It's pretty well the same as the last post on the "procrastination" thread, about the cookies to the "old farts" (my translafion of "ROMEOs") club at the village church, then the good news about blood pressure from the homecare nurse when my catheter was changed, and of the car battery about which I've been concerned, being reported O.K. when in for the oil change. And not having my possessions, such as they are, maybe being at risk when I wasn't able to find a homeless/street person to share my warm house when, wind taken into account, the temperature was to be in the 30s below zero. This morning in church when they were asking for joys and concerns prior to prayer, I was about to put my hand up to offer thankfulness that no frozen bodies were found in our area following the recent nights of extreme cold ... when the leader finished asking. Lucille, Maybe a good idea to post what you have written, then go to seek other material, bringing it back to make an edit. You have an hour to make edits, I'm fairly sure. Son has told me (multiple times, reportedly) to do my composing on notepad, Word, or wherever, then bringing it to wherever you want to post it, all of a piece. ole joyful

There's nothing wrong with free expression of opinions. Some people get a little to worked up over little things but that's okay with me. So long as comments there, as here, remain non-personal I'm a denizen of the double yellow lines in the middle, I don't have a lot of affection for either of the two major parties nor their leaders. Both sides have plenty to be criticized about and blamed for. Outrage has taken the place of engagement and compromise. Whether justified or not, there were plenty of Republicans who were unhappy with Obama and what happened during those years. And with Clinton. Is anyone more right or more wrong? Maybe, but it doesn't matter, because criticism of the opposition is what rallies supporters. Less so than in countries with parliamentary governments but here too, how the country stays on an straight course is by having periodic changes from one party to another. More extreme things get changed every so often or changed back to how they were before being changed, it's not a bad thing. In the meantime, obsessing over details or events really doesn't do much. Vote for the candidates you like and don't expect them to do much once in office. There are some exceptions, good and bad.

Mother's day has come and gone... so should this thread! I am struggling with some of the statements. I justified the reference to our levels of earnings by saying that most of the stuff that we buy using "credit" cards isn't deductible, so using them isn't going to increase our amount of after-tax cash on hand, which will have an impact on our pre-tax income, as well. Almost none of the things we buy are tax deductible, so this is simply not relevant... because it doesn't change between the alternatives. The only way this becomes relevant is if you are taking money out of your traditional IRA to use for interest payments... So the entire before tax / after tax logic pretzel only works for one specific thing that is not mentioned in the original post. Next, a 28% credit card rate is not equal to a 28% savings rate. This is the difference between compounding interest and effective interest. Even though the two are calculated the exact same way, and compounding is a type of effective, compounding grows but effective interest can shrink. Credit cards are basically rolling installment loans with an 8 year and 4 month payback and no early payment penalty. So the total interest you pay on a $5,000 purchase would be $5,892 over 8.33 years. People will often struggle to convert avoidable interest to investment returns, and most people shouldn't need to do this. The easiest way to do so is by using a version of the Modigliani-Miller theorem. If you want to equate a loan into an investment, then just hypothetically use the loan to purchase the investment and find the interest rate where the total payments on the loan = the total return of the investment. The equivalent investment rate of a 28% credit card, is 9.38%. However, if you are not working with the capital structure of a business, that is pretty useless information. Unless you are borrowing to invest, you should just avoid equating loans to investments. It isn't going to provide useful information. ---- Math questions are best solved with math and not an application of some vague wisdom. Interest is not that hard to calculate, so learn to calculate it. There are times when using your credit card is wise and there are times when it is not. Generally speaking though, balances on high interest credit cards are a symptom of another problem. Typically, either frivolous spending or insufficient income. So, if you can, work on that problem first and the credit card problem tends to fix itself.

Ole joyful is alove and well. (That was meant to be "alive" - didn't have the heart to amend!) I thought to comment on the "what are you grateful for today" but it was late and at my age I need any beauty sleep that I can find. Will stop for now and send, to add more later. ole (didn't hit "space", then "delete" ... so had to return to add) joyfuelled + "space", then "delete"