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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January 21, 2008
and I shouldn’t whine about it being unfair. I promise I’m trying to keep a positive outlook despite all the turmoil of late.
I’m just worried.
I worry about letting my brother come home to live. I can’t trust him to clean up after himself and not run up all the bills. I can’t trust him to treat my parents right. I can’t trust him to behave in the house. I can’t trust him. Period.
I worry about not letting him come home. He says he has nowhere else to go.
I worry about my mom. She’s so confused half the time, and we never know which half it’s going to be. She can’t eat well, sleep well, and insists on trying to work. I can’t “ground” her, she’s my mom! BTW, E.C., getting her not to drive has really been a combination of a guilt trip (I worry so much about your driving, we can’t afford to lose you, we can’t afford for you to have an accident serious or not, etc.) and making sure that everyone around her knows that she’s not allowed to drive so we have to plan ahead to make sure that everyone’s got rides
January 20, 2008
The big wedding was yesterday, and it was absolutely lovely. They have the first half of the wedding photos on DVD already, and those pictures were totally worth getting up at 4:30 (bride and MOH) and 6:30 (rest of the bridesmaids) for. Seriously. They were some awesome photos. I definitely want to find out how much they paid for that photographer because he was quite good. Though, his assistant was a little creepy at the reception; I think he might have been hitting on me.
Highlights
We had serial spill problems: the mother of the bride was picking up litter on the church lawn before we got there, and discovered a carton of milk still had milk in it by spilling it on her dress. She had a back-up, thankfully, and ran home to get it.
The bride started freaking out that her parents were missing due to the above incident, I had to chase family members down and pin on their boutonnieres, the bride’s grandma forgot her cane, there was no water in the church for the bride, and I had a case of severe stage fright and got all emotional because my best friend of 14 years was really officially getting married and leaving us. It’s going to be so weird not having her five minutes away, just up the street. The ushers didn’t know when to start ushering. And they forgot to hand out the programs, so the guests didn’t know to leave the church for the reception site after the ceremony. Whoops ….
The ceremony was lovely, we had an Honor Guard because the groom and groomsmen were all military, and again, the post ceremony pictures were wonderful. The flower girls were darling, the groomsmen were spit and polished, the bridesmaids were sparkling, and the bride and groom were gorgeous together.
I might be biased.
And the other spill? During the bride’s moment to thank the guests, she got choked up and her groom, I love the guy – he’s just as klutzy as I am, flailed out his arm to grab her hand and comfort her. Except his go-go-gadget arms smacked her champagne glass instead, flinging the entire glass of champagne on her dress. Ironically, this happened just as she thanked me for all my help and support, and there I was, frantically wiping champagne off her dress. Show and tell!
I missed most of the hors d’oerves because we were late making our grand entrance, but I did get a crab wonton and it was heavenly! Our lunches were either stuffed chicken or steak, both of which were unbelievably tender, with perfectly steamed and sliced peppers, snap peas, green beans and other veggies, and a side of the creamiest mashed potatoes ever. The chef really outdid himself.
The wedding cake was three tiered: one lemon cake, one carrot cake and a mystery tier for their anniversary. I was a little confused because they didn’t do an official cake cutting part of the night, but that’s ok. The mystery tier is in my freezer because they haven’t any room left in their freezer, and I keep wondering if I can steal some …. mmm…caaaake. They only need a slice or two for next year, right? Right?
Anyway. I was so tired after we unpacked their 13 tons of gifts that I could barely eat dinner that night. BoyDucky was awesome and made us soup and dumplings, but it took me half an hour to get through a bowl of chicken and rice soup.
And I’m still tired today. But everyone was very pleased with how it went off after all the stress of the past few months, and I’m happy for her. She’s got a good guy, and she’ll be happy with him.
Zounds! It’s just past halfway through the month, and I’m down to 48 cents in my Expense account.
I still owe:
$393 — truck, 1/23
$129 — cell phone bills, 1/29
$197 — electric bill, 1/30 (Yes, that’s crazy. No, I have no idea what the HECK is going on with that. Yet.)
$719 — Total
How did this happen?? Well, I’m out $400 because of a bailout car payment, this time for MaDucky. Her paychecks are all screwed up and she didn’t have enough to cover the sedan’s payment, so she had to borrow from me. Now that that’s gone, and I’ve scraped the last of my pennies together to make the rent today, I’m all out of money until the 30th.
Man!
I expect $62 of purchase reimbursements, and another $87 for transportation costs from the office. $20 from the girls at work. Other than that, I’m out of luck until the end of the month. Shoot….. I think I’m in t-r-u-b-b-l-e!
P.S. I have an eerie feeling I talked about this not that long ago!
January 14, 2008
This little girl, M, was supposed to come to work for Show and Tell today, but her new daddy (best friend’s fiance) was suffering from separation anxiety so I’ll just bring her with me tomorrow and Wednesday. Apologies for neglecting the blog, as the wedding draws closer, it’s harder to make free time!
Thank goodness her cuteness makes up for all the pre-wedding stress and jitters.
January 10, 2008
About a month ago, during a rather rough patch, I accidentally missed the payment date for my Chase card by a day. I was still distraught, so I miscalculated processing times when scheduling the bill payments, and was hit with a late fee a few weeks later.
The weird thing was the amount: $15!
I was going to call and ask for it to be waived so the amount didn’t really register in my mind until after I called. The standard late fee has risen to $39 for most every other card I can think of, I wonder what happened here?
Some days you’re the windshield, I guess?
January 8, 2008
I’ve done the App-o-rama thing a couple of times now, but have never actually gone and canceled the cards that sprang from those efforts before. Annual fees were starting to roll in, so I had to bite the bullet and get it done. I’ve been procrastinating for at least five or six weeks … something else was always more important. And as with most chores, it really wasn’t so bad once I got to it. I was even pleasantly surprised a couple of times.
American Express Gold Business ($125 annual fee): four minutes. The annual fee charge will be removed and I don’t have to pay and wait for a refund. That would have been a waste of time.
Result: cancelled, good.
United Mileage Plus Platinum Business ($75 annual fee): five minutes. The CSR offered to change to a no-annual-fee, high rewards card. I dunno why I kept it. I had a weak moment? But really, no skin off my nose. I’ll just call and cancel later if the paperwork looks like a waste of time.
Result: kept it, good.
American Express Starwood Business ($45 annual fee): five minutes. They wanted to change it to another card like the Chase folks did, but I held firm this time. Poor Todd, he sounded so disappointed.
Result: cancelled, good.
CitiBusiness AAdvantage MC ($75 annual fee): ten minutes. I was offered an additional 2500 miles to keep the card for a while longer. The miles will be mine to keep whether or not I ended up canceling anyway, it’ll keep my AA miles active for another 18 months, and get 37 days grace period after the annual fee is billed to cancel and receive a full refund. The only downsides would be missing the cancellation window, and not receiving the miles in time.
Result: kept it, good. Not so good if I have to cancel to save my money before the miles come in.
CitiBusiness Platinum Select MC (no annual fee): seven minutes. I was offered 3000 bonus miles (or $25 cash, credited to the statement when I asked if that was his best offer) to keep the account open. Again, it’s already a fee-free card, so this is just bonus miles with no risk.
Result: kept it, good.
Citi Simplicity MC (no annual fee): fifteen minutes. The non-business card call took a lot longer to accomplish approximately the same things as the business card calls. I just wanted to move this credit line to a card that I’m keeping, and close this account. To do those two things, in that order, she said it would take 7-10 business days. Instead, she offered to consolidate the accounts which accomplishes the exact same thing, and could be done immediately. I have no idea what the difference is, except getting what I want now, and getting it in two weeks. Now, please! 🙂
Result: closed, mediocre.
Citi Diamond Preferred (no annual fee): seven minutes. I intended to just close this account as well, because I have too many cards. I was offered an additional point per dollar spent on regular purchases for twelve months. That’s not bad, the only way I get two points per dollar is from my CitiBusiness PremierPass, and that’s only because I have a backlog of flight points earned from the Vietnam trip and a couple other short flights. I may promote this to replace the PremierPass card and avoid the annual fees on that one!
Result: kept it, good.
Not bad for a little under an hour’s work, wouldn’t you say? 2500 miles, 3000 bonus points, and a replacement card for a 2% reward card.
January 7, 2008
Monthly Expenses
(some are close estimates, as the cost may vary slightly)
Fixed
Rent: $1360
Trash/Water: $80
Cable: $26
Landline: $37
Cell phones, Padres: $75
Cell phone, mine: $50 currently, will go up. A lot. Est, $80
Gas, home: $30
Electric: $125
Internet: $18
Gas, auto: $300
Groceries: $200
Truck payment: $400
Auto insurance: $300
Total: $2631
Variable Categories (personal, unbudgeted)
Eating out
Clothing
Travel
For the last section of variable categories, I don’t have a budget other than “as little as possible” because the fixed expenses have crept up to more than I make. It’s usually no more than $200 per month for all of the above, though, which isn’t much because even a cheap flight is about $120.
My plan to bring down the expenses:
1. Truck payment
Goal: Sell that sucker!
Deadline: By the second week of February. [After the wedding!]
Action: I have a figure in mind that I want to sell it for. I’ll get a quote from CarMax to see if they can match that price first. If they can’t, then I’ll take photos, and post it on Craigslist and perhaps AutoTrader.
Associated benefit: the auto insurance should come down quite a bit as well.
Savings: $400 + insurance reduction
2. Cell Phones, Ma/Pa
Goal: Change plan
Deadline: By Feb 22nd, the end of their next billing period
Action: Reduce their family plan to the cheapest one available.
Savings: $10/month.
3. Cell Phone, mine
Goal: Maximize minutes, minimize costs
Deadline: Feb 1st
Action: When I activate the iPhone, I’ll ask for the plan with the MOST minutes (6000) for the first month, then reduce it to the cheapest plan available. Since AT&T/Cingular has rollover minutes, I plan to bank the remaining minutes for use through the rest of the year. I do need to verify that they don’t penalize for changing plans, nor do the minutes expire.
Cost (before tax):
$880/year for 10,950 minutes
vs.
$720/year for 5,400 minutes
The difference is an extra $160 for 5,550 minutes. This is a situation where I’ll have to spend to save more overall. There’s no way I can use only 450 minutes/month when no one other than my officemates are on AT&T, and I am not paying any 40 cents/minute overage!
