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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August 27, 2007
but a girl’s got to eat, and I’m not cooking for a horde of friends and a few strangers each time we want to meet up.
We sent NY friend #2 back to the East Coast with a classy In’n’Out dinner last week, and experienced a rather surreal encounter with some high school acquaintances at the same dinner. We caught up a bit over beers at the pub up the street, and darned if it wasn’t the weirdest thing. Now I can definitely skip my ten year reunion! After all, I keep in touch with all the high school friends I want to, I think, and even met up with those I’d rather have forgotten.
On Friday, we had dinner with Boston friend at a lovely Argentinian restaurant where the drinks were yummy and prices were just fabulous! My swordfish skewers with yellow rice was simply amazing, de-skewered for my convenience and tablemates’ safety, for only $10. The helping of yellow rice was enormous, just how I like it, and moist with onions and bits of bell pepper. Mmmm … I’ll take you sometime, if you come visit me.
Saturday was full of accomplishing: I picked up Old Dog’s medicines, got a little grooming out of the way, went to the bank, got a tank of gas, and discovered the wonderful world of orthotics! At first I picked up the Dr. Scholl’s gel insoles ($6), and Ball of Foot gel inserts ($5) but realized that I really needed orthotics with arch support. So I went and got a pair from Target ($6) so that I could have these (on sale, $17.99):
Honestly, I had really wanted these because they seemed a little more demure and professional:
but they were $30, and anyway, weren’t in either of the Targets I checked so I couldn’t try them on. So the sassy Mary Janes were in. Even better, the shoes and orthotic with arch support were only $25.36. My MyPoints giftcard covered all but $0.36.
Sunday: I got loads of laundry done, went to the mall and returned that shirt to Banana Republic, and something to another store, and picked up a couple somethings. Lunched at Kabuki’s (I wouldn’t recommend it, it was lackluster and didn’t live up the decor) with a friend and his friend, and brought home leftover beef short ribs and chicken teriyaki for lunch tomorrow. Not bad for $15, but not particularly good either.
I also gave my brother an earful for stringing me along for the past couple months, not paying or calling me to explain his failure to pay, and his related immaturity. I always feel like I’m letting him get away with it when I don’t take him to task, and so he got his rightfully earned scold tonight. He’s got to learn about responsibility.
7 days of food spending:
$6, In-n-Out
$18, Argentinian dinner
$15, Kabuki lunch
$?, dinner tonight to see off NY friend #3
August 21, 2007
Five minutes, and six clicks. That’s all the time it took to put nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of car insurance and registration for los PadresDuckies on my credit card. I give thanks that, for the most part, scrimping and saving every little bit is worth it and I haven’t been caught up short by “unexpected” expenses. And I’m really lucky to have a good job security, as much of my health as I’ve needed to work that job, and developed strong saving and planning habits. Well, ok, it wasn’t actually luck on that first or last. I have job security because I’ve worked my dang tushy off, and save like a fiend because I have bag-lady syndrome. Probably will for the rest of my life, too! As Blunt Money and SingleMa remind us, the three D’s have a lot to do with it, too: decisions, determination and dedication.
I’m reminiscent about this time four years ago when things were really tough. Four years ago, I was still at university working on my (lib arts, aka: won’t make much) degree, working 60 hours a week, had just lost my first dog to heart failure after two years of treatments, taken on a car payment and felt tied to my job because of it, and still lived with my brother so was losing an ounce of sanity a day. Stress was at a premium. I wasn’t ever sure I could make ends meet, and I definitely wasn’t saving anything.
A couple bills like this would have ruined my week. My months, even. Anticipation would have killed off a few weeks prior, I’d have a few weeks’ grace period because it’d go on my card, and meanwhile would have had to work even more overtime at my $10/hour job to cover rent, tuition, utilities and car bills.
Now? I sigh sadly that the money’s going out instead of coming in, and sigh with relief that I can say the most of that money is already sitting in the account designed specifically for that purpose.
Moral? If I can get from there to here, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t try to get from here to way … over … there (gesturing to greener pastures of people with health, wealth and wisdom)!!
August 15, 2007
Working late all week. And on the train ride, to and from. But I have this itchy urge to start breaking down my future budget and savings goals based on that raise that I haven’t got my hot little hands on yet.
This is also how I do my homework: based entirely on instinct and urges.
Namely, collecting child support! I’ve heard so many stories about how, if you’re not in utter, desperate need, the state simply doesn’t assist with collecting child support payments. They don’t have the time to help except those in absolute dire need. Well, if the “scofflaw” as this article refers to them had to leave the country, now, he or she will have to pay up. It’s probably only good for a couple of collections, and dependent on the person needing to travel, but that’s still better than nothing!
Unless of course, you’re this guy:
A boxer paid $39,000 in back child support to the state of Nevada last year to get a passport, which he lost. This year, his promoter had to loan him $8,930 so he could pay off his new child support debts and get a new passport to fight overseas.
I suppose that’s one reliable way to get money from that particular fellow.
Eight months after they should have sent me a check for going through their credit card application offers, my mailbox was blessed with a $60 check yesterday! Half of it was for an application they’d rejected as a duplicate when it wasn’t, and the other half was for the Double Rewards they’d offered a couple years ago, but I’d given up on tracking down the card that it applied to. Yay, extra tidbit for my savings!
I keep forgetting that I’m just putting money towards paying off that loan, and that it’s only the money over and above that original amount that’s actually savings. Whatever, progress is progress.
August 12, 2007
It’s not that BoyDucky was averse to a bargain before, but he was never what I’d call a bargain-hunter. I’d gently chastise him each time we went shopping and he encouraged me to buy something I liked just because it was 10-15% off because it wasn’t regular price.
Early on in our relationship, we took a few trips to Macy’s where I introduced him to the fine art of combining clearance sales and coupons for a respectable discount of 89% or more off the original prices. His dress trousers, originally $110 came out to $15. While duly impressed, he stubbornly persisted in calling jeans at $50 a “good price” and 25% off a “good deal.” Our shopping equilibrium has become a reversal of roles: he shops sales and shares the really *good* deals with me, but until we’re married and I control the pursestrings, I won’t ask about the deals he doesn’t share. Sometimes, it’s just better not to know. My frugal soul shivers at the upheavals to come when our shopping styles collide.
In the meantime, though, it turns out that my poorly disguised sighs and barely repressed admonitions of what a REAL sale looks like actually did sink in. Our trip to Banana Republic yielded a (yes, another) black dress, it fits far better than that $10 bargain dress from my cousin, discounted to $50 and a nice emerald green top for $30. It must have been the color of the top that initially seduced me, but without telling him, I decided that I’d just return the top later on. The dress, in a Petite Small, wasn’t available online nor had I ever seen it in the stores in my area so the 40% discount just had to do. I’ve already lost two dresses and a suit, all in my size, waiting for a discount that never came, so it was time to pony up the gift card. Didn’t you know? I also like to hoard gift cards in case of shopping. That also makes the spending hurt less. š
His comment to me later? “I liked that dress a lot, it looks good on you. But I don’t know about that top.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, it’s not the color, it looks nice, but. I guess it’s just not as good a discount as I’m used to seeing you get. It was only $10 off.”
Hallalujah! Either my philosophy about paying far less than retail has finally become his, or my chickens have come home to roost. Or, my roosters. Whichever is more agriculturally correct š
August 9, 2007
If you watch any movies on opening night this summer, make sure that Stardust is one of them.
It’s a perfectly amusing movie blessed with good writing and surprisingly heavy star talent that actually lends their weight to the rhythm of the movie rather than causing one end or the other to be lopsided. There are pirates, there are princes dead and alive, witches and fairy. There’ll be a young man, and young woman, and a few more where they came from, all trying to capture the same thing, if they only knew it.
It will be lovely. I assure you of this. It will be lovely, and encouraging more such well-written and creative work, if Stardust does well enough to prove to the Hollywoodian powers that be that good movies are a Good Thing. Or it won’t, but at least you’ll have had the satisfaction of a wonderful time.
Honestly, I had really wanted these because they seemed a little more demure and professional:
but they were $30, and anyway, weren’t in either of the Targets I checked so I couldn’t try them on. So the sassy Mary Janes were in. Even better, the shoes and orthotic with arch support were only $25.36. My MyPoints giftcard covered all but $0.36. 