October 14, 2010
I was just contemplating my windfall philosophy and the fact that I don’t think I can do the “do 1 nice thing for yourself and save the rest” that so many people recommend as a compromise. While I have incredible self control in most anything else, if I start spending a little chunk of money from a larger chunk, that always primes the mental spending pump and gets me thinking about e-ve-r-y-thing else that I want.
Then I was surprised with a small bonus from my organization to thank me for my hard work and key participation in a major project these past months. Now, I had absolutely no expectation of any such thing because I work for an organization that’s not known for paying market rates or year-end bonuses, much less merit bonuses.
But it’s too late. I’ve started to think about the things I want like the delightful OMG Books t-shirt:
Comic books
Secret Six, Volume 3: Danse Macabre
Usagi Yojimbo,Volumes everything after 2
Lone Wolf and Cub, Volumes everything after 13
Furniture
New bed
Bookshelves
Desk
Travel
A big 2-week trip to some combination of Greece/Italy/Cambodia/India/Vietnam/Laos/Singapore/somewhere else next year
An unlimited SDCC with RUTH this year!!
*ahem* Didn’t I tell you, “if you give a mouse a cookie”? Anyway, clearly I ran out of bonus money way up the list. And so this is why I’m stashing the whole of the check away and not getting myself one single solitary thing. I’m a lot happier when I just hoard the money and have it when I decide there’s something I really truly want. Life’s a lot more organized that way.
September 27, 2009
Has anyone reached the $100 payout level and actually received a payment? Ever?
VH discussed her troubles with this over at Funny About Money, and Krystal at Give Me My Five Bucks is approaching the $100 marker (via Twitter). I know they’re not the only ones, either, but what I don’t know is whether or not anyone out there has actually made and been paid money from the Adsense program.
I never really expected to make money from this blog, but I installed the widgets anyway way back in the day. Contrary to my dire predictions of January 2008, it’s only taken me another 21 months to earn all of $90 in total, so perhaps 13 years was a pessimistic projection. Then again, maybe not! As I inch towards the goal line, though, I wonder if it matters. Even if I reach $100, will Google actually pay up?
September 25, 2009
For the first time in years, I got birthday money! Yay! My cousin claims it’s from my aunt, but I suspect they colluded because cousin is younger than I and there’s an unspoken rule that money only flows down the age stream. Also my unemployment status probably has something to do with it.
This happy circumstance was marred by the discovery that my dad has been hiding over $500 in traffic fines from me.
Injured pride is one thing. Making foolish short term decisions that have negative long term consequences to protect that pride is another entirely and I can’t tolerate it anymore. I’m not one to talk back to my parents, I believe in maintaining a respectful, adult relationship, but darned if I let him get away with this lightly. I resent the fact that I have to lecture him for lying to me. If he’d just been honest with me in the first place, we’d be a team, not this unnatural reversal of parent-child roles.
It’s less that I’m now out another unbudgeted $500, and more that I was raised never to lie and yet here I am, 27 years old and unable to trust my own father. I have to weigh the likelihood that he’s just covering up another wrong. Is this what having bad kids is like??? What would you do if you could no longer trust your parent(s)? Or your entire family? Never in my life have I wanted to run away more.
*aggravated*
But you know. Birthday money. It’d cover the careless forgetting to pack funeral clothes thing, if I’d remembered to bring the gift card with me. As it is, I’m going to have to make an emergency trip to H&M for some suitable pants or a skirt because I was in a hurry to return with the family to the hospital. Also, I had no idea we’d be having the service within two days of his passing. So if I spend about $20, it’ll be cheaper than driving 4 hours round trip to pick up what I have at home. To make up for it, I’ll use the GC to pay the electric bill.
Forgot my pants, forgot my gift card, next thing you know, I’ll be forgetting my own head!
August 7, 2009
Even if ING hasn’t been the highest savings rate leader it once was, I still keep some money with them. Paltry though the interest rates are, that’s pretty much the case across the board at all of my banks. Since I’ve been going minimalist, one step at a time, I’ve refrained from opening more accounts at new banks in the name of rate chasing. If any bank offers the whole package, and allows me to access my own accounts using an aggregator, though, I’m switching! [Watch yourself, ING!]
In the meantime, their interface remains easy to navigate, and the bright orange motif attractive. No, the latter means nothing to me as a customer, it’s just true.
Their Electric Orange checking account has been at least a little intriguing because I’m going to run out of paper checks soon, and it’d be nice to have an alternative to buying another 300 checks to last a lifetime.
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People I’m grateful for:
1. Massage therapist friend. I paid her $48 for a Swedish massage and for the first time since Sunday, I can (carefully) raise my arm above elbow height!!! Oh, the freedom. My shoulder’s only sensitive/tender, and not throbbing with pain today, and I have half use of most of my fingers again. Sweet sweet recovery. If I can sleep the night through, it’ll be the first time in a week.
2. Bestie. Despite toting a 3-month-old with her, she was unquestioningly generous in chaffeuring me during our get-togethers this week. She’s not been in town for months, but she was great about making it possible for us to spend time together during a seriously painful week. We kept it very low-key, running one errand a day and hanging out at her parents’ place afterwards, but I’m grateful nonetheless.
March 26, 2009
I’m steaming over the loss of the entire post that should have gone up yesterday, but didn’t. Instead, I tried to post it from my phone’s web browser, had to edit the title, and somehow lost the entire post!
Oh well. Y’all probably didn’t need the long version anyway. Here’s the summary:
Professional
1. Attended another (wait listed) class for my Certificate program this week. Would have missed this opportunity if I hadn’t called and asked for it; you’re supposed to sit and wait for them to contact you when there are openings but I couldn’t afford to be passive. (Never mind I was late thanks to the take-many-detours shuttle driver. Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE being late?)
2. Requested permission to “crash” another course two weeks ago. We’re down to the wire here, so I absolutely have to hit every class if I want to take my Certificates of Supervision and Management before the layoff. This means my assertiveness is getting a major workout.
Financial
1. +40: check received from the Airborne class action settlement.
2. +10: my first payout from MySurvey.com
3. +226: this is really a refund, not a plus sign. My dad peeved me because he had over 30 days to return the Dish Network equipment but didn’t so they charged my card. Now I have to wait for them to acknowledge and process receipt of the equipment, process a manual return, and then request a manual refund from the credit card. Bleh.
4. +153: Still waiting for the credit card to send a check from the second insurance refund. Meh.
Fun/Consumerism
1. LOVED MoneyFunk’s latest project: a turtle Amigurumi! I’m a total sucker for cute turtles.
2. Have plans for a $22 prix fixe dinner with a friend next week; a treat is usually a $4 cheeseburger or a couple of chicken soft tacos, but occasionally I have a hankerin’. And it’s at a restaurant I can’t ever afford, normally.
February 3, 2009
The truck sold. What’s next?
Well, I’m pretty sure that the sale price didn’t come close to breaking even against the amount of money I’ve expended on the truck payments since last July, I’m not even checking, but it did cover the lump pay-off sum of $2356, with some cash to spare.
The question is: what do I do with that “extra” money?
My first reaction was to kick that money over to pay off the family car. It’s just about the right amount to pay it off, and would remove one more loan from the family resources. (That car is currently my parents’ responsibility, and not under my name.) It would free up cash flow about 7 months earlier than expected.
My second reaction was to put it in the emergency fund because I’m neurotically squirreling money away.
My third reaction was to leave it in the expenses fund because that’s where the money came from in the first place, and I’m a BIG fan of paying myself back.
Lastly, there’s a hybrid option. I could give them some partial assistance monthly, depending on how much they need to break even between my mom’s (piddling) disability money and my dad’s erratic income. By my calculations, it appears that they should only be running short a hundred or so each month until April. At that time, another monthly obligation falls off the balance sheet, and they should be fine with regards to the few debts I don’t pay for them.
As much as my gut reaction is just to pay it all off, I don’t want to nip this budding sense of responsibility that my dad’s developing. I want to encourage him to work with me because I’m just not up for ANY more shenanigans.
Thoughts?
January 8, 2009
Guess the no-bonus unlove was some sort of mistake. Corporate will be cutting a new one and sending it out to me in the amount of ….. not very much!
I’m not complaining, nor am I surprised that it’s only going to be $300. It’s not even being called a bonus, it’s marked as a Holiday Gift.
Guess I’m just bemused. We’ve been “spoiled” in the past by the generous bonuses, and they were all instrumental in my progress through the years, but my budget never hinged on them. (Thank goodness!)
Hah, it just occurred to me that it’s so small that I don’t even have to worry about how this impacts the tax planning. Every cloud and silver lining, right?
Anyway, it’ll probably go right into the emergency fund, that’ll be nice.
