May 5, 2008
Half a month’s charges victorious, anyway. AT&T and Apple Support and I powwowed for nearly two hours about the various problems that I’ve been having with the iPhone:
1. Calls aren’t coming through, when I’m using other features such as the iPod, internet browsing or checking email, even though they’re supposed to. There are times I get kicked out, as though a call’s coming in, but it doesn’t actually go so far as to give me my call. Calls that are missed and allow voicemails don’t show up as missed calls, either.
2. Voicemail’s not always an option: callers may just get the perpetual ring, or hung up on. So the invisible callers don’t even get an opportunity to leave me a message, and then they think I’m ignoring their calls. I’m not!
3. Text messages don’t always go through. Some of my outgoing messages aren’t reaching the recipients, and then their replies to the messages that do go through aren’t reaching me. *sigh*
4. Emails work when they want to. I’ve got a work email and personal email addressed synced, and at any given time, one or the other might not work. *exasperated*
This weekend’s loss of calls, voicemails, and text messages pushed me over the edge, so I finally got on the phone with AT&T and spoke with their CSR, got shunted to an Apple CSR, got sent back to an AT&T CSR and then AT&T tech support. All of them were variably helpful trying to troubleshoot the phone and service, and I came away with a promise of a follow-up call on Thursday to see if it seems to be working better and a $20 courtesy credit to appear on my next billing statement.
I’m glad I stuck it out and hope that this solves the problems, and the courtesy credit helps, but I can’t stop wishing for simpler times. Life was so much easier when my phone could do as a phone should do: make and receive calls and messages, and never mind all the other gadgetry.
iPhone’s not really worth the hassle, glitz and shininess if it can’t handle a phone’s functions. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!
May 1, 2008
It’s Thursday. Just one more day, and I’ll have made it through the week without buying lunch! Well, there was that roll I bought yesterday to create a sandwich, but that was because I didn’t know PaDucky neglected the carb portion of my meal.
Monday: The larger half of my burrito from Friday. It only made it to Monday because I forgot it here. But it was still delicious! Probably because our mini-fridge is much like a freezer.
Tuesday: PaDucky’d wanted to make my lunch, but assumed that my grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s on Monday meant I didn’t want it. Unfortunately, he didn’t ask or tell me, so I got an unpleasant surprise leaving for train this morning that I had no lunch. Grabbed a Jeno’s pizza and had a very junior high-esque lunch.
Wednesday: Got the promised beef’n’onions stir fry with a tupperware of broccoli, but no carbs! Had to pick up a roll, and sliced tomatoes, from the local grill to make a fake tri-tip steak sandwich: $1. Packed up the remaining for next day’s lunch.
Thursday: Brought an enormous container of rice to go with my leftovers from yesterday …. am seriously craving the cafeteria’s macaroni and cheese. Have been craving mac’n’cheese all week, but resisted. I can practically taste it. Resisted limply, resisted on principle, almost broke down based on having spent only a dollar all week, but ultimately resisted.
How to deal? I think I’m going to make some Kraft mac when I get home tonight, and pack it up for tomorrow. It’s nothing like the cafeteria’s hot, fresh, gooey, crusty cheese completely smothering penne pasta, but it’s in the pantry, and it’ll keep me from spending $2.17 on a side order.
I have no idea why I’ve decided to make a stand on this particular issue, right now, but hey. Gas prices being what they are, I might as well save whatever I can, whenever I can.
April 30, 2008
If I’d read this post yesterday, and known to fill out Form PD F 5374 yesterday, I could have sent PaDucky to the bank to purchase paper bonds for me. Instead, I banked on getting my Access card in the mail by today, which I miraculously did, and proceeded to input my password incorrectly at the website, and lock myself out of my brand new account.
Argh!
No savings bonds with a decent interest rate for Ms. Miniducky. Boo.
Called Treasury Direct and left them a message in a futile gesture, hoping that thye really would call me back tonight and that the recording “Please leave your information, the customer service representatives are all busy now but they will call you back.” wasn’t just a cruel cruel tease. Yay.
It wasn’t. Yay.
I missed the call. Boo.
I called back, and they actually picked up! Yay.
I managed to reset the account. Yay.
I started my transaction, and the confirmation page said, “We may have moved your purchase date to the following business day.
May 1, 2008.” Boo!
So, in the end, still nada.
And just to rub a little NaCL in that wound, it turns out you can only convert paper bonds when they send you an invitation to do so!
Boooo!
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover IRA: $1,357
Roth IRA: $3,669
401(a): $3,742
403(b): $16,129
Total: $24,897
|
| Emergency Savings |
15,004
|
| Goal Oriented Savings |
Car Maintenance: $21
Savings for taxes: $4,800
Total: $4,821
|
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Total: $17,630
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $24,897
Semi-Liquid: $17,630
Liquid: $19,825
Expense Acct: $3,691
Total: $66,043
|
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $5,847
Citi: $2229
American Express: $153
Chase: $358
Rent: $1,360
Total: $9,589
|
| Net Worth |
$56,454
|
Most of my gains were due to retirement contributions during the two months between this and the last snapshot I put together. I’m surprised that I, at least, kept the amounts I contributed, considering the market’s performance. Still need to re-examine my allocations, using Moom‘s Madame X series as a guide.
I’ve paid my tax bill, which was offset by a state refund, so the cash situation is half settled. I haven’t received my rebate yet. At that point, I think I’ll decide what to do with the lump sum of tax savings money. It’s mainly going to be divvying it up between the other smaller savings/expense accounts that have been neglected until now: auto maintenance was drained, insurance is perpetually lonely, the intermediate emergency fund has been languishing, and a little has to be set aside for upcoming Con. If there’s anything left after those are taken care of, I’d love to open a vacation/fun fund. That’ll be a first!!
Oh, and I need a moving out fund. I vaguely envisioned funding that from paychecks and miscellaneous income through the rest of this year, since the other major savings goals may be set. Regardless of the source, I need to set an actual number for that.
April 19, 2008
I’ve applied for my Treasury Direct account, and encountered my first problem. They couldn’t verify my identity. It was all correctly filled out, so I don’t know what the problem really was, but luckily, we have a credit union on my work site, and I was able to walk over there and get a signature guarantee form filled out yesterday. That’s pretty awesome, considering I’m never home during business hours so couldn’t have gotten the bank to do it. And free! I love free help.
The signature guarantee’s on its way, via postal mail, which is a bit aggravating because I don’t know that they’ll send me whatever paperwork I need in time to buy my I bonds.
And now I keep staring at my email, peeking in the window, hoping that the nice folks over there send me an Access key to my brand spankin’ new Treasury Direct account right quick.
April 17, 2008
Well well, Treasury Direct, we meet again. And this time, you have something up your sleeve. You’ve got some I-bonds that I’d like to take a look at. Not only can I purchase up to $5000 worth of online I-bonds at a total interest rate of 4.68%, I only have to hold them for a year to get nearly as much interest as my once vaunted Emigrant Direct and IngDirect savings accounts yielded not so long ago. If the interest rate holds, I could even hold them for longer than a year. Actually, as a commenter on Jonathon’s post pointed out, the latter six months of the year will have a higher interest rate than the first six months, so I would plan to hold the bond an extra three months so that my penalty of three months’ interest is taken from the tail end, at a presumably lower rate. I don’t mind the maximum cap of $5000, either, because that’s fully one third of my emergency fund and I wouldn’t feel comfortable losing any more liquidity from the emergency fund than that. (Jonathon of MyMoneyBlog explains Series I savings bonds much better than I can.)
But wait, Treasury Direct has yet another ace up its sleeve! I can also convert my paper bonds into electronic bonds! I have a single Series EE bond hidden away in my room, the prize for a scholarship back in my junior year of high school before the Kiwanis figured out that a Series EE bond is worthless to a high school grad paying for college expenses since it takes 30 years to fully mature. It’s already been ten years (mein Gott!) but I still have another 20 years to hope I don’t lose the dang thing. Now, however, I needn’t hope any longer. I can convert that baby into an electronic bond, and monitor it online! The paper bond can become a bit of scrapbook fodder.
I’ll be back, I have to open a Treasure Direct account right now. If for nothing else, converting my single solitary Series EE bond will be totally worth it.
February 4, 2008
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover IRA: $1,480
Roth IRA: $3,749
401(a): $2,572
403(b): $13,331
Total: $21,132
|
| Emergency Savings |
$14,819
|
| Goal Oriented Savings |
Car Maintenance: $646
Savings for taxes: $5,016
Total: $5,662
|
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Total: $17,630
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $21,132
Semi-Liquid: $17,630
Liquid: $20,481
Total: $59,243
|
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $7,002
Total: $7,002
|
At first glance, it suddenly looks like I’ve done remarkably well since the last snapshot at the end of 2007. As usual, there are quite a few things this doesn’t show.
First, I paid off the balance transfer, and that means I’ll be losing a source of passive income that was a steady $40ish/month. Of course, with the interest rate dropping like a rock, I wasn’t assured that same return through this year. I’ll consider doing another BT this year, because it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to post the kind of savings I’d need to put towards the real estate investment my friend and I had discussed.
Second, my spending has been well over my income for a few weeks. A few hotspots:
A) I overpaid the insurance premium in January because I still hadn’t received my revised premium statement by the billing due date. That’s an extra $300 I’m basically prepaying. It was on my credit card so I have the short grace period, but that’ll still have to come out of the checking account.
B) I forgot to reduce my retirement contributions in time for January’s paychecks. I’ve changed it for February from $500/check to $300, but I should have reduced it even more because I need the extra cash flow. And the contribution was taken out of my extra January paycheck too! Gah. I didn’t think that it would be.
C) Thanks to Ma’s accident in the sedan, it’s been out of commission for over a month. Haven’t been able to sell the truck, so another [-$400/month].
D) Best friend’s wedding last month did a doozy on the budget because I was just too stressed to clamp down as strongly on spending as usual. Eating out? Uh, sure! Buying new sunglasses? Yep! More food? Ok! Cold at night? Heater’s on! More stress eating? Let’s get another bagel sandwich!
Meantime, I’m trying to parse out how rent and all the other bills work out without tapping into the emergency fund until my supplemental income check comes in, whenever that’ll be.