I was talking with an experienced (older) co-worker yesterday, and he said something that really made me think about things. We were talking about different employees from in the past and the conversation turned to work ethic. He told me about a time when he was in the service and a lot of his peers would complain all the time about different things. One day the commanding officer pulled him into his office and asked him what his secret was. He was a little confused and didn’t know exactly what he was being asked.

The officer told him that he had never heard him complaining like a lot of the other guys, and he wanted to know what his secret was. This is what he said:

I’ve worked the corn fields, I’ve worked the cotton fields, and I know that I’ve got a good job here.

He said it all depends on your perspective and many things are relative. I’m not saying that we should always be content with where we are, but we should have a little of this perspective as well and definitely not complain as much.

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I’ve been pretty busy the last couple of days because I’m finally making the switch over to the Wordpress platform. I haven’t yet started to migrate this blog over, because I’ve been testing it out with another blog. If you’d like to see my other blog’s new design, go check out The Milk Crate.

Hopefully I will be migrating Fiscal Musings shortly, but I want to work out all the kinks with my other blog first. I will be back to the regular daily posting schedule as soon as possible, and hopefully this change will be for the better.

Being a Dallas Cowboys fan, I’m obviously pretty disappointed in the loss yesterday to the New York Giants. I thought the Cowboys were the better team going into the game, but they needed to play the entire game and not just the first half. And what does this have to do with anything financial? Nothing really, unless you had something riding on the game (which I didn’t). I guess there’s only one more thing to root for this season now, and that’s that the Patriots lose to somebody… anybody.

And now on to a few other things that I’ve been thinking about recently. I’ve seen a lot of people succumb to what I call financial peer pressure and I would urge you not to pay any attention to it. It doesn’t matter what you’re friends are doing or buying. You can’t let it affect your progress towards your goals. So if you’re being pressured to do or buy something that you otherwise wouldn’t, don’t feel like you have to. It won’t really matter in a day or two anyway.

I’ve also been thinking about all the little ways that we can save money that will really add up over time. The other night we were in the area of a Wal-Mart and needed to pick up some toiletry items and various other things. We found some pretty good prices on a few of the things we needed, and we stocked up so that we wouldn’t have to buy them again for a while. We also had some coupons with us so we got extra discounts. It didn’t really take any extra effort, but we were able to save quite a bit. And that’s what I’m getting at. It doesn’t require that much to save money and be frugal. It just needs to be a priority.

I’ve also been putting in extra hours at work in order to get paid the overtime. Since I’m looking to go back to school, every little bit extra will help. I’m hoping to be able to make it through school without taking on any more student loan debt, and the more that I can pay for myself, the better.

These are some of the things that have been on my mind lately. What’s been on yours?

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1. Lazy Man and Money writes about choosing between Netflix and Blockbuster for movie rentals. I can see the benefits of having the movies delivered right to my house, but I much prefer to get free movies from Redbox.

2. As you may or may not have already heard, Bank of America is going to buy Countrywide. And there are a lot of opinions about whether it’s a good or bad move. But there’s an interesting article at CNN Money about a large tax break for Bank of America. Obviously nothing is certain with this deal, but it does look to have some very positive aspects.

3. Not everyone is a car enthusiast, but here are some of the new vehicles to look for at the Detroit Auto Show. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the new corvette ZR1. It’s definitely a slick car.

4. Bankrate has put out the Ten Commandments of Personal Finance. All the things on the list are great things, but I’m not a huge fan of making these ten things the very highest priority since everyone’s situation is different.

I’ve run across an interesting new product that is available from Salon Grafix. They have a new shampoo out that doesn’t require any water. This new Spray Powder Shampoo is supposed to clean and refresh your hair in between normal shampoos or when you are on the go. It is supposed to be easily brushed off and leave no white powder or oil residue.

Sometimes there just isn’t enough time or the circumstances don’t allow for you to shampoo your hair. I know when I’ve been out camping or doing some other outdoor activity there isn’t much of an opportunity to shampoo. And because of the fact that the product doesn’t require any water, you can take it anywhere with you for use in situations where you’re time strapped. You could use it after a long day at work when you need to rush off to one of your kids activities. In fact, you could use it anytime that you’re rushed and need to get to another event and don’t have any time to go home in between to freshen up. They also have different versions of the dry shampoo to match different hair colors, be it black, brown, blonde or even silver.