phones. Verizon had change how they do upgrades. You now had to purchase your phones instead of signing a new contract. We were not able to simply upgrade with a fee anymore. We didn't find out about this till I logged on to my wifes verizon account. We were purchasing phones now. Both phones combined cost us around 1400 dollars. I wish I had known that because I could of saved us alot of money. With that knowledge in mInd I now know how phone bills work and am now saving close to 50 dollars a month. In fact I pay just under 80 dollars for two phones. My in laws on the other have upgraded once every year. The upgrades get more expensive and their phone bill goes up more and more each year.

How does this affect me?

Well for starters last year when they did their upgrade they charged it on my card. That upgrade was not suppose to be paid off till 2018. When I found out about the charge to my card they made up a lie and told me they thought it was their card. My guess is that they tried charging one of their credit cards got declined then went ahead and charged it on mine. Both cards are on the account.  I have since romoved my card.

Then we have the vacation story I wrote about. Where they came to visit us claimed they didn't have alot of money and used the hip surgery as their sympathy. We paid for their gas gave them a free car to use and even paid for a meal and entertainment.
I wrote about that here.
http://viscarjones.blogspot.com/2016/10/relative-financial-traps.html?m=1

At Christmas they still claim no money. My daughters got 5 dollars each to the dollar store. They on the other hand got fit bits from my wife's poor grandma traded them in paid more than 100 dollars to get Google watches. But they didn't have money for Christmas?

In January of this year their financial decision caught up to them and after being honest with them because I felt I owed more for the phone bill I payed 40 dollars more to help them out. 4 days later they asked us to prepay our next two bills because they had no money to pay the rest of the phone bill.

If I may back up one month. Durring New Years Eve they asked us to come down to see them. But they had no place for us to stay so we forked out 500 dollars to stay at a hotel. The reason we couldn't stay there? They had a roommate and the roommate had a dog that wasn't good around kids. Yes yet again a DOG rules the world and my kids are secondary citizens.

So you would think that after a surgery and after running out of money that they would be ready to finally start facing the fact that they need to pay off their debt.

NOPE!

IN February not even a full month after I payed their phone bill they upgraded their phones. My FIL wife paid over 200 dollars to pay off her old phone so they could go back into debt 1500 dollars for 2 brand new phones. They also have a more expensive insurance plan on those phones.

In March they took a very short trip to Utah. They had no money to fly (again I wonder why??) AND even had to split the cost.

And finally here we are in April while I first started writing this they just got back from tennessee spending more than a week in the great Smoky mountains at a cabin with relatives and friends.

Again why do I care.

Here's the reason why I care. I am a person who will give another person more and more chances as long as I believe there is change. You could do one nice thing to me and i will have indefinite respect for you until you start lying to me or be rude or unfair. I was once told by my Father in laws wife while sitting on her brand new couch and while they had a sizeable amount in their bank account that This was her house. Her exact words were, "This is my house, do you understand me?" Before leaving. To this day I don't know why she said that. Was she a financial high. I remember they had just bought the couches I was sitting on. Did she feel the need to warn me that she wanted her couches to stay perfect? Unless your ready to kick someone out of your house,
YOU NEVER SAY THAT!

I just want to be treated the same way you were to treat someone else. I know my in laws are not asking for financial help from their relatives durring this trip. They probably are living it up. They probably spoke kind words and had a great time. If they treat them that way why in ALL circumstances won't they treat us the same way.

This carries to all aspects of life and even to my parents. They too have their faults. Twice I have reached out to them for financial and living arrangement help. Both times they either denied me help or put in extra steps such as a contract so I could receive their help. Will there ever be a day where I can show them my version of why they were wrong in their decisions.

Move to the Back of the line sir.

I want to take some time and let out another rant on a  frustrating event that just happened.

My wife and I finally went on our first cruise. Yes I know it finally happened. The cruise was great. There are a few things I would change but for the most part everything was good.

Again for the most part.

A few times durring our vacation our supposed honeymoon (to be debated) it felt like we had a curse on our shoulders a "back of the line" curse

 before I get to that

The cruise, for now, I would not consider it our honeymoon. 1st of all I had extreme pain before it. Two weeks of none stop earaches headaches tooth aches and back aches. 2nd it was sort of again buisness related. Not me and my wife just enjoying time with eachother. So for now and until I get some rules written up that will not be not considered a honeymoon. Cruise yes honeymoon no.

So back to the rant.

I want to keep this short and simple.

I like fairness. I like consideration.

During this trip it kept feeling like my wife and I were being pushed out of the way or told to go to the back of the line.

For example,  durring our trip were trying to get some food at a buisness party. We saw the end of the line and jumped in. Unfortunately for us someone in the actual line had created a gap (probably from not paying attention). He pointed this out by saying rudely"uhm the end of the line is back there"

(Move to the back sir)

The very next night at the fine dining hall people again were casually sneaking up in front to be with there groups. People in line behind us were seriously coming around us to be with their friends continually pushing us farther back.

(Back of the line sir)

The company we are in and we're with on this cruise was really small when we joined. Our sponsor has gotten so rich and so popular so fast that I felt she barely recognized us on this trip. Other sponsors were holding classes and inviting their team members to eat with them. We ate alone

(Back of the line sir)

Lastly Delta airlines (our first Delta flight by the way) threw the last punch to our guts when they moved us to the very back windowless corner of the plane. Look, I love the thrill of flying. My wife and I both share turns having the window seat. We booked 10 weeks early and even chose 2 seats always by a window. Three times in a row our seats were changed! Why chose a seat within your booking process if they're not going to give you that seat your asking for?!! The first two flights through United were OK. sure they changed our seats and even put my wife 2 rows back but on the first flight the family  (who probably arranged and asked to sit together ultimately steeling our 10 week out prebooked seat) offered to give up the seat so my wife and I could sit next to each other. (Thank you mystery family) Our next flight we were upgraded to the front of the plane. Great except it wasn't 1st class and again my booked preferred window seat was again taken by someone else. With all of this "wonderful" treatment we were offered on an airplane it wasn't as great as "watching" the 1st class passengers a  few yards away. I'm pretty sure their seats were solid and booked right. Sure fun watching those rich (chose a nice but subtle mean phrase right here) enjoying their drinks their snacks and using their "private" bathroom. My wife and I usually fly southwest so we didn't know about the 1st class bathroom "rules" my wife went to go use it since it was ALOT closer than the one in the back. The flight attendant asked her if she was first class. She let her use it after letting her know it was for FIRST CLASS ONLY.

(Back of the line sir)
Or the plane in this story.

Anyways this brings me to my last story. The ride home. My FIRST flight on Delta. Again I booked the flight early. Again I chose seats near the wing with one by the window and one right next to that. Yet again an entire plane was prioritized before us to the point we were put in the VERY BACK! no window no reclining seats. My itenerary said I had preferred seating but apparently they honestly don't care!

(Seat choice included? Yeah right)

Again!
(Back of the line sir)

So here's my advice to help you avoid a bad experience like I have.

First chose Southwest Airlines. Their seating system is not reserved. It is based on your ticket and when you checked in. You simply chose a seat when you board.

2nd if your stuck with another airline be the squeeky wheel. The squeeky wheel gets the attention and is listened to. Call them up tell the airline and your booking agent you require "special" treatment due to some "medical" problem. There is no doubt in my mind that is what happened here. Families, groups, and special needs called ahead eventually stealing my reserved seats.

Lastly book on their website. This cuts out the middle man like Expedia who again have shown they don't give a crap. That way your dealing solely with the airline that sold you the ticket.

Hope your travels are better than mine unless it was you who stole my seats then I hope you get sick and your vacation is ruined.

April's "I can't afford it award"

I haven't done one of these for a while. I wanted to spend more time sharing ways to save money. This morning however I decided to go ahead and give away another "I can not afford it" award.

One of the things that annoys me in the car buying world is how little value there is in a brand new car. Let me explain. If I buy a new car for 50k I get a nice looking vehicle that is a conversation starter an impresser good looking probably drives nice and can get me from point a to point b BUT it cost ALOT for all of those. Say we were to take that same 50k and buy not one vehicle but several forms of entertainment. ATV'S, boats, campers trucks, cars, trailers, and vacations. Is it possible to purchase all of those and still have cash left over? Absolutely! So why in the hell would someone give up so much money or in most cases go into so much debt for ONE source of transportation one source of entertainment that you don't own (your bank does) that loses value every mile you drive and can be a financial disaster with one simple hiccup. A job loss, loss in income, medical emergency even a toothache could be enough to force you to sell your car. You lose all value you put into it!

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?

6 months ago this person took out a loan and did just that

Why?

Now he/she has lost 6000 dollars in 6 months.

6000 dollars!!

And now they cannot continue to even make payments.

The car has robbed them!!
the cost to drive it was over 2 dollars a mile!!
Imagine if gas cost 40 dollars a gallon.
Thats the equivalent of what they were paying!

Thats not all

Around one thousand dollars was probably spent on insurance. That makes the total loss 7000 dollars! In 6 months! To drive 4200 miles!? (I forgot to show the mileage)

It's not worth it.

Stop paying car payments!

New cars are NOT WORTH IT!


Congratulations you won the "I CAN'T AFFORD IT AWARD"

I'm not done.

I came across a 2015 Arcadia. Only 2 years old that was half the price!

I also looked up what this arcadia cost brand nrw.

Any guesses?

This brand new would probably cost 45000 dollars. 2 years latet and nearly 24000 miles the car has lost 20000 dollars in value

20 T H O U S A N D!

How can i make that any clearer??

If we were to say insurance cost 600 a year (very generous by the way)

And gas mileage was an average of 20 mpg the cost per mile would be .98 cents. Nearly a dollar a mile!  That is absolutely ridiculous!

Let me close by saying this. First of all my blog is at fault with the different size lettering second our economy will eventually experience another recession.

 It will happen.

You will lose so much more if your a slave to your lender. And while your crying out the world is unfair and that it's Trump's fault ( it isn't by the way) When your Car is repoed and your house in foreclosure remember this.

 I for one will be very picky when I donate to any charity. 

Because I didn't buy a 2000 dollar car to save 28000 to donate to the food bank whIle you bought a 30000 dollar car that is part of the reason you are at the food bank.

School lunch verdict.

The verdict is in and I am approved....

For REDUCED lunch.

Free would of been better but in a way I like it this way. I can still keep my pride and still proclaim I rarely get something for free. Still don't understand how I am 20 thousand dollars less than the federal wage limit for my family size and still they decide I qualify for reduced but oh well I'll take what I can get.

And I don't feel guilty.

Quite honestly the school probably throws away more than enough food to cover my kids.

How much will I save? Well. I usually let my kids chose which would they prefer. A packed lunch or school lunch. Lately due to slow sales I've pushed more for them to take their lunch. There's no need for that now. Lunch cost 1.95 at our school. Reduced is 40 cents. With 2 kids per day I will save 3.10 a day. 15.50 a week! 62-68 a month!

So what am I going to do with all of this saved money? Honestly I probably won't notice it. My income varies alot and. Any savings I have go to reduce my home loan or increase my savings. My mortgage is the only thing charging interest right now. What I save does go far.

Anyways.

Just wanted to express some satisfaction that's happening.

Have a great weekend!

Taking advantage of free school lunches.

It's no secret that my family has struggled. At times we were barely keeping our heads above water while drowning in debt. Medical, credit card, car loans, and even the utilities were constantly threatening to shut off our power and our gas. Through it all we held our heads high, paid our bills, and sacrificed. I donated plasma for extra funds and my wife did what she could to keep our expenses low. We stayed home on the weekends. Even a drive to the resivoir was a luxury. We have in the past accepted WIC help twice for a total of 6 months. I have 4 children and that's probably considered a record for my income level. No food stamps no medicaid and no other programs that you can probably name because you've heard of them and I haven't. I also want to point out both times we went on WIC was when I felt the IRS was not fair to me and my tax situation. Here I was not using any government programs that would of cost tens of thousands of dollars but not being rewarded rather punished. For those reasons I felt I could take advantage of one of many programs my income qualified for so I did until I felt I no longer needed them.

So here I am feeling awesome not working and feeling like I'm starting to be rewarded for all of our hard times. Yet again times are starting to get rough. We owe taxes this year income is going down. I really don't own a whole lot. I have 2 vehicles that are probably worth around 3000 dollars. I have an atv thats worth 1500 and a snowmobile worth 1000. Even though I feel we are wealthy we still have our fair share of financial instability. Last week I didn't pay our tithing because we didn't make money. Our operating expenses were more than income. It's still slow and I am getting ready to go find a job. Because of all this I have decided.....,

to go ahead and apply for free or reduced lunch at my local school. 

I have qualified for this program for years. In fact I have qualified for alot of programs for years. Again and again I have wrote that I have not used subsidised programs because I felt I could cut my expenses and pay for it myself through my savings. Yet time and time again I am at Costco or walmart behind a young family buying more groceries than I can afford and they pay for it with their food stamps card. Time and time again I have seen young couples take their first child home from the hospital (I stopped at a hospital once a week for work) put them in a new car and drive away. There's more than a 50 % chance they won't have to pay more than a few hundred dollars for that hospital charge. I have paid nearly  60 thousand dollars in medical expenses and still have not had my honeymoon. I have friends who have had many subsidised programs including church help who seem to be rewarded with nicer vehicles and luxury vacations. I owe taxes this year and my income is showing I'm in poverty. My cars show I'm in poverty my neighbor who is on WIC drives a nicer newer van than we do. They've recently had a nice trip to Alaska and I believe to Hawaii. I'm assuming they have the free lunch program.

If someone is taking advantage of a government program so they can afford their car payment then why shouldn't I take advantage of that same program even though I don't have a car payment.
43% of the elementary school my kids go to are on free or reduced lunch. Nearly 1 out of 2!

It's not going to save alot but what it will save I can amplify. Around 80 bucks a month would be saved. Right now I'm averaging 3% on spending and at least 10% on savings if not more. What's worth 80 dollars to someone else is worth more like a hundred dollars to me.

There are vacations we should take.
Toys we want and honeymoons I feel my wife and I deserve. And even dentist and dr visits that have been put off. If a subsidy from a government program is going to help me achieve those faster it's time to take advantage of them but not rely on them.