Today marks day one of my manager's vacation.  I'm hoping to get a couple days off, even 3 if possible, but without asking.  I don't want to get on some kind of "list" of people that don't get what they want.  I'd rather work and tough it out for a while.  I've been working every day.  I got in yesterday around 11:00 am from the Brownsville run.  Hopefully that doesn't occur again where I'm having to do "other" things before I can leave on the run. It was worth some bucks tho so no huge complaints, just that it drags out the run longer.  And now that they are mostly having empty trailers waiting down there for us, it really only makes good money if you are cranking that run out in 2 days, have a day off and then back at it again.

I'm going to Cheneire again today.  It will not be a day run. That's guaranteed because I am not getting on the scales at the loading plant until 12:30, meaning the earliest I'll get out of there is 3:00 pm, then 4 hours 15 minutes down to Cheniere, that's 7:15 pm, but I"ll call it 7:30 and then at least 3 hours to unload.  I won't want to drive back after that.  Guaranteed I won't.  I might drive a couple hours and get it half done or something, but I'm not going to be rolling into the yard at 2:30 am and getting home at 3:30 am.  That will just ruin my day tomorrow. Far better to shut down before midnight, get a good night's sleep and then finish out the ride.


Meanwhile, I've started to bring debt down. It's going to be a long road but I'm well on the way.  After I pay most of the month's bills, I look at what I have left and then make a decision on how much to pay towards any given credit card - which there are quite a few of them. Some are at zero balance, some are at low balance and then there are 3 or 4 that are at higher balances, the highest of which is around $2,700.  But, that one was well over 3 grand before I started this endeavor, so I can feel good that it is, indeed, coming down. I rarely use credit cards any more.  Only if I want to put a purchase on a card for the guaranteed backup that you get in protection from the card provider for purchases.  That would be higher dollar amounts, the likes of which I am not interested in doing much of for a while. 

I'd love to do a "cash only" endeavor for a year like I did a long, long time ago. It changed the way I deal with debt.  I think another dose of that would be helpful, but I have far too much transactions for paying bills over the internet. When I did cash only, I literally did cash only.  It was a tough year, I'll have to say that, but when it was all said and done, I learned a lot of valuable lessons.  Debt is easy to get into, harder to get out of. 

But now that I have a lot of this going down versus up, I'm going to pay off the lower balance cards and get them down to zero so I can direct more money to the higher balance cards on any given month.  That's how the experts explain the best route to do it. Whatever you paid on one card, once you pay it off, add that to a payment on another low balance card and so and so forth until you have everything paid off. 

I was going to do a loan and pay all of it off at once and just have one monthly payment, but after looking at how much I would end up paying in the end, I changed my mind.  Even with interest the cards would not amount to as much as I would pay with a loan.  Just have to discipline myself to make sure I continue to pay this debt down and get it behind me. Doesn't help that I just dumped almost 6 grand onto a credit care card to fix my teeth, but as far as I'm concerned that was an investment that needed to be done. My front teeth were gross, ugly, nasty looking.  I mean I was one of those people that didn't open their mouths much when smiling. It was something I had wanted done in forever.  I still have one visit left and that will be over with.  One more filling and one more crown.  There is other work that I would like to have done, but it can wait until next year when I get a fresh $1,500 on my dental insurance and spend it on bonding on my lower front teeth to get them looking good too. They aren't bad now, just need some tidying up. 

Meanwhlile, I am also going to open up yet another savings account for a trip to London.  I am not necessarily it's a good time to go, but it's not until the beginning of next year some time.  Lol, a sample search of dates next year first class for 2 people is 6 grand round trip.  I guess not.  Seems like a long way to fly in coach tho, all cramped up for that length of time.  Hmmm, premium economy adds more width and leg room.  I dunno, going to search the internet and ask for suggestions on finding the best airfare. 

I don't have to go to London for my first overseas trip lol.  It's just where the lion's share of matches for DNA came up from the DNA search.  I'm thinking of doing the other DNA search one that has a lot more people signed up on it and more data might be available.  My DNA results were mostly in the London area and east of london towards the shore.  But Australia came up strong and other parts of England as well. 

New ride is working beautifully so far.  No engine or transmission problems, just glides down the road.  It's a longer version of an SUV. I was noticing on my way home yesterday the large numbers of the "regular" SUV's that really don't have much room in the back. They have 3 rows of seats and almost no room behind the last row at all.  Yes, I know you can fold the seats down but that extra room is really something I need for some of the things I do without having to hook up to a trailer.  So far, I"m very pleased with this decision even if it is a Ford.  I haven't really owned a Ford since I was a teenager.  I've had Chevy, GMC, Subaru, Nissan (I will NEVER buy a Nissan again after the last fiasco and a brand new truck that had a bad engine), I think that's the gamut since I"m mostly a Chevy/GMC person.  But for the price, I really think I got a good deal.  That thing sold at 51k when it was new 7 years ago.  It has 120,000 miles on it, if I can get to 200k miles without any major issues, I"d be very happy. 

And yes, I"m still wanting to get 2 more 4 wheelers. That would come out to around 3 grand give or take.  I'm a "live life while you can live it" person, not just wait until you retire and then what? You're old, not as energetic or even have money options to do such things.  Do both is my thinking. I have a large amount of money going to retirement every paycheck, I at least have that covered.  I still have that money mom gave me to invest, I haven't had a lot of time to look into wading into the stock market, but I guess I need to make that a priority. 

Beyond financial issues, of which I really am focused on to deal with debt, there are spiritual things that are pressing me.  I haven't been to church in a while, mostly because I work almost every Sunday.  Wednesday night services? Working.  I'm really missing the worship environment.  I'm not big on the other people going who may or may not have sincere intentions of going in there, mostly shallow people that have no working knowledge of the Bible of which the allegedly hold so dearly or even that much into worship.  I mostly go to church for the worship aspect of it.  I've had enough dealings with people in churches that I really can't look at it as a social outlet.  Too many backstabbers, gossipers and people that judge each other over petty stuff. "Take the log out of your own eyes before you try to take the speck out of someone else's" or however that is actually worded.  I have enough personal issues, I know what I need to work on I don't need someone coming up to me and shoving their version of my reality in my face.

I don't take kindly to such things and I will push back.  It's one thing to be accountable, entirely another for people to push their opinions on how you should be living your life.  If you were able to scrutinize their lives, you would likely find a barrel full of garbage in their baggage as well. 

Anyway, really something I want to work on. 

With that, I bid you a good day, for I want to watch the news, get caught up on the Trump/Putin meeting and get ready to head out for 14 hours of non stop go go go.