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 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.

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

I now have been writing for about a month and as with all things you start to learn your way. Do not worry i am just changing the name and design mainly.

On the financial front, i am really scared about the changes the Congress is discussing in Washington. I really think most involved have no clue about the economy including both candidates. I afraid they will make some fatal mistakes. When will Congress be for the people and not for the parties. It is pretty much impossible for them to make any decision i laughed when they said they will have a bill by the end of the week, and guess what maybe Sunday, yeah right. They might just to make one of the presidential candidates look bad but it will be weak.

The world today has changed so much from the 50s and 60s. During those days people left doors unlocked and let kids ride their bikes down the street to a friends house. Very little scams trying to steal your money. Those were the good days. Wish i had some of those in todays world. Now you have to watch every person you give money too, even charities. Doors locked and complex security systems. Watching your kids 24/7. What has this world come too.

Just yesterday my finance’s principle was arrested for resisting arrest, leaving the scene of a accident, and probably drug charges. A guy who look like a normal family man with a loving family and kids.  I feel sorry for his family who have to be going through tough times. But getting back to my question, who can you trust in this world?  Every day you have to be watching your back and accounts.

We can not even trust the government to watch out for us. With the Bail out of investment banks. Numerous times the current President or other top financial leaders have said warning about Fannie May and Mac. Its the job of the whole government to watch the tax payers backs. But guess what, we pay the consequences of their failed warnings. Its roughly $1000 per person in the US loan. The whole government, Democrats and Republicans, have failed to protect the US citizens. I agree with McCain that the foundation of the economy is strong, the US working citizens are strong. The few CEOs of these corpoations are passing their bad decisions and greed to the American people who they do not care about. We need to take their money to pay for this, their assets, not the American people who did no wrong.

Its Thursday and finally life seems normal

Saturday - So this Saturday i decide to get the oil changed and diagnosed a few problems. Now it is amazing that you go in there knowing they are trying to steal from your wallet, and they still get you every time. Over 300 dollars bill, now some of that was legit. Like the small leak in my tire from a nail and the oil change. But I learned many things that they will not get me again for the rest of my life. But i thing i needed fixed was my rear window wiper, which needed a part sent. So i was like i can have that done on Friday since i had it off ( 9/80 work week).

Then i head to my fiancee apartment to watch my Purdue Boilermakers almost beat a ranked team (#16 Oregon) since i have left college 4 years ago. They had them and as usual Purdue fashion they let it go.

That night i went to see “Burn after Reading” at the theaters with my fiancee. It was a good movie, but i could have gotten by just seeing it on DVD.

Sunday - Went to Church and got some lunch then decided to head over to the mall to look for a guitar and other things. As we are driving the wind really starts to pick up and we see street lights falling from wires and all kinds of small objects blowing around. We get to the mall and about 10 min in there the power goes out and then 5 min after that 10 power poles have fallen onto the street nearby. We slowly get away from the mall and get on the Interstate to get home dodge debris and other things flying around. When we get to the Apartment ,yep, no power. Lucky a steak and shake was open near by to get some dinner.

But that night 90% of customers from Louisville to Columbus had no power.  That is correct 90% or around 2 million houses and business had no power Sunday night.

But i was really fortunate to have all my utilities since my city has part of their wires underground. But the rest of the people i knew had none.

So this has been i really crazy weekend. Had no work on Monday and Tuesday. and Wednesday we started to get some things done at work in one of the buildings which got power and then today we got the other building up.

So sorry about the lack of posts in the past week, i did not have a lot of spare time to focus on the blog. This just proves that you always need to be prepared for the worst. Never know when you will see hurricane force winds in Ohio =)

Hurricane Ike came through my hometown over the weekend and knock out the power of 90% of homes. Sorry for the lack of posts till i get things back to normal.