Finally Back! - Be Prepared!

Yeah! I am home! And I learned a bit of something about being prepared!

It was supposed to be a quick 3-day trip. You know, Carry -On Luggage only. In and out! Didn't work out that way days kept being added while I was out and I ended up being on the road all week.

It is really tough keeping up on a blog while traveling so I started to try and write ahead, but then the trip kept getting extended...vicious circle!

While I was out on a trip to our subsidiary, I was sent to corperate in order to make a presentation to our CEO on a new program I started...one on one (plus my Boss in attendance) for a 1.5 hour meeting. It is pretty rare to get 30 minutes of his time much less over an hour so it was great that he thought enough of the program to block out the time.

Here are the couple great lessons from the trip:

• Winner's Want the Ball - If you have a chance to present or show off an accomplishment, take advantage of it. I had the call where my Boss could have pitched it and I could have come home. No one would have thought the worse for it. But I wanted my face associated with the program. If the the program fails it is my fault, but if it works it is my credit. Risk=Reward
• Know your Stuff - 1.5 hour is a nice way to say grilling about each point and had I thought through this and that. He brought up great angles I hadn't considered, but I could answer 99% of his questions quickly. I studied and knew my material
• Prepare - I went over my presentation...oh...47,000 times :) And guess what, 5-minutes before the meeting my Boss changed the order of the presentation to better match how the CEO liked to review programs. This was great as he knew the audience, but since we didn't have time to discuss it, I had to flip the page to see what was next! But...I knew the material well enough that I could roll with it and it came off better!

Results:

I have lots of follow-up to do, but we got great comments from everyone, and the potential of expanding the program faster! On top of it, as a bit of a surprise we got tickets for the NCAA tournament and saw a game last night (UCLA and MSVU)!

Take the risk...you're worth it!

Disney Trip Observations

This is were I spent a lot of my youth in Omaha, Peony Park near 72nd and Dodge. Think As small as you could be and still be a theme park. The best part was this swimming are, a big giant faux-beach right in the middle of Omaha!

Unfortunately it is gone now. Couldn't keep up with cheap flights to fancier places.

I am sitting in my room at the Disney Californian at the end of a crazy day at our trade show. I fly home tomorrow (yeah), but I thought that I would share some things I observed:

1. Who would ever get Disney bucks??? - They are worth the same as regular money, they are non-refundable, and really they are a pain-in-the butt for the parks and you. If I want a picture of Goofy on the $1000 Bill, I will make my own in photo-shop.
2. I get the way over-priced shirts and collectibles - But some of them are huge! The Hannah Montana Rehab Clinic would be bigger then my luggage!
3. Beware the great looking lobby - This hotel is nice, no question. But you check in and see the lobby and think you are staying at the Ritz, and they are priced the same! The rooms are functional, but nothing to write home about.

Put it this way for the money I would stay somewhere else, even one of the other Disney Hotels. But the biggest point...Non of them have a "Sandy Beach" like Peony Park!

Back to regular posts on Monday!

I Am Getting Too Old For This...Personal Finance

In all of those buddy cop films of the 1980's there was always a young "I can't Play by the Rules"cop and a "6 Hours from Retirement" Cop. At some point in the movie, the older cop would say..."I am getting too old for this..."

I am starting to finally start to understand the older cop! (Don't say why!) He has a perspective that what he might do won't matter to the world, I just want to retire and relax.

This trip, and traveling as a whole is a drain, and in a trade show, and it is even a bigger life suck :) But what is funny is none of it used to bug me. We'd work all day, stay up all night, and be up the next day raring to go! Now...not so much. It really reinforces something: You won't always make what you do now, or have the health to do what you can now, so enjoy it, but make sure you are worrying about tomorrow too.

That poor cop always has a boat or something that he has been saving for and working on for 10 years...and then the bad guys blow it up! Have your boat ready when you are ready to retire, whatever it is!

December Final Debt Reduction Numbers...

Well the final numbers for December are in...and we did pretty well in regard to our debt reduction!

As of the end of December our Net Worth Increased $2570!

Here are the December high points:

• Paid off our #6 Snowball Debt! - Already rolled our snowball to our next debt on the list; The State Farm CC, we will now be paying about $100 over the minimum payment.
• Paid off a total of $1122 in Credit Card debt - Two more cards to go!
• Paid off $1191 in Loan Debt - Our consolidation loan has really helped to lower our average interest rate and minimum payments, so more can go into our snowball!
• Added $327 to savings towards 2008 Property taxes - Do not want to borrow to pay this off this year!

Points to Work on:

• Overspent Grocery/Entertainment this month by $100, due to hosting family for New Year's Eve - Well make it up over the next couple pay days
• Overspent Gas Bill -Ninja Bill Taking this out of January's discretionary fund (dining/Entertainment)
• Lots of travel coming up - Make sure to quickly process business expenses!

So we had a great month, especially by not going over on Christmas. The debt reduction will be out of the norm, but was paid for out of a bit of windfall on my check. Once you hit the maximum contribution to Social Security they stop taking it out of your check. In the past we would have spent this away as fun money or on Christmas, but now that we are on plan we took it all and applied it to debt retiring a credit card debt earlier than we hoped!

I don't expect January to move the budget needle as much, as my check goes back to normal and we have picked a lot of the low hanging fruit. I see Personal Finance and Budgeting as a marathon, not a sprint, but it does feel good to run every now and then...