Margret Sloan

Warren is home for the summer and his dad has informed him that this past week of sleeping until noon is his only luxury. Time for Warren to get busy and find a summer job. He had looked half-heartedly before he left school, but it’s getting serious at this point - his spending money for the next school year depends on what he can make this summer.

My friend Tom has offered him a spot on his work crew building decks on new homes. It’s good money and relatively easy to learn. The only drawback is he can’t work if it’s raining and we’ll need to spot him some money to buy a pair of good workboots.

There’s a website called Work Boots USA that gives a quick overview of the different types of boots and it carries all the major brands. You can easily tell from the short description under each photo if the boot has a soft toe, hard toe or steel toe - the type of toe you need depends upon the type of work you’ll be doing and what kind of workplace hazards you have to protect your feet from.

I told Warren that if he picks out a pair of work boots from that site I’ll put them on my charge card. They can have the boots delivered by the weekend and he can start work for Tom on Monday.

The banks, savings & loans and credit unions are a huge modern business that are getting way too big for their britches. They have strayed so far from their mission of offering a safe place for people to put their money and a resource for the average person to buy a house.

Everything they do is about generating fees for themselves and customer service has gone out the window. I’ve had banks refuse to take my U. S. currency as a deposit to my account. I’ve had banks tell me that it is too close to their closing time (15 minutes before the doors were to close) for them to help me and to come back the next day. Now the bank where I take our company’s weekly deposit - two checks and a deposit slip - tells me that I will no longer be able to make my commercial deposit at their drive through windows. I must find a parking spot in the crowded lot and walk into the bank and stand in line with all those people who have no I.D., have accounts at other banks, and all those other time consuming banking issues, to make a deposit that takes all of 2 minutes at the drive through.

On Monday I’ll be calling their other branches to see if this is a new policy with all the locations or just the branch close to my house. If this is their policy for all locations, I’ll have to find another way to do my banking business each week.

Ever since I was a teenager I’ve loved New York City. We went on several trips to New York while in school. I’ll never forget the 8th grade trip to Manhattan. We boards large commercial buses at 3:00 in the morning and slept during most of the drive up, spent the entire day doing tourist things and drove back the same night. IT was exhausting but thrilling and I jumped at every chance after that to go to New York for another visit.

Most of my friends that left the medspa company have accepted positions with a new franchise that is based in New York. Sadly, that means most of them have had to pack up and move from here to New York. So now I don’t have the chance for the occasional lunch or cocktails to stay in touch with most of my friends. It’s down to a few emails and occasional phone calls.

Alexa is the last of the old crew to take a job with the new company. We had lunch today at our favorite Sushi place to say goodbye. She is excited about the move and I’m thrilled for her! She’s going to stay with one of our friends already there, sleeping on the futon while she looks for place of her own. To help with that I put her in touch with one of the best real estate agents in Manhattan, Dottie Herman.

Dottie is a broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, the largest real estate company in New York. I had met Dottie years ago at a real estate function in Las Vegas and kept her business card just in case I would have the opportunity to move to New York. Alas, it is Alexa who is getting that opportunity and I’m happy to share the contact information with her.

I don’t know who the others used to help them find a new home, but if I was looking for Manhattan New York real estate I would call Dottie first. As soon as Alexa finds her new condo and gets settled in, I’ll be flying to New York for a visit with my old buddies.

I think at some point in each of our lives, everyone in my family has worked in a restaurant for some reason or another. I was a bartender and I loved it. Wish I had my own bar, but that’s the middle class American’s dream, isn’t it?

If I could make my dream come true, I would start a new business someplace where I want to live, pack up and leave here. One of the things stopping me is getting all the financing I would need. Banks are harder to deal with every day and I’m not interested in taking on partners. For one thing I want autonomy in making the business decisions and for another I don’t want to share the profits from my own hard work with people who don’t do anything except put in the start up money.

That’s why I’ve been looking into Business Loans online. There is a website, www.advancerestaurantfinance.com, that specializes in small business and restaurant loans. They are more flexible than banks and they have a simple application process that you can start right online. I like the fact that they are located and licensed int he state of California, so I am seriously considering making my dreams come true with the first step of finding the financing I’ll need.

Last night we had a board meeting for the non profit that I’ve been working with these past several years. We had to review the nominations for new board members and officers for the coming year. I was glad to learn that we’ve found someone new to serve as Treasurer, a young man who works for a large financial services company, Northern Trust.

I had reviewed their website and was totally impressed with Northern Trust. They offer a variety of financial services for individuals, including

• business owners
• legal professionals
• medical professionals
• corporate executives
• families in transition

I’m hoping that, if elected, the Treasurer can meet some of our consumers and works with them, as well as other board members, to help with long term financial planning. Some of them need help with understanding the processes of estate settlement and some just need a friend they can talk to about arranging for the future care of their disabled children and get the peace of mind that financial security brings.