44 cents

The nicest thing happened to me yesterday. A lady gave me 44 cents. I know, I know - I can hear it now "wow, Mike - 44 cents. Perhaps it's time you increased your expectations juuuuust a little bit." Believe me, my expectations are high (abnormally high). I don't need any help in that department.

Lemme splain:
Yesterday after work I headed off to the post office to mail a letter. Just one letter. Nothing huge. After going back and forth - and back and forth - trying to decide whether or not it was worth it to wait for 15 people in line (at the 'Reno 911' of post offices) I gave in and took my place. After standing there for about 3 minutes I had a thought come over me "hmm, I bet I can buy a whole BOOK of stamps at that machine around the corner - see ya later, chumps!" Juuust as I was getting out of line, one of the nicest ladies in the world stopped me and said "are you just mailing that ONE letter?! All you want is ONE stamp?!" - "uh, ya" - "Well, here ya go." Then she proceeds to fish through her purse, pull out a book of Simpson stamps, and peel off a Homer. WOW! I know it might sound lame, but that totally made my day.

Even if I had the stamps, and was in her position, I don't think I'd have the guts to approach a scary lookin guy and offer him a stamp. Not sure why though. Just cuz. I'm heartless I guess - either that or just scared. So, the next time you see old Homer's face - don't picture him choking his son (all in good humor, of course) picture a nice lady making my day.

Mmmmm.... Bread

Last week a good friend of ours asked Jodie if making our own bread really saves us any money. I've always thought so - but I think that could be due to the fact that I would never want to admit that we've been wasting our hard-earned money instead of saving it AND letting someone else do all the work! (as if I do any of the work... but I digress)

SO, when Jodie said "do you think we're really saving any money?" I said "let's find out!"

It wasn't hard really - all we had to do was figure out the cost of each of the ingredients, divide out the part we used to make a batch of bread, and voila! And because I'm picky, I had to figure out how much it cost us to power our oven for 30 minutes (I love Google). All in all, we estimated that it costs us a shmidgen over $3 to mix and bake 6 loaves of bread. Not too shabby! I will admit that they aren't the biggest loaves of bread - I call em half-loaves, baby-bakes, snack cakes...etc. Yummy!

Soooo, I guess that means we'll be making a lot more of these:




Oh ya - THIS is what happens when you don't cut your children a slice fast enough.



Never leave a freshly-baked loaf of bread unattended.

The Numbers Guy

For a while now, I've wanted to start a blog. Not just ANY blog - but a blog where people could go and LEeeearn stuff. Useful stuff. Stuff that could actually help them in their lives. I don't have many of "those" skills - so I decided to write about the skills I DO have, and see how it goes. I decided to try the impossible: make Finances INTERESTING. Yea Baby! I just started it today - so don't expect anything huge. Pretty much everything about it will change in the coming months. I just thought I'd get the word out - cuz nobody likes to post posts for nobody!

The Numbers Guy
http://www.thenumbersguy.blogspot.com