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
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May 26, 2014
Even though it’s a two and a half hour drive away, I think my favorite present (aside from delicious food since we haven’t actually really done birthday presents in years) has been our family membership to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
As gifts go, considering we don’t manage to use the membership very often, it’s really a luxury.
But I do so love presents that both give me what I love (OTTERS) and support a good cause (Marine life exhibition care and education; conservation and science programs). They spend 64% of their money on those very things, so probably they could do a bit better but I really love the site, I love how kid and adult friendly it is (if you haven’t played with a kid in their play area, you really should!) and it’s just … peaceful and lovely.
We recently met some volunteers who’d been working there for more than 20 years, which I think is rather incredible, and speaks to the dedication of the community to some degree.
Memberships are tax-deductible (a PF blogger favorite) and include free admission for one year, express entry and discounts.
What’s your favorite birthday gift?
May 15, 2014
Change from April: 2% increase
Change from January: 30% increase
It has been a very strange four weeks since the last update. PiC’s been swamped at work, working longer and longer hours. I’ve been swamped with work and juggling multiple non-work projects, some old, some new, none of which that I can actually talk about yet. But it’s all a lot of work and taking up so much brainspace while it doesn’t feel like there’s anything to report back. I’ve been saving money, spending money to make money, etc. Ye-up.
*
Abby’s post, Chocolate for breakfast, made me smile because in a lot of ways, that’s pretty much what’s happening here. I’m sleeping badly, working through the fatigue and just had a candy bar for breakfast because the recent heat wave has made my body swell up like Violet Beauregarde.
May itself has been a painful month, physically and otherwise. Two heat waves have my joints in total revolt, so I’m barely functional. Just barely. Mother’s Day always makes me even more antisocial than ever, but the day after I can usually remember the supportive, surrogate mother people in my life.
*
Nevertheless there’s been some MONEY progress:
Insurance
– have gotten a whole array of quotes for all our policies and am just a couple decisions away from getting the whole thing sorted. Rates went up thanks to my dad making a bad decision after getting ticket, and some mysterious extra charge on PiC’s auto insurance that I have to get them to correct and refund the difference.
Investing
– have made huge inroads into research, thanks to a really really good friend helping me. Usually I fly solo on these things but I’m no fool, if someone’s an expert and willing to talk me through things, hell yes I’m going to listen.
Cutting cable
– it used to be for PiC but now that I use the tv way more, I’ve been looking for a good compromise since we don’t see a lot of the up to the minute shows anyway and the channels we do have are crap.
1) I roadtested the Google Chromecast HDMI Streaming Media Player
on Kelly’s (Alterations Needed) advice, but it didn’t work out.
The price point was perfect ($30-35 on Amazon); the size and portability was exactly what I wanted (just a USB stick sized doohickey); and you can stream directly from your computer. Set up was dead easy. However, for us, it would only ‘cast Amazon Prime from my work computer as my other computers are too old; I’m not yet prepared to add a streaming service (Hulu, Netflix) yet, AND upgrade our internet, the streaming speed couldn’t handle ‘casting or give us a more than half-decent picture. So while we would have started saving 1 month after cancelling cable, it wasn’t a good enough substitute.
2) I then roadtested the Roku 3 Streaming Media Player
on Katie’s (@grlredballoon) suggestion and that has been 85% good. It was $90 on Amazon for the device and an HDMI cable; I don’t love the cable being visible but the device itself is tiny. It was very easy to set up and I can stream just from Amazon Prime now, and choose to add whatever other service in six months after the device has paid for itself and actual savings have been recouped.
Comparing the numbers against each other, it may seem like I’d still be saving more with the Roku at $30+$10/month for any streaming service right off the bat but I don’t think it’d resolve the internet problem; the Roku has hiccuped a few times but not with the frequency that the Chromecast did.
Cable: 34/month = 408/year
Chromecast: 35 (device)+ 10/month (streaming service) = 155/year + internet upgrade
Roku: 90 (device) + 10/month (6 mos streaming service) = 150/year
I’d love to upgrade our internet to something that’s actually good but the cheapest non-Comcast, non-AT&T option that I’ve found runs $170/month which is far too rich for my blood at this point.
I’ll settle for saving $200/annually for the moment and worry about the internet later.
*
Eventually, this month-long horrors that is my worthless barely functioning shell of a body experience has to settle down… eventually. *grump*
I hope you’re all having a much much better time of it than I!
April 28, 2014
I’m moderately techy, but only to the extent that I can get new tech and figure it out with the help of manuals and Google. It’s not something I enjoy or have the spare gray matter to spend on, so my favorite tech solutions have become the ones that are really quick to set up and simple to use. And yet I’m not a huge Apple fan. Go figure.
On one of my last international work trips, it was just easier for me to skip using my phone altogether because it was a bit too old, and my international calling plan options were nearly as terrible as roaming. I just used my iPad to make calls via Google Voice or Skype, depending on who I was contacting, and that worked well enough though I was at the mercy of finding free Wifi to make the connection (I still don’t pay for data for my iPad!)
It felt a bit pre-1990s, scheduling phone calls for specific times when I knew where I’d be and that I’d have a WiFi connection. It was ok since I was working and really didn’t need to call people so much, but still, when you’re used to being connected always, it was a pain to lose the instant communication of texting, IMing, and email.
Last year, I changed out our phones, carriers and plans: spent some big money to get PiC and myself good phones that should last a while (*crossed fingers*) and got us all (including my Dad) on a T-Mobile family plan with a very small company discount and saved some big month on the new plan. We pay $92/month for 2 smartphones and 1 dumbphone: unlimited talk, text, data on the Simple Choice plan. Our data is throttled after a certain amount but it doesn’t matter since it still works ok when throttled. It’s not fun but it’s fine.
Happily for my daydreams of easy international travel and staying connected, I discovered that T-Mobile’s really been hustling – they added another awesome benefit to the Simple Choice plan: free international data and texting!
They offer this in about 120 countries, and you don’t have to activate it, you just have to have a Simple Choice plan and your phone just has to be able to connect to the towers in the country of travel. This is the beauty of competition: T-Mobile’s Simple Choice plan lets you quit them without a termination fee, but they’ve made it so that you’re much less likely to want to!
With international travel (either for business or pleasure) on the calendar for this or next year, it’s relief to have this just built right into the existing plan so I don’t have that moment of panic at the airport, realizing I don’t remember whether I can use my phone without stratospheric charges. And let’s be honest, I want to be able to video call so I can see Doggle, I hate leaving him behind!
April 27, 2014
I just treated Doggle to a longer than usual walk on a bum knee, and indulged myself in ten minutes of vacuuming because I’ve not been up to a good proper housecleaning in weeks despite my love of cleaning and a clean house. It almost makes me miss the days when work was so stressful, I’d rage-clean and not feel it for at least a few hours.
While I’m flopped here trying to absorb as much rest as I can …
My brain wants to know if you’d rather:
Have the use of only your arms or only your legs?
Be able to do 50 pushups or 100 sit ups?
Have amazing aim and never miss at darts or have great balance and dancing rhythm?
Eat perfectly healthily for 6 days and anything you want for 1 day, or have good food 7 days a week with a little treat each day?
Have pancakes for breakfast or waffles for dinner?
Have an hour of free help per month to: cook, clean or wash your windows?
Pay to get help around the house and scrimp on the travel budget, or do it all yourself and go anywhere you want, when you want?
April 21, 2014
Change from March: 5% increase
Change from January/1st Quarter: 20% increase
It was just a minor increase this month from last month, so I had to mess around with numbers some more to make myself feel better about our progress. Spoiled by last month’s bump which wasn’t going to happen again with just a regular month: making the money, saving the money, spending the money. In that order, mind you. Part of both our paychecks have been set to go to savings first, before anything is spent.
I’ve been doing that since I started working, just after I got out of the “didn’t have a penny to spare and savings had to pay the bills” phase.
I’ve also set up a couple automatic payments out of the checking account for the first time. I don’t trust companies to regularly take money out of my accounts without trying to sneak in extra fees or overcharging, but this works because the checking account is set up to send checks, not allow auto-withdrawals.
At some point, we’ll start experiencing that thing where only truly major spending or saving moves the meter. Obviously that’s a good thing but it’s hard to viscerally accept the prospect of being bored with my money. More obviously, I don’t have to settle. I’m going to go find something new and exciting to do to make money once the routine stuff truly doesn’t take up any time or brainpower.
This is actually really important because a) Baglady Syndrome, I have it; b) My job is, more than most in the past, not guaranteed. Our lifestyle, while not lavish, is quite comfortable and I don’t want to jeopardize that by getting too comfortable & lazy, and income-less. So I’ll just get right on that ….
Happily, PiC’s job is in a really good place right now and quite stable for the nonce so we can take that a little bit more for granted. (For now.)
April 20, 2014
The anticipation of getting to go watch Captain America 2 in the theater 2 weeks after release (so we can use our Silver AMC movie passes!) has carried me through a few weeks of feeling less than human.
My brain wants to know if you’d rather….
Follow Captain Mal and Zoey into a caper, or be the Jarvis to Tony Stark’s Iron Man?
Do all the laundry your way, or have it all done by someone else according to how they think it should be done?
Be smothered by a cat’s affection or ostracized by a dog?
Be stocked up on nonfat milk, skim milk, whole milk or chocolate milk? You can only pick one.
Pay $9 (!!!) for matinee movie tickets and wait in line to get your seat or pay $14 (!!!) for both your ticket and a reserved seat at any time?
Have a toaster or toaster oven?
Disneyland or DisneyWorld?
Garlic fries or buttered popcorn?
April 18, 2014
I’d never heard of the EMP Museum before our trip to Seattle, but they hosted a great booth showcasing a homebuilt TARDIS and offered a discount on entry when we were there, so of course we had to give it a go!
It was awesome.
I’m not really into music so failed to really appreciate the depth of the Nirvana exhibit but it was very well done, as was the MegaScreen featuring music videos and horror films (above).
My favorites: the Icons of Science Fiction and the Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic exhibits.
The latter was behind a massive wood and iron door, Hobbit-like but for the height and weight of it. It’s a door you can shut, drop an iron bar across, and be safer and more secure behind than any flimsy modern door and bumpable lock. {I want that door.}
Inside the first corrider, some of the great tropes and tools of fantasy were showcased behind glass: Stormbringer, an Invisibility Cloak; beyond these a great dragon lay coiled around a curved “cave”, red eyes glowing, tail chained to the iron bars separating a resting monolith and an admiring public.
Our plan to give it a quick look-see devolved into spending half the afternoon wandering, oohing and aahing, and making up character cards with our faces and attributes on them. As you do.
In the Icons of Science Fiction exhibit, we were giddy over the Star Trek captain’s chair liberally doused with Tribbles; the replica Klingon bat’leth which made this shirt make so much more sense to PiC; the Dalek!
They played a hilarious short movie for the Time Travel category we’d never heard of and now love: Time Freak. You ought to see it, if you can. It was only ten minutes, but it had us in stitches. Great set up for a hilarious payoff.
Definitely worth the visit. I’d become a member if I were a local and they continued to have exhibits of this caliber.
