The economy is down, money is tight and everybody from the government (federal, state and local) down to each individual family is having to evaluate what is essential in their budget. What is really necessary when times are tough?

The federal government can borrow if they run out of money which raises the nation’s debt, but can sometimes be a necessary evil when we need to revive the economy. States and local governments don’t have that luxury. They can raise taxes or create bonds which must be paid back by taxpayers, but otherwise their only option is to cut spending.

If it comes down to cutting programs or spending in general what is really essential to the state?  For my state, Oregon, the biggest programs that are funded are Education (k-12 and higher ed), Public Safety (state police and prisons) and Human Services (health care, assisted living, treatment programs etc) . I attended an Oregon Ways and Means committee meeting that was taking testimony from anyone who wanted to give input on the budget. There are a lot of people who want their money and a lot of sob stories were told. I work in Higher Ed and of course I would hope we wouldn’t get hit so hard, but the initial proposal is a 15% cut (above what has been cut the last year or so).  It is bigger than other groups, but not as big as the governor was threatening earlier this spring.

I can complain about cuts, but I really don’t know where I think cuts should actually go otherwise. My only input would be to not add services that aren’t already being provided unless there is an outside source of revenue paying for it. I got an email recently from a LGBT group wanting me to support a new legal advocate to make sure new laws are being followed. I can’t do that. It is great we are getting some new laws, but I have to currently believe law enforcement will follow the laws they are told to follow and if it is proven otherwise and we are in a better situation economically, then we can get a new position.

My actual focus is my family. I let myself get into too much debt. A lot of it is my own, but a good chunk is money I loaned others using my good credit. Unfortunately they are not able to pay me back on a regular basis so I now cover my debt and well as theirs. Because of the extra debt and with Mona going back to school we have been doing some fancy footwork to keep above water. I wonder sometimes about how serious I really am in getting my debt down. I haven’t been cutting the bills I  have control of (like cable, internet, phone, newspaper), but we don’t eat out much anymore and I have always been thrifty in taking my lunch to work and a thermos of coffee instead of buying it (sorry Katie).

Mona will be out of school in a few weeks. She is looking to get a contract job for the summer so we have some guaranteed income. This isn’t going to help get our debt down really because we need to replace the roof on our house. We got a quote of about $6200 which was less than expected, but of course more than we have. So hopefully her work will offset extra debt we will incur. Getting the quote on the roof is what got me thinking about priorities and what we really need. It would have been better if I seriously thought about this about 10 years ago, but c’est la vie.

So what do you all think? Any profound wisdom in how either the government or individual families can/are getting through this? I have been thinking about this for a while, but in the end I haven’t really come up with any answers.

This last month has been quite busy. I’ve been helping my sister-in-law sell items from her store on eBay so she can try to stay above water. I think I did OK last month. I sold about $3500 worth of different items for her. I do have a little bit of an ulterior motive. I have loaned her money so if I help her, she is more likely to be able to pay me back. I kind of enjoy doing the eBay thing. I set up my own account and sold one thing of mine to work through the different things I need to set up. We’ll see how that goes.

I got to take a short vacation last week. I went up to my parent’s cabin with Mona. It was nice to get away from the kids and have some peace and quiet. We never get that at home right now. I may add a couple of pictures later so you all can see what it looks like up there. Had to get back to work as I’m doing an upgrade on our student system at work this next weekend. The week after that will be filled with meetings, then training classes are going to be starting up before school stars at the end of the month. Then things will get really busy

Mona will be starting back to school this fall. She is currently an LPN and wants to work toward becoming an RN. She has some prerequisites to do before she can apply to the nursing program. Money is going to be tight while she goes to school unless she can get a student loan. I’m hoping that will work out because last time she was in school, her student loan was paid off after she worked a year as a nurse. The government has some programs that are supposed to help get more nurses in the workplace. This is also the one case where it is good that we can’t get married so they do not consider my income in regards to financial aid. We pay extra taxes on health benefits, tuition reductions and the fact we can’t file jointly so I figure it is even in the long run

Being so busy, I have actualy done very little gaming in the last month. I did finish Lego Indiana Jones and got back to Ratchet and Clank Tools of Destruction, but really not much of either on my PS3. I have been playing Picross on my DS (puzzle game) primarily before going to bed. EBay has definitely taken up some of my gaming time. Although i have missed out on Socome Twosdays because I have forgotten what day of the week it is. With some new games coming out and new people getting PS3s I am looking forward to more PS3 action in the near future.

I know I’m not the first and I definitely won’t be the last, but it is hard when your adult kids move back home. They are adults and should take responsibility for themselves, but they are also family and it is the responsibility of family to take care of each other. When grandkids are involved, I just can’t say no.

Our daughter is 22. She, her husband and their 3 year old son moved back in with us in March. Since they have moved in, life seems to be at a standstill. It’s like we are treading water waiting for them to be able to move out so we can start swimming foward again. They have been in financial trouble for at least a year when they finally waved the white flag and ask if they could move back in to get on their feet. This last month we found out that they plan on staying until December or January so 5-6 more months of treading water.

It is nice to see our grandson, but we have NO alone time anymore. For one, our grandson is a definite Grandma’s boy. He follows us every where. Samantha (our daughter) isn’t any better. Once Kaleb is in bed, she seems to take his place. What is funny is that we actually have to start making out in front of her to get her to leave us alone (usually with a huff and “You could have just told me to leave!”). No we don’t use that method on our grandson… Another twist in this “adventure” is that Samantha is pregnant. Our next grandson is going to be born around Thanksgiving. The due date is three days before Thanksgiving. If that is the case she will probably be in the hospital for Thanksgiving. Kind of funny because at the moment the smell of turkey makes her nauseous.

There really isn’t room for them now (they are all sleeping together on a king size bed in the spare bedroom). When the new baby comes it will be even more caotic. It will be a joy to see the new one, but it’s going to be a crazy atmosphere at our house. I wish I wasnt so clausterphobic. I tend to stay in my office on my computer or playing games when I’m home to pass the time. This is more of a defensive tactic to keep me from getting between the bickering (the stress on them hasn’t been easy either).

I’m just hoping we all get through this time in one piece and with our respective relationships in tact. I believe it will all be ok in the long run, but it may be a bumpy ride. This post isn’t really going anywhere, but I just felt the need to whine a bit and sort out where the last 4 months have gone.

With the presidential election underway, this is a time where we need to learn to agree to disagree. Sure it would be nice to have everybody agree with us, but wouldn’t the world be pretty boring. Also with a bunch of yes men and women we would eventually spiral in a very dangerous direction. It takes people with different ideas to keep the checks and balances in order.

Personally, I’m liberal in some areas (social issues), but I’m more conservative fiscally. With this I tend to agree with portions of different politicians views. This usually puts me at odds with others. The majority of the people I talk to about politics are either very conservative or very liberal. Being neither myself I’ve learned to listen and bite my tongue the majority of the time. I hear people profess that the end of the world will come if candidate xyz is elected. They can never see any good from an opponent. Sure there are candidates I really don’t want, but I try to see the pluses and minuses of each candidate.

In the media we tend to hear the views of the extremes. This tends to push the rest of us out of the discussion because the extremes don’t want to listen. If we could agree to disagree I think the middle would join the discussion more often and we could get a better view of what the United States as a whole believes.

Hi, this is J-Mac.

I’m a computer science geek who got my CS degree back in 1989. I’ve been working in computing for about 20 years. Currently my expertise is Oracle programming (Oracle Forms, PL/SQL, SQL, ProC).