Ed Icionsub

All three of my nephews have a birthday coming up in February. In fact, the three of them are just days apart on the calendar although several years apart in age. I always thought it was a little unfair to kids to have a birthday too close to Christmas – they have a strong likelihood of getting shortchanged in the gift department.

On the other hand, someone who is well organized and plans for the upcoming birthdays can take advantage of the Christmas sale prices and buy the gifts for each nephew at Christmas or shortly after Christmas and set them aside until they have to be shipped to the boys in early February.

It bothers me that popular games have books and online resources for players who want to get a hint, find a shortcut, or cheat to win the video games. The idea of cheating is very bothersome and offensive to me. Like in the old west, if someone was to accuse me of cheating I would push my chair back from the saloon table and demand an apology or challenge the scoundrel to a duel in the street.

I have a lot of personal integrity and would not cheat anyone in a card game or a board game. As much as I like to win, I do not believe in winning at all costs. You must play with good sportsmanship and honor, or the win is just a shallow victory of points, not a true win.

My step daughter has a terrible time managing her money. I have tried working with her on this for over 5 years and she still cannot stick to a budget or responsibly manage a checking account. She is always out of money several days before her next payday and is always borrowing gas money to get her through the week.

We have tried to help her manage three different checking accounts at three different banks and she always end up overdrawn and owing a lot of money in overdraft fees. This drives me crazy. Overdraft fees are an expensive punitive measure taken by banks that should be avoided at all costs. But she always has a lame excuse about why she owes the bank money or someone “made a mistake.”

This time we are going to try a new kind of banking. I am going to give her a prepaid debit card.  There is no way to rack up overdraft charges on this account. You cannot spend more than what is on the card, but you can reload it easily from a variety of convenient retail locations, including WalMarts, Walgreens, KMarts, Krogers, and 7-Elevens.

One attractive feature is that you can arrange to have your entire paycheck automatically added to your debit card for immediate access to your money. The card can be used anywhere that merchants accept MasterCard, and you can also use it for online bill pay. So this has all the features of her bank’s debit card program, but none of the banks account fees and overdraft fees that have always eaten away at her account balance.

This year our Christmas is quiet and peaceful, with just the immediate family gathered here at my house. The rest of the family is a day’s drive from Nashville and we just are not up to the trip this year. So the rest of the family will be gathering later today at one of my sister’s house and enjoying a huge covered dish feast together. Since we are not there to defend ourselves, I’m sure we will be the source of all the gossip and snide remarks that only your family can generate. So instead of those festivities, we are having a nice Christmas dinner here and a lazy day enjoying our games and toys here at my house.

Hope Santa find your house tonight and is very, very good to you. Merry Christmas!