Budgeting With Ryan

So today’s activity with Nick got a little interesting.  We got to talking about the bills since today is the first day of the month, and he wanted to know how I go about figuring everything out.  I have to do it a little differently than most people since I don’t have a traditional bank account.  There is NO WAY I’m giving my hard earned money to the idiots at U.S. Bank or Wells Fargo, or even a credit union.  So here is how it works for the two of us that I explained:

All we have is the prepaid debit cards from WalMart.  Yea, I know it is still a bank that I’m giving my money to to hold on to, but at least as far as I know they aren’t loaning it out to anyone else.

So when Nick, me, and our friend Jesse who is a year older than me were sitting at our dining table munching on chips and salsa, I told him that I have four debits cards.  And each one has it’s own purpose.  The first one gets 10% of my paycheck to go towards retirement.  And when it gets enough on it I’ll figure out what to do with it.  The second card gets 50% of our monthly bills put on it per paycheck.  So that is our rent, utilities, NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon, Pandora, Legal Shield, and the what not.  The third card gets our budget for food for the two weeks, and the fourth card gets what remains, and that is our spending cash for the pay period.

And I guess you could say that I have five cards because I then transfer some money from the spending cash account over to a card that Nick has his allowance.  OMG I said it, and I said it to him.  Even though we have been doing this for months we never thought of it as an allowance.  He had a weird look on his face when he came to that realization.  And so did I, I guess.

I know that this HAS to sound like a totally unorthodox way to do it, but it works for me.  There is no way we can over spend on extra stuff and then be without food since they are two different accounts.  We can’t accidently spend our rent money and get thrown back out on the street.  The money we made “before” we made an agreement not to touch.  Sometimes it’s hard.  It’s there and sometimes has a flashing neon sign on it saying “spend me”.  But so far we have resisted.  We don’t live the slumpy suburbs, but we don’t have a mansion in Beverly Hills either.  We have a good place for us, in a great middle-class location.

We don’t want to live with nothing, but at the same time, we don’t need a lot of “stuff” either.  We have enough to make us happy, and we have each other to make us happier.  And I think that is really what counts.  I’ve been in some super fancy, super rich, houses, and it nearly makes me gag.  I’ve seen it first hand that the people who have nothing are the richest.  And if you want me to explain that send me an Ask or a Fan Mail.  But I think you’ll know what I mean.  I’ve only told a few close friends about how much I have in my personal savings account from the “job” and it shocked them.  And I know I have an inheritance coming from my mom and dad when I turn 25 that I have not asked the amount of.  I only know that it is enough to live comfortably for a long time.

So I told Nick that on each pay day I would show him the balance on each account so he can get involved with helping to pay the bills, and know where the money is going.  We were used to doing a job, and then having a bunch of money to spend.  Now he sees me working a lot and we only get to spend a little.  It throws you off.  And it’s hard to get used to.  I know if something drastic were to happen we wouldn’t have to worry to much.  I can only imagine about some of the guys that I work with that go paycheck to paycheck if they were to lose the job.  They do not want to be where we came from.  Nobody does.

That’s today lesson: Budgeting With Ryan.  If you would like to attend any other classes just let me know what subject you want to study and I’ll see if I have that available.

Till next time.  Love to you all!

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 3/1/15]

Ryan For President

So are you already sick of all the talk about the 2016 Presidential elections? We barely just got out of 2014. I love America, but hate elections. It’s always “an election year” and Congress is too worried about running again to do anything that matters. So when we were talking about it at work today, I came up with the Ryan For President Platform. What are the five things that I would make my cause to run on. Are you ready for them? Or if you know me, you probably already know some of them. Here we go:

1) Legalize gay marriage. I’m not a fan of the concept of marriage in the first place. Since so much is dependant on being married; such as taxes, health insurance, and health in general, I think it is important those we love are able to be cared for. These days marriage isn’t a religious thing, it’s a political thing. If it were a religious thing there wouldn’t be a 50% divorce rate.

2) Legalize abortion. Nobody should be able to tell another one what they can and cannot do with their own body. I don’t see the anti-abortion folks saying how they plan on raising these kids if the parents still end up giving them up for adoption. If they had a plan I might be open to discussion. The only people who truly know if they are able to take care of a baby or not is the one having it. And what is so wrong about having sex for money? Granted, with my past experience I’m not advocating that everyone go out and try it. Completely the opposite. But we all have hormones, we all want sex, so why not make a little money at it. It’s already legal in Nevada. The only people complaining are the people who THINK it’s wrong. I don’t think anyone has invited them to watch.

3) Spend within the tax revenue. Yep, if there is not the money for it, it doesn’t get done. Kind of like how my current bank account goes. If I don’t have money for the new pair of jeans, I don’t buy the new pair of jeans. A lot of frivolous programs would get cut. But if the people have to live within their means, then so should the government. And nobody gets bailed out. You fuck up, you fail.

4) Hire more teachers. All the talk about cutting back on education makes me sick. I may have not gone to school, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want others to. And a one-to-thirty ratio of teachers to kids is way to much. Maybe more like one to fifteen. So yea, that means hiring A LOT of teachers. But don’t we want our kids to be number one in the world anyhow? How are they going to lead the world if they get out of high school and can’t add and subtract? And how do we hire more teachers? $5 a year increase to the property tax. Yea, Yea, I hear the complaining already that we don’t want a tax increase. It’s five bucks a YEAR. If you cant somehow save fifty cents a month, you have other issues. Do you want your kids to be educated or not?

5) Encourage public transportation. We have a great bus system here. You can get from our place in Santa Monica down to Oceanside or out to Dana Point. And other cities have great systems too. San Francisco, Portland Oregon, Chicago, New York. So yea, I know it’s not everywhere. But have you ever been in the Rush Hour on the I-10 in downtown L.A. when the police start a serpentine? Then you will realize that even though it’s good, it needs to be better to get a ton of cars off the street. How do we do that you ask? You’re NOT going to like the answer. $1 gas tax for every 10,000 miles driven, and for every $10,000 earned for everyone over the federal poverty line. So if you make $70,000 a year and drove 100,000 miles, your tax would be $17. Just don’t ask how I figure out how you drove 100,000 miles. I figured it out, and you REALLY wont like that answer. Plus, then we can fix the roads and bridges too so we don’t have any more I-35 collapses.

6) OK yea, I said five, but if you know me, I can’t leave this one out: Build homes for the homeless and feed the hungry. This is America!! There is ABSOLUTELY no reason why we cannot house the homeless and feed the hungry. Are we not a generous nation? Are we so bad that we are going to build spikes to keep people from sleeping under bridges, or give food by the TONS that supermarkets and 7-11’s and restaurants throw away to people who would give their left arm for something? At this low point, it seems to be. But we can do better. If Utah can build houses for the homeless and make it work, there is no reason we can do that in the other 49.

So there you have it. Ryan’s Presidential Platform. I am now forming my investigative committee. Anyone want to volunteer to run it?

Love to you all!

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 2/28/15]

Sorry For Being Absent

Hey there!!  Hello to all the new followers since the last time I put up a live post.  Sorry that I haven’t been around for a few weeks.  Had some computer issues that I had to get fixed.  I have no idea what website I went to, but I ended up getting one of those virus’ that tell you to call a 800 number to get your computer fixed.  And it affected all the browsers.  IE, Foxfire, and Chrome.  So I had to order recover disks from the manufacturer and get a new hard drive.  THANK GOD that I have all my stuff on an external hard drive.  Lose the internal and I lose nothing.  Now if something happens to the external I’m in big trouble.  LOL.  So I put Norton Anti-Virus on the new hard drive and made sure I put it on Nick’s computer as well.  I’m not going through THAT again.

Then I accidently dropped the speakers I had for the computer and they stopped working.  So today I bought the LG Speaker Bar that is on my Big Shopping List.  I work in customer service too, so I can get when people get things wrong from time to time.  But when I was shopping for them, at Best Buy, I told two reps that I was going to use the bar to hook to my computer, and they said “yep, no problem, all you’ll need is an HDMI cable.  They asked if my computer had an HDMI port and I said “yep”.  So off I go and get home and get the speakers all plugged in, and then go to hook the HDMI cord up from the computer to the speakers, and GUESS WHAT??  It doesn’t take HDMI!!  There is a USB port on the front of it instead.  So I go back to Best Buy, and tell them that, and they kind of look at me weird saying that USB doesn’t do audio.  So I say, “well how can I get it to work then?” and they say I need a USB adapter to the computer that will make it Bluetooth.  The device is $20.  “OK, I say” and then they tell me they don’t have any more in stock, and I’ll have to order it and have it shipped and I’ll get it in four days.  FUCK ME!!  I hate being on this end.

So now comes the really stupid question that I know your thinking: what is the USB port for then?  Same thing that I asked the reps.  They said it is for a USB memory device and it can play MP3 and WMA files.  (What ever a WMA is, never heard of that one before)  And right in the manual it says “This unit’s USB port cannot be connected to PC.  HELLO!!!  That’s EXACTLY what I told you I was going to be using it for!

My whole afternoon would have been a lot easier if the rep at the store had said “let’s check to be sure that it is capable of that”.  If they would have told me no, but said I’d need the USB adapter, but they were out of stock, and I’d have to in-store order it, I would have left the store still a happy camper.  Instead, now I’m pissed that I have to wait.  I want to start watching the third season of House of Cards on Netflix.  Now I have to wait another week unless I want to watch it on my phone and just Bluetooth the sound.  Fuck me again, it’s probably what I’ll end up doing.  So the store is not going to get a very favorable rating from me for todays experience.

And if that wasn’t enough, about a week ago my mouse starting going on the fritz.  The lazer wouldn’t recognize any surface, and I hate using the one on the laptop.  So got another one of those today too.  So overall, with the new hard drive, new speakers, and new mouse, I’m back up and running.

Nick was a little supportive of all the events as well.  I think he was having fun watching me get first frustrated and then pissed at the store.  If you got to know me in person you’d know that I don’t show a whole lot of emotion.  But Nick has that knack of knowing when the pulse starts to beat hard and I start to tense up.  So to get back into a good mood we went and got him a couple new pairs of board shorts.  So now we are both happy.

Oh what a day!!!  LOL

Love to you all!

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 2/27/15]

All Rant’s From The First Cupcakes-n-Cowboys Have Been Posted

Well, that wasn’t as bad a process as I thought it was going to be.  Mainly it was just an hours worth of cut and pasting.  The Rants that you see before this post were all originally posted to my Tumblr blog Cupcakes-n-Cowboys (the first version).  Don’t ask, but I got locked out of it by forgetting the email and password that I used to set it up.  If there is one thing that I learned from that experience is to write down all the user names, passwords, and emails associated with all my online accounts so it doesn’t happen again.  Now I’ll start to repost the currently 61 Rants from the second incarnation of Cupcakes-n-Cowboys.  This is when I started to number them.  I should have done that on the prior blog so I knew which order to put them in.  I think the dates got confused on a couple of them.  But oh well, I think I can forgive myself for that one.

I’m liking WordPress for the Rants since here they are easier to categorize (which I wasn’t doing on Tumblr) and for the readers to see the list of categories and then click the one that they want to read my opinions on. I’m still going to post them to Tumblr too.  But I like this layout.

What ARE You Offended By?

I could name the title of this Rant “A Day in the Life” cause what happened today.  Nick and I are actually the subjects of today’s Rant.  Life, that is what happened.  And apparently we stepped on some toes.

First off, have you ever gone into a store and sung along with the music that was playing on the stores radio?  Haha, and if you say “no” your lying your ass off.  I think we’ve all done that.  But have you ever taken it a step further and started dancing along with it? I would believe it if most of you said “nope” haven’t done that one.  But when a song came on today I started to shashe a little bit, and Nick there egging me on, then he started in, and by the time the song was half way done, you would have thought the two of us should have been on a dance floor.  What was the song, you ask?  Take a Chance on Me by Abba!!  I wish I could describe it.  But just imagine two cute boys singing to each other in the middle of the clothing racks.  We had a few people clapping at the end and one guy comes up to me after and says “does your mother know”?  Anyone that likes ABBA will know that reference.  lol.  But though we had a lot more fans, there were a few people there that were giving us dirty looks.  But it was fun, you should try it.

And then there was when we went out to pick up our pizza that’s in the oven.  For starters, it’s Saturday night, so yea there were a lot of people there waiting for their orders to come up.  But there wasn’t enough room for everyone to sit down.  So when I sat down, Nick sat down on my lap.  The couple that were sitting next to us said “you and your brother look so cute”, but when I said he isn’t my brother, he is my boyfriend, and gave him a kiss on the cheek, she turned away and I heard her say “that is so offensive”.

I usually don’t pipe up at things like that, but this time it really bothered me.  I just looked at her and said “and what if I’m offended by what you and your husband do in the bedroom?”  So if he is my brother it is OK for him to sit on my lap, and give him a peck kiss on the cheek, and hold his hand, but if he is my boyfriend that changes things?  That is just utterly stupid!!

So that really got me thinking.  Pissed off if more like it.  If Nick were my brother, it would be OK to show affection for him in public?  To hold hands?  Give him a kiss?  That would almost seem like incest, but your OK with that, but not the fact that he is my boyfriend, and we do the exact same thing?  Come on.

Forgive me if I may be wrong, but it seems like what most people are offended by is the IDEA of either two men, or two women having sex, in a room they will NEVER be in, or would want to if they could.  I have never in my life, granted there have only been nearly 19 of them so far, seen two men, two women, or even a straight couple having sex out in the public.  And yes, I do believe that sex of any form should not be done where there would be people around that wouldn’t want to see it.

So it made me take a fresh look at things.  See if you come to the same conclusion that what people are offended by with the whole “gay” thing, and “gay marriage” is an IDEA.  An IDEA!! It’s like being offended by porn.  If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.  I don’t know any gay couple’s offering invitations into their bedroom to watch.  And I know we sure aren’t.

Love to ya all as always!!

~Ryan

[Originally Posted 6/28/14]