Disneysteve's Common Cents Blog

I am currently in Atlantic City to attend a professional conference. I arrived this morning and plan to stay until Saturday (possibly Friday night unless my wife is able to join me Friday and stay over with me).

Anyway, I do enjoy playing some blackjack when I have the opportunity. Over the past couple of years, I've studied the game and learned basic strategy (something very few casual players bother to do). Although it definitely doesn't guarantee you will win (as was obvious today), it does nearly eliminate the casino's advantage, making it less than 1%.

I got off to a decent start and at one point had more than doubled my starting stake. I continued playing and ultimately gave back almost everything I had sat down with. I played again later and did even worse, losing all I sat down with.

I do plan to play more while I'm here. Hopefully, I'll have better luck next time around.

A very active day today.

I spent about 3 hours cleaning in my garage. I managed to consolidate a lot of stuff, stack things more compactly, fill two 30-gallon trash bags, fill 2 carton boxes with recyclables, put a couple more cartons on the yard sale pile and find a few things for the ebay pile.

When my wife came in to check on me, I asked what Saturday we had free in May to do a yard sale. She checked and we are free on the 19th, so that's the day. Last year, we never managed to have one so stuff has really piled up, even more so since we cleaned out my mom's house before she moved last June.

Until today, we had just enough of a path to walk through the garage. Now it is a few feet across and more open feeling even though I really didn't get rid of much.

Finally, I just listed 2 items on ebay and wrote up descriptions for a few more that I'll post tomorrow night.

Oh, and I also did another medical survey for $50 (see prior post about those).

Time to go crash for the night.

A family trip to Walt Disney World has become as common as a day at the beach when I was growing up. Many families, however, struggle to make a Disney trip happen and, in the process, spend far more than is necessary. There are plenty of ways to do Disney on a budget. My family of 3 spends about $2,000 for a 9-day trip. I've seen plenty of people spend 2-3 times as much for a 7-day trip. So here are some of my best tips for keeping the trip affordable.

Drive to Florida. This is a perfectly reasonable option for a large percentage of the population. It is a 17-hour drive for us from New Jersey. Doing so saves us about $1,000. We avoid airfare, airport parking, and a rental car.

Stay offsite. Disney has many wonderful hotels, but the rooms are small and expensive. The surrounding areas of Kissimmee and Lake Buena Vista are filled with endless hotels, timeshares, townhouses and condos where you can get similar rooms or much larger properties for less than Disney charges. We've paid as little as $37/night for a 2-bedroom, 2-bath condo. There are many websites where you can research options including vrbo.com, skyauction.com and disboards.com (a great discussion forum for all things Disney).

Eat breakfast in your room. Since you are driving, you can pack non-perishables like cereal, pop-tarts, granola bars, etc. Then you can visit the supermarket upon arrival and buy milk, juice, yogurt and other perishables. Breakfast can cost $1/person or less. Compare that to a restaurant where $6-8 is typical.

Stick to counter service restaurants. Unlike many amusement parks where the fare is limited to hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken fingers and fries, the Disney parks house many excellent counter service restaurants where you can feast on Asian noodle bowls, sushi, grilled salmon, rotisserie chicken and more. The advantage is the prices are quite reasonable compared to table service restaurants. You also get in and out more quickly leaving more time to enjoy the attractions. A great site that lists every menu for every Disney restaurant (with prices) is allearsnet.com.

Share food. Most restaurants have generous sized portions that can be shared. The 3 of us will often get just 2 entrees and an extra side. Saves money, avoids wasting food and discourages us from overeating. Another secret is that you can order things that aren't exactly on the menu. For example, if there is a burger and fries meal, you can order just the burger and save a couple of dollars. Then just share someone else's fries.

Drink water - tap, not bottled. We're always amazed how many people we see at Disney drinking bottled water, at $2.50/bottle. That, or soda, is a real budget buster. Tap water is free and plentiful.

Since you are staying offsite, it is easy to dine offsite occasionally. Routes 535 and 192 are loaded with every type of restaurant you can think of from national chains to local chains to independent places. If we take a break from the park mid-day, we may grab lunch outside. Or if we have a non-park day or cut out early one evening, we'll do dinner outside.

Visit the Disney outlet stores for souvenirs. Our favorite is the shop at Orlando Premium Outlets, just a few minutes from Disney property. They have overstock and discontinued styles at nice savings. It is all genuine Disney stuff, just cheaper.

As I said, we spend about $2,000 for our trips, and we could easily trim that if we needed to. We collect Disney memorabilia so have a larger than average souvenir budget. For everyone else, though, it would be quite doable on about $1,600 for everything, and that's for 9 days. Seven days would be even less. And a 4th person would only add about a few hundred to that total since transportation and accomodations wouldn't increase. Just park tickets and food.

My mom offered to buy us Broadway show tickets for our anniversary this year so I went online to pick a show. Since it will just be my wife and I, I wanted to pick something adult oriented. Otherwise, our daughter would have been upset that we weren't taking her, as we all love going to the theater.

We chose Avenue Q which from what I know about it is definitely not a family show. We'll be going in July, the weekend of our anniversary. We're looking forward to it as we haven't been to a show for a couple of years.

I have the opportunity pretty regularly to do medical surveys for which I receive cash honoraria. Honestly, I don't do most of the ones I get invited for, but once again I'm making a conscious effort to do them all because it is stupid to pass them up as it is pretty easy money.

Anyway, yesterday I got a check for $50 for one I did recently. Sunday, I did one for which I'll get $60 and today I did one for $55.

On top of that, I was recently invited to speak on behalf of one of the pharmaceutical companies. I didn't ask how much I'd make when agreeing to speak. I was guessing about $250 because I seem to recall that's what I got a couple of years ago for something similar. I got my contract the other day and it is for $625. I was very happy about that.

So all in all, a good week for side income.

We got the heater serviced today (see previous post). Actually, I didn't call until today because it seemed to be fine all week, then went out again last night (in the midst of our Nor'easter storm).

Of course, the unit is out of warranty.

The repair was $361.60 including the service call. The other option was to extend the warranty for another year. That would be $369 and cover the service call and twice/year routine maintenance visits on the heater and AC, plus 20% off any needed parts. So including today's repair, it would come to $545.53. I don't normally believe in extended warranties, but in this case I figured it was really only costing us $184 to be covered for the year instead of $369. Plus we'll get the 2 service visits included for that price. So we decided to take the warranty just in case something else breaks. And even if nothing breaks, we'll get 2 service calls for $184 which isn't such a bad deal.

We noticed Sunday night that our heater wasn't working quite right. It is coming on and it is blowing hot air but it isn't quite keeping up with the temperature it is set for. Last night, it was set at 70 but according to the thermostat it was only 68 in the house. I just put in a new filter and to my untrained eye, everything looks okay, but I know it isn't right. So I'll put in a call to the service folks today. Wonder what that will cost me?

Ok, we weren't exactly housecleaning. We were searching for my wife's wallet on Thursday. She had put it somewhere while cleaning earlier in the week and couldn't remember where. She thought she had stuck it in a drawer or cabinet because we had guests coming and she didn't want to leave it out in the open.

Anyway, we were going through every drawer in the bedroom and hallway, among other places. While we didn't find her wallet (which did eventually turn up - at the bottom of the washing machine), we did find quite a few items that we agreed we had no use for. Three of those items have already gone on ebay. Two already have bids totalling $95.99 and they don't end for 5 more days.

So take some time and go through those drawers and closets. You never know what hidden value you might find.

We hardly ever go to a shopping mall. We do most of our shopping at stand-alone stores like Target and Wal-Mart or a couple of large strip centers in our area.

Last night, we dropped our daughter off at Girl Scouts and didn't feel like just going home, so I suggested we wander around the nearby mall. This is a mall that I've been going to since I was a child. It has certainly changed over the years, as I think all malls have. It really struck me last night how incredibly upscale it has become. Very little to appeal to folks of average means, or folks like us of above average means who choose to live below those means.

Years ago, the mall had Woolworths and an independent book shop and a little cafeteria and a craft shop and such. Today, it is populated by Coach and Godiva and Abercrombie and Brooks Brothers and the like. Very few stores that we would ever set foot in and even fewer that we can afford to shop in. Other than the food court, there was very little there that appealed to us.

What also struck me was that the average customer looked to be no more than 25. Surely all these teens and young adults can't be earning nearly enough to truly afford the prices of these stores. It isn't hard to see how so many people get so deeply in debt if this is where they are choosing to shop.

I miss the simplicity and down-to-earth shopping that we had years ago. There was a great book a few years ago called "Trading Up" that talked about this phenomenon of how as our nation has become more prosperous, everyone has upgraded their normal level of goods. Instead of Maxwell House coffee, its Starbucks. Instead of a Buick, its a Lexus. Instead of vacationing at the shore, its Cancun.

I'm not sure what my point is, but I can tell you that I won't be visiting the mall again anytime soon.

I admit it. I squandered $1.00 today. Actually, with tax, it was $1.07. We went looking for some things DD needs for the Renaissance Fair her class is doing. I came across compact fluorescent light bulbs. I figured the ones they are selling for $1 probably couldn't be as good as the ones sold everywhere else for 10 times as much, but I decided to gamble and buy one.

Guess what. They're not as good. First, it is a white fluorescent, so really can't be used to replace an incandescent bulb as it is a totally different type of light. Also, the package said it lights instantly. That isn't quite true. There is a couple second delay when you turn it on. Finally, it didn't seem very bright, though I didn't leave it on long so it might have brightened after a minute or two as some bulbs will do that.

Of course, it isn't a total loss as it is a working light bulb. I just can't use it where I was planning to.

Our last auction of the month ended today. We sold 5 items for a total of $108.48. Not bad at all since we did it very casually and made no serious effort at all.

I was a little disappointed with today's auction since there were 7 watchers and it ended with only 1 bid. I was hoping a few of those watchers would be competing at the end and boost the price.

Of course, I know from experience that with a little effort, we can do far better. My best month ever on ebay I took in nearly $3,000. I've been training DW how to do ebay and a couple of the sales were hers, so she's getting the hang of it. I'm sure we'll gradually ramp up the number of items we post. I'm going to set a goal of $200 in sales for April, nearly double this month. That should give us something to shoot for and still be easy to accomplish.

In preparation for Passover, we are in the midst of our annual major house cleaning. A couple of days ago, my wife said she wanted to make a very frivolous purchase. I could tell from her tone that she was kidding, so I asked what this frivolous purchase was going to cost me. She said it would be more than the new bathmat she bought last week - that was $5. Now I knew I was in trouble - LOL! Turns out she wanted a new kitchen trashcan since the one we have is quite dirty. She figured about $15 to replace it. Being the cheapskate that I am, I promised to clean it for her and if it didn't come out clean enough, then she could buy a new one.

I just took it outside and scrubbed it with a Brillo pad and it is bright white, as good as new. Wife is satisfied and said, "Boy, you'll do anything to save $15, won't you."

Yup!

I only use my Discover card when they have a good 5% cashback bonus special. As a result, I haven't used it for a few months. But a few months ago, I also redeemed my cashback bonus for $20 to be applied to my account. The only problem was I ended up having a zero balance when that occurred, which left me with a $20 credit. I kept meaning to use the card since I had a credit, but I forgot. Yesterday, I got a check in the mail from Discover for the $20 credit. I guess it is better for them to pay out the money than to keep tracking it on my account. Honestly, I'd rather have the money and not have to worry about using the card to utilize it.

I've used Half.com several times in the past but hadn't listed anything lately. The other day I was packing old clothes to give away because Purple Heart was coming. I found my wife had put a book in pile. Rather than give it away, I listed it on Half.com. It was a novel with the dust jacket. I priced it at $2.89 which seemed to be the going rate. Less than a week later, it sold! Certainly not a big windfall, but it couldn't possibly have been easier so it's found money as far as I'm concerned.

Well I had an expensive day, but for a good reason. My daughter will become Bat Mitzvah in Sept. 2008. We've already booked the DJ and photographer for the party that will follow the ceremony. Today, we met with the caterer we wanted to use. We know him and his staff well as they frequently cater events at our temple and we have attended many of those affairs.

We spent about an hour discussing menu options and how to structure the evening and ended up giving him a $1,000 deposit to reserve the date. Since he knows us well, he gave us a nice break. Rather than booking us at the 2008 anticipated prices, he booked us at the 2005 prices. So we will be paying $58/adult and $38/child. The bar will be another $3/head if we provide the alcohol or $18/head if he supplies it. That would bring the total to $76/head. Not bad when you consider that our wedding in 1992 was $72/head. And I know I'll get the alcohol myself and save a few hundred dollars.

Yes, we've had money put aside for this for years. I've got $25,000 earmarked for the affair though I'm hoping we don't need all of it.

Little by little, I'm trying to get back into selling on ebay. I used to sell regularly, even full time for a stretch in 2000, but I got away from it for quite a while.

I listed 2 items last week. I had 4 vintage department store credit cards that we found when cleaning out my wife's aunt's house in 1992. I knew there were folks who collected them but even I was surprised by the final price: $46.00. I was happy with that.

The other auction was for a bin full of rubber stamps that my daughter hasn't played with for years. There were a total of 79 items including stamps and several stamp pads. That sold for $24.50.

And two weeks ago, we sold a kitchen knife that we had recently replaced with a better one. That went for $7.99.

So in just 3 auctions, we brought in over $78 on stuff that was just lying around the house taking up space.

We finally figured out our summer travel plans. In my last post, I said how we were looking at New Hampshire, Boston, and Rhode Island. Well, the more we researched New Hampshire, the more things of interest we found throughout the state. And after checking the Boston guides again, we realized that on our last visit, we had hit almost all of the sites that we were really interested in.

So the final decision is that we will be spending the whole 2 weeks in New Hampshire. We're starting with a 1-night stay in Hartford, CT to visit family. Then we will move on to Manchester, NH for 7 nights. We'll use that as our base for exploring the whole southern part of the state. Then we'll do two nights in Lebanon to see some sites along the western border before ending up in Franconia in the White Mountains for 4 nights. Everything but the Franconia part will be free with Marriott Reward points. So the grand total hotel cost for 14 nights will be under $400.

For anyone planning a trip to New Hampshire, the state tourism guide is pretty worthless as it is horribly disorganized. The site that we found that was extremely helpful was www.newhampshire.com. They break the state down into several regions and have a list of 10 things to see and do in each of those regions.

Now we just need August to come soon.

I realized that I haven't made an entry for a couple of weeks. It seems like we've been busy non-stop with one thing or another. I'm on a few committees at our synagogue, busy with work, attending some school things with DD, etc.

One thing we've started doing seriously is figuring out our summer vacation. We've been tossing around ideas for a few months but I think we've finally narrowed it down. Now that DW isn't working, we can do a 2-week vacation rather than 1 week. That helps a lot in the planning. My main criteria was that I wanted to use our Marriott points as much as possible. We usually use them every other year to pay for at least part of our trip. We currently have over 100,000 points. If we plan it right, that may well cover just about all of a 2-week trip.

Anyway, last summer we went to Stowe, VT and loved it so we want to head back to New England this year. As of now, we're planning to start in New Hampshire. We've been paging through the state tour guide (which is really poorly organized) and the AAA guidebook (which is very well organized) to get some ideas of what sites we want to visit.

A couple of weeks ago, DD asked if we could go back to Boston some time. We were there 3 years ago and though we had a great time and saw some neat stuff, we barely scratched the surface of all the area has to offer. So after NH, we will head to Boston for a few days.

Finally, as we move toward home, I want to spend a few days in Rhode Island - Providence and Newport. We've never been there but looking through the guide books, there are numerous places of interest that we'd like to see.

We haven't worked out the exact itinerary - how many days in each place - but we're getting there. The main thing I want to figure out is where we want to stay in each locale so I can book the rooms. So that's where we stand for now.

2/12 was DW's last day of work. Her last paycheck came a few days later. So we are officially a one-income household again.

I'm really not expecting it to change much on the spending side since we were investing 80% of her salary in her 403b plan (which I have to figure out what to do with). She was actually only bringing home $156/month, and some of that went into savings, too. I think we'll make that up in less gas usage, less clothing costs, more home cooking and more efficient food shopping. And having her happier and more relaxed already is well worth the lost income.

Where we'll take the hit is in our retirement accounts. She was putting $1,250/month into her 403b. No way we can replace that. Also, I may need to trim back what goes into DD's 529. It used to be $225/month but I increased it to $400/month a couple of years ago. I may drop it back a bit but I'm waiting a month or two to see how everything plays out.

Last year, our Rabbi Emeritus tried to put together a group trip to Israel. In a fit of insanity, I decided that we could go and we put down a $1,500 deposit. Fortunately for our bank account, not enough people signed up and the trip was cancelled. Also fortunate because the latest round of violence started the week we had been scheduled to go.

The Rabbi is now again talking about getting a group together. I'm hoping (and have told him so) that he will plan a more budget-minded trip this year. I think the main reason he couldn't gather enough people last year was the cost. He was doing first class accomodations all the way and the trip would have been nearly $4,000/person. Since there are 3 of us, that meant $12,000 plus expenses. I figured about $14,000 all together. Like I said, I must have been out of my mind when I agreed to that.

If he manages to trim costs and make the trip more affordable, we will give it some serious consideration. As much as I'd like to go, I have a tough time spending that kind of money on anything. We also have our daughter's Bat Mitzvah coming up next year and own 2 aging cars, so I see those costs on the horizon.

We'll have to figure it out when we see the actual price of the trip.

I started to work on my taxes today. I'm very good about putting all tax-related items in one folder in my desk drawer throughout the year. Then when tax time rolls around, all I have to do is sort through that one folder and put things together. Makes the job so much easier.

Once I have all my 1099s, I sit down and get organized. I do not do my own taxes. My father was an accountant. When he was alive, he did them for me. Since he died, my cousin, who now runs the family accounting firm my dad and uncle started, has been doing them. He does charge me, but at a considerably reduced rate. Last year, I think I paid $80. It is well worth it to me as i want to be sure it is done right and I have a professional standing behind my return.

My next step is to scan through my checkbook register and my CC statements to check for tax-related transactions. I started that earlier and will probably finish up tomorrow. Finally, I need to compile my ebay sales info. Then I'll call my cousin and set up an appointment to meet with him and give him all the data.

I'm hoping we come out about even this year. It seems that no two years are the same. Just when I think I've got it figured out so that we don't get a big refund or owe much, something changes in our financial situation. For 2006, it was my wife signing up for the 403b plan at work. Since she was putting 80% of her salary into the plan for the last 3 months of the year, that will certainly alter her taxable income. I'm hoping that balances out the $7,200 in dividends and capital gains that one of our taxable mutual funds paid this year. Time will tell where things end up. I'll report back in a few weeks after the returns are completed.

We happened to be watching America's Test Kitchen last weekend and saw a recipe we wanted to try ourselves - Pot Stickers. They made theirs with ground pork, which is out in our house since a) we're Jewish and don't eat pork and b) we're nearly vegetarians and hardly ever eat meat. So I took on trying out the recipe with a few modifications.

Thursday is my short day at work, so I stopped at the store and picked up supplies: shitake mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, scallions, won ton wrappers (wanted gyoza wrappers but couldn't find any - have to go to the Asian market next time).

Using the ATK recipe as a guide, I chopped, salted and drained the cabbage, chopped the scallions and mushrooms, added a couple of egg whites and, in place of the pork, mixed in vegetarian ground beef substitute. I assembled the pot stickers and froze about half the batch - it made lots! I held the rest aside for us to eat tonight. I also made the scallion dipping sauce that ATK had the recipe for.

While I was cooking the pot stickers, I also cooked up a pot of brown rice to eat on the side.

I was fully expecting my daughter not to like them. I even told her she could make Ellio's pizza as a back-up dinner if she didn't like them.

Well, there was no Ellio's eaten at our house tonite. My daughter ate 7 or 8 of the pot stickers, as did my wife and I. I even had to get up part-way through and cook another batch. One more recipe to add to the family dinner list. Plus, we have a ziploc bag full of frozen pot stickers that we can make next time. I have to figure out approximately what the whole batch cost to make, but I'm sure it wasn't a whole lot.

We are the cookie family this year, meaning we are in charge of ordering, storing and distributing the cookies for our troop. We just got back from picking up our initial order - 200 CASES!! That's 2,400 boxes of Girl Scout cookies! Our living room is stacked 5 high with cases of cookies. We can't actually sell until Thursday (we can take orders, but no money), but if anyone is in the neighborhood and needs cookies, come on by.
disneysteve
disneysteve
disneysteve

My daughter is a victim of Madison Avenue. As hard as we've tried to fight it, she keeps thinking there is something inherently wrong with store brand products. We still buy a bunch of them, but there are certain things she insists on brand name.

A few weeks ago, we were at the supermarket and she needed waffles, which she has for breakfast most mornings. I showed her the price difference between the Eggos and the store brand. She agreed to try the store brand. I told her if she didn't like them, she didn't have to get them again.

Guess what. She thought they were just fine. We only bought the small box (10) that first time to try them. When we went back the other day, we bought the bulk pack of 48 which made the unit price even cheaper. I didn't figure out exactly what that is saving, but since she eats 3 waffles a day, I know it will add up pretty quickly.

So the next time I want her to try something generic, I'll just remind her about the waffles.

I explained in my last entry that my wife would be leaving her job of 2 years and returning to SAHM status. That's official now as she spoke to the administrator yesterday and will hand in written notice today (as required by company policy).

However, that might not be the end of the story. Her job has been as secretary of our synagogue. Monday nite, she spoke with the Rabbi and let him know she would be leaving. She works closely with him doing his appointment scheduling, typing his dictation, etc., so she wanted to let him know. He has been pushing to get someone to help him part-time, maybe a couple of evenings each week, to do organizational stuff, as he is not the most organized person in the world. He said he would speak with the board about coming up with the money to hire her part-time.

Yesterday, when she spoke to the administrator, she said the same thing. Maybe my wife could stay on on a PT basis. Since our daughter attends religious school there, my wife is already in the building 2 nites a week while our daughter is in class. If they can arrange to pay her to work during those hours, and maybe one or two other times during the week, that would be perfect. Perhaps 8-10 hours/week.

It needs to be proposed to the finance committee, which will happen tomorrow. We'll see what they say.

My wife left her job in Dec. 1994 just before becoming pregnant with our daughter. She remained a SAHM for 10 years. We managed just fine on my income alone, even counting a short period of unemployment and a job change along the way (with a paycut).

Two years ago this month, she went back to work. It wasn't planned. She wasn't looking for a job, but an opportunity presented itself that she didn't want to pass up. She has never been entirely sure she wanted to work, so we tried our best not to become dependent on her income. I've put about 80% of her gross into savings each paycheck. She currently brings home $78 twice a month after the 403b contribution and taxes. We have increased spending a bit thanks to her income, and retirement planning sure got a big boost with an extra 15K/year going in, but overall we've been really good about managing that extra money.

She's finally gotten to the point where she just isn't happy at the job. When she first considered working, we agreed that if she wasn't happy, I didn't want her to feel she had to keep at it just for the money. So we talked over the weekend and she will probably be quitting in the near future.

We've talked about how we are going to have to tighten the belt a bit and go back to some more frugal habits that we have gotten away from the past couple of years. We've been eating out more, buying more convenience foods, food shopping with little regard to sales and coupons, taking nicer vacations, etc. We agree that her being happy is more important than having the extra money, so we're willing to work together to cut costs. Besides, a lot of the less frugal behavior has happened because she is working and we don't have time to do the frugal stuff, so I don't think it will be that tough to trim our spending. I'll definitely be rereading "The Tightwad Gazette" and paying closer attention to the weekly circulars and the threads onine about money-saving tips, so keep them coming.

Our garage used to be a total mess - barely room to walk through it to enter the house. A year or so ago, I finally buckled down and cleaned it out pretty well and it was great. Then my mom decided to sell her house (my childhood home). I still had a ton of stuff stored there. You guessed it. I helped clean out her house and all the stuff ended up in our garage. Back to just a narrow path from driveway to door.

It was a beautiful spring-like day today, 71 degrees in January. I took the opportunity to spend some time in the garage, though not as much as I had planned. I did manage to pack 4 carton boxes with stuff to go to Goodwill. I didn't get to drop it off today, but I'll get it over later this week. That barely made a dent in the appearance of the garage, but it got me motivated to keep at it. I'm not sure what we're up to tomorrow, but if nothing is going on, I will get back in there and do more cleaning and organizing.

ETA: My biggest problem is I always hold out hopes of selling the stuff we don't want. We've done a few yard sales in the past, and have done well with them, but the stuff piles up far faster than it sells, and last year we never managed to have a sale. At some point, I just get to the point where I'd rather have the space than the money. Decluttering is very therapeutic.

Just in case you had any doubts that the concept of personal responsibility no longer exists in this country, Pfizer just released a diet pill for dogs. Seeing as more than 2/3 of American adults are overweight or obese, I guess it should be no surprise that our pets are also getting fat. People overfeed themselves and overfeed their pets. And since people are sitting around all day rather than getting out and exercising, their pets are sitting around right with them.

There are lots of people who keep trying to come up with all kinds of excuses about why people are getting fatter (even though the answer is quite simple) but with dogs it isn't tough to understand. These are creatures that are 100% dependent on someone else for their nourishment. Feed them too much and they gain weight. If your dog is getting fat, stop feeding him so much and run around with him more. As a medical professional, I find the fact that any credible scientist even suggested producing this medication to be quite disturbing. I can only hope that one of these days people will wake up and start taking responsibility for both their own health and their pets' health.

I'm not one for resolutions, but I did start back using our treadmill today. I go on and off the exercise wagon over time. I've been off it for a while. Though I haven't really gained any weight, I've definitely developed a little stomach that didn't used to be there. I'm hoping getting back on an exercise routine will help out - it has before. So I will shoot for at least 3 times a week doing 30 minutes on the treadmill.

Did another 30 minutes today: 1/3/07

I knew we had a good year thanks to our savings and great market performance. But I was surprised how well the final numbers turned out.

The net worth I'm referring to is strictly financial assets minus debts. It doesn't include our home's value or any other personal belongings (cars, jewelry, collectibles, etc).

Our year-end net worth for 2006 is up 48.42% over 12/31/05.

During the year, we also boosted our stock/equity fund exposure from 67.3% to 71.9% of our portfolio.

Here's hoping 2007 brings similarly good performance for all of us.