About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Read MoreMay 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!
This is a bit more outrageous than the skyrocketing ticket prices, and the charge for an additional checked bag: American Airlines plans to start charging $15 for the first checked bag on June 15th. The free preview blurb on WSJ states that the fee applies to “some fliers” but as I can’t read the whole article, I don’t know which statement is more accurate. Now, I can understand limiting the additional checked bag: reducing that much extra weight, or receiving some compensation for it to offset the costs of gas makes sense. They’ve got to be able to do business, after all.
But, charging for the first checked bag? What’s next, carry-ons? They should understand that their cost-cutting measures will soon reach the point of diminishing returns. In an informal poll, more than half of the poll takers indicate they’d rather stop checking bags than pay the fee. And in a lot of cases, that’d be my reaction. But for long distance flights where not checking a bag isn’t an option? I just won’t even fly American. And if they start losing passengers, if they’re flying more seats than people because it’s not worth it to pay an extra $40 ($15 for the first, $25 for the second) for checking two bags, that rather defeats the purpose of cutting costs and increasing revenue, doesn’t it?
Perhaps my reaction is a little extreme. After all, if the ticket prices are low enough to stay competitive, even taking the checked bag fee into consideration, perhaps this isn’t a bad move on American’s part. It is in line with the trend towards a la carte services that most airlines have taken with food and other amenities.
What do you think? Will you continue to fly this airline, and if so, would you pay to check your bags or will you become a super-carry-on packer?
The insurance policy has been rewritten, and the remainder of the last policy’s premium has been refunded to my credit card already. Whoop! It’s offset the entire balance on that card, with just under $300 left over as a credit on the card. This billing period ends on the 27th, and I don’t have any other bills (expected ones, anyway) to put on it, so I should be able to recoup about $200 or more to put towards my gas/groceries credit card. Squee!
May 20, 2008
It’s been a long three months with the iPhone, and the last two haven’t been very rosy at all.
Apparently, the phone isn’t accepting (or registering) phone calls, randomly, and doesn’t necessarily deliver all of my sent or accept received text messages. It also pretends that calls aren’t coming in when I’m using other features like email or internet, or vice versa, pretends calls are coming in and kicks me out of the applications when calls aren’t actually coming in. >:(
I’ve spent a good three hours on the phone with AT&T and Apple, and spent another two hours at the Apple store troubleshooting the dang thing. The guy at the Apple store was nice enough to just replace the phone, but like a fool, I hadn’t backed up all of my contacts, songs, and photos to iTunes because iTunes doesn’t work on my home laptop. *feeeeeh* Since I hate keeping personal information on my work computer, I decided to go with Option Idiot: just don’t back it up. And then don’t plan ahead for phone replacement. Luckily, the guy was also nice enough to burn a CD of my photos for me.
Now I get to reenter over 200 contacts.
Naturally, this leads to great temptation to find the money to buy my own Mac laptop to replace the 5-year-old Vaio that always has to be plugged in and has a perma-dark screen because the brightening function doesn’t work anymore.
Or, I could just get my butt in gear and figure out how to make iTunes work on my computer at home. Yeah. That’s the sensible option.
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.
I officially declare today, Monday, May 19th a ME DAY. [Fun nerd fact: In 1998, May 19th was our D-Day for an AP test. I can’t believe I still remember that.] The bosses owed me a freebie day off (off the books) since they gypped us before our last business trip, and the way those fellas have been acting, I decided I’d better take it before they “forgot” about it. It’d just be too too convenient.
But, before I go on out and play, I’d better get some of this money madness off my mind or I’ll be distracted all day.
Unbudgeted Spending:
Amazon – Friend’s gift – $32
Grocery store – household supplies on sale – $23
Post Office – few sheets of Forever stamps to last a year – $23
Parents’ gas and grocery spending – way too much. ~ $220?
My personal spending doesn’t seem like much, but it’s outside the budget entirely which throws a major kink in the expense account. And I’m still brainstorming about which tailoring jobs I can afford before the end of July because I need some of my nicer clothes to fit me for another business trip. I’m going to need to get even more creative to pay for these expenses without dipping into the mini e-fund, because I’m already doing that for rent. Grr.
Misc Income:
PayPerPost – I’ve not had ANY new opportunities for at least a week or two now. 🙁 Why am I suddenly unqualified? I am getting the payouts from last month’s posts, though, so I can add $33.50 to my fledgling house fund.
Ebates – A check should be coming my way at the end of the quarter.
Chase rewards – I love my cash plus card, with 5% on gas and groceries, I’m already near my next $50 check! That’ll help cover half of the expenses above. At least something reduces the sting of $50/tank of gas!
Regular Income:
It’s just not cutting it. I was able to make do with creative juggling for a while, but I’m going to have to do something drastic to increase my take-home for at least a month or two. There’s a big ole knot in my tummy as I say this, but I’m going to cut out my contributions to the 403(b). I don’t get a match on that anyway, so I won’t be losing free money, and I’ll start up again as soon as I find out what the heck’s going on with my salary come July 1st. It’s time to be an adult about this decision, and not pout about it. (I’m totally pouting.) My biggest fear is that I’ll get comfortable with the “extra” income and not want to start contributing again, much less contributing more at the end of the year to make up the difference. Also, it’s felt like the retirement contributions were the only goals I was meeting this year.
Alright! So I’m off to find a Macy’s because I have a gift card and I’m not afraid to use it if I find my holy grail of bags. And then I’m taking myself to see Ironman. Yeah! (Prepaid ticket.)
May 18, 2008
I don’t wish I were less organized and more rich, no, no, I’d like to retain my level of organization and be richer than that. I know, apples to oranges. But it’d sure make booking last minute fares for a holiday weekend seem less painful/impossible.
I’d rearranged my schedule and wanted to visit BD in June, but it turns out he has to be here for the weekend. That means no us time. Instead, he asked me to see if I could make a Memorial Day weekend trip happen. Compared to the $600+ prices for just a regular, round-trip ticket, the $300 fare plus an unnecessary rental car on Travelocity almost seems like a deal. Uh, I don’t think so, Tim. And with gas prices, driving would cost at least … $120 each way. Eeep! Even with an awesome 400-450 miles per tank average, that’d still be a doozy of a gas bill. Oh, plus over 8 hours of driving each way.
But if I were rich and had $7000 in my travel fund, not just $700, I would probably go ahead and spend up to $350 to go see him for a long weekend.
Phooey. Times like these, I can’t wait to be financially secure and even well-off.
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