December 26, 2008
Here’s hoping it’s just the USPS that doesn’t love me, because if my coworkers got bonus check love and I won’t/didn’t, that would be stinky.
I didn’t expect anyone would receive bonuses, actually, but I’d be more peeved if they rewarded half the staff and not the other half. Yes, I’d feel the same way if I got one and a couple of my staff didn’t.
J. Money got bonus love this year, hope anyone who could have reasonably expected to receive one, did as well!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and is ready for the new year!
July 16, 2008
*arms raised in victory* I have reached my first milestone: my first hundred dollars earned for my House Down Payment Fund! The money hasn’t quite reached my account yet, so I’m pre-celebrating but I’m really really excited. These haven’t been easy months, and it’s so nice to be able to have reached one goal without sacrificing another one.
It actually feels like I’ve made progress despite all the other obstacles in way, nibbling away bits and edges of my salary, and that’s always good for morale around here.
The next hundred will now be cycled to my Travel Fund, and the next fifty after that will be for the Suit/Clothing Fund. I might add a Laptop Fund, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, and I don’t want to dilute this source too much. Obviously, as Blunt Money just pointed out, saving IS addicting.
May 21, 2008
My first payouts were received this weekend, and I’ve transferred $33.50 to my house fund. How exciting! I think I’m going to alternate payments between the travel and house fund, in increments of $100. It was only appropriate that the first payout go towards the house since the travel fund has been established and funded.
I just have to keep creating little bits of income to ‘flake into those accounts. I love the feeling of progress!
May 19, 2008
My Vanguard contribution has been knocked down to the minimum allowed: $12.50/check. Awww man. Now I’m sad. But, this will improve cash flow, and actually, increase the total amount that is considered 5% of my check when payroll calculates my matched contributions, so this could increase my matched money by a little bit. That’s not bad. We’ll see if that’s how it works out.
May 9, 2008
The $600 is in the BANK.
I’m super excited to chop that up into the categories I’ve finally settled on. In combination with my remaining $4800 once intended for tax payment, I have $5400 to “play” with.
$2000 will go to the emergency fund. I don’t have quite six months’ worth of expenses in there, so it’s going to be e-fund’s e-fund. I’d rather not kick up the bar to 20k yet, I’d like to enjoy having a full goal bar for a little longer.
$1250 goes to auto maintenance.
$1250 goes to auto insurance. This feels like a windfall. I usually use “put together” (ie: reimbursements, etc.) money for the insurance because I was having trouble squeezing any more money out of the paycheck. Now I have a nice cushion!
That leaves $900. $200 goes to my expense fund because work refused to reimburse me for something they’d promised to, and given the climate these days, I’m sure I won’t be able to force it out of them. Oh well.
$700 is now intended for ME!!! I struggled with this, but I’ve been trying to learn to how to live for me at least a little bit, and letting myself have 13% of a “windfall” isn’t the end of the world. The bulk of it is going towards being really responsible, after all.
$300 was earmarked for Con, of which $92 is already spent, so I’ll have up to $200 in gas and spending money for 5 days.
The other $400 will be my travel fund for the year. I could take a trip to Phoenix (tickets are approx. $140), I could go to Oregon (use an award ticket and have a wee bit of spending money), and then maybe even get in another trip to New York (again, use an award ticket, have a little transportation and spending money). That would definitely be the end of all that money, but it’d be fantastic! I have over 150 vacation hours accumulated, and will stop accruing soon, I might as well plan to have some fun and clear my head.
I’m thinking of other trips I wish I could squeeze in: BF’s family invited me on their two weeks to Cancun and backpacking in Belize. (Backpacking! In Belize!!) A coworker’s going to a timeshare in Hawaii for two weeks, I just pay for food and transportation. (Hawaii!!)
But, $400 doesn’t stretch THAT far.
February 29, 2008
Received:
1. Chase Rewards Check: $50
2. Reimbursement from Coworker: $64
I’ll make a long overdue stop at the bank, write a check and pay some bills this weekend. It looks like I have to take a substantial chunk out of my e-fund to get through the past two and next
two weeks after all. š
Little Boss has been out all week (in HAWAII, the lucky so-and-so) +
Admin Asst has been either late or not showing up at all during the week + Coworker 1 was out sick three days =
Ms. Miniducky wearing everyone’s hats! We made a contraction of all our four names to represent my roles. š I think I did a relatively decent job of making sure that all Big Boss’s needs were served, that all the projects were prioritized sensibly every morning, that Coworker 1’s work was either redirected or maintained in her absence, and that the interns were productive. Little Boss may find plenty of things wrong with how I did things in his absence, but I think I did very well considering the circumstances.
Grief is a very weird animal…. several times this week, I’ve been struck, literally stopped in my tracks, by intense memories of BoyDucky’s ordeal and their family’s grief, and my own sense of loss and incomprehensible pain of the past six months. It comes and goes in waves, and all I can do is blink through the tears and try to breathe. Inconveniently, it happens most often at work. I guess the bright side of that is that once I breathe through the pain, I’m not alone, and can shuffle through some work or talk to coworkers to distract myself.
February 5, 2008
and it’s not because he’s rich. It’s because he says that his hobby is work, and “Everyone in my family is mad at me but I tell them that if they want money, go out and earn it.“
My friend showed me the article on a gamer site a few days ago, and it still makes me chuckle.
For one thing, his family must REALLY be ticked at him. For another, it’s not like he won the lottery and chose not to accept after all. He actually earned that money through his own hard work, and just doesn’t care to take it.
This reminds me of Grigory Perelman who declined the top math prize.
I have to admire these purists for their dedication to their work, but I wonder what passes for work-life balance in their lives. Ah well, that’s the concern of non-geniuses. š