I took the vehicle in to get the gas gauge issue fixed.  I mentioned replacing the brakes as an afterthought.

So what do they do? Replace the brakes and not even begin to look at the fuel gauge.  This was yesterday afternoon when I called them to find out if they had been able to fix the fuel gauge.  

I need my vehicle back, I have several things I want/need to do while on these days off.  I'll be calling them again around noon and see where we're at. 

The tragedy that we call a back yard apparently is a project we are going to start on.  I stopped working on it a while back for reasons I'll just keep to myself.  It is awesomely horrific back there now and no one has touched it in quite a long time.  I don't mind going to the trouble of cleaning it up - if - everyone else is going to be involved with that project as well - and - commit to keeping it clean after the project is done and over with. 

I'm very glad to have some days off. I'll be even happier if the contractor would finally text me back and let me know his intentions. Because if he's going to blow it off again, I'm moving on and I'd like to get someone else lined up quickly to be able to get over there and get it done before any more rain hits.  

I need to at least go to the fire department now that I think about it to get a burn permit so we can start burning all this junk in the back yard.  If I don't get the permit, someone will call the fire department, they will come over here, threaten to issue a ticket and force me to put the fire out. 

No thanks.  It's a pretty good scheme to charge $25 for a permit to burn something that the government has absolutely no involvement in.  They won't be starting the fire and they won't be putting it out.  

My 401k is down about 10k. It should be approaching the mid 70's range, it was up as high as 69k I think, now its' sitting at 57k.  Pretty disheartening to throw a bunch of money at savings like that and watch it just disappear like magic.  

So, I just changed it from 12% to 5%.  I'll figure out the 7% every paycheck and stuff it into a savings account.  Yup, I will follow through with it, just like I've been taking out cash most every paycheck and putting it aside for vacation and now going to start saving for that zero turn.  The 401k money will go towards buying a rental property.  That's approximately $700 per month. In 12 months I will have near 10k and I should be able to buy a small house providing my credit score stays in the range it is in now - or goes up even higher.  Back to 750 would be nice, I'm 12 points away from it. 

To think I had it in the 770 range......for a long time....and now battling to get it back up there.  I wouldn't really care about credit but so many things it affects nowadays. Even your car insurance is affected by your credit score.  Houses, bank loans, SBA loans, car loans, all kinds of stuff.  I've heard some employers even check it.  

Anyway, the goal will be in the next year to save up 10k with what used to be that 401k money, get a rental house and - either rent the house to a family or do the room rental thing again.  I'm not sure which. Room rentals brings in more revenue - but it's a lot more hassle. You really have to either live there or have someone living there that you can trust to take care of everything. And if you have someone else living there doing it, then you have to give them discounts or free rent altogether in exchange. Which means you really need at least a 4 bedroom house to make it worth the hassle.

Renting out the whole house is much less hassle, but also less income.  I have plenty of time to think about that, in fact, if I save up this money and get the park going, it may just get dumped back into the park, which should make a lot more money than rental houses.  Who knows, I just know that I"m going to start this plan now and get it rolling.  If the stock market comes back out of it's woes, I probably won't change the rate I'm putting into the 401k account. I'll make more money off of rentals than off of a 401k, certainly at this late stage in life.  

I'm probably spending more time than I should be reading how the rich - got rich. I don't want to be rich, I just don't want to work for anyone else anymore.  I want to work for myself, have a decent income, be able to help others, give back to God and live my life peaceably, if that's at all possible in this life.  Leave something for my heirs to have that can sustain them in life without having to spend your entire life toiling for someone else and not have much of anything to show for it.