INTRODUCTION TO THIS BLOG

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Hi, my name is Bill:

I decided to produce this Blog for mainly 2 reasons:

1. I am now in my 80’s and have developed a lung disease that requires continuous nasal oxygen.

2. Since my retirement 20 years ago, I have volunteered for a number of nonprofit organization who work with homeless and under employed. During that time I have met with over 1000 individuals on a one-one basis or as a group, to help them with money management. Of course, as with any program, you will have both success and failures. Since I cannot now do this on an individual basis, I decided to do this Blog. At this point I do not know if anyone is interested or not, but maybe it will be of help for someone.

To get started I will tell you about my life. I was born over 80 years ago in a city in north Ohio. The year was 1933. It was a bad year for my family. At the time my father was 54 years of age and my mother 39. My father had a small bakery which he lost to bankruptcy.  They also lost their home which was bought by the government; the government agency that bought up 1000s, of homes during this period. The person who had owned the house could buy it back by paying for 20 years to the agency called Home Owners Association .For the next 15 years we had some lean years. My father died when I about 10 years old.  My mother had to go back to work, so I was by myself most of the time. I received $5 per month from Social Security. This does not seem like much compared to today’s standards, but it was enough to pay for a week’s food. When I was about 12 years old I started to mow lawns and rake leaves.  Even then I saved a nickel or dime out of earnings. During this period I worked for a concession stand in a local park. I was paid $1 per day and was allowed a free popcorn and a glass of root beer. My work day was 10-12 hours long. No one seemed to care about child labor laws in those days,

When I turned 15 I was able to obtain working papers. My next job probably was the one that guided the direction of my life. The job was to wash dishes in the local hospital laboratory. My work hours were from the time I left school till 9PM and weekends. The pay was $0.65 per hour. That was close to the minimum wage for that time. My next Blog will be on my education and early days of my financial endeavors.