Rise and Shine

Today was the first day of taking my girls to school.

At first I had decided to do this to save around 900 lempiras a month on bus service from house to school for my two daughters.

But today I was also glad that during the short drive, I was able to talk to my daughters. This since during the rest of the day they are at school and when I get home they are already sleeping.

So that was an intangible bonus. How much is having time with my kids is worth ? is it worth waking up at 6:30am ? time will tell.

The other bonus is that I feel I have a longer day to do things. This morning after dropping my girls off at home I went back home and registered myself at www.tecoloco.com . I also registered my wife. More on that later.

The thing is that it was a long registration process and I did it twice! Then it was only 8am, and I already had breakfast.

It's almost 11pm and I feel ok for the first day, not too tired.

Well at least this blog is free.

Supersaver man goes to school

I went to my daughter's school to pick up their mid-period grades. I'm glad that they are doing very well and so I feel it's money well spent.

Before going I had given thought that since we are now living much closer to the girls' school maybe me and/or my wife could drive them to school and have the school bus bring them back home and maybe there was a discount for that.

So after picking the grades I went to the administration office and asked about it. The accounting lady said "Sure! bus will be only 50% of what you pay now". With two girls pay for bus service if I only pay 50% it means about 900 lempiras saved. That is a whole tank of gas when it's totally totally empty! In my old car I get 300 miles for 10 gallons of fuel (about 900 lempiras at current prices).

It's a 5 minute drive from my house to the school with no stoplights or even busy street crossings. From the school back home it's almost the same. I'm total it's about 5 miles round trip. And it's 20 days a month, that's 100 miles.

So i'm seriously considering requesting only afternoon bus service for my girls starting next month (october). It might mean getting up at 6:30am to drop them off but I need to get up early anyway to make better use of my mornings, either to work more or to work out (something I badly need).

Do you think the savings are worth it?

Well at least this blog is free

Money in , money out

Today I got paid by my ex brother in law for doing the paperwork related to his purchases of stuff here in Honduras for shipping to his store in TN. $200 that I really need, but that I have to pay to my mom. Plus I still owe her the other $150 from last month and she reminded me of that.

 

Well at least the debt from that is coming down. I just hope his business keeps going and i keep getting paid.

 

 

Owing money to ex-brother-in-law

It was about more than a year ago that I started doing some side business with my then brother-in-law. He has latino stores in Tennesse and wanted someone here to find and ship products for him. So I offered my services to him. He payed all expenses and I would get $200/month to pay everyone here and send him the bills etc. So I basically do the paperwork as I am someone he trusts.

 

It was around that time that I started feeling the squeeze from all these debts. With him sending me these sums of money that I would just pass on to his creditors I figured I could ask him for a small loan so I could pay some of my other debt. So I asked him for $3000 that I would pay back with my work so he wouldn't have to pay me for 15 months. He agreed and I got the money and it was soon out of my hands, mostly went to pay debt but it apparently didn't do much of a dent on it since it's a year now and i'm still paying him and I still owe lots more money.

 

An interesting twist is that he and my sister broke up after she gave birth to their girl. He didn't even recognized the girl as being his. So my work with him got a little uncomfortable as I am in good working relationship with him while he and my sister are about to go to court for child support.

 

Then his business became a family run thing, so he wasn't now the sole owner and the money that his business was paying me I would have to pay back to him directly. Pretty inconvenient because wiring money back and forth from the US to here and viceversa costs money (at least $10 for every $1000). So out of a verbal agreement with my sister and my mom, he told me to hand over the $200 to my sister and my mom as a way of paying for the uprising of my little niece (She is the cutest chubby girl).

 

My mom had been with my sister in TN when she gave birth and they both made a hard decision. My mom would bring the girl back to Honduras while my sister tried to make it there so she wouldn't have to worry about raising a newborn baby by herself. So the $200 that I get payed I hand over to my mom here and email my now ex-brother-in-law telling him about each payment and how much money I still owe him.

 

Right now I owe him $400 and I owe my mom $150 of last month because Iast month I was away on a trip and needed the money to make some online payments while I was away. SO you could say that I owe him $550 total.

 

This is one of the debts that is easiest to explain how I got into. I hope I can get rid of it in a couple of months or so. But now a question arises:

 

Should I ask him for another loan ? If I do then I get some quick cash up front and force him to keep supporting my niece since I would hand over the montly payments to my mom. Plus it's a 0% loan :-)

 

On the other hand, as I said before he and my sister are going to court right now and probably the court will hand the payments if she does get some child support from him. So if that happens I would have to wire money back to him adding to the cost of paying back the loan. However while they do figure all this out my little niece will be with no more money being sent for her support. He originally said on that verbal agreement that he would pay $500/month for the baby's support but all she gets is the $200/month that I'm paying him back giving it  to my mom.

 

Maybe you have some ideas and opinions. I have my mom calling me every end of month asking me for the $200 and i'm getting it and passing it on to her, with the exception of last month. But I know it will soon be over and it will be hard for my mom to raise that baby without that money. I hope the child support case is done before I finish paying back the loan.

 

I'll update the sidebar now.