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
I even had a note on my planner that the book would arrive on Friday the 16th, in case it was late, so I was uber-excited to find a fat package in my mailbox three days early.
I’ve already started reading it, and am 100 pages in. I stopped, though, because there’s a lot of good material in there, and I want to absorb and practice some of the thinking that Reardon talks about, in chunks, before moving on to the next chapters. I’ll post about it as I go along.
There’s got to be a flaw in my planning somewhere here. There’s money in the bank, so why do I feel broke? Because it’s all spoken for? Because I’m shifting money from one account to another to cover the rent check? Probably. I worry that I’ve been reckless and irresponsible somehow, and that’s why I still have to pull together funds, and why I feel so danged broke. Is this my rainy-day version of Bag Lady Syndrome?
I have a certain amount of money that I’m allowed in my expense account per paycheck, and then everything left over goes to rent. I must be sorely underbudgeted in the rent department, because I’m coming up short part way through the month, and the expense account has to make up the difference.
This is me freaking out a little. Again, money is in the bank, but it’s all for real emergencies or upcoming expenses. I’ve got nothing freed up for the here and now. But my planning couldn’t have been that far off. It’s supposed to be really quite close to my actual expenditures, so why the difficulty in pulling it all together?
Hmmm ….. ok, here’re the problems: The bills for the multipledeductibles are all coming due at the same time. The truck still hasn’t been sold. This is the first time I’ve got a surplus set aside for auto insurance, so I’m still feeling the effects of juryrigging that into the system, as the last payment is on the same credit card. And PaDucky was in a tight spot last month and I had to lend him a substantial amount, only 60% of which he’s paid back in time for me to make up the rent.
So, $2120 of the $2227 credit card bill I’m about to pay is on actual bills. Honest-to-goodness, had to pay ’em, BILLS. Another $50 is for medical stuff; I’ll be reimbursed from my FSA. That means I spent $50 on myself. Ten to eat out, seven to treat a friend to Pinkberry, and $33 on an outfit I’m still feeling guilty about and haven’t admitted to buying until now. *oooops!*
*deep breath* So I was only $33 irresponsible. There’s still a juggle, and I’m still going to be struggling to make the ends meet because I’m NOT allowed to delve into other funds for expenses, but at least it wasn’t because I was careless. Silver lining?
Sense was right. Even though I was relieved that PaDucky had taken the initiative to request quotes for taking MaDucky off the insurance policy, I couldn’t help myself: I had to look up other quotes because I’d wanted to compare rates anyway.
Geico’s rates were about $150 less, for the same coverage, and even better, the deductibles were only $500 for each car. I was really tempted to switch on over without further ado.
Luckily, I called my repair shop to ask about ease of service and transactions with Geico first. It turns out that while I have the legal right (it’s CA law) to go to any repair facility of my choosing, my preferred repair shop is “not longer a direct provider for Geico” because they had difficulty doing business with them. The guy that usually helps me said that they’d stopped working with Geico a couple years back because they charge premium prices for their work and Geico doesn’t like paying them. I understand the principle of that, obviously, that’s how they pass the savings along to the customer. It’s just ironic because they were the cheapest of three quotes for my car repairs from the accident last year!
I asked him what not being a direct provider meant to me as a customer. He explained that while other insurance companies allow them to take the photos, email them, and proceed with repairs, Geico requires the adjuster to come to the facility to take their own photos, and then to return again when the car is torn down if/when there is more extensive damage. Basically, not being a direct provider means that we’re looking at an extra 50% time premium. Nooo buddy! I don’t think so. If I’m going to have to use their services in the next six months, I want to use my own shop, and not have to wait three weeks instead of two. Aside from being impatient, I also never opt for the rental car benefit, so we’d be down to one car instead of two.
It looks like I’ll be sticking with Mercury for now, even though they’re a bit more expensive.
Does anyone else turn stupid when they get nervous? Boy, I sure do. Specifically, I still get really nervous, and stupid, whenever I’m faced with speaking to more than one person at a time, or when I feel intellectually outclassed. It’s not 100% of the time, but it’s still a high enough frequency that if it hasn’t already, it’s going reflect quite poorly on my true abilities.
In light of my revelations about the workplace and deciding to address my weaknesses like my poor political skills, I’ve got to admit that my fear of public speaking continues to plague me, and exacerbates otherwise manageable insecurities. If I weren’t so nervous about the act of speaking, I would be able to organize my thoughts and respond quickly and coherently. I find myself thinking of the right answers hours later, and obviously that’s much too late. There was a time that I was quicker on my feet, and I’m fairly certain that it corresponded with a higher degree of self confidence and strong morale. Since I can’t do more on the morale front at this very moment, it’s time to address and eradicate the nervousness from my life. It’s fine to be nervous when I don’t know my stuff, however, more frequently, I do but allow the nervousness to block that out. I need to build my self confidence, and that’s only going to happen if I overcome this limitation.
*deep breath* The more nervous I am about this decision, the more I know it’s the right thing to do. I need to join an organization that will help me learn how to speak in a public forum with grace, confidence and intelligence. I need to face this demon square on, because avoiding it or pretending that I’ll overcome it with age, and alone, will not work. I’m 25, and it’s time to learn how what some kids in first grade can do: present myself without fear. As Plonkee said, it might be harder to learn things as an adult, but it’s well worth the effort.
Since I don’t know anyone currently in Toastmasters or who has been in the organization, I don’t know if that’s exactly what I need, but it seems like a good place to start.
If anyone has other suggestions, I’d love to hear them!
I’ve been needing to call the insurance company to deal with the removal of my mom from the insurance. I knew it’d be a bit more complicated than taking my brother off because MaDucky’s actually the policyholder, so I’d been dragging my heels a bit. Also because I wanted to compare rates with other companies while I was at it.
Instead of the usual, “So, you know how we agreed to take your mom off the insurance? Have you done it yet?” conversation, PaDucky actually told me that he’d spoken to the insurance agent and had gotten a couple quotes for the new insurance, and made some inquiries about how much we’d save when the truck comes off the insurance.
Holy … cow …
He’s NEVER handled any of our paperwork. Never. He ferries the tax documents every year, but that’s because he’s had a working relationship with the accountant for more than ten years, and it’s best for him to go chat with the guy. But bills? Rent? Medical records? Banking? Nope. Nope. No and no. He won’t even go to the bank! I’m glad, but still mostly in shock.
Something’s finally pushed him to take the initiative to do something more around here, and I’m sorry it had to be MaDucky’s complete deterioration of health.
I’m super excited to chop that up into the categories I’ve finally settled on. In combination with my remaining $4800 once intended for tax payment, I have $5400 to “play” with.
$2000 will go to the emergency fund. I don’t have quite six months’ worth of expenses in there, so it’s going to be e-fund’s e-fund. I’d rather not kick up the bar to 20k yet, I’d like to enjoy having a full goal bar for a little longer. $1250 goes to auto maintenance. $1250 goes to auto insurance. This feels like a windfall. I usually use “put together” (ie: reimbursements, etc.) money for the insurance because I was having trouble squeezing any more money out of the paycheck. Now I have a nice cushion! That leaves $900. $200 goes to my expense fund because work refused to reimburse me for something they’d promised to, and given the climate these days, I’m sure I won’t be able to force it out of them. Oh well.
$700 is now intended for ME!!! I struggled with this, but I’ve been trying to learn to how to live for me at least a little bit, and letting myself have 13% of a “windfall” isn’t the end of the world. The bulk of it is going towards being really responsible, after all.
$300 was earmarked for Con, of which $92 is already spent, so I’ll have up to $200 in gas and spending money for 5 days.
The other $400 will be my travel fund for the year. I could take a trip to Phoenix (tickets are approx. $140), I could go to Oregon (use an award ticket and have a wee bit of spending money), and then maybe even get in another trip to New York (again, use an award ticket, have a little transportation and spending money). That would definitely be the end of all that money, but it’d be fantastic! I have over 150 vacation hours accumulated, and will stop accruing soon, I might as well plan to have some fun and clear my head.
I’m thinking of other trips I wish I could squeeze in: BF’s family invited me on their two weeks to Cancun and backpacking in Belize. (Backpacking! In Belize!!) A coworker’s going to a timeshare in Hawaii for two weeks, I just pay for food and transportation. (Hawaii!!)