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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October 7, 2007
This blue skies, sunny day was ideal for the cleaning frenzy that struck my fancy this morning. But lo, our 15 year old vacuum has begun yet another form of mischief. Aside from just physically falling apart, losing bits and pieces of its front and sides as we go rolling-bump-bump through the house, and being remarkably intransigent when the hook-ups are needed, it’s begun to cough up ingested materials while I’m using said hook-ups!
As if weighing a thousand pounds and being the least mobile vacuum with wheels I’ve ever met wasn’t enough, it has to actually redistribute the dirt? Oh no, that’s enough. I’ve had it! I’m tossing that darned thing out tomorrow.
I’m now looking online at vacuums and discovering that I’ve never shopped for a vacuum before. It seems that everything is bagless now, which I can live with, but there aren’t a lot of vacs on LNT.com that tell you what “lightweight” means in practical terms. So I know I’m looking for something that is truly lightweight, with all the usual hookups, and a LONG hose. If it telescopes so I don’t pull the vacuum over on my head while crawling under things to vacuum, that’d be even better. Fewer head injuries = happier Miniducky.
LNT currently has the Hoover Z 700 Bagless Upright Vacuum on sale for $99 with free ground shipping, and quite a lot of the above-specified needs, but I don’t know how heavy it is. Perhaps I’ll run by the store and see if they have the same deal that I can combine with a BBB 20% off coupon, as long as it meets my weight requirement.
Has anyone had good/bad experiences with Hoover? Any other recommendations? While I don’t want to spend too much, neither do I want to veer too far to the cheap side and find myself with this problem again in a few years.
Of course, the kink in this, er, “gratuitous” spending is that I’m already $200 over budget in expenses this month. The trip to NY is coming up right quick (two weeks) and there’s obviously no slack in the budget to accommodate NY spending as well as an unanticipated appliance purchase. Oh, and the lack of OT means that the next paycheck will only be 70% of the usual. Financially, I should probably wait on the purchase, but there are Columbus Day sales this weekend so if the deals are good now, perhaps I don’t have to wait until Black Friday to vacuum my house! Mmm, clean house …
October 4, 2007
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover 401(k): $1,456
Roth IRA: $3,465
401(a): $1,412
403(b): $9,552
Total: $15,885 |
| Emergency Savings |
$6,362 |
| Goal Oriented Savings |
Car Maintenance: $636
Savings for BT repayment: $17,274
Total: $17,910 |
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Total: $17,630
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $15,885
Semi-Liquid: $17,630
Liquid: $23,026
Total: $56,541 |
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $8,136
BT (Brother): $17,274, due 02/08
Total: $26,052 |
I’d forgotten to include my Rollover 401(k) from the job I was working when I turned 21 in last month’s Snapshot. It looks like I have a “high” net worth if you just do the simple arithmetic here, but that’s all tied up in retirement and dedicated loans or funds. I’m still cash-poor and have a long way to go before I meet substantial goals and most especially before I reach a comfortable level at which I can start funding recreational goals.
On the plus side, there’ll still be something left over after the BT debt is paid off. Either I was very pessimistic or saved much more than anticipated for that to happen. I call pessimistic. And that makes for a pleasant surprise.
So, no more thinking of what might have been had I not made stupid decisions earlier this year, and on to more positive thinking! Relying entirely on myself and just going on: that’s the ticket!
I’ve decided that 40% of the check, which still hasn’t arrived, will go to a savings account for taxes, 40% will go straight to the e-fund, and the last 20% will go towards expenses Oct-Dec. That’s mostly because I increased the 403(b) contributions so much that my paychecks will be miniscule. It’ll all shake out in the end. More untaxed retirement contributions lower the taxable income, I calculated what the difference in take-home would have been and supplement from the bonus, and the rest goes to savings. Win-win-win! Or so the plan goes…..
October 2, 2007
It’s time. It’s been months – multiple months – since my brother’s made a car payment and it’s time for me to seriously move on selling it. Our agreement, two years ago, was that so long as he continued payments for the car and insurance, he would have use of either the truck or the family sedan. He’s been using and abusing the sedan at will for the past two years, but had kept up with payments throughout that time.
Due to continued poor judgment in all aspects of his life, he’s been unable to make payments for either responsibility for some time now, and I’ve had to bear the cost of the truck payments. Well, no more. He’s been given notice that I’m going to have to sell, and doesn’t seem to care that he’s demonstrated once again that he’s still an irresponsible git who’s only around when he needs something. If there’s a lesson he shouldn’t have to learn, it’s that I don’t mess around.
It irks me that we’ll end up with the poorly maintained sedan after all this time, but there was only so much familial mediation I could deal with. This will leave us with my little sports car and a good deal of maintenance on the Camry. I need to Kelley Blue Book the truck, and then we’ll see where I go from there. This is a headache I really wasn’t in the mood for. The good thing about selling the truck is that since we’ve only used it lightly, it’s in pretty good shape.
Does anyone want a 2005 Toyota Tundra?
October 1, 2007
I know I owe a focused post or two, and I promise I’ll get to them soon. It’s just been busy-busy.
We went out Friday night, and I was introduced to the wonders of the gay bar: no scuzzy boys with any interest in girls. Stress free dancing!
I loved my birthday flats which were great after 3 hours of dancing in high heels:
The flowers and balloons are still impressive, but the flowers smell a little funny:
I’m still wondering what kind of impact the no-overtime injunction will have on my budget and whether or not that check is really going to come this week.
Best friend has found a cheaper wedding dress at the same bridal shop, so she went ahead and ordered my dress (we’re going with the strapless number) with the remaining credit of her deposit. So I’ll need to write her a check instead of using my credit card, dangit.
We spent most of Sunday at the hospital visiting BoyDucky’s dad. BoyDucky was told yesterday that they might have to consider buying a hospital bed for his father’s recovery period, and that they run $18,000!!! Dear Lord. I’m hardly prepared for the realities of medical care for my parents, now we’re facing the same for his? There’s a part of me that’s relieved that at least they’ve been making good money for the past 10 years, unlike my parents.
Odd Topic: I can’t help but wonder why I can’t ever get a potential MIL who actually likes me: the first and second things she said to me at the hospital yesterday were chastising me for not learning Chinese “even though I keep telling you that you have to learn. It’s so inconvenient, because you know we’re not going to speak English!” and “is it possible for you to be any skinnier? You need to eat more!” It’s not important, apparently, that I try to get all the other stuff right, like oh, life! It’s much more important that I stop inconveniencing her by learning Chinese right NOW. *sigh* I know, I’m being sensitive. But it’s just so aggravating! Instead of responding (negatively) because she was doing this in front of her nephew and niece from up north, and her sister and brother in law from NY, I just got really quiet. I know that BoyDucky probably wanted to say something, but that definitely would not have been appropriate, especially in front of company.
My water bill came in the mail last week with a surprisingly refreshing note: You can now pay your bill online by credit or debit card!
That’s wonderful!
I don’t think I have anything so advanced as an online billing interface, but at least I can log in online and pay via credit card for next-day posting instead of trying to remember to mail this single mail-only bill.
September 28, 2007
The girls are taking me out tonight to dinner, drinks and dancing tonight. I was excited but the weather’s all gloomy and gross, and all I want to do is go home to curl up with my brand new:
On an entirely different topic, I just got an email from Little Boss asking me not to do anymore OT until further notice. I’m almost sure that it’s a budgetary concern, and not a reflection of performance, but the pessimistic side of me can’t help but think it has to do with the increased goofing off that’s been going on lately. We’ve been collectively letting off steam a little TOO much in the past week, and it probably can’t have helped. I know one other person’s gotten the same request, and we’re equally paranoid about it.
September 27, 2007
We’re finally having my birthday lunch in the office today. I selected the cuisine and menu because we have a horrid habit of over-ordering and stuffing our mini-fridge to a fare-thee-well. We can’t do that now because mini-fridge has been smelling weird for the last three days and no one can figure out why. Most of the time I’m really embarrassed by non-friend celebrations of my birthday (meaning anything staged by my family or work cohorts) because I hate being the center of attention. But now that it’s nearly a week late, it doesn’t feel like it’s really my birthday anything, so I don’t mind as much. Yes, weird.
Whether it’s because of this last big conference that required a big clothing buy or just the all-expenses-paid sort of mentality that’s seeping into regular life, I’m fresh out of motivation. It may finally be wearing off now, but I’d better not get too complacent.
Cake does a really strange rendition of “I will survive.” Or is it just weird because I’ve never heard it before? Gloria Gaynor DID do it first, right?
Fabulously Broke tagged me for a “How we met” story, so I’ll have to get that post together. Soon.
Oh! And I finally faxed off the correction to my 403(b) to increase my contributions to $1000/month for the next three months. Since I have a thing about keeping as much of my income as retirement or planned goals savings instead of paying some ridiculously high amount of tax on untaxed income, this should help offset my total taxable income tax bill that’s to come by reducing my taxable income. It’s possible that I won’t be filing as Head of Household this year, so I’m preparing for a heavier tax burden. I hate that my tax status is so changeable without any appreciable alterations to my actual lifestyle.
What else? The check will be, supposedly, in the mail next week. This whole raise business has been abnormal and decidedly odd. Whatever, come here li’ raise!
