get us going
okay
are are you at TI Austin or
well i left TI in January but i signed up for this before i did
oh that's great no uh uh my daughter has talked to my daughter up here with us i have another one and she's talked to students uh so i guess they have uh
sent this to their customers and people in colleges and things so they're if you're a computer user so my daughter has talked to two students uh that were non TIers so i guess oh yeah
oh i think that's a that's a good idea
all right
we're we're on finances have you have you retired or uh
oh no no no no actually i left TI um i had basically set my sights to leave TI when they announced there would be no salary increases in ninety one
oh
because i i definitely definitely need to make a little more money and uh i haven't really accomplished that yet but i'm trying
oh yeah
oh yeah it's uh that's the finances i guess we're on the subject of finances it is tough uh i've been with TI i'm just going to be fifteen years this year and that's a tough thing uh
the salary thing TI doesn't quite always do it right well what about our our our financial budget well you you should have a lot of information on a budget then if you're uh
i wish i did i i hope you're you're a person who does things better than i i don't have a budget that's one of my goals for this year is to try to get myself in a good
oh long range planning budget mode um i'm a single mom and i've been just uh trying to get
well you you you deserve an honor for that a gold star for that i guess
thank you it's nice to have someone understand that
right sure
how how about yourself do you have a budget you live by
well i guess i do i do have a long term budget because i got a daughter in college and one going to be in college so that i've been thinking about that for quite a while now monthly monthly no i'll tell you a funny story about budgeting uh
i've been married twenty six years
and i did you know that the macho thing the man always did the bills for i don't know fifteen years or more and i got so sick of it trying to balance the budget
um-hum
uh one and i always tried to show my wife you know here's how you once a year i'd say here's how you do the budget in case i get sick or here's how you do the checks you know
right
one day i gave her the checkbook and i said i'm not doing this anymore you do it you learn it and i've been happy ever since
well that's great how about your
she does it all now for about ten years and i don't even she complains to me about it she threatens me to give it back to me and i said i've been a happy man since i haven't fooled with that checkbook you know so i know it's a big pain to try to do that
it really is it it really is you know uh that was always a a major problem in our marriage what i have always identified is i am
basically good with money it i don't really need a budget to tell me not to spend it i think that comes from never having enough you know i'm always afraid of i'm going to need some and where will it be
right
right oh yeah
so um no i i've
i've finally worked myself into a spot where i can budget when i when i was first divorced i had um i sat down and budgeted and i had outgo that was what much higher than what i had coming in
yes i think uh that is a tough uh we all seems to think seems to be that way
i tried to hang onto a house that was way too expensive for me and
yeah
and so now that i've gotten you know i lost the house now that i've gotten past that i can sit down and say okay this is the reality this is how much money i have each month
the scary thing is as far as long term i don't have anything i don't know if you have an IRA or uh you know and i've got two girls also and i haven't saved anything for their college and
yeah that's you need to do that i'll i'll i'll give you a hint
i don't know if you're a talk a radio talk uh person listener do you listen to radio talk shows
sometimes i have
listen to Bruce Williams uh for financial advice he's on oh i don't know what he's going to be in Austin he's on five seventy here international oh he's nationally famous
um-hum
he's a college graduate type guy he's been in all he's an entrepreneur and he gives very practical financial advice about
cars very you know not not nothing college level basic stuff his name is Bruce Williams
he's on national radio uh i don't know what it would be down there you might want to whatever your radio talk shows are down there he's on that channel it's uh it's five seventy up here
well i'll check that out
uh-huh
and i'd listen to talk shows for everything for gardening and everything just when i'm doing chores and uh he gives a wealth of information very practical stuff and and
you've learned a lot
he will help you avoid a lot of little things uh financially
well that's that's good to know how
he
yeah there there's a lot of advice out there for how to get a budget and i i'm not expert again because i don't really do it monthly
um-hum
well you must have done something you're you're helping your children in school and you're you know
right i did start a college fund i'm not uh i have one again at UT down there now her first year and she's almost gone through her whole college fund you know
uh-hum uh-hum
excuse me Jim could you hold on i have someone at the door i'll be right back
sure go ahead sure
thank you i think we might have just screwed up the computer but we'll find out
oh no yeah right they give us ten minutes uh uh the only advice i give you on college would be there's a lot of scholarship money out there my daughter got a little bit not much only first year she got about two thousand dollars worth
oh
and you ought to as your daughters approach the college age uh start finding out about the scholarship money because there is a lot of money out there and uh
and and how did your daughter get scholarship money on
uh band she got you know five hundred dollars at a at a clip
through bands through leadership uh there's all kinds of civic organizations organizations that will give you you know one shot money
uh you get a president's award if you're you're in in high school doing certain this up area in Arlington
uh there's a lot of and of course you if you you score high on the SAT you can get you know two thousand a year you know or more
um-hum
wow
you can get yearly money as long as you keep up your grades she she did very well in school and uh but she only got first year money she got about two thousand dollars it was only five hundred dollars at a clip from this organization
uh-hum
we called there were there were two or three people there was some little civic organization in Dallas that gave money away and only two or three people applied she applied and got five hundred dollars from that
wow oh i'm definitely going to be uh actively looking into that
so
look into that bit
the year that they graduate you know before though you know while they're graduating there's all kinds of little bitty money that little clubs will give away churches and everything
and they don't even have a dozen applicants because uh uh the kids are going off after the big money
um-hum
uh of course you have to have some sort of record in high school uh of of achievement and everything but sometimes
it's just uh like our band gave money away we're a band booster club we gave we give uh two five hundred dollar scholarships just to kids uh who we think were worthy you know so
well that's great to know
there's money out there
yeah that's good
go ahead you can talk i i don't want to i want to chew up the whole line here
oh well you're doing you're doing just fine and and uh actually i when i talk i usually like to ask a lot of questions i was wondering what you do at TI
oh i'm an engineer i'm uh in fact i'm working the night uh because of the cutbacks and everything uh my job there were three managers jobs that were just dissolved
and so they put me on nights i i call this my recession job and i'm working nights just kind of cov ering uh shutdown equipment and everything and just being available here i don't mind
oh goodness
um-hum um-hum
uh it beats being laid off and everything and uh you you got to be a little flexible uh in my old age i'm trying to just hang in there until i get my kids through school
oh absolutely
yeah
and then i'd like to teach maybe mathematics or something i'm trying to study for that now
oh i hope you can do that what what i did is i was approached and and i've i went to TI just right at the time that uh my marriage was ending i had been a
right uh
a stay at home mom and and i i was very fortunate in starting and i really enjoyed it while i was at TI but you know the cutbacks were really getting to be rather frightening and i had less than five years
um-hum
and also i wanted to make a little bit more money so i decided i'd like to go out and try sales and uh i'm i'm out trying to sell
oh yeah
telephone systems to businesses and the potential there is fantastic the reality of it is it's tough
right
oh sure
well it's tough right now for everybody up here in the Dallas Metroplex it's awful hey i've got another clue for you for college
exactly
um-hum
another clue for you for college money go to work for UT
okay
uh we have a friend who works who is a secretary for TCU you know up here they give you scholarship a hundred percent
yes
if you're if you work for TCU
they do
yes so check that one out you know
i'm going to check that i've got i've got two friends that work at at UT i didn't know that at all definitely i will
ask them about it call them and because it's full full scholarship now it's uh not room and board but it's tuition full tuition paid if your parent works at TCU
uh-huh
well that sounds fantastic
and her her her uh mother went over there just for that
