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 3, 2008
I’ve been concentrated on Mypoints for so long that I’ve been ignoring my e-Rewards emails. What can I say? I really wanted my $50 Target gift card. Since becoming a member several months ago, I’ve probably completed one actual survey, and about three Quick Response surveys worth thirty cents a piece in rewards currency.
Chalk my apathy up to the ignorance of their rewards offerings. I spent some time exploring their rewards structure, and honestly, they’re not that great, but there are two rewards that are worth actually participating in the program for, and their limitations are rather stringent:
1. A 26-week subscription to Wall Street Journal!! Remember that this would excite me. [cost: 45 Rewards dollars, worth: $59 cash]
This 26-week subscription will be delivered 6 days a week.
Offer is available for new subscribers and in the contiguous U.S. only. [So, even though there are “no limitations on redemptions,” I can only get a single subscription with no renewals?]
Subscriptions available for individual use only.
2. $15 Borders Bucks [cost: 15 Rewards dollars, worth $15 cash]
Redemption of this Reward is limited. You may claim one reward per calendar year per Borders Rewards account and/or e-Rewards account.
Borders Bucks that are not redeemed by the end of the month after the month they were issued will be forfeited. [ie: one month to redeem.]
Borders Bucks are redeemable at participating Borders stores for in-store merchandise only and cannot be combined with appreciation discount events.
They do have a small variety of travel rewards but they’re all increments of 500 and 1000 bonus miles or points which don’t go very far. Hilton Hotel Honors points are the only thing I might bother to redeem for. Someday I’ll use those hotel points for a nice stay somewhere!
I’ve got $25.95 in Rewards Currency now. It appears that it’ll be worth exerting myself to earn $60 worth of Currency this year and maybe stock up $15 for next year if it looks like the program’s still going to be around. A bit lackluster, but worth a little more effort than I’ve put into it.
June 2, 2008
I got off lightly, but oy, I should know better than to take girlfriends to the mall for distraction. I mean, really. She “didn’t want to talk about it,” so she ended up buying shoes, twelve shirts and two pairs of crop pants. Spent juuust under $200. I have to admit, they were all very cute and work-worthy. If we were the same size, I’d borrow any of the stuff she bought.
I, on the other hand, having just said that I couldn’t justify buying any more shoes, found a pair of metallic multi-colored strappy shoes that will go with at least two dresses that I love to wear, but haven’t matched with any shoes. They’ll definitely go with a few other dresses I can think of as well, like all my black or green dresses. In my meager defense, I will say that they were originally $20, and were 50% off, so they were only ten dollars. I submit, my ten dollar shoes:
And the dresses I think will work with these shoes:
I did see some other shoes that were really cute, that were all gold, but I think this pair will be most flexible.
I swear, no more shopping!
on a Classic Trench Coat that actually fits! I know, I know, I’m announcing the purchase of a trench coat on the cusp of summer? I must be crazy. But! It was 50% off, the coat fit me, and I had well over half of the cost in gift cards, and those are three moons that seldom align just right. Unfortunately, I did have to pony up an additional $22 for the balance because 50% off plus tax = $102, but I’ve even checked on ebay and on Banana Republic’s website to make sure that I didn’t pay too much: ebay’s selling it for up to full price ($159-$198) and it’s not even on BR’s website anymore.
Until the dead of summer, the train is always just a shade too chilly to go without some piece of outerwear in the mornings, and it starts to get chilly at night when I get home from work. I’ve worn it every single day since I bought it (8 times), and twice at the end of the week. I expect to continue to wear it every morning until it’s actually hot enough in the mornings to go without.
There are a plethora of buttons, and I can really batten down the hatches if I want to with the “tabs” that extend from the shoulders. I don’t know what they’re called, and you can’t see them hidden under the lapels in the images I found, but they add a little touch of class to the coat. The entire coat is lined with a layer of cotton. It’s big enough for me to wear a sweater underneath but it fits perfectly in the shoulders so I can just tie the belt tighter when I forgo an extra layer. It doubled perfectly as a blanket for the flight down from the Bay Area, and it packs down nicely, because it’s thin, when I have to stuff it in my bag. While it wouldn’t fit into my everyday bright pink bag, I think it will into whatever grown-up bag I finally get. It’s knee-length, and belted, so I’ll be able to wear it over a dress or nice slacks ifI go out in the evenings. All in all, this coat fits my need for a knee length, light-colored, lightweight, all purpose coat that can go formal or informal. My only concern is that it’s dry clean only, and the light color combined with my klutziness/accident proneness could be disastrous.
June 1, 2008
My lovely friends, the original two wheels to my third, stole me away for a beach trip yesterday.
The male half was meant to have brunch with me in the late morning, but stood me up to play tennis for two hours. To make up for it, we semi-planned to have coffee but that fell through as well. He rang me up about an hour later to invite me to join them at the beach instead. Uh …. uh …. ok!
I just don’t do spontaneous, so I was at a loss for how to prepare for a beach trip with only 30 minutes to get myself together. It’s not that I get ready at a snail’s pace, I’m just an inveterate planner, and things like that throw me for a loop. Anyway, I dug out my bathing suit and a couple beach towels, a book and my phone, and was set. Well, I was set only because my friend had already gone on a Summer Shopping Spree and picked up a new cooler, beach umbrella, snacks and drinks. He would have gotten us magazines too, but his girlfriend wasn’t with him and he refused to buy Cosmo without her. Just as well, I was already set with my reading material.
We got there late in the afternoon, and paid for a couple hours of parking ($3). The breeze was awfully chilly but the skies were clear for miles, and the sun was still going strong. I pried myself off the blanket where, huddled, I was not getting any warmer and took myself for a long run/walk/sprint session all the way down the shoreline and back. By the time I returned, I was sweating and ready to jump in the ocean. They were playing chess on a 10 game set they’d found for $9.97; justifiably proud of their dollar/game bargain.
Despite my hesitance to abuse my hands, we threw a football and Frisbee around in a game that quickly devolved into throwing as best we could, or throwing as best we could to get it around, past, or over the head of the catcher. I lost count of the number of tosses that went WAY over my head that I still went for and I’ll still be tweezing sand out of my scraped knees tomorrow!
Another hour ($1.50) was spent winding down and half-napping until it was just too cold to lay out any longer, and we went off to the Cheesecake Factory. To be honest, I developed an aversion to CF a long time ago, but was apparently too tired to put up any resistance, so iPhone Googlemapped some restaurants for us, and we found ourselves waiting outside the restaurant with our little pager within the hour.
My garlic spaghettini with chicken was delicious, as was the slice of original cheesecake we shared three ways. Friend only let me get the tip ($5). If he hadn’t just run short of cash, he wouldn’t have even let me get that much, halfsies was out of the question.
Home at nine, glad that the money spent came out of the reimbursement cash for the collect calls because I wouldn’t have even had any cash on me at all, and happy to have spent such a nice day with friends. My calves are less thrilled, though. Beach running is rough on the feet.
May 31, 2008
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover IRA: $1,415
Roth IRA: $3,603
401(a): $4,120
403(b): $16,973
Total: $26,111 |
| Emergency Savings |
Catastrophe: 15,004
Problem Cushion: $1,382 |
| Short Term Goal Savings |
Car Maintenance: $1,316
Car Insurance: $1,375
Travel/Con: $700
Total: $3,391 |
| Long Term Goal Savings |
House Downpayment: $33 |
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Savings Bond: $357 (current accrued value)
Total: $17,987
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $26,111
Semi-Liquid: $17,987
Liquid: $16,386
Expense Acct: $256
Goals Savings: $3,424
Total: $64,164 |
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $5,450
Citi: $56
Chase: $371
Insurance: $775
Rent: $1,360
Total: $8,012 |
| Net Worth |
$56,152 |
While I liked Moom’s suggestion of breaking out the short term and long term savings goals for a more accurate feel, I’m still hesitant to include it in my net worth specifically because it’s meant to be spent someday. For now, I’m leaving it in there, and still leaving the automobiles out of the accounting. Given the current economy and the amount of time it’s taking to sell the truck, I don’t have a lot of faith that I could easily sell the cars for a current valuation.
I’ve actually regressed a little since last month’s snapshot: $56,454. In part, a lot of hefty bills came to roost, like the insurance deductibles. Bill creep accounted for some small part of it, which is why I started on the crusade to bring down the cable and internet bills. The new additions to the expense/savings do balance each other out, though, like for the auto insurance item. Redistributing that “windfall” and having it go into spending categories reduced the overall amount. Primarily, though? I think I’m almost certain that gas prices have been eating up my budget. In the last month, I’ve spent $250 on gas, compared to $250 in the two months prior. I’ve literally doubled the amount spent on gas.
I’m still seeing some growth in the long term savings, and I just need to produce more growth in the non-spending areas.
I’d like to see better numbers, but I’m not terribly surprised that this month wasn’t so good. Assuming work doesn’t have any really unpleasant surprises, I hope to see some improvement in a few months. I won’t see it in the investment section, though, as I’ve severely reduced my contributions.
Without delving into my little cushion of rollover minutes, I’ve been running really close to empty on minutes this month. I’ve been pretty careful about taking or making calls during peak hours the past two weeks, so figured I’d just be getting in under the wire or using a few of those rollover minutes. That’s no big deal, I banked them just in case there were months where extra chattiness cropped up. It turns out that my fond memory of one of AT&T’s policies, counting holidays as a weekend, is alive and well. Monday’s minutes were free!
May 30, 2008
BB recently received this book about the Nobel Peace prize winner who established a micro-lending bank 23 years ago. Apparently, he secured Yunus as a guest speaker for one of our conferences this year. I’ve been wanting to read this book for some time, and I casually asked him if he was planning to read the book, because I bet he won’t, really. He told me to take it and read up on it because I’ll likely get to meet him later this year. 8) (Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see.)
As soon as I compile my notes on my latest reading/study project, I’m diving into this one. Finally, my job provides some reading material that resonates with my personal interest! Or really, my self control’s all concentrated on other stuff, I may just start reading this now.
