More lessons learned on vacation

 So this is my once in while post about what I learned from my recent vacation. Very short vacation but I still learned a little.

First of all wow! I have forgotten the power a weekend getaway can do to your mind. I was going to say and body but I just ate like crap all day. So it didn't much help my body. It was nice to just get away. My kids are at that age each of them can take care of themselves. When it was time to pack each kid packed up there stuff and we were in the car ready to go in no time. It's nice to finally have an independent family.

Second we forgot something and had a hard lesson. After eating alot of junk food drinking soda and playing hard my daughter wakes up in the middle of the night throwing up all over herself. We've warned her in the past to take it easy and forgot this time. She's fine if she eats this way before 4 but after 4 her stomach has a bad reaction. So... two things: one prevention next time and two a bucket or bag to catch the puke. You can only do do much but more preparedness equals a better trip. This is why I have a list and stick to it.

Speaking of that!!

So we were at a popular falls in Idaho when turning around in a parking lot a woman holding a boy glares at me for no reason! Her family does the same! I say toy wife "bet their from California" they weren't. I believe they were from Nevada. First of all why are you so angry? Your on a trip with your family! Your luckier than most Americans! I'm just going to say this. I wonder if preparedness could of helped. Did they forget something or not have a plan? Unfortunately unplanned quick trips are not very fun if something goes wrong. You may be like me back in the day and just not plan ahead. Live for the moment. Trips are expensive! Unexpected events can cause more expense than needed. Cutting cost where you can will not only help your mood it can create a closer family unit. Being less rushed and eating sandwiches at a park with yout family out of a cooler will be more beneficial than relying on cash to buy burgers and fry's to eat in the car. I've gotten so prepared, I sometimes pack my table top grill and have burgers or hot dogs at a park.

Quick story then I'll call it good. My first Disneyland trip was somewhat ruined. Why? Being unprepared. I had such a massive headache one night it ruined my night out with just my wife. Had I started a pain relief plan as soon as I felt the pain or before the pain started my headache would have been under control. Why didn't I do that? I didn't think to pack it. Now days if the trip is very important I'll take ibuprofen every 10 hours to prevent a headache. 

So in closing I'm sharing 3 items I pack every trip that you may not think of.

First ibuprofen. This is a very good cheap multipurpose pain reliever. I do pack Tylenol too but only use Tylenol to alternate with ibuprofen. 

With prices at less than a penny a pill it is best and a great money saver to not forget this Vacation Saving pill. Buying this on the go is a rip off! My wife forgot to pack it once and ended up paying 7 dollars for FOUR PILLS! IF you need to buy it on the go look for a dollar store.

Second Ziplock bags. Guys you'll be amazed how much you use these on a trip especially if you have kids. Packing lunches. Keeping food water tight in a cooler, collecting sea shells or having a place to gather all the crayons on the car. Pack them you'll see what I mean.

Lastly baby wipes. My youngest is not a baby. We don't pack these automatically anymore. While on a trip recently one of my daughters got a bloody nose. We had nothing to give her. Eventually we had to use a bottle of water and a shirt to clean her up. Baby wipes are such a great universal cleaning wipe. We now keep a pack up front ready to clean up any mess while driving.

Well that's it guys. I'm getting close to another trip. See ya.

Are we utilizing our streaming services.

 So a couple of weeks ago I learned a little bit more about myself while being restricted on internet usage. I thought my unlimited plan would at least give me some internet at all times but within a week, my internet completely shut off. Dora and Danial tiger could not be streamed non stop and we needed to restrict other forms of internet usage as well. I knew my unlimited plan truly wasn’t unlimited but at the same time I didn’t think my plan would completely shut me off, which they did. 

Within a week our internet usage became severely limited. We had four phone plans. 2 were “unlimited” and the other 2 combined had 14 gigs. My wife learned that her Tik TOK usage was not good after using 7 gigs on her 10 gig plan within a week, plus she learned her phone constantly disconnected from the Mobile hotspot. Eventually 2 days before our trial was over, we had no way to stream movies. We got our old vhs’s out and started watching them. Picking a show became easy with only a handful to pick from.

This brings me to my point. Are we utilizing our streaming subscriptions or our we just throwing money away?

Let me try another approach to prove my point. 

When I was introduced to RedBox, I was excited. For just a dollar you could rent a New release movie. At Blockbuster that movie could cost 4 times as much. Their selection was slim but it was kinda nice to find a cheap movie on a Friday night, order pizza and before having kids my wife and I would have a cheep date at home. It was even cheaper because I knew a code that would get me a free rental every night. Eventually that code was tracked to a credit card and became useless.

There was something Redbox didn’t offer that Blockbuster did. I found this out while renting 2-3 movies out at one time. Blockbuster lets you return the movies 3-4 days later. Redbox does not. In fact I believe blockbuster gave you one night per rental. So if you had 5 rentals you had 5 nights to watch them. If you have 5 rentals at red box and it takes you 5 nights to watch them, what you thought would cost you 5 dollars now cost 25! Right after that mistake I found it best just to rent one dvd at a time. It wasn’t worth the risk to have more than that.

There was this one time where my wife and I were in line at a Redbox (a rare sight these days) and a mom and her kids were deciding what to watch. At one point she had. 5 dvds in her cart and she was planning on renting all 5. What I did next probably saved her a lot of money over the years. I mentioned to my wife that Redbox gets you by enticing you to rent more than one rental. It’s just best to rent one dvd at a time, return it and rent another. Who watches 5 DVD’s in one night?

I saw the wheels turning in her head she thought for a second and reduced her cart to 2-3 dvds instead of 5. My guess is her kids watched a movie and she watched one herself.

So this brings me to my point. Are we simply paying too much for all of these streaming services? Currently I have Amazon Discovery plus Hulu and Disney plus. Amazon unfortunately is a business decision Aand, I get it for half off because uhm, I’m poor. Disney plus was a Christmas gift and we don’t have to pay for it. We usually don’t have Netflix simply because a lot of the shows are MA which in most cases stands for trash. The two shows we do like are still producing shows so we probably won’t have a subscription until October or November of this year. I purchased Discovery plus because of Expedition Bigfoot. I’m done with that and now find nothing I like. So is this like my Redbox analogy where we are renting 5 DVDS at once but not getting the value? These streaming services are so low priced that we either don’t care, or we don’t notice how much we are paying. And quite honestly it’s probably not much but if your like me where you want to save whatever you can, and get the most value, you’ll fine tune your finances and your wants and feel your not only watching all your favorite shows, you’ll be paying less while doing it!

So how do you do that? Here’s my suggestion. Just like the “rent one return one” Redbox strategy do that with these streaming services. Rent one per month then cancel and move on to another one! You could also share passwords and just have someone else pay for your subscription👌. With limitation you might be finding something you do like in which you’ve always passed over. My wife and I have found a love for dumb cheesy movies especially around Christmas time. Every once in a while we find a gem. Last year we added a new unknown Christmas movie to our must watch list. There’s also free streaming services to give a try like the Roku channel. Limiting your choices may give you more freedoms Improve your mood and even increase gratification.

Cutting the cable bill

 This is another fine tune your finances fine tune your life segment brought to you by the bacon McDouble and the hot n spicy, because that is what I just ate

Ever since I’ve moved to Utah I have had issues with my Internet provider. When I called them to set up internet, I was surprised to learn that they were 10 dollars more than the internet provider from Arizona.. When I brought that up to the phone salesman, he stated the market was different in Utah thus the price increase. I’m sorry to me it doesn’t make sense. Maybe I need to take an economic class. So this goes on for years. At first I get the economic package then they convince me to get the t.v. Package. When the contract expires, I again downgrade to the economic package. At one point I had 10 cable channels for free then they put something on my line that stopped that. When I upgraded again I told them something was on my cable preventing me from getting t.v. They basically said that’s impossible and 2-3 weeks later I had the install credited back to me because I was right.

Anyway that’s the back story. 

Lately this internet provider has been on my CONTROL list. I’ve been able to reduce my phone bill from 120 to 40 dollars a month my Amazon has been cut in half as well as others. This internet seems like it just can’t be controlled and they are getting more bold and smarter. For a while you could simply tell them I’m quitting and they’d offer you a better rate. THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN ANYMORE. 

Let me show you how this dishonest company operates.

First they offer a low rate on your internet. As of right now the lowest they have is 19.99 a month. So you call them and tell them I want internet for 19.99 a month. If your an existing customer forget it. They will not offer that to you. If your a new customer they will entice you with a combo offer. If you chose internet you might as well get cable for 15 more a month. Heck you say. I can’t even get cable for 35 a month. So you say sounds good. The next month you get your bill. It’s over 60 BUCKS. You look through it and notice a 19 dollar “tv” charge. Yep a tv charge. Now your bill is DOUBLE what you thought it would be.

Well finally after all these years I finally beat them at there games. At least temporarily maybe permanently. How? Well after discussing it with my wife and really narrowing down our needs vs wants we came up with a few solutions. First of all we switched to a cheap unlimited phone plan. We have another phone number along with it unlimited data on 2 lines for 40 bucks a month. Now this adds 35 dollars to our monthly bills because we were already paying 5 dollars for my daughters line. This reduces our current internet bill by 50 dollars a month. It’s still a adjustment game but my daughter is still streaming shows on our Amazon account. Yes our internet is slow at times but honestly for the most part it doesn’t bother us. We are willing to sacrifice a little now for a lot later. Here’s another tip they may help if someone else wanted to survive off a unlimited phone plan. Try downloading your movies and shows onto you tablet during slow internet or using public Wi-Fi then by using a usb to HDMI adapter watch it on your t.v. When there a will there’s a way. Unfortunately cutting expenses is not in everyone’s goals. 

So I’m saving the best news for last. While researching what internet plans and my next strategy for negotiating with my provider, I came across a low income option for internet. Now because my thoughts have changed when it comes to utilizing any help you can get I decided to have my wife apply. She was accepted and guess what we will now have high speed internet (half the speed we used to get but still plenty) for less than 10 bucks a month. Granted it is that when I get my first bill.

One more note to include. Not everything worked as plan. One issue we ran into was our cell phone provider completely cut off our unlimited data after 18 gigs were used. I believe we would have had enough internet IF we didn’t watch so many shows. We actually were on limited internet for a weekend. We watched old video cassette tapes as well as DVD. It was actually kinda nice having only a handful of options to watch rather than an entire Amazon Library.

Reason 2B to use assistance programs

 It's about 1:15 a.m as I start writing this. Why am I up so late or up so early per your preference? I now have a job where I work graves. It is just a job to me. It is not a career or a job that will continue to brainwash me thinking that if I search elsewhere I will be bankrupt with medical bills. Not true and for now and forever I will reserve the right to quit a job if I so desire to. Right now I want to give this job a chance and even though my feet hurt and my back is sore every night I still have much to learn.

So here's another reason I am ok asking and or applying for benifits. P.s. just a disclaimer here. I 100 percent qualify for every program I have applied thus far. I may not soon because of my job status but I havn't lied on any application. My income was within the limits they set. We only use the medical benifits if we need them I actually get letters reminding us to take our kids in for wellness checks. I don't believe I need to do that! They are not sick they are healthy and I dont need a doctor to tell me that. I've already been through that. I myself have been in once and my wife….well she has not gone once. So trust me we use the doctors sparingly. If we notice an issue we will go. I hope and pray we won't.

So I don't know if anyone out there have watched any polygamy shows. There's Kody and his sister wife's who will eventually be heading for financial disaster because they suck at money. There's my 5 wives. They were only on 2 seasons but much more likeable than sister wives in my opinion and then you have this other show on Netflix called 3 wives one husband. Now Let me ask you something. These are religious people who through commandments are following teachings of God to have multiple wives and have lots of kids. You would think God would provide a way for them to eat. Right? Yet 2 of the 3 mentioned above have been on food stamps as well as multiple bankruptcies!  AND I am putting an accusation out there that 3 wives one husband's does use them too! I believe most if not all sects here in Utah are on social welfare including those who live close to me. I'm not saying they don't work hard I am saying they have alot of mouths to feed and probably cannot afford it all. 

If I'm saving a car payment and paying less for my lives expenses than someone else who is driving a new car and has a snap card why should I be punished? I'll take a snap card too if I qualify and pay an extra thousand off my debts or into my retirement. Yes they give me a thousand dollars a month and yes I agree it's rediculous.

Reason 142 I went on public benifits.

Here’s another one.

I have A lot!

Any new parent may find it a shock that infant formula is so expensive. Now you can go on and on about how it takes research to get the formula just right but in the end that doesn’t make sense unless they are CONTINUALLY CHANGING THE FORMULA! and besides that other off brands do sell it ALOT cheaper so that again holds no merit. It’s kind of like Apples excuse of why their airPods are over 200 dollars. (They cost 150 to make...) NO THEY DON’T!! The reason they say that is because the people who are involved making them make 50 k a month. They make that because the consumer pays them!! It would be like if I were to start a shirt printing company and decide I want my wages to be 50k a month. So now my shirts are 5k each because it cost 4950 to make the. The actual cost would be more like 5-10 dollars per shirt!

Enough ranting. Actually my whole blog is ranting.

So why is formula so expensive? Do a quick google search and you’ll find a great paper/article done by someone at Hawaii university who basically spells it out. Government. The reason I barely could afford it and even sold plasma to pay for it is because of the WIC program. They pay a quarter of what they sell it in the store. What I know now I wish I would of just dropped my pride back then and joined wic.

This is another reason I’m ok with assistant programs. Yeah. Don’t need them but I just bought my first brand new sectional because of them and oh it’s so comefortable.

Reason A on why I chose to go on public benefits.

Ok it’s official. I hate iphones. After trying one out for a while it is blatantly clear, I don’t like it.

Moving on

And what the heck is up with this bold lettering above?? Again iPhones fault.

So I mentioned before that from time to time I would self indulge in my own reasoning of why I am on public benefits and why I feel entitled (crap did I say that word) yes entitled to some benifits. Look I think I explained it before it’s not about entitlement but more of who’s making the rules. Definitely not me and when I follow someone else’s rules I get screwed.  So what’s today’s reasoning of why it’s ok to maximize my public benefits?

Well we will get to that. Let me tell you something interesting I found out while following a crime investigation. This is one of the many

reasons I threw in the towel and became a public dependent. If you haven’t heard of her there is a very evil woman named Lori Vallow. Long story short Her and her husband chad had her two kids killed and burned. During the investigation it was found that Lori was getting  OVER 6 THOUSAND DOLLARS in survivor and some other benefits a month TAX FREE!! The other benefit was some type of income for her younger son that has autism. Again 3 GRAND a month for WHAT EXACTLY?? I mean I get the survivor benefit. From what I read that’s around a grand. How is it she is getting 3 Grand per kid??? No wonder she’s been able to travel ALOT. My brother in law also is a survivor benifitor. What’s strange is he has struggled financially while on them. HOW?? From what I gather he probably makes close to 4 Grand between 3 kids and makes up to 5 grand a month!

So again the rules are what? Let me know. College grants are ok survivor benifits are ok. Food stamps are not? 

Some where in this interview it mentions how much tax free money Lori was getting.

It's ok to have a poor Christmas!

 I don't mean to bash on this couple I found in the classified adds. When I can relate to someone I think about what I would do if I was in their situation. I have been in this couples situation. Although I  would like to compare apples to apples such as were they on medicaid when their babies were born and how many times did they reach out for help over the years. You see when my daughter was 5, I had a 3 year old and a newborn. I had paid around 20,000 in medical expenses so far and I was in debt yet again for another baby. 

Well I'm getting ahead of myself let's get to the add.

Ok. Let's break this letter down so we can understand better. First of all we have a family of four who relies on the man of the household to provide income. Him and his wife have been together for at least 6 years. They have 2 daughters one was born less than a year ago and one is 5. From the post we have 3 issues. First a broken car window. 

Wait a sec!! Something is off here!

This is why I should screen shot these right away. This post has been edited which further proves my point!

Haha

So in the original add he said his window was broken. They mentioned recieveing help and donations to fix that they also mentioned receiving help from their ward!

They also said their daughter still believes in santa claus (she should she's 5) and they said their goal was to get 300 dollars. None of that is mentioned in this EDITED add but your just going to have to believe me.

Ok getting back to what we have in the add. From what I understand he's out of work for one week plus overtime. So I'm guessing somewhere around 600 Dollars? 

Now there are a lot of questions I have and I only have them because I want to find out if there was any prevention this couple could of put in place so this issue could not have happened. Do they have a car payment. What if any major purchased were purchased this year and so forth but let's just get to my main point.

IT'S OK TO HAVE A POOR CHRISTMAS!! 

Even if the entire Christmas including Christmas dinner was bought at the dollar store if the spirit of Christmas exist, it's still Christmas. I could even argue that your taking a memorable opportunity away from your daughter. One if my wife's Christmas memories growing up was Christmas from seven11. My wife woke up to her mom telling her and her siblings to go back to bed santa hadn't come yet. When Santa did come their stockings were stuffed with things obviously bought at a convenient store. They didn't care. They were just happy to eat donuts for breakfast.

Well I'm finishing this on winter solstice. Happy winter solstice guys. May your life become brighter with the days ahead!