Home, Sweet Home

This picture has nothing to do with today's rant, but I like it.










First things first. I would like to acknowledge and tip my hat to visitor PCarey who left a very thoughtful comment about my humble blog. He or she remarked that he or she enjoys the blog and this is a key point here, thinks I am funny. People, this is the sort of visitor we at the Sneed blog are looking for. Many of you could bump up your next blog-reader evaluation by being a bit more like PCarey. Just saying.

Perhaps you've had this experience. A friend says something that is so blatantly stupid and says it so proudly, that you cannot offer the correct response, which would be, "That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of." Or in the alternative I have always been fond of, "Are you on crack?"

Many of you wouldn't say that because you are kind and caring. As for me, my silence was out of a sense of self-preservation, not kindness. The fellow who shared the stink-bomb with me is both big and ill-tempered. So I smiled and nodded, while thinking "S-T-U-P-I-D".

My friend has been offered a new job, for more money. He and his spouse plan on using this new job and the corresponding raise in pay, as an excuse to upgrade their current home, by buying a swanky new one. So far, so good, I guess.

My friend's incredibly bad idea is to keep his current house as a rental. Landloarding in and of itself is hard, but the kicker is that he intends to cash out his retirement plan at the current job when he leaves and pay off this house. Then he figures that he will collect the rental income to help offset the higher payment at the new digs. Many people believe that being a landlord means walking to the mailbox to collect the rent check. Huge mistake in thinking there.

The problem is that he either hasn't thought this through or simply can't do math. If you cash out retirement funds and you are less than fifty-nine and a half years old, you pay a ten percent penalty and plus your regular income taxes on the whole amount. If he needed a hundred thousand to pay off the house, he has to spend a hundred and forty thousand to get it. Then there is the matter of having drained out the retirement funds and having to start over with the new job.

Oh yeah, and who will the tenant be in this train wreck scenario? His adult child and family, who and I am quoting here, "Can't get a house on their own". So my friend is imperiling his retirement and pinning his hopes on the kid and family to make good on the rent. This has the potential to really mess up future holidays in this family.

Everyone who knows me, knows that I am all about not living in a van down by the river and eating kibble in my old age, so this just creeps me out. Hopefully, he will rethink this bad idea. One thing for sure, I am not telling him it is a dumb idea because I bruise easily.

And finally, there's this. I just got an email from the fine folks at ProFlowers.com. You may recall that my Valentine flower order for both the lovely Mrs. Sneed and Daughter Sneed failed to arrive, possibly due to bad weather somewhere.This is the opening paragraph of the email.

'The Art of Fresher Flowers' is not just a motto, it's our mission. That's why we want to take this opportunity to offer our most sincere apologies that the bouquet you sent did not meet your standards - or ours. Our goal is to ensure every last bud, leaf, and stem is delivered just-picked-this-moment fresh, and while mistakes will occur with such a fragile and perishable product, we very much regret that we failed to live up to your expectations.

I guess, not showing up would be a failure to meet my expectations, but I have to wonder if they have any handle on what is going on over there.

Merle.









Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky


Tag: Daily Life
Personal Finance
Humor