Hello Everyone,

I have not posted in a really long time, but I have been keeping my pages up to date. The good news is that I paid off the car loan almost a year early. I had been making double payments each month for the past few months. Saturday, I decided to just pay it off with the overtime I have been working lately. I am now debt free except for the mortgage.

A huge life event will possibly be coming up this Fall. The decision is whether to retire. I turn 65 in October and will be eligible for Medicare. I am sick of my job, and am ready NOW to retire, but with a medical issue here and there, I will just have to wait. So I am just padding the ole 401k until I make the leap.

I have been using a few financial websites and their calculators to see if a comfortable retirement will be viable. I am borderline to okay. One of the biggest determinants is the unknown, which is how long will I live. And the corresponding biggest fear is outliving my savings. If only I had the sense to invest for retirement at an earlier age!

This piece of crap, walmart special, with the much hated Vista operating system, that I bought in Nov.2008, finally quit operating. During the past month I noticed a blackening in the lower left corner of the screen over the start button, so I had an idea that maybe time was up for it being a thorn in my side. It was the bane of my existence, but not anymore.

As a replacement I went with a bigger and better laptop with a i7 processor, 12GB RAM, 1T Hard Drive and a 17.3 inch HD touchscreen. I guess the only drawback is the 8.1 windows operating system. However, I'm slowing getting used to it and it really isn't all that bad compared to the multitude of issues I had with the old laptop. And it did set me back about $1185.00, but I can pay it off within 24 months with no interest.