We  found this cardinal nest in our back yard last week.  The mama has been sitting on the eggs for at least 8 days.  We hope we will see babies in the next couple of weeks.  We noticed the ever watchful papa singing to mama this a.m. in a nearby tree!

As much as Goose and I have found credit cards to be useful, I’ll be glad when we are out from under them. We have spent years shifting some floating debt around on 0% interest cards, rather than paying it off like we should. While this has helped us to live a little “faster” than we could have, we now regret this.

The truth is, we came to a point where our monthly bills nearly exceeded our monthly income. Our credit card debt was increasing due to sloppy buy habits and this was making it hard for us to meet our other obligations.

We were working for Mastercard and Visa rather than for ourselves.

Now, we are on a road to recovery and we are looking forward to keeping our money out of the hands of credit card companies.  So far during our recovery we have had a fairly rigid “no credit” policy.  So far, we have slipped a couple of times but paid off the new balance at the end of the month.    I’ll post later on how we are doing and what our plans and techniques are.

Have you had problems with your credit cards?  What have you done to avoid using your cards?

A few things in this article really bother me. First, the fact that the author thinks that one can’t work in a skills-based workforce and also live in rural America. Since I live in rural American and work in a skills-based job, I’m not sure I buy his argument. In fact, I think that the rise of telecommuting may play a role in increasing the population of some rural areas in the future.

I’m also concerned about the truth that farms are growing larger and more corporate and that our farm subsidies are going to these large profitable corporate farms. We’re not supporting the family farmer with these subsidies anymore. We’re paying corporations to make a profit.

This also makes me wonder we will continue to be able to buy locally. If the family farmer is being squeezed out, who will grow the food for our farmer’s markets?

Do you see effects of corporate farming in your farmer’s market? What do you think about the loss of population in rural areas?

We have been thinking about buying Rosetta Stone Spanish because it has garnered good reviews and is well-known. It is, however, pretty expensive. We have so far held off on buying it but were thinking that we would buy it this year as a homeschooling expense.

However, I work for a large, multi-national company. I just found out that our company has licenses for Rosetta Stone and asked my boss if I could use it to improve my ability to interact with employees in our Spanish speaking facilities. He approved it, and I should have Rosetta Stone Spanish within a few days at no cost to me.

This is a win-win-win situation for myself, the company and my children. I will really learn Spanish at an accelerated rate, the company may benefit from this in the future if they decide to use my skills and my children will benefit by learning a language much more quickly, too. Since we will be learning together, we will be speaking it together and my skills will improve even more.

Many companies have software purchase programs that allow employees to use some software not only on their work computer but also on their home computer for free or at a greatly reduced cost. For instance, they will often do this with virus software since employees will read email or work from their own home computers.

So, if you have some software needs, check with your IT department and see if they have any purchasing programs like this. It could save you a bundle!

Buenos dias!

Have you found any creative ways to save on software?  Does your company offer any other benefits like this?

This family of 11 kids, however, can answer: yes!

I think this sounds like a lot of fun to see all those kids working and playing together, especially for a cause.

Have you ever had a family team like this?  Did you find it fun or frustrating to play with your siblings or kids?

Here are some of the sites they discuss:

• Valueforum: Looks very promising. They require payment via Credit Card to get access to any of the member-only content. This should discourage “spammers” who are trying to bash a stock (or trick others into buying). They claim 101% growth in contest portfolio since 2004. I may try this one just to get a feeling for what sorts of things are debated in these communities. I found, when I wanted to understand a lot more about Catholicism that watching and participating in online debate really helped me to grow in knowledge.
• Wikinvest: I like the free access to this one and they seem to have some interesting features. The WikiData feature allows you to see data about companies by industry.You’ll notice the “Add” links here show the beauty and the frustration of working with a Wiki. The data is put in place by those who care, but there isn’t anyone paying to make sure the data is complete. You also need to watch out for “spam”. When you look at the site, it may say one thing and it will eventually be fixed but it would be best to crosscheck your data with other sources.

There are also several other sites available in the article that are pay sites. I’ll be looking at them more seriously when I feel I have a good grasp of the fundamentals.

What do you think? Are these sites worth anything? Have you tried any of them out?