The money came

I think what bothers me most is that I'm not a kid. I'm no longer in my twenties. Somewhere near the end of my twenties I figured a person ought to have the financial wherewithall to move ahead without assistance.

The money arrived. The phones are back on. The car is getting new parts as I type this. I've enough for an emergency fund. Now, paying this back is important to me.

(An aside here - my son got the sous chef position, regardless of the phones. My daughter picked up another shift at work, regardless of the phones. And my other daughter heard greatt news from Afghanistan without the phones. Facebook, e-mail and face to face work wonders...)

There are a ton of extremely unhelpful budgeting sites on the internet. What a mash-up of misguided muck. There's the big names like Suze Orman and Ramsey: out for a buck. The Ramsey's approach makes more sense - but a rather difficult site. One of my friends at work suggested Mint.com. That's what I've been putzing on here at work between phone calls and projects. I've been setting up my financial tracking on-line. I understand they have a touch screen version for my iPad. When I get home tonight I will download that app (please may they offer it free) and get some of the particulars put in it right. I like the way Mint.com is set up. It appears to allow me to tweak individual categories and tags and stuff so that all this makes sense to me. I don't care if it makes sense to anyone else. I don't appreciate that loans off the grid, such as the one I have, are not enterable into this program. Everything at Mint.com is "attached" to a retail account, attached to a "real bank". I will need to find a way to account for a loan from a private lender. With all the bells and whistles of Mint.com I can see how a program like this can keep me interested enough to track my expenses and maybe even reach some goals.

It's been a nice diversion, that may not be a diversion after all.