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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June 9, 2008
I’m two thirds of the way through my triathlon of appointments today: dentist, doctor and doctor.
Surprisingly, my dentist did not charge me a copay. In years past, I always had to pay fifty dollars worth of copay a year out of pocket. This time, they just had me sign paperwork stating that I was ok with their billing the insurance directly and receiving the payment that would normally come to me. I’m not sure if that means that my insurance has gotten better, the dentist has better billing relationships with the insurance or if they were just ripping me off all those years!
Anyway, I’ll probably call the insurance when I get home to see if my coverage has changed.
My second appt didn’t charge a copay either, so I should only be making small inroads into my FSA today.
More for my other uses!
June 8, 2008
I just found that another good friend’s father is in the hospital. He’s been in and out for the past month, and his condition has steadily deteriorated to the point of serious concern. I’m going to visit him this afternoon, and I’m praying for his recovery. I don’t think our group can stand another loss this soon after losing one father and two grandparents.
I once counseled a good friend: Figure out what you love doing, what you REALLY love doing, something you would do whether or not you were paid to do it. Then figure out how to get paid for it.
His dad overheard and congratulated me for my insight.
Now, I just need to take and tweak my own advice: develop a passion for something that will make real money! 😀
June 7, 2008
As I compose letters, actual, handwritten letters to friends with whom I’ve fallen out of touch, it’s become apparent that I’m hyper-aware of how easy it is to run the negativity reel on a perma-loop. Do you ever get into the habit of complaining? About work, or something at home, or being broke or whatever’s bothering you?
I know I do, and with the exception of running my mouth on this blog on most topics, my braking mechanism is to just shut the heck up. No one wants to hear the whining all the time! A colleague has this tendency to say just about anything on her mind as soon as it occurs to her, and I don’t want to be equally whingy and depressing so I keep my mouth shut.
There’s a balance to be struck, somewhere between the two, where the division between the bright and dark sides are similar to a saw: a little back and forth, but not too much. I know it’s not always going to be equal servings of good and bad, but there’s definitely something to be said for approaching life with a willingness to see both sides of any situation. It’s important not to lose your sense of perspective by being unequivocally utterly cheerful or incurably Eeyore; that’s not healthy or wise.
Most recently, I’ve been bouncing between the two poles of feeling guilty: What the heck happened to my finances? I’ve been working so hard, I should be much further ahead/more comfortable by now! My coworkers who haven’t struggled the past two years are talking about buying homes now? Why aren’t I there, again?
And then feeling angry when I remember: Remember your brother? Remember the loan? Remember the truck? Ohhhh yea.
Both tracks of thought are, unfortunately, negative or intensely negative. It’s then just too easy to dig a big ole hole of frustrated and pull the hole in after me. To combat that, I’ve been trying to do my best to create some progress, no matter how minimal. And remind myself every single day: You’re not going to make that mistake again. Or that one. Or that one. Or any other one involving being a soft touch and your brother. Trust me, you won’t.
Eventually, this mantra will convince me to trust myself and what I’ve learned over the years. Eventually, I’ll master a sense of balance that’s conducive to proactivity, not reactivity. Things have to get better and I’m all about making it happen sooner!
June 6, 2008
Boy oh boy, every time I think I’ve learned my lesson when it comes to airfare, I make another mistake.
I spent a couple hours working out an elaborate plan to trade award credits with BD last night. I have SW award credits, he has a free round-trip ticket on United. He needed an open jaw flight, and his free ticket doesn’t allow multi-city travel. Southwest didn’t have the travel dates I wanted open for Standard awards.
We checked: I could find a flight on United, could redeem a one way ticket for half of his travel on SW, and buy a one way ticket on United for $87. I did my usual scope out on Travelocity first, and then went to the United site to actually pin down the cheaper fee-free price. $87 for a multi-city trip, for almost exactly the itinerary he wanted. So what do we do? I let him promise that he’d buy the ticket today, and let it go at that.
He sure didn’t buy it, and overnight, the ticket went up to $110. ARGH! I knew I should have snagged that sucker, or at least reserved it last night! I know prices can go up at any time, look at the dratted gas prices skyrocketing twenty cents in 5 days, for heaven’s sake!
Of course, the irrational response was then to refuse to buy it because it was $23 more. Completely irrational? Yep! But the price isn’t going to be any less if we wait even longer. *sigh* So the trip’s going to be over $100 instead of under $100. There’s something depressing about spending just over the $100 mark.
and thanks for all the fish!
My top 5 referrers:
1. Ms. FB of Fabulously Broke in the City
2. Wanda of Well-Heeled
3. EC of Not Living on Ramen
4. Saving Diva of Saving For a Home of My Own
5. Sense of Sense to Dollars
I hope everyone had a good Friday and has a great weekend!
I walked home from the station and I’m BEAT. Might have had something to do with carrying 30 pounds of stuff, and being tired to begin with, but I don’t have the energy to do more than blog and flip through the Trader Joe’s catalog right now. Gourmet Steak Burgers with Cheese, Peppers and Onion … mmmmmm …. at $6.25 for five patties, it almost sounds like a good week’s worth of lunches for a couple bucks. But that’s just tired me talking.
I’d forgotten about this little random perk. Citi sent me a promotion for 3,000 bonus points for a single purchase between March 1st through 31st. They didn’t specify a minimum purchase which was great because I normally I don’t use the card they were running the promotion on. It only gives me 1% back, and I want at least 2% on all my purchases. Fortuitously for me, less so for them, I had to make a trip to the post office the night before the postage prices went up. As it was a Sunday, I hadto use the electronic postage machine to purchase make-up stamps. That helped cut my guilt factor for using a credit card to purchase a single 3 cent stamp; I did need it to make up the postage on an old 39 cent stamp I’d dug up.
The statement came in today, and apparently my piddly little purchase qualified as a single purchase. Cha-ching 3000 points!