Friday, August 31, 2007

Free Ice Cream

I've made no secret that we've been broke. When Linda retired gas was a buck and a half a gallon, prices have gone up a little since then. We knew we really couldn't afford for her to retire right then but she was just flat out tired of the grind. So we've been living on my little pension plus the $276.00 or so left from paying our medical insurance from her federal pension.

Well the other day we were cleaning out something and lo and behold we found a store coupon for a free half gallon of ice cream. When I went to pick up my cholesterol medicine I also got a half gallon of Peaches and Cream. Yum!

Today we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, financially. We went and applied for Linda Lou's Social Security today, she turns sixty-two this November. We expected some two hundred a month less than she will actually be getting. It's no body's real business the exact dollar figures, let's just say that the way the tax system is set up we'll be taking home almost as much money as we did when we were both working. Without having to drive fifty-odd miles, one way.

So, anyway, unless that light I see is a train, the fourth Wednesday in January our money problems start shrinking fast. I'm ready. Of course we wouldn't have had this problem had we saved our money instead of peeing it away on food and house payments. Oh well, at least we paid off the house and land before she retired. All through this whole thing I've been saying that we might starve in a house with no utilities but we aren't going to lose the house.

I'm not the most financially savvy guy in the world but at least I didn't get more house than I could afford, with three mortgages or whatever is going on with all these gas station attendants and their McMansions. It ain't much but it's mine. Not mine and the banks but mine.

Unless prices go really crazy we'll be able to take one big trip a year plus several smaller ones.

I did two smart things in this life, I married Linda Lou and I paid off the house.

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