Pie Charts, Double Connected

In order to improve my Excel skills I started a table to track our expenses. Don’t be impressed, it is a very simple table, but it produced a very impressive graph. Mama and Chase could see the effect of individual areas of our finances on the whole. Here is the graph:

The bigger areas are giving and household expenses. One of the areas that bothered Chase was an area I listed as “communication” which includes cell phone contracts, internet service and television/cable service; the dark blue area.The other area that he could easily see was the costs of his school here; teh black area. I was impressed by the outcome of the simple exercise. A picture really is worth one thousand words.

Speaking of communication costs, I am having a difficult time giving up my iPhone. I have been given a Blackberry cell phone for work so there is no need to keep the iPhone or the expensive contract that goes along with it, but I have gotten so attached to it that it is a real conflict. Who would have thought that I would have trouble giving up any electronic device?

The issue is not the ability to receive or make calls. I rarely do either of those. The real value of the phone to me is the information I can get instantly; stock quotes, weather, maps, etc. One of the more important things I have grown accustomed to is doing my Bible reading using my iPhone. It has been a great help to me in the past when I had to do much of my reading early in the shift I was working any particular day or night.

Now I have been able to get up early enough to do my devotional reading before I leave for work. Even though I have an hour commute from Amarillo to Borger, I have set 6:30 a.m. for the time to get to the office - getting up at 4:30 leaves me time to do about thirty minutes of Bible reading after I get ready. It is a schedule I am still getting used to but it seems to be working to my benefit.

I no longer need the iPhone so it will go, but I am prolonging the moment as long as possible.