At long last ... time to hit the turf. Nothing ... and I mean, NOTHING ... gets my ticker thumpin' like when pigskin season rolls around at the college level. A bunch of games kick off tonight. Vandy-Miami of Ohio. South Carolina-N.C. State. Wake Forest-Baylor.

What's that? Those names not big time enough for you? Well, they don't need to be. College football beats the heck out of pro, and I'll go toe-to-toe with any joe who says otherwise. They play for the love of the game, not some $14 million contract that needs to be re-negotiated as soon as some receiver has one big game.

See the way those guys attack the ball? That's how you need to attack your debt. If some fourth-stringer who’s been warming the bench all year wants it bad enough, he can get into the game and become the hero. So don't whine to me about how you might have to take a pizza-throwing job for a while. It ain't like it'll break your leg to do it. Show you're tough. Show your stuff. Deep-six your debt. Rah rah, sucker.

I started to get "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" back-from-the-dead flashbacks after reading this one, jack. It gave me goose bumps. So I'm reading in the odd news section of the papers, and my ticker sinks when I read about some stillborn baby in Israel. She came out at 23 weeks and checked in at less than a pound and a half. The doc calls it, they put the kid in the freezer, that's all she wrote, right?

No way, no how. FIVE HOURS after this kid's been put on ice, her parents come to get her to bury her, and they see movement! They get her out. All together, now ... it's a miracle!

This tyke was dead and gone, but The Big Guy hadn't punched her ticket yet. Two things to learn here ... miracles do happen, and there's no such thing as too late. Get your life on track if you haven't yet, baby. Spend more time with your family and pay more attention to your dough. Start makin' a budget, for crying out loud. It ain't gonna kill you.

This almost sounds like one of those Jeff Foxworthy "you might be a redneck if ..." moments. If you've ever pulled up to a parking meter and paid with a credit card, you might be broke. And plenty of broke is going on in places like the City of Angels, where they're testing out parking meters that take plastic. Pretty pathetic.

What does parking downtown cost in most cities ... like, a quarter or two? Shoot, most joes and jills could find that between the couch cushions. Yet they don't have two nickels to rub together when it comes to carrying cash and need to pay for parking at 18%. What's wrong with this picture, jack?

I'm almost ready to laugh at this one, but I won't. Not having enough change for the meter should alert you to some larger problem, see? If the moolah supply is so low that you don't have coins, maybe you need to make a budget to see where they all go. Simple enough?

My Boy Scout side popped up this week. I'm not one to toot my own horn, so I'll let my blog do it for me, baby. Seems a friend and his dame are scraping by and have a wee one that's growing like a weed. They're following their Baby Steps and stashing cash away for his college. But they ain't doin' as much as they'd like. That's where yours truly comes in.

A flip of the wrist and a mailing of the check, and I made up the difference of what they sent in versus what they COULD have sent in. I didn't let them know ... they'll get the numbers in their statement soon enough. I love jazz like that.

One more thing, jack. When you help someone, they may not see it ... but The Big Guy will. Do stuff to put a smile on His face, and yours will follow suit. Do you dig?

To tell you the truth ... I'm kinda having fun with this jazz, baby. It's one thing if you decide to not borrow more dough; it's another when Morgan Stanley (second largest investment bank in the States) decides to give you a financial credit line freeze and not let you borrow more.

That's right, bub. Some properties have taken such a nose-dive that Morgan Stanley is putting their credit lines on ice. Even the guys doing the lending are getting in trouble from all this, and they're cutting things off until they get a handle on it.

Bear in mind, baby ... don't wait for the money men to tell you that things are tight. Make a budget and check it out. If you've got more going out than coming in, you got problems. If you’ve got a plan, you got a solution. If you've got intensity, you'll have freedom.