This just happened to me this week and I’m giving you the straight-up truth. The only reason it took a couple days for me to post about it, is I got sidelined with some other things. But this story needs to be told.

Last weekend I went to a county fair. There was a charity raffle near the main gate. I didn’t stop to look at it going in. Then I ended up running stuff back to the car and I stopped at the charity booth on my 2nd pass.

The charity was for the jail ministry. Bibles for convicts and all that. Counseling and spiritual services. Tell ya the truth, I didn’t really read though the whole spiel, I just pulled out five bucks and prepared to donate it.

The young woman watching the booth asked me if I wanted to buy raffle tickets. I looked at the prizes, being tickets to sports events, and said, “Nah, I’ll just donate.”

“The grand prize is $500,” she pointed out. I still didn’t really care, as I figured the odds of wining were such that I shouldn’t hold my breath. But then a thought occurred to me, and I answered thus:

“Oh, why not. Gimmie the tickets. If I win, I can donate even more.” We both chuckled, and I added that donating half back would still leave me with a nice prize.

I put my entries in the jar with the others. After leaving the booth and getting involved in the fair for 8 hours, I forgot all about the raffle.

Two days later I got a phone call from the prison chaplin. I’d won the $500. And you know what was running through my mind?

I though that my words must have went up pretty high, and now they were going to be put to the test, know what I mean? So I was happy I’d won, but also a little freaked out at the same time. Who has their words turn out this way?

My prize check is in the mail. I will be sending $250 back to that charity. It’s a good cause, and I’m happy to do it.

I’ve heard of speaking things into existence, but wow.

I’m still waiting for the repairs to be done on my ‘67 Chevy Impala. Still. They’ve had the car for a month, and at this rate, I’m cutting my fix-it list short and pulling it out after they finish the current task.

In the laundry list of Stuff That Needed Fixing, the rear end of the Impala was too low due to worn-out springs and shocks. Not a surprise, since I used this car as a moving van a few years ago. I had to wait for the parts, as finding springs for a car like this isn’t easy these days. I believe the current set of springs are from a tractor, come to think of it. Anyway, I need these huge-ass springs to keep the huge ass of my car up.

When the mechanic was explaining all this, I told him to go ahead and put the rear of the car a bit higher up, and give it more of the hot-rod stance. But while looking at the car tonight ( which is parked outside of the garage) I kinda liked the straight-line look it has. I might tell them just to keep the overall stance high and not worry about the raised rear.

I’m afraid though, that if I change the specs too much, I’ll end up with something like this:

At this point I just want the car back. Even if I need a ladder to get into the thing.

I was looking at a bar website to see if my favorite local band was playing there soon. It’s a biker-friendly bar, so they had links to other biker-friendly bars, and ya know what happens when you keep following links, right? I ended up on a tattoo website. I’m used to seeing mean-looking tattoos (I’ve been in some rough dives) but this one takes the cake. Or rather, the ice cream:

Wonder if this guy hangs out at Dairy Queen. I might get this photo made into a fridge magnet, it’d probably keep everybody out of the ice cream. Beware the Bad Humor man!

I recently returned from a short road trip that involved an overnight stay. The hotel we had wasn’t that great, and the experience jogged my memory of all the roadside dives I’ve ever stayed at. For fun, I’m gonna list a few here, which have been re-named to protect (somewhat) the establishments. Here we go, in no particular order:

Howard’s Johnson: Yes, there’s a reason I spelled it like that. Forget family-friendly; this HoJo in Madison featured condom machines in the lobby restrooms, and “adult entertainment” guides in the guest rooms. Advertisements included the reknown Geisha Bath House in Madison, along with an adult superstore and a strip club. The hallways had a funky smell, the mattresses were wore out ( from what, there’s no question) and a couple of the towels had stains on them. The good news is, it was cheap. The bad news – it was too cheap.

The Dirty Sock – this quaint mom & pop hotel was somewhere near Oblivion, Indiana. (That’s my name for the town, and it’s not far off the mark.) The place looked cute enough on the outside, and it was late and I was too tired to drive anymore. It was too dark to question the place much. Only after walking around on the carpet in my white socks did I realize how dirty the place was. The feet of my socks turned black. Not like, grey with a little fuzz, but asphalt black, as if I’d just run outside in them for two months.

The Gas Meter: This interstate bailout was found along a lonely stretch of Ohio. I’d been driving through bad traffic, and fatigue compelled me to stop for the night rather than push on further. There wasn’t much to pick from in this area, and I tried to pick the lesser of the two rat holes. This placed seemed ok, but the scent of natural gas from the furnace was strong. It was everywhere. The room was closed up enough that it wasn’t as bad in there, but all the same I left the room window open a crack, despite it being cold outside. I was grateful the place didn’t blow up while I slept.

The Rug Stain: Dried blood is dried blood, and if this old wooden motel was in the city I would have slept in the car instead. But it was “up north” in a very rural area, and it was another situation where there was nothing else for 70 miles around. The motel was a seasonal-use dive that appealed to fishermen and deer hunters. Outside of the rug stains, the cobwebs, and the errie, silent darkness, there was nothing wrong with the place.

The Crime Scene: Folks, the moral of this story is, don’t keep driving until you’re so desperate that you’ll stay somewhere truly awful. Well, we did just that, coming home from Michigan during a hellacious snowstorm. The interstate was a field of white, it was after 11 p.m., and we were unable to tell where the road was anywmore. There was no other traffic to speak of; even the semi’s were pulling off. We bailed out at the next exit and took the only motel we saw. It was a decrepit Super 8 and the hotel check-in cleck was behind bullet-proof glass. It had the signs of a drug hotel, but sleeping in the car would have meant freezing to death and the roads were impassible. This was the scariest damn hotel I’d ever been in. The room didn’t have a working heater. We slept with our clothes on, and barricaded the door. We could hear people walking past our door, back and forth, as if waiting for one of us to pop out for ice. Hell no, pop out for ice, and we’d be iced, I had a feeling. We got up at 4:30 a.m. , and seeing that the snow had stopped, we got the hell out.

The Fixer-Upper: A rainstorm in southern Illinios made driving through one-lane construction detours a living nightmare. We bailed out upon seeing a nice-looking Whatever Inn and booked a room. The place looked fine until we got to the hallway leading to our room, and found it tore up, no carpeting, and extension cords running the length of the hall. The place was in the middle of major renovation, but they didn’t tell you that at the check-in desk. The room itself was ok, but dated and musty. The worst thing was, the bare hallway had other hotel guests confused, and about 2:00 a.m. three drunk bikers were trying to use their key in our door, and were pulling and rattling on the doorknob. They finally figured out they had the wrong room and wandered off. The only reason I know that it was an honest mistake and not a deliberate attempt at robbery, was the fact that they could’ve busted the flimsy door off it’s hinges, if real determination had been in their minds.

Ah, travel. I enjoy it, but these days I’m a lot pickier about my hotels. Though sometimes I still get surprised to the negative, such as the Howard’s Johnson.

One of my favorite songs, for the lyrics.

Candy for all you tough-types.

I’ve been offended.

Because after years of hard work, sacrificies, difficult changes and assorted hell, I’d managed to buy a house three years ago. Got one just before the market went to hell and loans became impossible.

Most of my money in recent years has went into the house for one project or another. Then I got a new job with a longer commute that made a new car necesssary. I bought a modest new car during the “cash for clunkers” thing and got a pretty good deal, zero percent interest on the loan, ect. Still, it’s a car payment and higher car insurance premiums on top of having a mortgage payment, ect.

So my 1967 Chevy Impala has been silently rotting in my driveway. I got the weatherstripping all replaced last year, but the car hasn’t run right in two years. It needs more work than I had money to throw at it, or time to worry about, and there it sits.

Turns out, that’s a crime in this town.

I got the infamous “knock at the door” early last Saturday morning. One of my neighbors complained about an “abandoned car” sitting “junked” in my driveway.

The cop was nice enough about it. Apologetic, even. I have to get the car running, or at least get a tarp to throw over it, so it doesn’t offend the artistically sensitive eyes of one of my neighbors.

I’m a good neighbor. I don’t blast loud music. I don’t have wild parties. I don’t have screaming kids, ferocious dogs, or an electric fence. But some sonofabitch with nothing else to do but look through his window at my house, is giving me shit.

Another possibility is, somebody’s mad because I keep refusing to sell the car. I’ve had people just walk up to me and other members of my household out of the blue and offer cash for that car. The answer, of course, is always a polite but firm “No.”

Maybe somebody thinks that by causing me trouble, I can be encouraged to sell the car. Not on your life, bub.

Whatever the motivation behind the complaining party, he or she is gonna rue the day they ever said a damn word.

Because this 67 Impala has just been bumped way up my priority list. I’m going to get that engine not just fixed, but souped up to the extent my bank account can handle. I’m going to get bigger rims and bigger tires. I’m going to put the loudest and highest performance exhaust system on that car that money can buy. I’m going to paint it, fix the interior, and put in an excellent stereo system with an amplifer and a big box bass.

And then I’m gonna roar this thing up and down my street. I’m going to leave so much rubber on the road, there’ll be no need to pave it. If there’s a day I don’t plan to take the car out, I’ll at least start the motor and let it idle in the driveway, revving it as if I’m gonna plow through a house.

I’ll be sure and hit the Dixie horn two, maybe three times a day.

Be careful what you wish for, neighbor. There is no junk car in my driveway. There is only a 67 Impala that was once asleep; you have just ensured it’s awakening.

A couple months ago, my cousins and I picked up a rental car for a trip “up north.” We’d won the use of the rental car free of charge, at a local dealership shindig.

They gave us this thing, a 2010 Buick Lucerne. Black with chrome trim. It had about 300 miles on it. If that.

I immediately called my insurance company to make sure I was fully covered if I drove the thing. I wasn’t gonna fool around with a $45,000 car. Finding I was good to go, we gleefully packed the thing and headed off on our weekend trip.

Driving this thing felt great. It was kinda like Cinderella’s carriage; beautiful, but I’d be back in my own pumpkin in three days. I made the most of it, though. Leather seats, all the buttons you could stand to push, gadgets galore, and a smooth, solid ride. Plush, fast, and just mean enough looking to be taken seriously, this Buick was an elegant highway war machine.

It felt great to pull this thing up to the resort we were staying at. Doormen lept to assistance, offering to take our bags. Mind you there’s times I’ve pulled up to this place in our nondescript cars and didn’t get that kind of enthusiasm.

I noticed that people did treat us differently in this car. On the highway, other cars moved over so I could pass; people didn’t cut me off ; people didn’t park so close. We were given a wide berth and treated more deferentially than usual.

The moral of this story is…people do judge you and your worth by what you drive. I’ve suspected this for years, after suffering harrassment by law enforcement for driving beaters most of my life. But at no time was it as proven, or apparent, as when I was driving this thing.

In my daily commute, I drive a 2009 Pontiac G5. It’s the first brand new car I’ve ever bought for myself, in my life. It’s a good little car, and I like it. On the freeway, however, it’s not taken seriously. People cut me off. They swoop up on my bumper and try to push me down the road. Most drivers along my route are fairly decent, but in the most aggressive rush hours, this little Pontiac is not the war machine that big Buick is. Not that the Pontiac doesn’t serve me well; it does.

What you drive makes a difference, though. I’m convinced.

One of the most important things I ever learned about making money came to me while visiting an Old West museum. Ya see, back during the great California gold rush, people were in a mad dash to go west and find their fortunes.

Many ended up broke or dead without finding any gold. Some people did find enough gold to become wealthy. Others worked very hard but had very little gold to show for it.

Some of the wealthiest people at the time, however, were the ones selling the shovels, pick-axes, maps, mules, and supplies. These guys were actively wiring back East about all these huge gold discoveries and motivating men of all walks of life to take their chance on untold fortunes.

Shovels and mules went for $100 a pop, in some shantytowns. This is back when you could live on that kind of money for about a year.

150 years later or so, there are still amazing stories of wealth out there, if only you’ll buy this book , or go to that seminar, or buy into somebody’s sure-fire system for acheiving total financial freedom.

Again, it’s the guys selling the shovels – the method – who really make the money.

Now, on to my money secrets, which are yours FREE just because you’re a loyal (and anonymous ) reader of my blog. And you’ve waited this damn long for me to update it.

So here it is.

1) Write down, or keep a spreadsheet, of all your bills. By this I mean the stuff you really have to pay, or else.

2) Then add the crap you spend money on but could do without if you had to. Be honest.

3) Now, add up all that you spend on critical needs, necessary bills, and minor indulgences.

4) Compare this to your actual take-home pay.

5) If line 3 is larger than line 4, above, there ya go. Fix that.

6) Start fixing it by saving 10% of your take home pay every paycheck. Put this in the budget as a critical item and do not compromise on it.

7) Take a hard look at the rest of your expenses. Compare these to 70% of your take home pay. If it’s way over, make some hard decisions. Ditch your expensive cell phone and get a prepaid plan. Drop the cable tv. Get rid of the internet. WAIT! Noooooo!! Ok, quit going to Starbucks. Ect.

8: After you’ve got 10% of your pay going to savings, and 70% going to rent, food, gas in the car, utilities, prescriptions, whatever…

9) Ideally, you should have 20% of your take-home pay left to use towards debt reduction. Many people make the mistake of not saving anything because they’re so focused on trying to pay off bills. But robbing yourself of cash flow isn’t the answer – you’ll only rely on more credit to make up the difference.

Now, this isn’t a complete instruction manual, but it’s a start. Nor can I take credit for the 10/70/20 concept. It’s simply the most useful framework I’ve found that really works, after reading so much other crap by every other financial author out there. The 10/70/20 is courtesty of “The Richest Man in Babylon” by George S. CLason. It’s written like a collection of short stories and it’s fictional approach with characters can frustrate hard-ass accountant types who just want facts and numbers. But I enjoy it because I’m a fictional person.

Seriously though, just making myself take a hard look at what my budget really is, and staying on top of the bank balances and tracking my spending every friggin’ day, has made a huge, huge difference. Along with saving that 10 percent. I actually do a little better than that, but you get the idea. The basic concept is Pay Yourself First. It’s as old as the hills, but after being harrassed by creditors so much of my life, and then taking on a mortgage and property taxes and buncha other responsibilities, I got used to paying everybody else first. I had so many bills going on, due at different times, that just tracking the stuff was a job on it’s own.

But once it was organized and a game plan was built around it, it really wasn’t a big deal. Sure, it sucked to face the music at first, but then I saw ways to change the tune.

I’m not bragging here, I once lived on ramen noodles and toaster waffles. I’m just offering this stuff in the hopes it helps somebody. No matter who ya owe money to, the one person that needs to be paid first in your budget, is YOU. Never forget it. I can’t believe I ever did.