September 17, 2006
This Friday, I ended a v-e-r-y long week with one misstep after another.
On the way home, I realized that I had forgotten to transfer money to my Citi card in my haze of tired-and-NOT-happy. Then I managed to miss my train stop which made me get home 17 minutes too late to get the transfer in before 12:01 am EST. When I finally got the website working, I found that there was an erroneous finance charge on my other Citi card. I explained the relevant parts of this to the CSR, who was having trouble with her computer, and oddly enough, both our problems combined just made the whole ridiculous situation better. For two people with problems, we had a raucously giggly good time trying to fix everything. And she credited my account the finance charge with no questions asked.
Today, I called the 877 number given for a Toyota owners promotion on their Tmobile services or equipment, was hung up on, and grumpily called 611. The next hour was an astonishingly thorough and educational hour on the phone with a very nice fellow named Jonathon in Kansas who painstakingly researched all the phones available to me for an upgrade suiting my personal requirements. After a couple hints about the scarcity of decent phones for retaining customers – ok, I flat out told him that the selection didn’t look like retention was important to them – he even found a few extra discounts that could be applied to some of those phones because of my long history as a customer and superb payment history with them. Or so he said. But hey, discounts AND flattery? I preened.
He discussed the discounts and technical merits of the four phones that he thought met my needs, and even looked up the new phones that would be made available tomorrow for upgrades even though he couldn’t tell me exactly what their prices would be. The new-new phones sounded pretty nifty but I knew that there was no way I was payin’ the equivalent of a month’s service for a new phone.
So, rather than one of their obsolete-within-two-weeks free phone I thought I’d end up with [a Nokia that doesn’t even show up on the page anymore, or the Samsung t209], I paid about $30 for a Nokia 6103 to test out. I get 30 days to try the phone and decide if I like it. Not only that, he arranged things so that the $50 rebate and the additional $30 rebate would be applied immediately and I would only be paying the end price of $20 and the sales tax of ~$10.
The only downside is having to pay sales tax at the original price, but I would have had to pay that anyway – something the guys in the store would not have bothered to point out to me! In fact, when I went to the store, the guys in the store wanted me to pay $30 after rebate for the Samsung t209 that is FREE online!! Yeah, I really don’t think so!
On top of all that, he explained the minor-to-anyone-else points of the Nokia’s durability and the kinds of hands-free sets that were packaged with each of the phones, AND explained Bluetooth to me. The major selling point? Was that he wasn’t trying to sell me anything. Or at least, he insisted that I take the time to learn however much made me comfortable and that the discounts would be available to me at any later date if I wanted to do more research. He was so helpful and informative that I decided to go ahead and try out the new phone because if I hated it for any reason, I can return it, return to my old non-contract status AND try out yet another phone when and if I wanted to.
Jonathon, you made my day as a customer. I am on a new 2-year contract with T-mobile and I don’t even mind! Good show!
And of course, before I posted this, I found that SingleMa had beaten me to it! =)
September 16, 2006
Checked out the 2006 Withholding Calculator and I’m not sure what’s more mystifying: the fact that I may come up overwithholding almost double my actual tax bill, that they’re recommending that I increase my allowances to 13 to adjust for the remainder of 2006, or the fact that I just can’t bring myself to believe them.
The IRS, I mean. I don’t believe their website’s calculator that I’ll only owe half of the total
amount that will be withheld this year. I probably should, and probably should adjust my W-4 right away since I’m running out of 2006, but I can’t really believe it.
There’s no logic to this disbelief at all. I just don’t want to change it and find out that it was utterly the wrong thing to do.
And? You can have 13 allowances? What are allowances? I should look this up.
I thought that looking at all the pretty pictures in Elegant Bride would give me ideas that I could economically reproduce sometime in the future. After all, I figure that the time factor when planning a wedding is one of the major reasons vendors can charge so much for their products or services. Just about every bride is planning for an event in the next year-ish, so they don’t have time to bargain shop or to look for creatively economical solutions.
It turns out that my logic was a little flawed here. Bridal products and services are ridiculously expensive because they’re bridal and because quite a few brides/families will pay that kind of money for those sorts of goods. And Elegant Bride is very much catering to that demographic.
For example, they feature the “best weddings” submitted by brides and grooms. These include weddings that involve going to Italy and custom designing a gown, and renting out an entire villa! Or feature articles highlight the new practice of throwing afterparties after the reception is over, featuring bands and brides wearing two custom-made Monique Lhuillier dresses during the day and a third one for the afterparty. Brides who schedule hairdressers a year in advance and actually make periodic consultations all the way up til the actual day to make sure that their hair is absolutely perfect every second of the day. Brides and bridal parties who will pay a makeup artist $1700 a day to do everyone’s make-up, clearly budgetarily justified because if “the bride is already spending 50,000 on her dress” $1700 is pretty much chump change. [Well, they have a point, if you’re going to spend thrice as much on your dress as I could afford on my entire wedding … $1700 pretty much has to be tip money.]
So, Elegant Bride is not for me. Oh, I saw two really pretty dresses that I liked. But I’m sure they cost about a year’s rent or so. And no, I’ve never ever had that highly-touted “jeans or rent?” conversation with myself, as fashionistas apparently have on a routine basis. I find myself so turned off by the whole mess that I seriously felt completely anti-wedding last night. The thing is, I’m a planner and organizer at heart. I love details. I’m the one who plans everyone’s surprise birthdays and farewells and all. And I considered planning a wedding, so long as I had plenty of time, a fun proposition. But this? The ten thousand dollar dresses, the twelve hundred dollar a night suites for honeymooning, the sheer materialism just rubbed me the wrong way and it’s got my back up.
Maybe I’ll settle down after a while, but I seriously don’t want anything to do with the trappings of a traditional Western ceremony right now. Hmph, they’ve sucked all the fun out of planning a party.
September 15, 2006
I have a windfall! It only took 3 phone calls and 20ish minutes following up over the last month, but I think Citibank finally came through with my $200 promotional bonus for opening a new checking account and linking my credit cards.
I found this little item this morning:
| FINANCIAL CENTER DEPOSIT/ PAYMENT |
|
|
|
|
|
| AT FC# xxxxx & TELLER# xxx |
|
|
$200
How very nice! That means I get to *artificially* bump up my savings deposit for this month from -60 [under target] to +140! I haven’t resolved my overly high savings goal problem yet because I’m still having to work all the overtime that gets me close to the goal I posted, but that’s an issue that’s in the back of my mind. (sidenote: This also means the goal meter finally moves!)
Eventually, sometime next year maybe, I’m going to have two, maybe three, people working with me who are meant to relieve some portion of the present workload and I’m going to try to work a slightly more reasonable schedule – somewhat less than the standard 60 hours/week would be nice. No, I’m not just being a spoiled brat here, I definitely believe in doing my time and earning my place but I’m just not sure that I can sustain this intense pace with no end in sight. If nothing else, it’s a matter of identifying and warding off incipient burnout.
Moral: Burnout is bad — you get cranky, and unemployed.
September 12, 2006
I was rereading Money Dummy’s I want to quit post.
Oh goodness, I remember reading this the first time around and feeling like “that’s me! But before the grad school thing. And minus the always being the best. I’ve always been hovering around the best people, trying to learn from them, and when I’m not around them, I sink to my usual level of dejected mediocrity.”
Yikes, and I thought I’d beaten that whole mentality. But I guess you can’t really do that, can you? You can’t really get away from your deepest fears of inadequacy.
Yes, I know, there will always be someone smarter, better, quicker, wittier and more eloquent. And I can’t always dismiss them as “Yeah, but they’re annoying.” [ah-HA! I AM still in sixth grade!]
But between training the new hire, knowing that she’s got the paper that I don’t, that I’m afraid to pursue, that I’m afraid to apply for, that I’m afraid to fail at, and not being anywhere near the secure position in life I thought I could create two years out of college, I’ve got my whole inadequacy brigade patrolling in full force.
What if? they say. What if they figure out, what if she figures out that you’re not nearly as smart, as vivacious, as interesting as you have to be to command her respect? What if she realizes that you’ve got nothing but sheer determination – which is running perilously short these days – and she leapfrogs right over your head to your next promotion? Or what if you can’t keep up with her?
Part of me says, well, then, she’s the better candidate.
But, but, no! I can’t just sit back and watch! No, obviously, I’m not sabotaging her learning or her training – that’s not ok. [I know that’s what fearful managers do, though, hurt their employees’s progress as self defense.] But that does mean that’s more pressure on me, by me, to get going, to forge ahead and not allow my personal fears dictate what I won’t do. The problem is, I still don’t know what I want to do.
I can’t be a genius when I grow up. So what can I be?
Yes, I can be remarkably insecure when stressed. But it doesn’t take being stressed for this Blogger to know herself. And I can’t help but think that one day my facade will be ripped off, my dignity left twisting in the wind. *shiver* Repeat to self: I’m not a fraud. I can do this. I’m not a fraud.
Daniel brings up a good question: Can Money Make the Stress Go Away?
And if so, how much would it take?
Of course we believe the money can make the “stress” go away, whatever it is in your life, to some degree. We wouldn’t be here bloggin’ away if we didn’t! The issue is substituting some key words to make it fit our philosophies: Can adequate [excessive] financial assets make financial freedom ours? Why, yes it can.
And? It can only do that if we choose to treat the assets in such a way that grows them, and if we choose to spend them in a way that doesn’t expend them faster than they can grow.
Let’s face it: none of us want to work a job we hate for 50 years, or TEN jobs we hate for 5 years, or any combination thereof. We want to do what we love and be compensated for it. And compensated well enough not to suffer in the doing of the thing we love. We also want to be able to live a little, or a lot, and make this life and work worth doing. And the way to do that is to secure financial freedom.
BUT
…..
financial assets do not a happy, stressfree life make. We do that. We do that by remembering that our assets are only as valuable as we make them, and that our net worth helps us landmark our journey to finding that freedom that allows us to work the job we want to work, to do the things we love, to take care of loved ones and to do it in relative comfort.
We can’t do that if our job pays us unroasted peanuts AND if we also don’t have any net worth worth speaking of. We have to preserve our financial capital to give ourselves freedom in life, not just to have a bunch of money to count [as it may look to those who think bloggers are just net-worth hounds].
I had a teacher once, in junior high, who taught computer classes. He was in his forties, balding, and one of the happiest men I knew, if he wasn’t yelling at you for your shoddy programming. He was there because he. Wanted. To. Be. He had already retired, in his 30’s, from the Pentagon as wealthy as he needed to be to work the rest of his life doing what he enjoyed doing.
I have NO idea what his net worth was.
No clue what his magic number what.
What I DO know is that he liked teaching junior high kids.
He liked teaching them how to program, even if they hadn’t a clue what and why they were doing what they were doing. And he could do it.
And that’s who I want to be when I grow up.
[No, not a man. Smartace.]
Aside from my personal thoughts on the hedonic cycle, MY question is: Can you make the money make your stress go away? [Because believe you me, if I COULD choose to be as wealthy as Scrooge McDuck, I’m not sure that I CARE about the wealth-related stresses. At least, I am pretty sure I could deal! 😉]
September 11, 2006
Seeing the electric bill drop from the $2**! to $145 was almost anticlimactic. I don’t know why, a hundred dollars is definitely significant, but it’s still over the $100 budgeted so I suppose it’s not as exciting as it should be.
The rather mindboggling co-occupant of the bill’s envelope was this little tiny fine print dealie:
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT PROPOSED CHANGES IN ELECTRIC RATES
[Now, you KNOW my heart dropped into my left pinky toe, not again!! NOW what’s the excuse?!?]
But ……
what’s this?
SCE is seeking a decrease [my bold, not theirs] in rates of $314.7 million, OR 2.7%.
Now, I don’t know what-all the 314.something something something is right now, but I do believe that my eyes read a word they don’t usually see: DECREASE!
Then I think, hm, I bet they’re talking about a decrease in their costs, somehow and are creating yet another fee to be passed on to the consumer. But no, apparently:
SCE is requesting this decrease because:
1. They have made so much money this summer alone, they actually don’t even have anywhere to put anymore money they’d gouge from you anyway,
ok ok ok, fine fine, that’s just me …..
1. Really now. gas prices and the related cost to purchase power for customers are forecast to be lower in 2007 than the costs that are currently included in customers’ rates; [now I’m a little proud of them for accurate use of the apostrophe]
2. higher sales growth is forecast to result in higher revenues in 2007; and
3. SCE proposes to refund over collections recorded in its ERRA balancing account.
The requested 2007 ERRA revenue requirement results in a revenue decrease of $314.7 million, or 2.7%, when compared to total system revenues at present rates (as of August 2006). The following table shows an estimate of proposed revenues and rate changes by customer group.
—- Table I’m not going to transcribe because you’re not going to want to read it anyway —-
If SCE’s proposed ERRA rate change is approved as requested, an average residential customer using 675 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month in the summer would see a decrease of $2.71 per month from $115.73 to $113.02.
Boy, and I thought a decrease of $100 was nothing to get excited about? Phew! Well, my first thoughts are #1: they’re admitting that their costs are going down?? Or that they THINK they’re going down?
#2: and they figure that they’re going to make more sales anyway,
#3: AND they’re going to refund money to people??
Unless this is some hidden code for *everything’s about to ka-blooey and we just don’t want you to think WE’re the bad guys* I think something’s gone terribly terribly right here, and I’m not sure who or what or how. But I’d love to find out so that I can shake that person’s (or people’s) hands and say keep on goin’! You go ahead, keep on goin’ now!! We LIKE this kind of notice!