Happy/dough

some people need or want more in life than others.I guess yesteurday must have been a bad day for some (must be the weather gettin to everyone)If someone can get the dough per hour all the more power to them,if it makes them happy so be it.Money nevver bought happieness yet.(it might help I douno).

On a better note the sun is shining here and its nice and warm with a slight breeze,just a buitaful day to be alive.

You said it.. Money don't buy happiness. I been broke my whole adult life, and I consider myself pretty darn happy.

If'n I don't make ends at my day job, I'll work on a car or tractor, haul some junk, or go work for a local farmer or someone.. and even if it's only 8 bucks a hour, it's 8 bucks a hour I don't have if I just sit on the couch watching tv.

Guess some people got in their heads they're worth a lot more than I am.


The sun is shinin here too, and I'm above the dirt, and it's pleasantly cool outside, so it's time to go do somethin.. Even if it's wrong LOL

Brad

I do most of the stuff around the place but get someone to do something here and there if I think I can't swing it.Had a couple German guys do some stucco around windows I replacesd which turned into a sensuous paint job (since you was here with the scaffolding) on the whole house. Cost was 15 bucks (total) an hour and I was glad to pay it. Even though I was paying for plenty of coffee & cigarette breaks and conversation.
Got another German to do some tile work. 20 bucks an hour which he really milked.
Was struggling with a gate that I was adapting to fit our entrance one day. Steel frame needed to be taylored and wood taylored to match. Russian neighbor was walking by, called his 2 boys on the cell phone who were there in to minutes with a cart to haul everything. Measured and took everything to return in a couple hours with everything looking like store bought. Finally agreed to take 20 bucks from me for his boys.

Have a Bosnian guy doing more tile work in the house that zooms around like a bumblebee, not making mistakes, and just an all out friendly guy. Originally asked for 6 bucks an hour if I'd help but only took 20 minutes to see that I was in his way. This guy will get 15 bucks and all the courtesies I can shower on him so that he'll want to come back.

Finding a German to work around doing odd jobs and helping with the horses is like pulling teeth because they make more money on welfare.

AAAAAAAAmen to that. Never was rich & don't plan on ever getting that way' Keith

Yup, I agree. We're comfortable and able to get what we need. When the wife buys lottery tickets it kinda scares me to think that we might win someday!

In an email containing another message the following was in it as well. How true.

The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything;
They just make the best
Of everything they have.

i always heard money was like a sh!t sammich
the more bread you got,the less sh!t you got to eat

same amount of sh*t,just more hidden

Above my computer desk is a Saying I dearly love. It goes like this,"Success is not measured by how much material wealth is posessed,but whether you are able to create at will what you need" Been creating for lots of years now, and I consider what I"ve learned is wealth beyound compare.I know LOTS OF FOLKS who have been creating all their lives. Great folks to know. No complaints on this end .JMHO LOU

Your right, money never bought happiness. Still many of us, like myself, have worked our a--es off all of our lives to get the things we have and base what we have and could afford on the money we make just like I'm sure you do. Personally I am used to making 3 to 6 times what Home Depot was wanting to offer me to work for them ( I usually base my rate on the situation and usage of the machine more so than a fixed amount) and believe me when I say, try paying bills with half or less of the money your used to making. All this because you were forced to spend your and your wifes life savings on a lawyer to deal with a biological father that can't even pay the support ordered in the lawsuit he started demanding full custody and support paid to him of a child he had never had any contact with, Struggling each month not because you don't have work sitting there to do but because you can't do it because some fat cat suit in some office, or congressman in DC, isn't doing what needs to be done to get the money out into the economy so things can get done that need to get done. Face it no matter how bad things get none of us can afford to work for free or worse yet pay to work........ To make matters worse you've got the other fat cats that are sitting behind their desk drawing huge bonuses for "saving" money when many times all their doing is not letting the money go where it needs to be because they are afraid they might lose some. Funny thing is how many banks are now sitting on forclosed houses because that's exactly what they did, sit on money needed at point A for a job, a job that their customer needed to work and get paid for to pay their mortgage, which didn't get paid because the bank, was too busy 'saving' money .....It's a vicious circle and until the fat cats and congressmen get their heads out of their collective as-es things are going to keep getting worse. Until the people in this country that are so out of touch with things get it through their heads that we will always need skilled labor in every area, and that like everything your tools, your gas, your time, your training to become 'skilled' all cost money that you have to pay out whether your working or not, and that ultimately your time is just as precious as theirs and you have a right to make a living too, things are never going to get better.

Then take the illegals that are living and working here and drawing money and services off of our tax dollars while never putting a dime into it. The way I see it they are here looking for a better life for themselves, and I aplaude them for that. The thing is if this is such a great country to live it, then do it the right way. True they work hard for the money they make and that's admirable, but at the same time how many of them live 10 or 20 to a house, how many of them send every extra dime home to Mexico or wherever instead of spending it here. In the end all that does is drive wages down for everyone because in the immortal works of the HD manager, "somebody will do it for that"....and how many of you want to live in a 4 room house with 20 other people sleeping on the floor???? I didn't think so.....

In the end there are alot of us that have worked our as-es off to live the American dream only to see it shattered by corprate greed, by congressional f-ups, by illegals mooching off our hard earned tax dollars. Ultimately though am I happy with what I have??? You damm right I am. In fact I've got everything I need. The problem is trying to find enough work to keep the money to pay for it now after having to cut my rates to keep business coming through the door because I am 'the little man'. All the while I see prices on everything going up, I see wages going down past where they were 20 some years ago while the products the employees are selling go up in price and the benefits get less and less, while at the same time I see all of the corprate types smiling all the way to the bank as they do their best to screw people over. Personally I couldn't sleep at night if I followed the same business plan. Granted I might br rich but then I wouldn't be happy.....

So, am I having a bad day, Nah, really I'm just sick and tired of hearing everyone tell me how bad they have it and how good I should have it because my labor rate is 'so high'. Funny thing is most have never walked a mile in the shoes of someone that is self employeed, rather they have spent their life suckling at the teat of one company or another letting them worry about covering the expenses and the pay check every month......Could I do that again, maybe if I had to, but money aside nothing can match the freedom of working for yourself and like it or not with all the good that comes from that we also have to deal with the bad......

I agree with that I guess that's why I no longer have a full time job. Couldn't stand workin my a$$ off for 10 bucks and tore all the tendons in my elbow with no comp. So I keep my expences down farm with no dept other than morgage and things seem to be workin out just fine.I understand totally when somone borrows money for equipment you have to make enough to make those payments.After paying on a $10000.00 loan( I kept refinancing)for a vehicle (ended up being 6 vehicles)for 20 years. Absalutly amazing how good it feels to not have to make payments to the bank every month. It's hard to change lifstyle and I can understand anybody not being able to do it. For those who can I say do it.

Hey Camjun, thanks for not taking what I said wrong, and for everyone else......Before any sh-t starts flying about my comment, when I was talking about people telling me how good I should have it because of my labor rates I wasn't talking about anyone one here. In fact reading the responses to my post the other day about being asked to work for next to nothing doing the same thing me and others typically make a good living at, they were all remarkably positive for a change...

I used to think that if you worked hard and did not spend money like water that all would be well. My wife and I where able to raise a family and pay for a house. Saved a good bit for retirement. Then she gets sick. The insurance runs $1395.00 each month. Then her meds are another $1500.00. In just four years we have gone through most of our savings. Then this "wonderful" government says we are too rich for my wife to get disability. She will never draw a single dime of social security. She is only forty-two is on full time insulin pump and takes thirty some different pills each day.
She worked until our children where born and then after they where in middle school. But good old uncle Sam says that she did not work enough in the last ten years to get anything.
I am fifty and in good health but have worked at four different jobs in the last ten years where the company closes here and goes overseas. If I did not farm we would be screwed. The high unemployment here makes getting jobs real difficult. My repair business is slow right now too. I have had to turn work away if they could not pay it right when it was done. I used to be able to carry them a little while but no more. I charge less than the dealers but more than the know nothings working in their barns.
The illegals here have cost most of the farm kids their jobs. My son worked at two hog confinement setups all during high school. He got up at four am and worked then went to school. Then worked after school. He was paid $8 per hour. I made him file his taxes and social security. At the end of his senior year one farm hired illegals and paid them five dollars and hour under the table. The other did it about a year later. Most of the diaries around here use them as well. I guess not liking that makes me a racist.
We are slowly becoming a third world country. My children will be hard pressed to have the same standard of living that their mother and I have had.