For the past little while I’ve been having some trouble with both of my cars. After getting gas in one of the cars, I got back in and the car wouldn’t start all of a sudden. Somehow the battery had just died completely. After jumping the car, it worked just fine for the next couple of weeks until it did the same thing again. The other car had been making a scratching noise off and on for quite some time, and it had just recently been getting louder. I brought it up to a co-worker who told me that it was probably my brake pads being thin.

So this last weekend I decided to take care of both these problems. I went online to find an authorized dealer of Interstate batteries (since that’s the type that I wanted), called to verify they had the type of battery and took the car in. Only upon getting to the shop was I told that I’d be charged a half hour of labor to check and install the new battery. I wasn’t impressed since an auto parts store would have done it for free, but I was already there and wanted the battery. After they had already determined the battery was bad and removed it from my car, they told me that they didn’t have the battery I originally asked about and could get me a Napa battery. I was pretty upset since the only reason I had come to this shop was to get a specific battery. Next time I’ll just go to an auto parts store and have them take care of it for free.

For the brake repair I was able to have a friend from church replace the pads. He took a quick look at them, explained the problem, and told me exactly what I should purchase. He then put them on for me for a very reasonable price. There weren’t any problems. I would have thought that the brake issue would have been more problematic than a dead battery, but who knew?

So, there has to be a lesson learned from all this. While your car is working fine, take the time to find a reputable repair shop or someone you can trust. You don’t want to be looking for this when you need something fixed quickly. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to learn a little about the mechanics of cars. A basic understanding will go a long way when dealing with repair shops trying to pull a fast one on you.

It’s been said that you can tell a lot about a person by how they spend their money or what they spend it on. I think there’s a lot of truth to this. I’ve observed and talked with a lot of people and a lot of their personality is apparent from their spending patterns.

The opposite, however, is also true. You can tell quite a bit about someone by what they don’t spend their money on. It’s interesting to note what someone is disinterested in or doesn’t value. For example, you may choose to go out to eat every now and then which some would view as unnecessary and frivolous. But you might also choose not to ever pay full price and opt to use coupons or other money saving strategies.

Both of these angles help to put a more complete picture together. I’m not suggesting that we should form opinions of others based solely on their monetary activities, but I would suggest that you take an introspective look and see what your spending patterns say about you.

I apologize for the recent dry spell here on Fiscal Musings. I flew out Saturday morning with my grandmother who is moving in with my parents. I fly home today and things should then be back to the usual. It’s been a nice weekend, and I’ve been able to see family and some friends that I haven’t seen in a while. Always a good time.

I will tell you one thing though. Saturday evening I went to Wendy’s with a friend on our way back home. As you’d expect, I ordered a couple things from the dollar value menu. A while back I remember that the price of some things on the value menu had gone up to somewhere around $1.39 or so. Not a huge deal really, but a 40% increase nonetheless. Well, the prices are now back to 99 cents, but something else has changed. The size of the burger I got was significantly smaller than it had been previously.

Apparently Wendy’s decided that the 99 cent price point was something they wanted to keep, so they instead changed the size. I’m saying this because the price of something isn’t always the determining factor we should be concerned with. We should focus more on value. This is usually measured as price per unit, size, amount, or quality. Keep this in mind the next time you’re trying to decide what to purchase among a few similar items. The cheapest isn’t always the best bang for your buck.

Let me start by saying that there is nothing good on regular TV on a Saturday morning. I don’t have cable so that limits my options, but there’s pretty much only programming for kids. This being said, I happened to see something that really got me thinking.

There was a commercial that was advertising a new Barbie doll. I don’t know what the specific doll was called, but it was something like Shopper Barbie. It was basically a fashion barbie where you could pretend like you were actually buying the clothes. It comes with a credit card and a register. This may seem like it’s just another toy, but what was shocking was what they were saying about it.

The commercial was showing how the register talked and said the prices of what was being purchased. You could then swipe your credit card. They then said that you will never run out of money. I actually couldn’t believe it when I heard it. This sort of thing is what’s being taught to our children. You can buy whatever you want and you don’t have to worry about money cause you’ll never run out of it. We need to be careful what types of things we teach our children and what we allow them to believe. Take this however you want, but if you don’t teach your children about finances, they’ll learn it somewhere. And you may not like what’s being taught.

My wife and I just got back from MacDo where we ate dinner and picked up a movie at RedBox (Blades of Glory if you must know). We were able to pick the movie up for free which is always a plus.

Obviously, it wasn’t a very fancy outing but we were able to get out and talk and generally have a good time. We also really like their fries which is a lot more than I can say for some other burger joints (if you’re familiar with In-N-Out you know what I mean). Probably the most obvious up-side to the whole outing was that it didn’t cost us a fortune. While we could have gone to some place like The Olive Garden, I wouldn’t have come home any happier or satisfied, but I definitely would be out a lot more money.

I’m not writing this to say that you should all rush out to McDonald’s because it’s the greatest experience ever. If you haven’t already formed an opinion about the place, I’d probably wonder what hole you’ve been living in. But that’s not the point.

What I’m getting at is that things don’t have to cost a lot of money for them to be enjoyable. For some reason people have gotten it in their heads that the more money they spend the better time they will have. I don’t believe this is the case. We should really be more self-aware and do those things that we actually enjoy instead of succumbing to the hype of what we’re told we should enjoy. And I enjoy MacDo every now and then. What do you enjoy?

Today marks the six year anniversary of the September eleventh attacks. I’m not going to go into detail about that day or provide any of the commentary we’ve come to expect every year. If you want to debate whether the world or America is any safer today than six years ago, there are plenty of news outlets that I’m sure will oblige.

I do think, however, that it should serve as a reminder of those things that are most important to us. Too often we get caught up in a lot of meaningless daily activities that we fail to see and remember the big picture. I believe this has been characterized as failing to see the forest through the trees.

So what’s the “big picture” for you? I can’t say what it is or should be for you, but you need to figure it out. Take the opportunity today to help someone out. Make the donation that you’ve been putting off for some time now. Call up a family member or friend with whom you haven’t spoken in a while. Use today as an opportunity to do something meaningful. You’ll be glad you did.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that we live in a consumerist society. There is always something new to buy. There is always something new to entertain us. Unfortunately, many people spend money just because they feel the need to spend money. Whether they admit it or not, I believe it’s the case.

We need instead to learn to be content with what we already have. I’ve seen too many people go off and buy a new car when they already had a perfectly good car. Apparently they need the status symbol to make themselves feel good about themselves or for some other equally weak reason.

I’m also amazed at the furniture that people buy. There isn’t a whole lot of difference between different dining room tables as far as this discussion is concerned. Most of them (no matter how much you spend) will accommodate any number of dishes and whatever meals you choose to serve. I just don’t understand it when people discard perfectly good furniture so they can go buy something that looks a little different.

I would go into the whole clothes situation, but I think you probably get where I’m going with this. Not only will you be better off financially, but you’ll be happier in general. It’s a great character trait to be content with things rather than always wanting and wanting.