2 Broadcaster Press September 13, 2016 www.broadcasteronline.com Dave Says Feeling My Age Don’t Touch the 401(k) Dear Dave, My wife and I make $100,000 a year combined, and we have about $12,000 in credit card debt. We also owe another $80,000 in student loans, and our kids’ private school education costs $1,000 a month. Is it okay for me to take a loan against my 401(k), which is invested in mutual funds, to clean up the credit card bills? Stephen Dear Stephen, I wouldn’t do that. If your 401(k) is invested in good mutual funds, it’s Dave likely you’ll miss out on some pretty good rates of return. But that’s not the biggest reason this is a bad idea. The biggest reason is that when you leave your company — and you will leave, whether it’s because you get a better job, you get fired, or you die — that loan is considered an early withdrawal. If you don’t repay it within 60 days, you’ll get hammered with a 10 percent penalty plus your tax rate. You could easily lose almost half of what’s in the account. If you want to start paying off debt, my advice is to start doing things to generate extra income and begin living on a tight budget. Grab an extra, part-time job for a while, too, and have a big garage sale. Sell so much stuff the kids think they’re next! You need to work a serious debt-busting plan. The good news is it’s only $12,000. Knocking out the credit card debt won’t be so bad, and with your income, the kids’ school isn’t unreasonable. It’s the $80,000 in student loans that’s killing you. Scrape together and save every penny you can find each month, and put that toward paying off the credit card debt. Then, roll that amount over, add anything else you can come up with, and attack those student loans. You can do it, Stephen! —Dave Ramsey Kicked out, Starting out Dear Dave, I’m 19 years old, and I just got kicked out of the house after wrecking my dad’s truck. I’ve got a job making $12 an hour working about 40 hours a week, and I’m currently living with a friend at his apartment. I have a goal of going to college, and I’d like to get out of my friend’s place as soon as possible. Do you have any advice some someone just starting out? Brandon Dear Brandon, That’s a tough situation, buddy. I’m sorry things worked out that way with your dad. You’re going to need more money than what’s coming in, so let’s prioritize things. Your first goal is food, and your second goal is to help your friend a little bit with the rent. After that, you need to save up and get a car as quickly as possible. I’m talking about a total beater — a $500 to $1,000, mechanically sound, basic, ugly car. They’re hard to find, but they are out there. After you’ve done this and gotten some stability in your life, start thinking about saving for a little bit better car. This may mean picking up an extra part-time job for a while. Then comes piling up some cash so you can get your own place. Let’s get all this out of the way before you start thinking about school. Right now you barely have a place to live, and you’ve got nothing to drive. Listen, I love your motivation and the fact that you have dreams and a goal to better yourself. You’ve been through a lot, but let’s get the basics taken care of first, introduce a little stability into your life, and then we can start coming up with a plan for school and a long-term future. Good luck, Brandon! —Dave * Dave Ramsey is America’s trusted voice on money and business, and CEO of Ramsey Solutions. He has authored seven bestselling books. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 11 million listeners each week on more than 550 radio stations and digital outlets. Follow Dave on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com. Harvesting and Storing Pumpkins and Winter By Rhoda Burrows, Professor & SDSU Extension Horticulture Specialist The gardening season will soon come to an end, but we can still enjoy the fruit of our labor for months ahead if we take some extra care in harvesting and storage. Pumpkins and winter squash are two vegetables that can last well into the winter with attention to the following practices. Harvest Tips: When to pick Pumpkins and squash are warm-season crops that are sensitive to temperatures below 45° F, and should be harvested before frost. The fruit can withstand brief exposure to cooler temperatures, even down to 35° F, as long as they are exposed to warmer temperatures (around room temperature) soon afterwards, which will help reverse some of the chilling injury. For optimal storage life, pumpkins and winter squash should be left on the vine until the fruit are fully mature. However, the definition of maturity varies depending on the type of squash, and in some cases, it can be quite difficult to know the optimal time to harvest. Death of the vines doesn’t necessarily indicate that a squash is mature enough for successful storage, especially if disease or drought has been a factor. The traditional advice is to wait until the rinds are hard enough that they cannot be easily punctured by a fingernail. This works for many, but not all types of squash and pumpkins. A better, or at least equally good, indicator of ripeness can be stem “corking.” This is the loss of green and the development of brown, woody stripes on the stem where it joins the fruit (Figure 2). The stem may also shrink a bit. This indicates the fruit is beginning to separate itself from the vine and is no longer receiving much energy from the plant; this occurs as the rind begins to harden. Fruit left on the vine after the stem begins to cork will have no better quality or storage life than fruit that is harvested at this stage, and may be more susceptible to rots. What about color changes? For ornamental pumpkins, the change in rind color from green to orange can be a useful indicator of ripeness. Acorn (Figure 3) and kabocha (Figure 4) squash can be harvested when their ground spot (the part of the fruit laying on the ground) turns a dark orange color, although some research indicates they Let The Broadcaster and Plain Talk Make Cash For You! can be harvested even sooner without loss of quality, and may be more resistant to storage diseases.For certain winter squash, the color change is too early to be a good indicator of maturity. Butternut squash (Figure 1), for example, turn their characteristic mature tan color some two to three weeks before they should be harvested for best quality. If harvested too early, the developing seed inside butternut squash will utilize nutrients stored in the flesh to mature, decreasing its eating quality. Other Considerations •Use a knife or hand pruners to cut the stem from the vine, so that it stays with the fruit; this helps avoid stemend rot. Use care in handling fruit, as any bruising or other physical damage will shorten shelf life. •If you are still not certain when exactly to pick the fruit, don’t worry. Most winter squash types ripen quite a bit after harvest. Even green pumpkins eventually turn orange, although they will not store for long afterwards. •In the weeks and even months after harvest, winter squash slowly convert starch to sugars, increasing their appeal to our taste buds. •In addition, some types increase their carotenoid pigment (pro-vitamin A) content during storage (becoming more orange), which increases their nutritional value over when they are first picked. So all may not be lost if your vines are killed by frost or disease before the rinds have hardened or the stem corked. Storage Guidelines: Optimizing quality Following are some guidelines to optimize squash quality during storage: •Sustained storage temperatures above 80° F will reduce storage life and eating quality, but up to a week or two at these higher temperatures right after harvest can increase sugar content and perceived flavor considerably without decreasing storage life. •Depending on the type of pumpkin or squash, it should last two to six months when stored at the ideal temperature of between 50 and 60° F; a cool basement can work well. The fruit can withstand short exposures to cooler temperatures, even down to 35 degrees, as long as they are exposed to warmer temperatures (around room temperature) soon afterwards, which will help reverse some of the chilling injury. •The fruit should be dry By Daris Howard I finished a goal that I wrote about in one of my stories ten years ago. The goal was that I would take each of my ten children on the hike to Table Mountain, which is just below the Tetons. I thought about the first time I took some of them up there, and I was already feeling past my prime then. But this time was even worse. And when I walked into church this last Sunday, someone asked me why I was limping. When I explained it was from blisters and told him why, he looked at me and said, “Hike that at your age! You’re crazy!” Maybe it was crazy. The hike is a grueling fourteen mile round trip, climbing thousands of feet, some of it across granite and slippery shale rock. But the summit has a beautiful view. And I usually only have to make the hike once with each child, then they usually decide they will never do it again. My youngest daughter turned thirteen recently, so I decided she was strong enough to make the climb. I had also never taken her sister, who is only two years older, so the three of us decided to make a day of it on the Saturday before Labor Day. I checked all of my equipment the night before and found that my water purification pump had quit working since I last used it. That left no option but to carry extra water. We got up at five o’clock and drove to the trailhead, arriving just before seven. We stretched, used the restroom, and headed on our way. The first part of the climb was quite strenuous with switchbacks out of the parking lot up into the canyon. This soon turned into an easier upward trail. But that just lulled a person into a false security, because once a person reached the point where they felt too close to the summit to turn back, the trail turned steeply upward. The sun wasn’t yet showing above the mountain rim when we reached our first mile point, and no one had passed us, so I felt we were doing really well. But as time went on, people did start to pass us. First just a few, then whole families. The extra water in my pack felt like it weighed a ton, and my muscles were shouting “Stupid!” at me with every step I took. When we reached the point where the trail turned into steep switchbacks up the top of the canyon rim, I told my daughters it was time to cache more than half of the water and only carry what we would need to get us back to that point. My daughters readily agreed. We put the full water bottles into some brush and continued our climb. The higher we climbed, the more one daughter struggled with the lack of oxygen. We started setting a goal of a hundred steps, then rest. A hundred steps, then rest. That later turned to seventy-five, then fifty, as the trail turned ever steeper. More and more people passed us, but when a man who looked to be about eighty walked by, I began to question if I was delusional, especially since he was smiling. I have to admit that I was probably still the second oldest person on the mountain that day, but I doubted I would be making that hike twenty-five years from now. And I definitely would not be smiling if I did. We made it to the top, had lunch, took pictures, and then turned to go back down. As I stood and my muscles screamed, I looked down and knew there was no other option. I warned my daughters that the hike down seemed to go forever, and indeed, I kept hearing, “Aren’t we almost there yet?” more than I can count. But eventually we made it. For a reward, we stopped at a little drug store for ice-cream. As we sat and ate, I said, “Well, my job is done. Now it will be up to you to take your children up there.” My older daughter, wincing from the blisters on her feet, groaned. “When I get married, I think I will move to a flat prairie and tell my children that mountains only exist in story books.” I smiled and considered that maybe I should have thought of that years ago. when placed into storage. The ideal relative humidity is 50 to 70%; with lower humidity the fruit may shrink some, but higher can allow disease to invade the fruit. •Eating quality may improve after storage, depending on type. Butternut squash generally reaches optimal quality after two months in storage. Acorn types, on the other hand, have a relatively short shelf life, and if harvested with the dark orange ground spot, need no further ripening. Kabocha and buttercup varieties are intermediate, with sugar and carotenoid levels increasing with storage time. Hubbardtype squash can last up to six months in storage. •Squash should not be stored near apples, ripe pears or tomatoes, as these produce ethylene (the ripening “hormone”) that will shorten shelf life. The Bottom Line While homeowners may not be able to achieve the optimal conditions, attention to proper harvest time, careful handling, and avoidance of overly high or low temperatures during storage should help prolong the storage life of their squash and pumpkins. Feet Hurt? ION EBRAT C EL Carpentry, Install Doors, Windows & Siding, Refinishing, Drywall, Ceramic Tile & Decks Come to the home of Happy Feet Largest selection of arch supports and gel insoles. Experienced fitter - walk test ‘em before you buy. 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