Backup

There are a lot of ways to back your info these days. Some people go with online backup, others, like myself go with a portable hard drive.

So is something that happens pretty often to people? I have never had a hard drive fail on me (knock on wood). I wonder what the statistics are like. Is it like a flat tire (there are those that have had one and those that will soon) or is it less likely?

How many of you have had a failed hard drive? How many?

Oooh Shiny!

There are three aisles at any store that capture my interest regardless of what I went in for. The car accessories, tools, and electronics. I could sit in any of those three aisles for hours on end and just stare.

As it is I don't get to do that very often as I'm almost always in a hurry these days. That's why I enjoy shopping on black Friday so much. It's a whole day and I'm not in a hurry. Hopefully this year I will have plenty of time to look while I'm shopping.

Soft Outside

I think that it is really cool that someone was able to design a outdoor cushions that not only looks like a normal indoor cushion, but feels like one as well, with one major difference. That weather seems to have no affect on it. Spill a glass of water on your couch? Disaster. Hurricane force winds and 6 inches of rain on your porch furniture. No sweat.

Seriously, why aren't inside cushions made this well?

Having No Debt Doesn't Make You Rich

I realized recently that not having debt doesn't make you rich. That may seem obvious to some, but my point is more subtle. When you are living paycheck to paycheck, and writing checks for hundreds of dollars to multiple places (cars, credit cards, etc) you feel like you could own the world if you could only just keep all that money for yourself.

It turns out that it doesn't quite work that way. Once you have your debt paid off (which I don't quite yet) you realize that there are lots of important things you need to be saving for (giving to others, family vacations, your next car, emergency funds, retirement, etc) that you were just ignoring before because you had no choice.

I realized that I'm not going to be buying any isla mujeres hotels any time soon. I wasn't floored by this but it was just something that I am finally getting my head enough above water to realize. Then I remind myself that being able to save for those important things is the reason that I decided to do this in the first place. To provide for my family and make our lives and the lives of those around us better one bit at a time. I couldn't do that before, but I'm getting closer to it now.

I don't feel completely out of the woods as far as the plan I have in my head, but I can see a lot more daylight than I could a couple of years ago. I really just want to clean up my past mistakes once and for all and begin living the life I should have been all along.

I Need Back Up!!

We, like most people now, use a digital camera to take all of our pictures. The worry is that some day something will happen to the pc they are stored on and we will lose them all. To combat that, I had one of those external hard drives that I periodically connected and copied over all of our important files to be sure that we had second copies. I then kept the drive in another part of the house to be safe.

When we moved I somehow lost the cables I needed to connect it to the computer and so had no way to back up for about a year. Finally, fearing a problem, I researched buying new cords for it. Turned out that a new drive with 400% of the capacity of my old one, was barely more money than the cords.