Saving money is always good, but helping family is good too. Usually the two don't intersect, but when they do, its almost always a good thing. Even if its not the most optimal solution. At least that's my opinion. To that point....

Two summers ago I was able to re-shingle my mother's house. In doing so I was able to save her tons of money and that helped me save lots of money (via free use of her times share for quite a few years). Great to save money for myself, but it helped her too, so a definite win all around.

That leads to events this past month. I had a coupon for a free oil change at a nearby dealership. Of course it was for them to review my car and come up with all types of work that needed to be done on my car. Which I knew going in, but whatever. Before letting my car go the mechanic comes and points out everything I had left go for some time and how much it would cost to do. And oh yeah, I had to wait for hours to just get an oil change, but now that they are looking at my car, this work could be done quickly. I don't know the going rates, but I declined, figuring any place else would be better (especially after seeing how much they wanted for each piece of work). (Plus I was disgusted having to wait 4 hours for the car to be done as I used their online appointment service before going there!).

The next day thinking on it I remembered hearing about the SG-GF's son and how for the past few months he was running his own "on the go" mechanics service. I thought perhaps this would be good work for him and I might get it done for less. Actually I would have liked to have the work done for free as "family", but he is trying to start a business and deserves all the business he can get. He said he could do the work, and while visiting her for vacation with my son, he was able to do the work, and for maybe $100-$150 less than the dealership. Could I have got it done less somewhere else? I don't know, but really it doesn't matter, as getting a good enough price and helping him was certainly worth more to me than saving an extra $10-$20 elsewhere (if that was even possible).

Just ruminating I guess, but while saving money is good, there are other things to consider in life. Now I'm wondering if he can do other things on the car when I am there next time. Hmmmmmm....

Well I have been away for a while, still working on my savings, being frugal, and my personal relationships (not necessarily in that order).

However for today I am looking back 10 years, only because I have been on here in one form or another for that amount of time.

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Looking at my numbers for 2006 in August, 10 years ago
* All my investments added up to about what I still owed on my mortgage. Maybe the equivalent of one year's take home pay.
* I was in the midst of working out a divorce with my wife.
* I was only to year 3 of my current job, and wasn't even vested yet in the pension plan.
* I was turning my life around, but it had a long way to go.
* My saving accounts fluctuated between $100 - $2,000

Now its August 2016, and
* My house has been paid off since 2011
* My investments are now about the equivalent of 10 years of take home pay (though maybe 25 years of expenses).
* I'm happily divorced and happily have a girl friend who is great.
* I'm finishing year 13 at my last job, still going strong, and have a nice vested pension amount at this point.
* My life has long been set to a new compass direction, and an excellent one at that.
* My savings accounts now fluctuate between $20,000 & $25,000.
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Getting the ship going the right direction can be a pain, but once there, you can really make headway. Not sure I would have believed it would work out this well 10 years ago, but it has gone well.