Keeping a promise..............................

Always wanting to share the joy of my blog, I told several people about it while on vacation. One person in particular was interested in what I would have to say about him in the blog. I explained the fact that I choose not to use real names, and told him that I would be referring to him as "eighteen" which was the case that he picked during the game of deal or no deal that we attended while on the ship.

The way the game was played was first a game of bingo was played (at $10 a card or 3 for $20) and then the winner of the bingo game went up on stage and played a game of deal or no deal for big money (a thousand one game, and two thousand the next game). When I play along at home I am usually pretty good at picking the winning case, but this particular time eighteen picked a case with more money in it than I had in my case, which happen to be the same case the contestant picked. Lucky for her she took the deal and ended up with more than the three hundred dollars that was in our case.

In talking with eighteen, I found out that he was a fellow Dave Ramsey listener. Listener that is, to most of Dave's principals. You see, eighteen flips houses and uses credit to do so. Dave recommends that all real estate deals be done with cash to lower the risk. Eighteen seems to think that this would take too long to build up a fortune so he opts out on this piece of "Dave advise." I've got to say that I had a good time poking fun at him about this, even though I also have selective hearing when it comes to Dave's advice...

I have no problem not using credit cards (or any other loans for that matter). In fact today/this month marks the four year anniversary of our not using credit. We are working the debt snowball, paying off off our bills smallest to largest except for the one bill that we put the temperpedic beds for the OPs on since that interest is a business expense and tax deductible. Dave would understand the reasoning behind that now wouldn't he? NOT!

Since I met eighteen on a cruise ship, it is also apparent that I am not following Dave's advice to not take any vacations until we are out of debt. My rational for that is the fact that I have a twenty-four/seven business in my home and if I don't get away from the business from time to time I will not be a quality caregiver. I think of my vacations as business expenses. Right?

The one other thing we do even though Dave says not to, is to continue to contribute to (my) Mister's 401K plan. His company matches 2 to 1 and we are not spring chickens anymore. Since we will be out of debt within six months it doesn't make sense to stop it just to start it again in such a short time now does it? Or so I rationalize.

Okay, so I have no room to talk about eighteen using credit to finance his deals, as I have not drunk the kool-aid myself when it comes to Dave's principals. That is the thing about humans and free-will choice. We get really good at hearing and seeing what we want to see and hear and just as good at ignoring what we don't want to see and hear. It only becomes an issue when things don't turn out the way we thought they were going to. When that happens we are full of "if onlys and I should haves" until we figure out how to rationalize the way things turned out into being "the way we wanted them to turn out all along."

On a more positive note............................

I found the below information in one of the raw food newsletters I receive and thought I would share it in case any of you would be interested in joining in. It is a proven fact that there is power in prayer, and the more people praying the more powerful the prayer. Here is a chance to join in and make a difference:


One Minute Every Night

In WWII there was an advisor to Churchill who organized a group of people who dropped what they were doing every night at a prescribed hour for one minute to collectively pray for the safety of England , its people and peace. There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in America.

If you would like to participate: Each evening at 9:00 pm Eastern Time 8:00 PM Central) (6:00 PM Pacific), stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States, our troops, our citizens, and for a Godly nation.

If you know anyone who would like to participate, please pass this along. Someone said if Christians really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have.

Together, we "CAN" make a difference!
Thank You, and God Bless America !