Recent content by spark0506

Crispus, I feel your pain and I feel like I may be in your same position some day. I’m long past divorced from my son’s mother, my son is 24. After many, many years of financial support and help in every way imaginable, including 4 years of private college I recently hit a cross roads with him...

My DW and I have a rule that we don’t buy each other gifts that have an electrical cord attached…….go pick something out together but don’t make it a gift.

As a small business owner my employees, for the most part, are paid as well or in many cases better than like businesses that have unionized employees. I believe you get what you pay for. My employees don’t stay because they love me they stay because I give them a good job; good fair wage, good...

I mow a couple of acres and it’s my mini escape. I mix up a nice adult beverage, light up a cigar, fire up the John Deere and get to it. For me it’s like therapy…

It been a couple years that I had a long layover there but I walk over to the Airport Hilton, it's connected, and go to their sports bar. It’s much better than sitting in one of the airport bars and I usually have some of their calamari appetizer, it’s always been very good.

Thanks for the helpful replies. I have struggled with the parenthood thing….I can easily manage 50 employees but the kid stuff can get to me. I'm better about saying no and I’m working on getting them “weaned” away on dependency but sometimes it’s not pretty. I have been somewhat resentful...

We have 2 boys, both in college, one is a junior and one is a freshman. We are paying for their college, room, board, and other things. It’s been a real struggle trying to teach them how to be responsible with money and we’ve had our share of parenting challenges to say the least. I can’t wait...

In the past I have employed so called friends and even worse family. I was extremely naïve and thought that it would be a very good win-win situation; it never turned out that way. My advice is to keep business and personal separate or in many cases you don’t end up with either, you will loose...

Back to 1991 I had just bought a building to expand my business into and within 3 months we lost our biggest customer, a family member,,,, (that’s another story)… that was over 40% of sales. I had borrowed against my house to swing the down on the commercial building. A few months later with...

Thanks for all the tips and comments. The junior is getting good grades and aside from the poor money skills is doing well. Our youngest, the freshman, is a bit of another story. He kind of went wild his first semester and so this Christmas break might not be as enjoyable as he thinks. We can...

Youbet, The junior has been getting worse over the past 2 years and we have sat down with him numerous times and tried to help him with a budget. He just never sticks to it. They go to different schools. Samclem, They got the credit cards on their own. At first they had very small limits but...

We have 2 boys in college, one is a freshman and one is a junior. Our deal with both of them is that we will take care of tuition, room and board, for an undergraduate degree. They will be responsible for graduate school if they go that route. We also give them a cell phone and help a little bit...

Leonidas, Very well put, I agree 100%.

Al, My situation is very similar to yours and I know how frustrating it can be. On one hand you want to help and on the other you feel you have to teach and prepare them for the “real “world. Right now our oldest is a college Junior and we’ve been going round and round with him on money issues...

My divorce set me back financially at the time but long term and in so many ways it was a blessing. I would have never achieved any financial success had I stayed with her; no matter how hard I worked it wasn’t enough. Money isn’t everything by any means but having money problems can surely add...