After 2-days off from work I'm headed back. I will be spending part of Christmas eve at work. I will be off Christmas Day and Sunday. After that I just don't know. I will get my new schedule while I am work. Even though it is fast food I am really enjoying my time there.
However, I also enjoy working on this blog. That is why I would like to let you know I have a blog post scheduled to post tomorrow at 8 am central time. I think you will enjoy this post, and hope you will visit the blog to take a look at it. Also throughout today I have 2 Christmas stories scheduled to post. In the mean time I hope you and your family enjoy your time together. God Bless each and every one of you.
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Discussing faith, business, personal finance, news (business and financial related), politics, and pretty much everything else.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Trying To Get Better With Commas
O.k., so this post has nothing to do with finances, but it does have to deal with blogging. One of my English teaches in high school told me one key was to use commas where you pause or breath. However, a website I have been reading says that is a Myth.
So that is one mistake I have been making. I think the only commas I have been getting consistently correct has been after the "however" at the beginning of some of my sentences. I am trying to get better at this. It does seem odd though that no one really said anything about these mistakes the first 2 or 3 years of the blog. Especially when that was when even more grammatical errors were made. However, that doesn't matter. What matters is that I am trying to improve. It may take a bit of time, but I will read and reread this sheet from the University of North Carolina till I learn it.
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MYTH: You should add a comma wherever you pause. Where you pause or breathe in a sentence does not reliably indicate where a comma belongs. Different readers pause or breathe in different places.
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
So that is one mistake I have been making. I think the only commas I have been getting consistently correct has been after the "however" at the beginning of some of my sentences. I am trying to get better at this. It does seem odd though that no one really said anything about these mistakes the first 2 or 3 years of the blog. Especially when that was when even more grammatical errors were made. However, that doesn't matter. What matters is that I am trying to improve. It may take a bit of time, but I will read and reread this sheet from the University of North Carolina till I learn it.
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go ahead share your thoughts with me now, my ears are open. I'm always eager to hear what you think.
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Official Launch
Today, is the official launch of the new color design on all my web properties. Not to mention, today I am officially launching another website. Many of you have already seen it here on DebtFree4ever.net. However, I have been busy at work eliminating most of the red from the blog KevinsView.com and the laborious task of changing color schemes on the website PrinceOfThrift.com. The website was more laborious, as I had to go ad edit the HTML file. Unlike the blog, where I can just edit the template file. In the process, I had to go back 2-3 times on each of the various pages within the site, to get everything right. PrinceOfThrift.com is an informative website that includes various budgeting related forms to assist you in your financial lives. I have even created a grocery shopping list for you to file out and then print off to take shopping with you. If you have not been to the website and checked it out, maybe now is the time to do so.
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New Blog Launches
At the same time, I am teaming up with some ministries and creating a blog that will publish the emails of missionaries to their supporters. I am looking for more missionaries to become a part of that blog. Currently I have two and would like to get at least 12-15. Hopefully, there will be one missionary update every month. While I don't have any control over it, I don't want to see 12 quarterly updates all posted about the same time. Since, this new blog was coming online about the same time I was being asked to make my sites less red, I made that the new site didn't have all that read. ---
go ahead share your thoughts with me now, my ears are open. I'm always eager to hear what you think.
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1st Step - Revisited
In March 2006, I posted to following post. I thought it was worth re-posting here today. I have edited to correct the misspelled words to were (are) more prevalent in my older posts.
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Today, my weekly post is going to address the first step to become debt free. It is important to point out, that while I am typing this,I am also learning. The big thing of course, is changing our spending habits. Changing those habits, can be the hardest thing, because we must stop using credit, but if you are like me (and most of you are), you are over extended and using credit cards to make it by. Obviously that is a losing battle, not to mention we are paying more for everything we put on credit, then we would if we would just pay cash. How do I figure? Well you are paying interest on top of what the retail cost is. For example you might as well add about $5,000 to the cost of your car, if you use credit to pay for it. With credit cards, if you pay the minimum payment on your credit cards, then you are likely paying for each item three times. Can you see how, it is better to pay cash? In the long run if we wait and pay cash, we will come out ahead of that person that has the "give it to me now," mentality and thus uses credit to get the items, just so they can impress their friends and family. Anyway more on that, in a latter post.
The first step is making the commitment to do it. First cut up all your credit cards, except one. Take this one credit card and put it in a metal can full of water and put it in the freezer. Why a metal can? Because metal can't be microwaved. In this way, you are forced to wait for it to thaw out, before using it. This is a period of cooling off for you. Often times, by the time the ice thaws, you will have changed your mind about using your credit card.
So let me ask, do you really want to get out of debt? Are you sure? Are you willing to discipline yourself in whatever ways might be necessary to achieve that goal? If you can answer yes to these questions, then let's get started. Check back weekly, for my weekly posts on becoming debt free and hopefully encouragement to stay debt free forever.
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go ahead share your thoughts with me now, my ears are open. I'm always eager to hear what you think.
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Wednesday, December 22, 2010
My Story
I thought it was time to actually write an "About Me" post. I have started this thing several times over the last couple of weeks. But, something just keeps getting in the way. Add to that, not knowing what I want to say.
My story begins in 1987 when I graduated high school. I ended up not going to college right away. After spending all summer looking for work in my small town, I got together with my Grandma and borrowed $3,000 from her to start my own business. A little second hand store that was on the main street in my small little town. At one point, I even called the Sally Jesse Raphael Show for advice to grow my business. While I couldn't use any brand names (like the name of my store) on the show, I was able to mention my city name, which in turn did bring in some new customers. Customers that didn't know I had existed before I called into the show. Sadly though it was not enough. Despite my best effort to make better window displays and getting exposure, there just was not enough business to keep going.
Around the same time, I started writing for an upstart local newspaper. As I closed the doors of the secondhand store, the location became the office for my freelance writing career, as well as the La Cygne office of the new paper. Unfortunately, that paper soon folded. Soon after the 1988 November election, all my belongings were loaded in my dad's pickup truck as my parents drove me to Topeka. Once in Topeka, I spent the next couple of years bouncing from one part-time job to another, starting at McDonald's. In 1992, working part-time a grocery store, I started attending Washburn University. However, I borrowed heavily and signed up for 2 or 3 of those college credit cards. I was in debt. It was not a pretty picture. I did not know how to balance my spending. The grocery store, said when I was ready I could go full time. Faced with the debt, I declared bankruptcy and took my employer up on the offer. I spent the nest few years working full time, and eliminating all my debt.
On Dec 31, 1994, I quit my job and moved to Chicago (the next day), to work with an inner-city ministry known as Jesus People USA (aka JPUSA). Two years later, I was back in Kansas vowing to never get another credit card. Vowing to never borrow again. However, as many of you can gather, that is not what happened. I ended up allowing myself to borrow for this or that. Signed up for Credit Cards and constantly was in the cycle of debt. I took two trips to Europe. In fact Areas, of Europe that most American travelers (to Europe) never see. I still want to see some of the more popular spots, but I really enjoyed visiting the areas that I did. Still though, the second trip was with money I did not have. I was once again the cycle of debt. I knew I had to break the cycle, but I really didn't know how. I was pretty much resigned to the fact that it would always be that way. Oh, I usually got bigger debts paid off early, while living on the credit card(s) to get by.
Finally in 2006, I bought the "Transforming Debt Into Wealth System," with my credit card. After listening to what John Cummuta had to say, I found that it made since. I knew I had to put into practice what he was talking about on the CD's. One thing he said, was to start a website with affiliate links, to make some extra cash. However, he said in order to get visitors to keep coming back, you need to find some way update the content. I decided I would create a blog about personal finance. Discussing the very things that I was learning. I actually thought I would be the first such blog. Once I started, I found that there was about 150 other similar blogs. (Now there is over 1000). I continued to learn from John Cummuta and of course what is now Crown Financial Ministries. However, I soon started attending a Dave Ramsey class, and began to really enjoy what he had to say as well. It really wasn't a lot different then what Cummuta was teaching. The basic differences was how the ordered the priorities.
It was hard for me, living only on $15,000, my household expenses were a greater part of my budget, then for the average household earning $25,000 or more. However, in 2008 I got the big promotion at work, that took my income to just under $30,000. That bit of influx in cash helped a lot. My debt was going down.
In 2010, I got married to a wonderful woman. Before we got married, she and I went together as a couple to Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. She was on fire. She indicated she really liked what Dave had to say. She even said she can't wait to see him live. Likewise, I can't wait to be able to take her. I want her to dream with me and see the big picture down the road. I love her, and I will get her a place of our own. We just have to be willing to make those sacrifices now, so that we can save up for it.
Anyway I am getting off track here. After we were married, we moved away from my $30,000/year job and the place I called home for 11-years and moved to Texas. A place of lower taxes, slightly warmer winters and closer to her 30-year old son. I cashed in my employer based Simple IRA and sold my house, allowing us to pay off the remainder of the debts.
It was a long process, four years in the making. Almost 5-years. My wife doesn't like me talking about the personal debts or budget nearly as much as I do. I think it is important to give a general idea here on the blog. However, some of the readers want more details. That is one area I have to respectfully disagree, and yield towards my wife's wishes. I love her, and if she feels uncomfortable with that information being shared then I have to find a balance. I have tried avoiding saying that point blank, because I don't want it to sound I am being negative in any way towards my wife. However, some readers have continued to hound me and demand more details and even calling me a liar because I am not answering the questions for more detail. So, when I say that some say I am to honest on this blog, I am primarily talking about my wife. There are others, but she is the one I am mainly thinking about. I love her and I respect her wishes. I just hope that all the readers would respect that as well. Anyway, that is my life's financial story. I don't know what will happen in the future. However, I expect to see my wife in our own home again soon. Hopefully sooner rather then later. I want us to be able to do some traveling. Perhaps to London, Paris, Frankfurt and some of those more popular destinations in Europe, I would like to take my. I want her to see New York. One thing I know, is I need to build my travel savings up and have it ready for when we need to go visit her or my families back in Kansas (me) or North Carolina (her). Here's to a brighter and a completely debt free future.
---
go ahead share your thoughts with me now, my ears are open. I'm always eager to hear what you think.
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My story begins in 1987 when I graduated high school. I ended up not going to college right away. After spending all summer looking for work in my small town, I got together with my Grandma and borrowed $3,000 from her to start my own business. A little second hand store that was on the main street in my small little town. At one point, I even called the Sally Jesse Raphael Show for advice to grow my business. While I couldn't use any brand names (like the name of my store) on the show, I was able to mention my city name, which in turn did bring in some new customers. Customers that didn't know I had existed before I called into the show. Sadly though it was not enough. Despite my best effort to make better window displays and getting exposure, there just was not enough business to keep going.
Around the same time, I started writing for an upstart local newspaper. As I closed the doors of the secondhand store, the location became the office for my freelance writing career, as well as the La Cygne office of the new paper. Unfortunately, that paper soon folded. Soon after the 1988 November election, all my belongings were loaded in my dad's pickup truck as my parents drove me to Topeka. Once in Topeka, I spent the next couple of years bouncing from one part-time job to another, starting at McDonald's. In 1992, working part-time a grocery store, I started attending Washburn University. However, I borrowed heavily and signed up for 2 or 3 of those college credit cards. I was in debt. It was not a pretty picture. I did not know how to balance my spending. The grocery store, said when I was ready I could go full time. Faced with the debt, I declared bankruptcy and took my employer up on the offer. I spent the nest few years working full time, and eliminating all my debt.
On Dec 31, 1994, I quit my job and moved to Chicago (the next day), to work with an inner-city ministry known as Jesus People USA (aka JPUSA). Two years later, I was back in Kansas vowing to never get another credit card. Vowing to never borrow again. However, as many of you can gather, that is not what happened. I ended up allowing myself to borrow for this or that. Signed up for Credit Cards and constantly was in the cycle of debt. I took two trips to Europe. In fact Areas, of Europe that most American travelers (to Europe) never see. I still want to see some of the more popular spots, but I really enjoyed visiting the areas that I did. Still though, the second trip was with money I did not have. I was once again the cycle of debt. I knew I had to break the cycle, but I really didn't know how. I was pretty much resigned to the fact that it would always be that way. Oh, I usually got bigger debts paid off early, while living on the credit card(s) to get by.
Finally in 2006, I bought the "Transforming Debt Into Wealth System," with my credit card. After listening to what John Cummuta had to say, I found that it made since. I knew I had to put into practice what he was talking about on the CD's. One thing he said, was to start a website with affiliate links, to make some extra cash. However, he said in order to get visitors to keep coming back, you need to find some way update the content. I decided I would create a blog about personal finance. Discussing the very things that I was learning. I actually thought I would be the first such blog. Once I started, I found that there was about 150 other similar blogs. (Now there is over 1000). I continued to learn from John Cummuta and of course what is now Crown Financial Ministries. However, I soon started attending a Dave Ramsey class, and began to really enjoy what he had to say as well. It really wasn't a lot different then what Cummuta was teaching. The basic differences was how the ordered the priorities.
It was hard for me, living only on $15,000, my household expenses were a greater part of my budget, then for the average household earning $25,000 or more. However, in 2008 I got the big promotion at work, that took my income to just under $30,000. That bit of influx in cash helped a lot. My debt was going down.
In 2010, I got married to a wonderful woman. Before we got married, she and I went together as a couple to Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. She was on fire. She indicated she really liked what Dave had to say. She even said she can't wait to see him live. Likewise, I can't wait to be able to take her. I want her to dream with me and see the big picture down the road. I love her, and I will get her a place of our own. We just have to be willing to make those sacrifices now, so that we can save up for it.
Anyway I am getting off track here. After we were married, we moved away from my $30,000/year job and the place I called home for 11-years and moved to Texas. A place of lower taxes, slightly warmer winters and closer to her 30-year old son. I cashed in my employer based Simple IRA and sold my house, allowing us to pay off the remainder of the debts.
It was a long process, four years in the making. Almost 5-years. My wife doesn't like me talking about the personal debts or budget nearly as much as I do. I think it is important to give a general idea here on the blog. However, some of the readers want more details. That is one area I have to respectfully disagree, and yield towards my wife's wishes. I love her, and if she feels uncomfortable with that information being shared then I have to find a balance. I have tried avoiding saying that point blank, because I don't want it to sound I am being negative in any way towards my wife. However, some readers have continued to hound me and demand more details and even calling me a liar because I am not answering the questions for more detail. So, when I say that some say I am to honest on this blog, I am primarily talking about my wife. There are others, but she is the one I am mainly thinking about. I love her and I respect her wishes. I just hope that all the readers would respect that as well. Anyway, that is my life's financial story. I don't know what will happen in the future. However, I expect to see my wife in our own home again soon. Hopefully sooner rather then later. I want us to be able to do some traveling. Perhaps to London, Paris, Frankfurt and some of those more popular destinations in Europe, I would like to take my. I want her to see New York. One thing I know, is I need to build my travel savings up and have it ready for when we need to go visit her or my families back in Kansas (me) or North Carolina (her). Here's to a brighter and a completely debt free future.
---
go ahead share your thoughts with me now, my ears are open. I'm always eager to hear what you think.
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Monday, December 20, 2010
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
by O. Henry
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."
The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the air shaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."
"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.
"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."
Down rippled the brown cascade.
"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.
"Give it to me quick," said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"
At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshiped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
This is a timeless classic. It is a beautiful story of love. Yet, it also shows how out of love, we can get the perfect gifts those we love, even if we don't have a lot of money. Here's wishing each of you the Merriest Christmas, as we head towards Christmas Day, Saturday.
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Sunday, December 19, 2010
New Blog Design - What Do You Think?
Recently, I had someone comment on the blog about the design that I chose.
I had never heard that about epileptic's. I chose red because red is my favorite color. I wanted the blog to stand out more and as she mentioned in someway be representative of debt (being in the red). I have done this blog for nearly five years now, with red being the predominate color. In fact, I like red so much, in my house back in Topeka, I had even painted all the trim in red....my kitchen was coca-cola red and white with a coca-cola ceiling fan hanging in the center of the ceiling.
However, now that I am out of debt, perhaps it is time to move away from so much red. It's still my favorite color, but I don't want anyone having a seizure just because they seen the color of my blog.
Thanks for the tip. What do you think of the new design? By the time this posts, I will have made changes to KevinsView.com as well, and I will look at my other web properties to see if any changes should take place there to. Especially PrinceOfThrift.com.
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go ahead share your thoughts with me now, my ears are open. I'm always eager to hear what you think.
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I really dislike the over use of red in your blog. It is very jarring and looks like spam. Red is also a color that can trigger epileptic seizures in some people.
Take a clue from the other financial blogs and go more neutral. It will give your blog a more serious professional tone and make it not look so cartoonish or like a spam website.
I realize you probably want the red to indicate debt, but this much red is really over doing it.
- Kathy
I had never heard that about epileptic's. I chose red because red is my favorite color. I wanted the blog to stand out more and as she mentioned in someway be representative of debt (being in the red). I have done this blog for nearly five years now, with red being the predominate color. In fact, I like red so much, in my house back in Topeka, I had even painted all the trim in red....my kitchen was coca-cola red and white with a coca-cola ceiling fan hanging in the center of the ceiling.
However, now that I am out of debt, perhaps it is time to move away from so much red. It's still my favorite color, but I don't want anyone having a seizure just because they seen the color of my blog.
Thanks for the tip. What do you think of the new design? By the time this posts, I will have made changes to KevinsView.com as well, and I will look at my other web properties to see if any changes should take place there to. Especially PrinceOfThrift.com.
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go ahead share your thoughts with me now, my ears are open. I'm always eager to hear what you think.
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