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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April 15, 2008
For whatever reason, I cannot seem to get my mind focused on anything but investing or travel tonight. The first is simple: I finally read my Rollover IRA prospectus last night, figured out that I have a little over a thousand dollars invested in an REIT mutual fund that’s made roughly $200 in the last four years, and I don’t want to pay another $15 annual maintenance fee because I’ve been too lazy to get my butt in gear and roll this over to my Vanguard accounts. Then, too, I’ve been talking stocks with a friend who is actually quite experienced in investing and I’ve been feeling completely out of my depth, so I want to start dipping my toe into the market. Kind of reminds me of Sistah Ant’s comment about being jealous of a teenager with her own stocks š
The second? I’m desperate to get away. For a change of scenery, of pace. Just to get away from this life and my job and the bad management and frustrating workload and passive aggressive BS. I can’t move out until I have the money covered for first and last, start up costs, maintenance just in case money. Oh and a roommate. I need a roommate. So now I’m overwhelmed by this need to go somewhere exotic like Bali, the Bahamas, Mazatlan, Los Cabos.
This might be a need to shed my feathers for the summer, now that we’ve ridden through our first heat wave and an oppressive fog has rolled in to mock us, but whatever it is, I’m going stir crazy tonight. [Wait. Feathers? Shed my feathers? Look at that, I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Shed my winter coat! That’s the analogy I meant.] I’m itching to grab someone and just take off for a weekend. Reminding myself that I don’t actually have cash to spare isn’t helping tonight, especially not when I know that I’ve got the e-fund covered and throwing a couple-few hundred dollars at this getaway wouldn’t break me. It wouldn’t be good for the budget, but it wouldn’t break me. *sigh* I should let this run its course, and hope that I don’t accidentally find a really good deal tonight š Like a three day cruise to Mexico for a couple hundred dollars. Hmmmm……
Ack! Quick! Snap out of it!!
Walking out of my office yesterday afternoon, I realized that I’d been a bit of a poster child for vibrant colors lately, and had crossed the line over to far too much brightness for one person.
Behold, my 4-year old $3 bargain bag from Target:
And my cobalt (aka: Cookie Monster) sweater that I’d meant to get in forest green:
Separately, they’re not too bad, though I should really get a grown-up bag that fits the same amount of stuff that the pink bag can hold, but together? Whoo! What was I thinkin?? I definitely feel like a kid carrying around that pink bag. š
April 14, 2008
With all the recent car troubles, I’ve been slacking off 100% on the sell-the-truck front. (And in the face of our troubled economy, I’ve got a sinking feeling that, perhaps, I’ve waited too long to sell.)
Anyway, since I’ve been pretty overwhelmed with life, I’ve broken it down in wee tiny little steps that even I can handle:
1. Check for Kelley Blue Book price ranges. This involves getting all the information on the truck including current mileage, features, conditions. I also want to set a baseline price in comparison to the KBB price that takes into account the amount still owed, and the amount I’ve been putting in out of my pocket since last July. Check! Done on 4/5.
2. Go to CarMax to see what they’ll offer. This is just in case they actually offer me a decent price and I can skip the trouble of private sales. Check! Done on 4/12.
Since CarMax only offered me $2000 less than my bottom line selling price, I thanked them and walked out of there. It also took two hours to get the appraisal, which was twice as long as I’d been told to expect, so I wasn’t thrilled about that either.
3. Take pictures of the car.
4. Write a description of the car, and post on Craigslist.
I’ve started #4, but was far too lazy to do the photos today. Tsk. Ah well. Baby steps.
April 13, 2008
Since Ma and PaDucky are champing at the bit to replace our microwave, I’ve been doing a lot of research online about microwaves using MoneyDummy‘s discovery: Consumer Research.
It doesn’t seem like there’s much consistency in microwave quality between brands, and there definitely doesn’t appear to be correlation between cost and quality. Since that’s the case, I’m just looking for a product that satisfies our needs in terms of size, power and features, and a better than average sense of satisfaction from previous buyers. There’s not much else I can do about it. Oh, and availability from a merchant for whom I can redeem Thank You points. Spending as little out of pocket as possible is crit-i-cal.
I’ve finally settled on redeeming $100 for 10,000 TY points for Bed, Bath and Beyond. They would have to order the Sharp R-305KS and have it delivered to my home in about 5 business days, but the advantage of ordering in store, instead of online, is that they’ll allow me to use their 20% off coupon on the purchase in-store. I’d already tried to have them do a store to store transfer, but the employee who tried calling other stores didn’t have any luck, apparently they don’t carry it in this region. Unfortunately, that’s the drawback to BBB, in my opinion, they don’t have in-store pickup for many of the products I looked at, unlike LNT.
Comparison shopping revealed that Amazon.com has the same product, with free shipping, for $99. BBB has it listed for $120. With the coupon, plus $11.95 shipping (nope, couldn’t weasel out of that charge either), the oven will cost $108, plus tax. Using the $100 GC, I should only be out of pocket about $20. I was shooting for 100% “free” via GC, but I won’t redeem more simply because I can’t redeem for a 1:1 ratio on less than a $100 GC. I believe the next step down is $50 for 6000 points, and that’s just a waste of 1000 points. Also, I practically never shop at BBB so there’s no reason to tie up more money there. I’d just gratuitously waste the excess GC later on stuff I probably don’t need. Unless …. I might need stuff for the new apartment next year …..
April 11, 2008
Despite neglecting to pack a real lunch this entire week, I’ve been really good about not caving and buying lunch. This is totally thanks to a post I read last week, sadly I can’t find the post or the blog to which it belongs, about a blogger who avoids going out by scouring the cupboards for any random combination of foods to satisfy hunger before deciding to go out or get take-out.
It was a little kick in the pants to stop letting my laziness and unrest at home cost me lunch money, so I tried all manner of creativity this week to keep myself fed without resorting to the expensive, bland cafes here.
Monday: I brought a container of rice and a fillet of fried fish that I hadn’t finished from the previous night’s dinner. I didn’t have much appetite, so I didn’t even finish that. I did eat my orange, though, so no scurvy for me.
Tuesday: My leftover biscuits and gravy, and part of a vegetable and ham scramble, from the weekend were combined with a couple of fresh eggs. Brunch!
Wednesday: We had fresh Roma tomatoes, so I sliced that up. I’d brought some wheat bread for breakfast toast earlier in the week, and had a slice left, so I made a half sandwich of fish and tomatoes. It was surprisingly yummy. My banana from produce bargain day was dessert.
Thursday: This may or may not be considered cheating: we planned a potluck for this day. The goods (and boy, they were good!): Honey Baked Ham, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans roasted with almonds, roasted asparagus, steamed broccoli, white rice, and homemade macaroni and cheese with bacon.
Note to readers: the Honey Baked Ham store is a complete ripoff! C3 paid $25 for enough to serve 6 people. There was apparently an unbelievable amount of fat and bone, so they probably only got about 2 good pounds of ham from it. We won’t be making that mistake again.
It almost makes me feel guilty for contributing the cheapest and easiest items on the list. I roasted the asparagus in our toaster oven, having gotten a great deal on it, and steamed the broccoli in the microwave. Cheap and easy! I guess the asparagus could easily have cost me more than $3/bunch, and I could have wasted $5 on a bag of broccoli crowns, but it would have tasted the same.
Friday: Leftovers from Thursday. Mmm-mm delicious!
April 9, 2008
To continue the GN/BN series …..
Good News: It’s been two months since I switched to AT&T. After all my griping and moaning about the expensive plans, and most especially, the lack of minutes with those plans, I was pleasantly surprised by my usage of the past two months. I was going from 1000 minutes to 450. I was fully using those 1000 minutes every month, as well as 400 text messages, so the concern that I was either in for a smackdown reality bill, or wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone at all seemed pretty valid.
Instead, I’ve closed each billing period with a little over a hundred minutes to rollover, so I’m pretty happy about that. Granted, I have been imposing pretty strict limits on my chatting, and it helps that I ride to and from work with a friend most days now so I don’t have to spend an hour on the ride home on the phone anymore. Oh, and he’s on AT&T so even if I did talk to him because we took different trains, that just comes out of my mobile to mobile minutes.
Bad News: I’ve reviewed my latest bill, and there is no corporate discount!! Grrr …..
April 8, 2008
Surprise! As I was just telling my fellow state tax refund recipient, Ms. M&P, I got a bee in my bonnet and checked my bank account to find that, I, too received my whoppin’-huge state tax refund today!
I had JUST scheduled a transfer of funds from my Citi tax savings account to the Wamu payment checking account, for the federal tax bill withdrawal in two days, so I’m sad I didn’t check earlier today so as to adjust the transferred amount accordingly. Still, I sure don’t mind getting, so I’m not going to complain about making an extra transfer request.
