One of my favorite Christian personal fiance blogs is having a great end of the year giveaway. The top prizes being two iPods and many other great gifts. Head over to the GREAT Giveaway - Some Ipod Nano’s and more!

If not for the giveaway then to one of the best blogs on personal finance.

Also look at Christian PF every week for a Friday Giveaway!!!

We all know that Christmas is the busiest time of the year. With schools concerts, plays, tests, family coming in, shopping, decorating, cooking multiple big meals, its hard to find time for it all. But hopefully you can all find some time to relax and spend time with the people that matter in your life. Most importantly remember the reason for the season, He seems to get lost in all the hustle. Take time to read the Christmas story and thank Him for all that He gave us.

Now, over at The Digerati Life, is giving away an Epson Workforce 600!

I have been living without a printer in my home for 2 years and when you do not have something you always need it. Now you have a chance to win a top of the line printer. Head over to The Digerati Life to enter.

Also part of the contest to share your favorite Christmas memory.

Mine is always spending time on Christmas Eve with family enjoying all the familys secret great dishes and spending time relaxed and reflecting on the reason for the season.

I love finding new blogs around the internet, and new favorite of mine is Kingdom People. And better yet they are doing a giveaway of 10 great Christian books includeing the new ESV Study Bible.

#1. The Reason for God - Tim Keller
#2. Culture Making - Andy Crouch
#3. Surprised by Hope - N.T. Wright
#4. Why We’re Not Emergent - Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck
#5. How People Change- Timothy Lane & Paul David Tripp
#6. The Big Picture Story Bible -David Helm & Gail Schoonmaker
#7. Jesus Made In America - Stephen Nichols
#8. Resident Aliens - Stanley Hauerwas & Will Willimon
#9. Worship Matters - Bob Kauflin
#10. The Sermon on the Mount through the Centuries - Jeffrey Greenman, Timothy Larsen, and Stephen Spencer

Trevin Wax is giving away this $260 package.  For details, just see his post: Kingdom People Christmas Giveaway.

Apparently this one woman in Florida would rather go to jail then pay less than 8 bucks for some waffles.

Fla. Woman Chooses Jail Over $7.45 Waffle Bill

It seems there are stories like this almost every day. She has a maximum fine of 500 dollars or 60 days in jail for not paying 8 bucks. People are wasting money left and right in today’s economy. It is a major factor of the tough economic times right now

What do you waste money on?

I watched the debate last night and all I can say is , “That it?”. I heard only 1 new idea in the whole debate. Part of the blame needs to be on Tom Brokaw who basically asked the same question that were in the first debate. Maybe he did this to hurt McCain who needed a home run because he played it safe all night. Its sad a pastor in California asked some of the best question in any debate so far.

The one new thing was about using federal money to buy up individual mortgages to make home prices more stable. It sounded like McCain did not fully understand the plan himself, but could be helpful to stabilize the economy.

I also want to put blame on both candidates for blaming the current troubles on the other party. Its the whole federal government and both parties fault we are in this situation. Not the just the President, Congress and Wall St,  and even the American people who buries themselves into debt. The blame needs to stop and the ideas to get it out need to be addressed.

Who Won, I think McCain won. He was much stronger on the economy this night. He was the only one to bring up something new. Obama played it safe and that is all he have to do.  Overall i could have not watched the debate and be at the same knowledge of the candidates as I was yesterday.

If you missed one of the most watched debates in recent memory it was a good one. One thing i liked about Palin was that she talked to the people and talked in way that we all understand.The most powerful moment of the debate was this:

Palin said “I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let’s do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don’t live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we’re taking personal responsibility through all of this. It’s not the American peoples fault that the economy is hurting like it is, but we have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons through this and say never again will we be taken advantage of.”

She talked about of one the many reasons we are in this problem, consumer debt. She talked about we all should spend with our means. Which means buying houses that we can not afford which got the economy in this mess. Plus she talked about never again letting the government taking advantage of us, which has been happening for a long time.

If if saw any news yesterday you knew that the bailout passed the House and Bush signed. I still do not fully agree that this was the right bill but the government created unwarranted fear and something needed done. There are many other ways to fix the root problem and not just put a band aid on it. But hopefully now they all can spend the next few weeks to make a plan of action that will be much better and fix the problem.

I saw a post today on FOX news about teachers in Virgina who would have a “Blue Day” to support Obama.

Teacher unions are the problem in this country. Bad teachers keep their jobs if they survive the first few years. There is no accountability in most of the education system. If I do not do my job to the standards i get fired. Not true in education system.

Charter and Christian schools are seeing a huge increase in enrollment because they are not apart of the teachers union. Parents are seeing that they can get better education for their children by sending their kids to other schools. Another problem is these parents have to pay double for their education, the charter school and the public school they are not attending. These schools also have in the most cases the best test scores in their community. Know i am not going to assume that all those teachers wearing blue are bad teachers, there could be mostly good teachers. But for this country to be at the level it needs to be to support the jobs of the future which need huge reform in the education system. This problem in my opinion is worse than the economy.

Right now there is a divide happening with US citizens. Those who complete college and those with just a high school diploma. The low level jobs are going oversees and they are not coming back. Its cheaper and there are tons of high degree jobs that over the next twenty years will not have enough manpower to support the demand.

In this economic crisis my employer is looking for around 13 workers right now. 13 in this economic crisis, Yes high degree jobs are out there waiting for the future of this country. The baby boomers had those jobs and they will be the last to have those jobs. Americas future need to know Math and Science and finish college and we need a much better and accountable education system.

Well its hard to believe its October already. I had a pretty good month life wise , not as good as i wanted money wise. Bought a guitar that was definitely not in my budget, but is a long term investment. I also went over on CDs and DVDs. This is a habit i need to find an happy median with. But all the CDs i bought this month were on sale for less than 8 dollars.

This month my main goals are to rework my budget for the move coming up in a few weeks. I am looking at this move to finally cut a lot out of my cable bill to free up the budget. I will miss a view channels in HD but i will still have most of the local ones in HD.

Finally feels like fall. I drove to work this morning with it being 50 degrees outside and then drove over this hill and saw one of the most beautiful sunrises i have ever seen. Its sights like this i that really put me in my place. Fall also means changing of the leaves, Fall is just the best season in the whole year.

Big Thanks to the following

ChristianPF

my credit card watch

my debt relief blog

penny jobs

Just finished the furst full month of my blog, and thanks to every one who stopped by. I have a lot of great articles i am working on and look forward to growing.

Visitors - 131

Page views - 393

Feeds - 246

This country is at a decision of two paths. Either way you look you see tough times. Down one path we bail out companies who made terrible decisions and the other is will see what happens.

What really needs to happen is for Wall St and Congress to sit together and work it out. I am pretty sure no one in Congress knows what they are doing since it has come to this. Its not the President of the last 8 years fault totally, he gave many warning throughout his term warning of this. Its the CEOs of the greedy companies making stupid loans to people who they knew may never pay them back. And its also the whole government fault who did nothing with the warnings. Yes, this election we need "Real" Change. To fight corruption, greed, and lobbyists.

I am not surprised the House billed failed. And all those Democrats blaming Republicans can turn that finger around. You control the House, if all the Dems vote for the bill, it passes. Its a political election season of course there is going to be people being biased. Nothing new. The Dems do not want the republicans to take credit and blame them for every thing that goes wrong. Same for the Republicians. This just proves why we are in this situation, the government does not protect the citizens who elect them. They are worried about not letting the other party take the credit for good changes.

I would like to see the market be on its own for a while since it lasted through 3-4 banks failing before now. We should be fixing the problem and not the result. Putting laws into place to prevent and not just put a band aid on the issue.