ONLINE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING AND EXTREME COUPONING

Finished my Christmas shopping in one day, actually in less than one hour.  I went through one of my shopping rewards programs online and bought everything from one store.  Didn't really get any outstanding deals, so I'm hoping the cash back rewards are good because I spent more than I'd planned on spending. 

With that in mind, I decided the best way to make up for the extra spending was to save on everything else with extreme couponing.  I hit Walgreens Sunday and picked up Colgate Total toothpaste, a Colgate Optic White toothbrush and 5 bottles of Dawn dish liquid for less than $6.  Today I stopped by Gerbes and picked up 2 boxes of Jimmy Dean's fully cooked sausage and a dozen eggs for $4, for a savings of 63% off the regular prices.  The sausage was on sale 2 for $6 and if you bought 2 boxes you got a dozen large eggs free.  I used two coupons for 55 cents off per box on the sausage, both coupons double up to $1 each bringing my total cost down to just over $4 with tax.  I'll be watching for more great deals in the weeks to come and should be able to save enough to cover everything I've spent on Christmas this year. 

Nothing special to report on my investments.  With the looming "financial cliff"  and all the dawdling in Washington, I'm not expecting much to happen with the stock market until after the first of the year.  Since I'm in a buying phase, to replace stocks I sold to pay off medical bills this year, I'm kind of hoping for the market to stay low.  Whatever the case may be, I'll go with the flow and add some great dividend paying shares each month until I've replaced everything I had to sell.

BUYING UVE

Put in orders to purchase shares of UVE (Universal Insurance) for my taxable and retirement accounts.  With their 8.71% dividend yield on their recent price of $3.91, I'm looking to add to overall portfolio yield from dividends with this purchase. 

Got a big corporate inspection at work on Monday, so I'll be spending the weekend brushing up on corporate policy and procedure in preparation for that.  Be glad to have that out of the way.

The holidays are here, looking forward to a great Thanksgiving dinner, but I must admit I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet.  I'll be looking for some great deals online, probably won't do much shopping in the stores this year.

Started shopping around for health insurance.  The company I work for only offers realistic coverage for management, so I've opted not to sign up for their plans, since their policy only covers up to $10,000 per year and doesn't cover major medical.  I really only need major medical, so I could have a high deductible and pay for my own doctor visits and prescriptions, just have to find coverage at a reasonable rate.

DON'T BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR THE OTHER GUYS

The presidential election results may have been disappointing for me, but not entirely unexpected.  After all, I never really thought Romney had the charisma to beat Obama.  Even so, it was a lot closer than I expected, which should have sent signals to Obama and the Democrats that maybe they need to have a good hard look at the way they've been doing things.  Not likely to happen I suspect.

At any rate, the elections over and the results are what they are.  The administration is already talking tax hikes and the stock market took an immediate dive.  Neither of which were unexpected with an Obama win.  So what does a person do now?

I don't know about anyone else, but I've decided to look at it all as a stock buying opportunity and rebuild my investment portfolio.  After my last heart attack, the medical bills devastated my savings and investments, but like with any disaster,  things are starting to turn around and I'm getting back on track.  I've scheduled transfers to my regular stock account and my retirement account next week.  I'll be keeping things on a conservative level, trying to minimize tax exposure while maximizing income.

I've been reading the book, "You're Broke Because You Want to Be" by Larry Winget.  Great book for people who find themselves living paycheck to paycheck or never being able to pay their bills.  While I don't really have any trouble managing my finances anymore (I haven't been "broke" since September of 1993), I'm always looking for new ideas and ways to improve.  It's a great book and a great read, I highly recommend it.

As for election results, it's time to move on.  Whatever happens, don't blame me, I voted for the other guys.  Politicians come and go, and my "hope" is that moving "forward" they won't do too much damage along the way.  

WHO IS OBAMA REALLY ASKING TO PAY MORE IN TAXES?

Saw coverage of one of President Obama's campaign speeches today on HLN.  During the speech he received a round of applause when he compared his plan for our economy to former President Clinton.  While I think it highly questionable that Clinton's economic policies had anything to do with the budget surplus during his administration, there is one thing I know for sure about that time.  When President Clinton was elected, he passed one of the largest tax increases in history and made it retroactive to the beginning of the year.  Did he ask the rich to "pay a little bit" more, like President Obama says in his campaign commercials?  Undoubtedly.  However, as someone who lived and worked through those years, I know from first hand experience that my personal income taxes increased dramatically during Clinton's years in office, while my income did not.  In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that I would be considered among the "working poor" and yet I was faced with higher taxes and less take home pay.  

So if President Obama wants to compare himself to Bill Clinton, then I'm afraid I'll be saying NO THANK YOU on election day.  And by the way, wasn't it during this administration that government bailouts, with taxpayers money, helped rich bankers pay themselves obscene bonuses, while the rest of the nation suffered through the "Great Recession"?  I didn't hear any mention of that in his commercials about all that he's accomplished during his first term.  In all fairness, I think he probably should have mentioned that as well.

All this leads me to question who the President is really asking to "pay a little bit more"?

SAVED OVER 50% ON SHOPPING AT WALGREENS!

Had to pick up some things at Walgreens this morning, so I did the coupon match ups with the store ad and managed to save over 50% on my total bill.  Gotta love coupons!  Yeah, I'm still doing the extreme couponing, even though I haven't written about it in a while.  When I first started writing about coupons last year, I did a lot more shopping.  Now I've fine tuned my whole coupon use so I don't keep as many items on hand (smaller stockpile), I take more of a buy only what I need approach.  I still pick up extras of some items when they're extremely cheap and I still stockpile some items to hand out to family and friends, but for the most part I only do coupon and sale match ups on items as needed.  Which means I spend very little on household, food and personal care items.

The bottom line with coupons is to save as much as you can on the items you normally buy or on new items you'd like to try, but don't go overboard and build outrageous stockpiles or purchase items you don't need or won't use.

REGISTERED TO VOTE!

Just got my confirmation letter for my voter's registration, so I'm all set to vote in the upcoming presidential elections.  While I'd have preferred a Republican ticket featuring Ryan/Romney instead of Romney/Ryan, I still prefer them over Obama/Biden.  I don't see anything but more wasteful spending with another four years of democrats in the White House.  I'll be casting my vote for Republican candidates only.

DONE WITH THE FLEA MARKETS, BACK ON THE JOB

Closed down my outdoor flea market booth for the season, will be planning for next years sales starting in April 2013.  Over the winter months I'll be building my resale business on ebay and Craigslist.  This weekend we are having a rummage sale at my sister's house.  I've done quite well so far.  It's nice to have extra income from my resale business on top of going back to work.

Work has gone well so far.  Picked up my first paycheck Friday and used it to pay rent and add to my checking account balance.  Looking forward to putting some of the money back in my accounts that I paid out after my last hospital visit.  So far I haven't been having any problems with chest pains, but I do get tired by the end of the work day.  Probably not so unusual at my age.  Just have to make sure I'm not getting paranoid over every little twinge of pain.

Revised my investment plans to rebuild my accounts.  It seems like it gets easier every time, probably attributable to experience.  The more I study investing and actually apply what I learn, the easier it gets.  So I'm not too concerned about how long it will take to rebuild my portfolio.  Off to a new start, it's more exciting than daunting.  Wish me luck!  :0)