Addicted to Toaster Strudel

WOO!

2010-08-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

Yes. It has been ages since I have posted anything. But things have been busy, and I have been lazy. But I had to take 30 seconds to slam out a quick post to say...

I JUST MAILED MY LAST PAYMENT FOR MY 2008 FEDERAL TAXES!!!

Thank god that is done! It has been way too long. And it will be nice to have that extra $250/month as a cushion.

So, yeah. WOO!

Surprise money! YAY!!!!

2010-05-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

I just got a letter in the mail from the IRS. I assumed that they were telling me that they credited my $150 refund to my 2008 tax balance. I was partly right.

Turns out, I missed a credit on my 1040. So, not only did they credit the $150 refund that I had calculated, they also credited an additional $400 to the 2008 balance! So that is an extra $400, which takes another 2 months off how long it will take me to pay back. So, I now have a $1095 balance, which I can get paid off in only four more payments. Holy crap! It feels good to see the end.

Of course the extra money that I would have for not making tax payments is going to go elsewhere and not to fun, frivolous stuff. But it still feels good.

Reimbursement!!

2010-04-15T07:10:00.000-07:00

WOO!

I just got an email from BofA. My reimbursement of my travel expenses from my conference trip at the end of March has posted! That is $875.79!! Excellent. Of course, I have to remember that this is not extra money; it needs to go to pay the credit cards that financed the conference trip. Well, the rental car ($250) was on my debit card, so I can hang on to that. ;)

My plan right now is to transfer the part that I want to use to pay the credit card into my savings account, so I can get some interest on it. And then just pay my balance off on Bill Day.

So, yeah. It is being a good day.

Dwindling Debt

2010-04-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

So, a bit of background info before getting into this post. I used to have a lot more credit card debt than I do now -- a LOT more. One of my credit cards that had a crazy high balance ($5000+ I think) kept going over the limit, which just made matters worse. Even when I wasnt using the damn card, interest charges and fees kept me from getting caught up on it. So, they offered me a deal. They closed my account and dropped the interest rate to 0% in exchange for automatically withdrawing payments from my checking account every month for 5 years. Not too bad, since I couldnt use that card anyway.

Anyway, I just got off the phone with the guy from the credit card company. Each year, I have to call and set up a years worth of payments. At the end of things, he told me that I had 10 payments of $131 and an 11th payment of $90.50 and that with the payment on March 5, 2011, the balance would be paid in full.

WOO HOO!

Granted, this is only one account among several. But it is a great step in the right direction. Plus, that $131/month can now go to paying more on another account. And that will help get other debt to go away faster. So, the light at the end of the tunnel is visible. It isnt bright or very close, but it is definitely there.

2009 Taxes

2010-04-06T18:09:00.000-07:00

Holy SHIT! I log in to Blogger and see that the last time that I posted anything was Feb 1! Well, I am a loser.

Anyway, this is (for once) a good post. I had been putting off doing my 2009 taxes for a long time. I knew that it was not going to be as bad as in the past, because taxes were withheld for the full year for the first time since being at this job. But still, I was gun shy.

Well, tonight, I bit the bullet and did my taxes. And -- drumroll please -- I actually do NOT owe any taxes to anyone!! That frakking god!

I am not getting massive refunds, but not owing is such a wonderful feeling. I will be getting $118 back from the state and $150.20 from Federal. The mild downside to this is that I do still owe 2008 taxes (UGH). So, my Federal refund is going to pay for that directly, so I wont actually see any of that money. But every little bit helps in paying off those pesky 2008 taxes.

So, hells yeah for not owing more taxes!!

2009 Goals

2010-02-01T19:39:00.000-08:00

Wow. Back-to-back posts. Dont have a stroke.

After posting that last entry, I was reading through it, and the list of my goals caught my eye. Being 2010 now, I think that it would be appropriate to comment on how things went, and of course, judge myself for failing to get things done...

Short Term Goals: Jan 1, 2010
- Increase savings account to $1,500. FAIL (6.5%). OUCH! There is only $97.29 in my savings account! Well, that sucks. I really need to get back to work on that savings account.
- Start & Get Vet/Emergency Savings to $400. FAIL (63%). I have $251.30 in the Vet savings account. It is not $400, but there is money there. But still, I feel sad that the cats have more money in their account than I have in mine.
- Pay down credit card debt to $6,000 (pay $4,400). FAIL (93%) I did not quite get the credit card debt down to $6000, but now the total is only $6478.79. And I did pay a total of $4081.23, which is better than I thought it would be going into this post.
- Pay down CitiLoan by $2,700. WIN (115%). WOO! This one I did good, but I also think I was setting the goal too low, as $2700 is paying the minimum each month.
- Pay off Capital One ($409.96). WIN (100%). Although, technically I did not pay it off by Jan 1. It was paid off by Feb 1, which is good enough for me.

Mid Term Goals: Apr 15, 2010
- Pay All Federal 2008 Taxes ($3,905). FAIL (51%). Federal taxes are not paid off yet. But I have taken a nice sized chunk of out them. But it is not quite April 15 yet. Here is hoping that I can really get this done. Although, I did manage to pay $2000 to the IRS between August 2009 and February 2010. Maybe at this rate, I will get this done by the summer.
- Pay All State 2008 Taxes ($1,319). WIN (100%) I mailed my last state tax payment in October 2009. WOO!

Okay, so actually looking at things in better detail (which forced me out of bed to the other computer where the Quicken info is), I am not as bad off as I thought I was. I am nowhere near where I want/need to be, but I have accomplished some of my goals and made some nice progress on others. Really, my biggest FAIL is the savings account. And I need to remember not to use the credit card that I can use. Simply keep paying on it. That is hard, but I should be able to do it.

But now, I am off to bed.

This is not a catch or creative title.

2010-02-01T19:16:00.000-08:00

Yes, before you say anything... I realize that I have fallen off the face of the earth for a few months. It happens. Im sorry. Moving on.

I had hoped to get motivated enough to do my taxes this weekend, but alas, Ally McBeal DVDs and my couch won out over the 1040.

Sidenote: WOW. Finding that link made me very glad that I bought this DVD set when I did. At $129, it came in under my Three Cents per Minute Rule. Now, it is listed on Amazon for $182.49! Good job, Okturn!

Anyway, I have mentioned before that one of my good friends at work was fired last fall. Well, recently he found a new job. Unfortunately (for me, fortunately for him), his new job is in another state. Inspired by my moving road trip with SS4BC, he asked me to help him move, which will entail driving down with him and his wife and then flying back home on my own. His new job is giving him $2500 for moving expenses, which is awesome! I talked with him today about being concerned about expenses on the road trip, and he said that the new job would reimburse him for stuff up to the $2500. And until that second, I had not thought that was how that would work. In my mind, they gave him $2500. Hmm.

Of course, being as self-centered as I am, I turned this inward and became worried that when I find a job, I am not going to have the money to pay for the move up front. UGH. Seriously, right now, my big financial concern is scraping together enough cash for a plane ticket and rental car for getting to a conference in March for work. I will get reimbursed for the travel, but I have to pay for it all up front.

Basically, I need to be saving a lot more than I am now. Sadly, I have not put money into my savings account in months. Winter is expensive in New England. My utility bills were about double (maybe triple, but I dont know the numbers off the top of my head right now) what they are in the summer, because of the damn heat.

Anyway, my savings amounts to a measly $300ish right now. Really not enough for any type of emergency, except for an emergency trip to the grocery store. It makes me mad that, once again, I have fallen out of habit with one of my projects (here being this blog and diligently managing my money). The irony is not lost on me that when I stopped regularly writing in the blog is when I stopped paying attention to my money and really have no extra anywhere.

Really, my fear now is that I am going to find the perfect awesome position somewhere next year and not be able to afford to move to the new job. How stupid is that? Anyway, this has lit a mild fire under my lazy ass to get back into financial shape. And get myself to where I am not scared of my account balances.

The upshot of this spring is that with any luck I wont owe any taxes for 2009, and there may even be a small refund (which will go directly to my outstanding 2008 tax balance). The 2008 taxes will get paid off by this summer, or I will have to kill myself. And once that is done, the $250-400/month that I was paying the IRS can go into savings, and I may be able to breathe again. I have yet to actually sit down and figure out if that is actually numerically possible. But I hope to get to my taxes this week, and I will write a post all about that. And hopefully, I will have some updated goals for 2010 and perhaps some updated status bars.

**sigh**

I must be more proactive and less reactive. But really, I want to be less terrified about the future, so that I can actually start looking for a job and get out of this hell hole.

Exciting Day

2009-11-24T17:24:00.000-08:00

Argh. So, I have gone from several posts per week to about one per month. What can I say? Sometimes, life just gets in the way of living.

However, today was quite a financially exciting day. For the first time in I dont know when, I spent ZERO DOLLARS today!! I always buy lunch and get afternoon snacks and such. But today, I actually brought my lunch to work (leftover Chinese from Sunday), and I managed to stave off my cravings enough to avoid Walgreens and the store. So, yeah. Go me!

Then, in a flush of inspiration when I got home, I rolled all my change. Honestly, I am totally surprised at how much change I had in my change jug. $139.50!! There is about $3-4 that I didnt get to roll, but I do fully intend to take my change to work tomorrow and annoy the crap out of the people at BofA and deposit it. It is sad, because there is more money in change on my coffee table than there is in my checking account. But I had been worried about how I was going to make it to Monday. Now, not so much.

WOO HOO! Anyway, I am going to try to be better about posting more, but until things settle down IRL, I doubt I will be able to keep up with myself. =(

Holy CRAP! It HAS been a long time.

2009-10-31T15:31:00.001-07:00

So yeah. Things in real life get in the way of the internet, and I really have been neglecting my blog for way too long.

Anyway, I was just poking my head out to say that I have FINALLY made my last payment for my 2008 State Taxes. OMG that took a long time to take care of. I still have the Federal taxes to deal with, but now I can add the amount I was paying to state to the amount that I am paying the Feds each month. And hopefully, that will be finished that much sooner.

Other things have been pretty much status quo in the financial department of the DelMoniq house. And I guess that is okay. I am still slowly paying things off and trying my hardest not to accumulate more debt.

Great Financial Decisions in DelMoniq History #4 - Buying Hair Clippers

2009-09-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

I just got done cutting my hair, and while I was in the shower afterward, I thought of Great Decision #4 -- Buying my own hair clippers.

Back during my time at my first job after graduate school, I was poor -- way poor. My rent was more than I could afford and paying back my debt was taking nearly ALL of my salary, post-bills. Part of this was that I was being paid crap and part was because I still had not managed to get my spending under control.

Anyway, one day back in December 2004, I decided that a great way to save money was to start cutting my own hair. All through grad school, I was being cheap, by going to SuperCuts. There was one close to my apartment and one across the street from school. Initially, a haircut would cost me about $12-15. I could walk over when I had downtime between experiments or during lunch or whatever, and that was just fine. But over the years, the cuts got more and more expensive. I think my last one was $25. I only cut my hair every 4-6 months, so we're only talking about $50-120/year. It's not THAT big of a deal.

However, my situation had become so pathetic, that come the end of 2004, I was looking for ANYTHING that could possibly save me money. On my way home from work one day, I had this thought. I need a haircut. But why pay $25 for one haircut, when I could potentially do it myself for cheaper. I got a couple of friends to come over, one of whom cut his own hair for quite some time, and I went to Target and bought my very own hair clippers for about $25. My buddy EO cut my hair for me in my bathroom, and not only did she do a great job, we had a blast. I think that her boyfriend even cut his own hair, but I may be remembering that wrong.

Anyway, ever since, I've been cutting my own hair. I have been able to do it myself and get cuts about as good as SuperCuts, for FREE! Sure, sometimes, I frak it up and look like ass for a few weeks while it grows out, but it's just hair; it does grow back. It's now nearly five years later, and I still have not paid for a hair cut since.

It's been great on days (like today), when I come home and am very annoyed with my hair, and I just say, "Today, Hair, you're going DOWN!" And I just cut it all off (I pretty much shaved it all off today, but I have cut with more style in the past). Plus, I get to just hop right in the shower afterward and wash all those irritating, itchy loose hairs right off, instead of having to go around for the rest of the day being irritated.

Plus, over the past year, I've cut a friend of mine's hair several times. So, not only am I getting free hair cuts, my friends can too. Granted, this works mainly because I'm a boy, and I'm not terribly picky about my hair. There are those out there that would rather just suck it up and pay to have a pro coif his or her mop. But for me, this has be absolutely great.

So, to recap... $25 for hair clippers at Target = 5 years of free haircuts (and probably many more to come; that sucker is still going strong). OOH! And I totally forgot! I also use it to trim down my beard. That's another thing I started doing at that time. Instead of forking over $15-20 per pack of razors and shaving gel, I'd just trim the bushy face down to a uniform layer of stubble -- FOR FREE! Personally, I think I look better with stubble, but what do I know? And yes, sometimes, I just have to shave it all off and be smooth. But I have drastically reduced the amount of money that I spend on shaving supplies. I really only buy razors about once a year (for a 4 pack), and that works great.

So yeah, buying my own hair clippers. EXCELLENT FINANCIAL DECISION!

Found Cash!

2009-09-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot the excitement of yesterday!

I found my bag of rolled coins that I (and friends of mine) had rolled a long time ago. There was $45 in dimes, nickels, and pennies. And I deposited it all into my checking account. Of course, my friend at BofA was annoyed, but it was great to get that change out of my apartment and back into circulation. WOO.

Even more exciting is that I have a my change jug still with TONS of change in it. I'm really looking forward to rolling and depositing that! =)

Great Financial Decisions in DelMoniq History #3 - Takinng out Student Loans

2009-09-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

These decisions aren't really in any particular order (other than the order in which I thought of them), so now we're going to take a little trip back in time and talk about student loans.

I mentioned a while back about my college years and how my parents were really awesome in paying for pretty much my entire undergraduate experience. So, there were no loans or anything from that time. What there was though was a crap-ton of credit card debt from my wonderful "pay for it later when I have a real job" attitude.

So, I graduated, moved across the country, and started graduate school. Again (I don't know how I keep doing this, but whatever), I lucked into an awesome situation. Two of my good friends from undergrad moved to the same city the year before I was moving there. They rented a two-bedroom apartment together. During my week-long drive cross-country with my dad (and two cats), one of my friends called me (I had been planning on staying with them while I found my own place) and said that the other friend was moving to Japan to teach English for a year or so. And she asked me if I wanted to take over her half of the apartment. YAY! I had a place to live AND an awesome roommate, and I had not even made it into the state yet. Okay, if I don't speed this up, I'll be writing a novel before I get to the point.

The point of the apartment story was that I lucked into a really cheap living situation in a really expensive city ($400/month, which dropped when we took on a 3rd roommate later on). During grad school, I kept up my frivolous college spending habits, and my credit card debt kept rising. (I could side note here another great decision involving Best Buy, my best friend, a bunch of martinis, and $2000, but I'll save that for later.)

Eventually (probably in my 3rd year), I hit the wall. My spending had maxed out my limits. My credit was GONE, and I couldn't get any more cards. I think that at the peak of my horrible-ness, I had 7 or 8 cards plus a Dell computer account. What's that you say? Where did my pay check go? Well... there was rent, food, and pretty much the rest of it went to paying the credit card payments. Pretty much, I was broke and barely keeping my head above water. And (not really learning my lesson yet at this point) once a card got paid down enough, I would just buy more crap or whatever and BOOM, card was maxed out again.

One day, my best friend, MsK (same from the Best Buy story) had a brilliant idea; she was in similar situation to myself; however, it was more dire for her. She lived alone and had her utilities cut off more than once (luckily, she's much better now). Her idea: take out student loans. Wha...????

Student loans are available to graduate students (like both me and MsK were at the time), and have a MUCH lower interest rate than credit cards. So, our plan was to take out the loans, which we didn't need for paying for school, and use them to pay off credit cards. The beauty of this was that this got the debt to go away, AND it put it all into a much "better" debt of the student loan, which would not require payments or accrue interest until we were out of school, which turned out to be another 3.5 years (for me).

The plan was GENIUS! With a few exceptions. (1) I couldn't be trusted with $5000 cash at one sitting and (2) I ended up moving a couple of times. So, here's what happened. Yes, a bulk of the credit card debt got paid off with student loans. But, not all of the loans were used to pay off credit card debt. I would venture to say that about half of the loans went to debt, and the other half was spent on buying stuff and moving expenses.

Overall, this was a GREAT decision. I wish that I had handled it a bit better, and paid off more debt with it AND that I was able to keep myself from USING the paid off cards. But all in all, I was able to pay down lots of debt, and get myself in a much better place financially for the next few years.

Now, I have been paying off the loans since 2004, which basically means I've been paying interest. And it isn't that bad. I've had ups and downs financially since then, and I am still working on getting all my other more pressing sources of debt (Taxes, credit cards, CitiLoan) paid off before majorly tackling the student loan. I just checked online, and my total student loan at this point is $39,254.02.

**shudder**

But I have faith that once my CitiLoan is gone and the credit cards are gone and the taxes are paid (not in that order, mind you) that I will be able to get this debt gone as well. Luckily, student loan interest is tax deductible.

I am a LONG way off from being 100% debt free, but taking out the student loans was definitely a GOOD idea. I just need to curb my spending and just keep plugging away.

Great Financial Decisions in DelMoniq History #2 - Moving to a Safer Neighborhood

2009-09-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

This minorly ties in with Decision #1, but not obviously and not directly.

Picture it... crappy neighborhood Fall 2008. (Gold Girls reference, sorry, my gay is showing)....

Anyway, when I moved cross-country in 2005, I knew that I wasnt moving into the greatest of cities or the greatest of neighborhoods in said city. But it was good enough, the place was nice and affordable, and I could take public trans (or walk) to work.

Over my first three years here, I saw the neighborhood slowly decline. The people on my street (more importantly my building and neighbors owned by the same people) were moving away, and apartments were vacant for a long time. The people moving in were not of the same caliber as before. People around my age and situation (grad/med school types) were moving out and poorer families with many children were moving in.

Graffiti appeared on the back of our house. Cars in the back lot were broken into. The landlords put up a fence (it helped some, but was kinda retarded as it didnt actually enclose anything). A car was parked across the street for over a week with no one attending it, and eventually, all the windows were busted out of it. Turns out the car was stolen and abandoned on our street.

One night last October, I was playing video games and chilling out at home, and I heard shouting outside. I looked out the window, and saw a car parked in the middle of the street and two guys shouting at each other. I sat back down and played more games. And then, I heard it. Five or six very loud gunshots right outside my house. I looked out the window and saw one of the guys running off down the street.

I grabbed my phone and called 911. Moments later, police and fire trucks were there. I never really learned what happened that night. No one was killed on my street. But the seed had been placed... it was time to move. The police action took hours. People were yelling, police investigated. I heard one woman shout: Oh my god! Thats my sisters car! What the fuck? What happened?.

The next morning, I told my carpool what happened, and one of my friends responded, with oh just last week so and so told me that someone was shot and killed outside her house. That was a block away at the other end of my street!

That morning, I was on the phone with my landlord trying to get out of my lease. They understood. I had just signed a new lease two weeks earlier, so they were sad, but they did let me out of the lease. I promised to be out by December 1.

What followed was a month of hunting for apartments. That was so NOT easy. Maybe my standards are too high? Maybe this city is not that good in general? Eventually, I found a place that I liked; however, I (again) missed warning signs.

I was so focus on getting out of the ghetto and into a decent place, that I missed a few things. Anyway, I did see the apartment, but it was after dark and most of the lights in the place were burned out. As devils advocate, there are no ceiling lights in most of the apartment. But still, I should have insisted on revisiting in the daytime. But I liked the location and the layout, and they would take my cats. So I said I would apply. The rent was a bit more than I wanted to pay, and I did try to get him to come down on the deposit. But he said he wouldnt if I had the cats. UGH.

Anyway, what followed was a month of drama. Where I had rented apartments before (in a different state), there are very strict laws in place that landlords and tenants MUST follow. And everything is very well standardized and thought out. NOT HERE. First off, what I didnt realize at the time, was that I was dealing with a rental company and NOT the landlord. Their only goal is to rent the property for the landlord, collect their commission, and wash their hands of the whole thing. So, when I saw the apartment, I said it was dirty and needed to be cleaned. The rental agent told me that the landlord would have the place cleaned and painted in time for move in. And I agreed.

I had a meeting to sign the lease, but they didnt have the keys. So, I paid money and had NOTHING to show for it. The next day, I got the keys. But it was not ALL of the keys. I was missing a mailbox key and the key to balcony door (which is double keyed, so until I had a key it could not be LOCKED). After several run arounds with the rental people, I finally go in touch with the landlord. And he insisted that the rental people had all the keys. After assuring him that they did not have all the keys, I had to meet with him at his office (an OB/GYN office, very uncomfortable) during the work day to compare my keys with his keys. Turns out he had some keys that he didnt know what they were, and they were my missing keys.

Anyway, I drive up to check on the place during the day (weeks after I was told the place would be cleaned), and it wasnt. Nothing had been done. I talked with the landlord, and he said If I knew it had to be cleaned, I would have charged more for the deposit. What the fuck!?! That charge should have been made against the pigs that moved out of here.

Anyway, I told him that it didnt matter, because I had already rented a truck to move the next day. So on moving day, I rented a carpet shampooer and my friend (the compulsive cleaner) shampooed and vacuumed and scrubbed while us boys moved boxes from the truck.

So, the financial part come in here. At the same time that Im looking for a new place to live, I get my October 2008 paycheck, and I find that it is $1000 LESS than it had been before. Turns out, on my 3rd anniversary, I got reclassified in the system and now taxes are being deducted when they were not before. Well, shit. I needed that money to move! So, I had to beg money from the parents (I hate doing that), and I was able to refinance the CitiLoan and get an additional $900.

So, to recap. Moving is hard enough as it is without the landlord/rental agent being assholes. Moving is expensive enough even when your job doesnt suddenly stop 1/3 of your pay. And now, all the progress of paying $200+/month to the loan from the therapy has been washed away and theres even more debt. And I had to get money from the parents, which I had not needed to do in years.

The upside, no one is getting shot on my street, and I dont feel unsafe walking to my car after dark at home. And there is a washer and dryer in my apartment. The downside, I now have still more debt and more guilt than before. My rent is $175/month more than before and I make $1000 less/month. Plus, utilities here are more expensive, and now I have to drive to work.

I guess, in the long run, for my piece of mind the safety is most important. But I now have ZERO extra money ever. I am back to where I was financially in 2004, which was pretty shitty. I dont have mountains of credit card debt, but there is that damn CitiLoan still out there. And I have no real money in my savings accounts. I had been hoping that by 2010 things would be less bleak, but it does not appear to be turning out that way.

I am kinda very annoyed with my apartment. All the little things are now glaring blemishes. I hate my downstairs neighbors. I dont like the driving to work. And now I am 100% stuck. There is no way to get more money from the parents (especially after they helped with the vet costs in June). And I doubt that I would be able to get more money out of the CitiLoan. So, I just need to tough it out here until I get my real job in the mythological future.

And there is the added horribleness of having my friends not completely understand the situation. I used to travel 3 or 4 times each year to visit friends or family. Now, I absolutely can not do that. There is no money. I havent been on a trip for almost a year. And there are things that I would love to do. But I am living in a situation of my own creating, and I need to deal with that.

It just sucks you know. On paper, moving was a BAD decision, but is the safety issue and piece of mind (however how small) worth the added financial stress? I dont know. Probably. I really dont think that I could handle that neighborhood now. But it just sucks that I had to ruin my finances to get out of there and that I am not 100% satisfied with my apartment.

Overall, I declare this situation NEUTRAL.

OMG! Its been a long time.

2009-09-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

I realized over the course of the last week that I have not posted anything in a while. This afternoon when I got home from work, I actually looked at my blog, and I have not posted in 14 days! Holy crap! Where the frak did the time go? No one out there is more angry with me (with perhaps the exception of SS4BC) than I am. The whole point of having a blog is to write in it. Anyway, I had a thought over the weekend about a post (or series of posts) that I wanted to write. Today seems like as good a time as any to get started on that.

This is what Id like to call Great Financial Decisions in DelMoniq History. And of course, the word great is here meant to simply mean big or important and NOT necessarily GOOD. There have been many more bad decisions in my life than good ones.

So without further ado, lets start off with the decision that started this idea for posts, and hopefully, over the next few days, I can hammer out a few more blog posts to go along with this theme.

I. Going into Therapy

This must be a good decision, since therapy is there to help you and not to hurt you. Oh god, I wish that were the case.

January 2006, I was in such a funk. I had been in funks before off and on over the years, but this was a doozy. I wasnt sleeping well, and I was exhausted all the time. Most days, I would go to work and sit at my desk staring off into space not really doing anything and not really thinking of anything (other than what a mess my life was at the time). Frankly, I was miserable pretty much all the time that I was awake. I drank WAY too much, and I smoked a ton. And I was simply drifting through my life existing and not really living.

Eventually, one of my friends (who by the way is no longer one of my friends, but for completely other reasons; he was definitely one of the great friends of my life, and I am really sad that I only knew him for a year or so)... anyway... this friend told me that I really needed to seek help -- either that or go out and fix myself on my own, either way something needed to be done. I fretted for a long time, and once the sad realization that if left to my own devices things would not change, I decided to seek out a psychiatrist.

The seeking out on its own was probably the hardest thing that I have ever done in my entire life. In total, I saw three different doctors. The first one was simply for the insurance purposes, and he suggested a list of other doctors that I could see. The second doctor that I saw told me (mind you this is after waiting over two weeks for an appointment) that I was going to be too much work for him and he did not have the time to devote to me. So, he recommended me to another doctor. After another week or so of waiting, I saw him. He said that the 2nd doctor was basically an asshole; why have me come for an appointment, if he wasnt going to take me? At least he didnt charge me for anything.

At this point (being a finance blog and all), I should point out that I have paid a grand total of $0 over the month of searching for a doctor. Which, by the way, is probably the most humiliating experience that I have had. The initial visit to a psychiatrist is absolute hell. Anyway, the 3rd doctor that I saw seemed like an okay guy, and there was no way in hell that I was going to try for a 4th.

So, we settled in for a regular weekly appointment, and he prescribed some meds. And for the first few months, things were okay; and I might even say that things were getting better. At least, my friends told me that they thought that I was getting better, even though I didnt feel any better.

The downfall of this therapist was one major thing (aside from the fact that I didnt think that I was getting any better), money. Each 50 minute session cost me $175. The meds I was on were too new for a generic version and that cost about $300/month. And in the beginning, he was nice about it. I collected the bills he sent me, and submitted them to the insurance for reimbursment (even though I had not paid anything) and they gave me $60/visit back and about 80% of the prescription charges. And when I had enough money saved up, I would bring a check with me to my appointment.

Towards the end of my time with this doctor, things were horrible. I wasnt feeling like I was getting better (it had been over a year), and he was irritable, because he wasnt getting paid as often as he would have liked. So it was a stalemate; he would not reduce his charges, and I couldnt scrape together more money to pay. And at the end of the year (maybe 9 months even), the insurance stopped reimbursing me, because I went over the max number of visits per year. So, I was screwed.

Eventually, he told me that if I could get together a lump payment of at least $7000 that he would forgive the rest of my bill (which at this point 18 months in was over $10,000). That was the last I saw of him. I started looking in to ways I could get $7000. And thus, the CitiFinancial personal loan was born. I was approved for $7500. They cut a check for $7000 directly to the doctor, which I mailed to him the next day, and I kept $500 for myself.

I never heard from the doctor again. There was no thank you for paying. There was no are you okay, you missed your last appointment. Nothing. And thats when I knew for sure that I had FINALLY made the right decision of dropping out of therapy. He was a shitty doctor.

So, now (nearly 2 years later), I dont feel much worse off than I did when I quit therapy; I dont feel better, but Ill settle for not worse. And I have $7500 in debt, after a long struggle to get my head above water, I was drowning again.

That, my friends, is Great Financial Decision #1. BAD CHOICE. What did I learn? Well, I used to tell myself that the lesson was that therapy sucks and does not help you at all. But after writing all of this out there, I think that the real lesson is to put in the effort to find a good doctor; do the research and you should be able to find someone that can help you AND work in your budget. The other side of the coin, is being able to say no. Had I thought about it when I started, I would have realized that $175/week was unmanageable, and I would have negotiated when I started, had him recommend someone cheaper, or just not started therapy. But now, I think that this experience has soured me entirely on therapy in general, and now I am just self-learning how to deal with my disorder or whatever you want to call it.

Thinking about stuff.

2009-09-07T19:14:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know that thinking usually gets me in trouble. Mainly because I tend to dwell on things and get all mopey and depressed, just ask my brother. All this work drama has me worried and stressed out, and it has brought about all the old feelings from my former, emotionally abusive boss and how it was when I got fired from that job.

Financially, I have to work. I wish that werent the case (dont we all). But honestly, if were told in my meeting with the boss on Wednesday that I would have to leave in two weeks... I would be royally frakked! I have less than $1000 in my combined savings accounts--not even enough for the next month of rent. The logical, reasonable part of me realizes that chances of me getting fired are slim, but the rest of me knows that there is now a non-zero chance of getting fired.

The boss has told me in the past that I was safe in my position and that I didnt have anything to worry about. [quote]Other people will leave before you do,[/quote] she said. But that was then, and this is now. She said just several weeks ago, when we first learned that the one grant didnt get funded, that no one should worry about his/her job at group meeting in front of everyone. A month later, my good friend is out of a job (and kicked out of school).

She has unwittingly (or perhaps purposefully) and irreversibly altered the mood/state of the lab. Everyone is worried about his/her job. Whether she intended to or not, she has ushered in a regime of fear. This is how my former boss ran his lab. Constantly being told that if you dont produce and publish on his time frame, you will be out.

I find myself forced to consider contingency plans. What would I do? semi-continuously reverberates in my mind. So, what would I do? I would need to find another job, ASAP. However, could I? Four years, one paper, fired for not producing results. Does NOT look good! Top that with the fact that this is my second postdoc position, and I was fired from the first one for...not producing results! Im unemployable -- with the notable exception that I know that SS4BC would hire me if she were running her own lab, but thats a minimum of two years off.

So, what would I do? The only thing I could do, I guess. Sell as much of my shit as I can, rent a truck, and shack up with my parents. Of course, without income, I would be in deep shit to the government for my taxes, and I would default on my loans. None of that will do good things to my credit rating. I would have to find some sort of job close to where my parents are and scrimp and save and figure out what to do.

So, what do I do now? I frakking work my ass off trying my frakking hardest to produce results so as NOT to get fired. And this situation has me frakking scared. I know from experience that this is not a good position to be in with a boss. I have a plan to get shit done, but I have no idea if the boss will agree with my plan. I have a plan to show her what is getting done, but is this going to be enough? How do you convince a boss NOT to fire you when your science isnt working? That is a question that had plagued me for a long time that I was sure I was past.

But I guess not. I just hope to gods that my plans work and that the outlook after Wednesdays meeting is better. Because right now, I am terrified.

Porn. Probably NSFW, but there are no pictures.

2009-09-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

A while back, SS4BC posted about Sex and the Wallet, and its a great post about about the cost of things in that arena. And I know that I have a habit of over-sharing (see comments on the linked post, if youre really curious). I assure you that Im not creepy, but I wont be offended if you dont finish reading this post.

Anyway, I was just randomly surfing around online tonight, and went to a great site for buying adult DVDs that I had not visited in a long time. Remember, porn is expensive, and I try NOT to do expensive these days.

Anyway, they are having a sale. Any 5 DVDs for $59.95. Doesnt exactly sound like a sale, but when you think about each DVD alone will cost you $45-60, thats a tremendous savings. Of course, I caved, and bought 5 DVDs. And I know that I probably shouldnt have bought them. I can justify this.

(1) I havent bought any porn in over 2 years.
(2) Buying them individually, I would have easily spent $250. So, I saved about $200. Granted as I would not have bought them at that price, I actually saved nothing. But this is purely me justifying my wrongness here.

So, yeah. I caved on an impulse buy, but in an okay way. And I realize that I should be drawing more of a hardline with myself. But my new DVD rule has curbed a LOT of impulse buying. Plus, its actually kind of fun. I was at Target and Best Buy today, and only spent $30 total. But the fun was in looking at the DVDs. And realizing that a $40 DVD set would need to have over 1200 minutes of content to fit the rule. And its really exciting when you find something that fits the rule. I was able to buy House Season 5 and Big Love Season 2, because they were each under 3 cents/minute. I satisfied my DVD urge, and stayed within the budget. The Big Love sale was a real find, because typically HBO shows are WAY more expensive that your standard DVD set.

Anyhoo, thats that. And again, Ill probably not even bother looking for adult DVDs for another year or so, and itll be even longer until I buy again. But a sale like that is really hard to pass up. Its like buy 1 get 4 free.

Yes yes... justify away, Im still bad for buying any at all.

A little influx of cash.

2009-09-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

Working at a Medical School does have its perks. Theres a lab upstairs from mine that does blood studies. Usually, theyre hired by companies to test their products. Ive done two different studies with them. One was testing a new method for storing platelets ($600 for me!) and the other was testing a new machine for collecting red blood cells ($250 for me!). They told me both times that they love my veins and that they would keep me in mind for future studies.

Well, last week, I got a call in lab from them. It has been over a year since I heard from them, so I had pretty much forgotten about them. But theyre doing another platelet study, and they thought of me. Theyre going to harvest platelets, radiolabel them, put them back into me, and draw blood over a period of about two weeks to check on them. It sounds horrible, but Ive done it before, and its not a big deal. But this study pays $620! Im so down for that. Its basically free money. I can bleed. Plus, its helping science, and thats a good thing.

It starts Sept 10 and goes for about three weeks in total. So, I probably wont see money until October. But seeing as how, it will probably all go to taxes or bills anyway, it doeesnt really matter. The point is, I need to be sure NOT to spend it on THINGS I dont need. Its for paying down debt. And $620 will certainly help with that.

And speaking of cash, SS4BC posted about ways to earn some extra cash, and this has me thinking about finally doing something with my change bucket and rolled up piles of coins. I know it may annoy my friends at BofA, but I have a feeling that in the next week or so, I may be walking in there with a sack full of rolled coins to deposit. Its like she says, every cent counts.

Worried for the Future

2009-09-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have posted anything, and I am sorry for that. Lots has been going on. But first I have to say that over the weekend, I spilled grape soda on my laptop. Everything is fine and not sticky. However, the apostrophe key was a casualty of my clumsiness. So bear with me if my contractions looks stupid, and Ill try not to quote anything. I have an external keyboard, but I didnt feel like hooking it up.

Anyway, as for the lots happening... One of my best friends here -- a coworker of mine -- was fired. UGH. The whole thing doesnt make any sense, and no one understands what the boss was thinking. Hes a graduate student, and what this essentially means is that he has been kicked out of school. The reasoning -- the boss doesnt think that he will accomplish enough to graduate in a soon enough time frame. Given that he has a max of three years left (plenty of time, in my opinion), this is pretty much a slap in the face.

Needless to say tensions were running high in lab today. And, as apparently the go-to guy in lab, people were coming to me expressing worry for their own positions. Basically, now everyone is worried that if he/she doesnt get enough results in enough time (enough being an arbitrary and subjective quantity defined by the boss) that he/she will be fired (or kicked out of school). Its ludicrous! This is really NOT the tone she needs to set for the lab. But whatever, its done. My friend will be out of work in a couple weeks and will most likely be moving out of state before Christmas.

This is especially mind bottling (yes, I said that on purpose. See Blades of Glory.) in light of the fact that this summer, she took on a new graduate student, and she is seriously a waste of space. Its going to be interesting, as she is presenting for lab meeting this week.

I am just seriously pissed at all of this. And I am dying to know the bosss side of things. Part of me thinks that I can get away with talking to her about it by coming at it from the point of view of the person who will be in her position and wanting to know how she came to this decision. I really will need to know how to know when to cut a graduate student out. But I dont know if shell tell me anything or not. I think that Im just going to wait until my next scheduled one-on-one meeting with the boss next week.

Of course, having been fired from a job for not bringing in enough results, I know how my friend feels, and of course, I too am worried about my job here. I know that the boss has told me in the past NOT to worry about my job and that other people would be let go before me, if need be. But still Im worried. And I would start applying for jobs now, if I had ANY chance of being able to get one. Alas, it comes down to getting results. And while, Ive worked my ass off in this lab, I only have one publication from my nearly 4 years here. Thats not enough. Mostly, this is because my original project was a bust, and I spent 2.5 years or so on it trying to get it to work. Its only been in the last year that Ive had something going that was literally crapping results. Ive just been working on getting a story together. If all goes well, Ill have something written up by the end of the year.

Anyway, I digress.

All this worry has me thinking tonight about where Id like to go. I have an idea job in mind. Of course, I think Id like to be a PI and run my own lab. But when it comes down to it, I dont think thats what Id really like to do. I LOVE doing science. Sure, I have ideas, and I can write about science. But the more I realize what my PIs have done and are doing, the less I actually WANT that job. I like getting my hands dirty in the trenches. I like working one-on-one with students in the lab and teaching lab skills and DOING experiments.

On the other side of the coin is my good buddy, SS4BC. She loves going to conferences, talking to people, networking, writing grants, and such. Sure, shes a fabulous chemist and a great experimentalist. But she was BORN to be a PI. And she has great ideas, and I know that shell do great things with them. And half-jokingly, half-seriously, weve talked about working together. I think that as a team, wed be UNSTOPPABLE. Can we make this work? Is she as serious about it as I am? I dont know. I think that our timing may just work out.

Shes on track to be done with her current position in two years, and shell be looking for faculty positions during that time. So, in theory, shell be on her own by Fall 2011. Given how much slower my experiments are than hers (seriously, Ive been prepping for my big experiment since June and its going to take about 6-8 months to DO the experiment), Ill probably be job-ready about the time she starts a faculty position. Hmmm. This could work.

So, what I was thinking about tonight was this: in an idea world, where would I want to live and settle down? And being the map-geek that I am, I made a color coded map to indicate my preferences.

Its color coded from Green to Red (Most to Least Desirable, respectively). Blue falls in the middle. Yeah, Im sure it looks a bit odd to most people, but Ive got my reasons. Do you live an Okturn-Desired area? What do you think? Am I being too judgmental? Im not saying that Id ONLY look for jobs in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Im just saying that if two identical jobs were offered in LA or New Jersey, Id take the job in LA. If the perfect job for me is in Montana, so be it. But Id like to stay in more greener pastures (so to speak).

Anyway, it breaks down like this... Living in CT has taught me that (1) I HATE Winter and (2) I HATE New England. So, places guaranteed snow...OUT. (except for NYC, because its a big city and I wouldnt have to drive). Im a CA boy at heart, and I LOVE SoCal and San Francisco. Ive got friends in SoCal Seattle, Georgia, Florida, South Texas, and family in Kansas and Arkansas, and it would be nice to be closer to them. Pretty much the rest is weather based or based on some arbitrary idea that I have about the area.

I am so DONE of BofA.

2009-08-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

So, I posted the other day about how I overdrew my checking account. Anyway, my $100 autotransfer from my ING account posted yesterday, so I was positive again. I needed cash for lunch, so I went to the bank. I took out some cash, and I asked the teller (my friend, L) if there was going to be any overdraft charges, because I was unsure of the timing of the transactions. She said that there were no charges, because my account never went negative. GREAT! Nothing to worry about, right?

Anyway, later that afternoon, I went for a snack run and I used my debit card, because I wanted the cash on hand for lunch. I have money; there's no problem.

Today, I get in to work and check my email, and there's my daily balance email. -$32! What the hell?? So, I logged in to online banking, and sure enough, there were two $35 overdraft fees from yesterday. And looking at my balance over time on the website, my account never went negative! So, I printed out the transaction listing and such and marched down to the bank, fuming.

I went to the teller (my friend, B) who I hope to god can tell me what's going on, so I don't have to deal with the stupid bosses (E & D). Anyway, B tells me that I'm going to have to talk to E to figure this out. GROAN!

I show E my printout and ask her what's up. She says "Have you overdrawn your account before?" What the hell does that have to do with today? Yes. I have, but not for a long time. I've been good. She looks at my sheet and says "Here, your balance is negative." She's pointing at a transaction for -$5.30. I point out that she's looking at the transaction amount and show her the balance column. By now, we've made it back to her desk, and she looks more at the sheet. And says, "Oh I see what's going on."

She tells me nothing. Anyway, this is getting long. She looks me up in the computer, and she can't find anything that's not on the paper I have. Meanwhile, my friend, L, come out, because she recognized my voice. And the two of them look through the computer. Then, the big boss (D) comes out and joins us. Oh my god! All I want to know is what's going on with my account!

L explains that I was there yesterday and she said that there was money there. And D says, "No, you can't do that. You NEVER tell a customer their balance." WTF? Why not? Her explanation is that there could be pending transactions that aren't on the screeen, and L says that the screen on my computer is the same screen that we're looking at now. And that's the balance she told me. And D, reiterates that there could be outstanding transactions that don't show up. UGH.

All the while about ever 5 minutes, E or D ask me, "Do you write things down?" Um. Yes. IF I KNEW WHY I HAD THESE FEES, I WOULD NOT BE AT THIS SHITTY BANK!

Anyway, the long and the short of it is this. When you use your debit card, the bank puts the money on hold. If you keep taking out money, the holds queue up. Well, all my transactions from the weekend, queued up BEFORE my auto-transfer for Monday. So, Monday NIGHT (why they clear at night and not in the morning is beyond me) when they cleared, I was overdrawn for that INSTANT between the transactions. Thus, fees were assessed. HOWEVER, fees take two days or so to appear! So, L didn't see any fees when I asked her yesterday.

So, I'll admit that according to these backasswards rules, the overdrafts are my fault, and I'll accept any fees. I just wanted to go to the bank to figure out what happened, because I never saw an actual negative balance.

Anyway, then a huge argument between L and D erupted. L said that they should credit the fees, because it was her fault that I used my debit card yesterday, because she told me that I had money (because the computer told her I did). D said that she's not responsible, and I have to pay the fees. Anyway, I was so pissed at the end of this, I just gathered up the papers and said that I had to get back to work. I was so tired of being talked down to and yelled around. D says to me that she'll put $35 in my account. And I said "Thanks, that'll put me positive today, but I'm still going to get fees for yesterday's transactions that are now overdrawn because of today's fees." And I just stormed out. I told my teller friend, B, that I was **this close** to closing my account and that I hated BofA and that the only reason that I still had it was because the bank is in the hospital and it's convenient. She smiled and said that she understood.

So, I get back to lab, and I check my balance again online. And there's a $70 "counter credit", which I think is from when E tried to refund the fees in the beginning that didn't work. I grab my phone to text L and ask what's up. And there's a text from her saying that D put $70 in my account. I thank her, and she replies that she cried and pleaded with her and that's why. God, I love her.

Anyway, over the course of the day I started looking around for new banks. I talked to coworkers and friends online. I still haven't made up my mind completely OTHER than, I don't want any BofA accounts any more. NOT because of them charging fees that I "deserve", but because of their shitty/non-existent customer service. I'm not stupid, and I don't like people treating me like I am. Even L told me later that she didn't even understand what was going on in my account, and she said that E and D talk to all the customers like that. WTF? How do these people stay in business?

Unfortunately, it's the end of the month, so I can't change anything until after I'm sure that I get paid my direct deposit. But come September, I'm so breaking up with BofA.

Anyone have any suggestions? It seems from talking to people I know that ING and Wachovia are pretty good.

Monday Blahs

2009-08-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

UGH. I was so bad. Every morning, BofA emails me my checking account balance. I set that up years ago to help me keep track of what's going on with my money (or rather, when I get low on funds). On Friday, I had about $160. Today, I have -$12!

What went wrong? Well, I had preordered House Season 5 from Amazon when I noticed it was at $0.025/min. And I COMPLETELY FORGOT about it. I spent money on things at Target and Best Buy over the weekend, and on Sunday, I still had money. But Amazon charged me for House today, and my $100 auto-transfer from savings hadn't come in yet.

Grr. This was completely avoidable, and I feel so stupid. I haven't overdrawn my account in a long time. I think I need to stop preordering things.

New Goals

2009-08-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

I finally got off my ass tonight after work to sit down and work on my finances. As depressing as it is, it does feel good to reassess the situation and get some goals in place for the next 9 months.

First off, my Quicken file for my checking account does not match what BofA says online that my balance should be. I have no idea what's missing, but there's money there. Luckily, I took out $275 cash from my checking account back when that whole debit card drama was going on. This was supposed to be cash for visiting a friend of mine in the city (who was there on a business trip), but those plans fell through (kinda luckily). So, I've been using that cash for just about all my purchases for the past couple of weeks. I do plan to print out my transactions since my last statement and double check the Quicken tomorrow.

Basically, I revamped my goals for the next 9 months tonight. There are now two sets of goals (short term and mid term). Short term goals are for the end of this year: getting my savings accounts beefed up and paying down credit cards and loans. The mid term goals are paying off my taxes (both state and Federal) before April 15, 2010. I'm well on my way for the state taxes. Federal is going to take a lot out of me to get it done, but I know that I can do it. The big pull on the Federal taxes is going to be filing my 2009 return as soon as I can. If I'm going to get a refund, all of that will go to paying down my 2008 balance. But, I was able to get myself onto a payment plan, so I'm hoping that will get all this finished sooner.

Of course, the MAJOR goal here would be to live within my $100 per week without using any credit cards and still working towards these new goals. I'm sure that it'll be tough, but I'm used to tough. Really, I just need to get off my ass and motivate myself actually to do this. I think I can.

The new rule of DVDs (a work in progress)

2009-08-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

So, I posted last week about my purchase of Eureka DVDs. I shared my wonderful purchase and my idea of limiting myself to $1/episode for DVDs with a friend of mine. He teased me, of course, for being silly, and then I showed him my spreadsheet for calculating the cost per episode. He LOVED the idea. But suggested an improvement.

He asked me what the cost of my new DVDs was per minute. After a quick update of the spreadsheet, I was able to tell him that for both DVD sets together, it was 2.3 cents/minute. VERY reasonable.

This conversation lead to the new DVD rule. I can only let myself buy TV Show DVDs if the cost per minute is less than or equal to 3 cents/minute. I think that this is a very reasonable rule. A season of about 24 hour-long episodes for a cost of about $25 is a good guideline.

I have already figured out that this rule will not be able to movies on DVD. It's too difficult to find 90 minute movies for $2.70. But, with Netflix, I've found my impulses to buy movies has been greatly diminished.

We'll just have to see how well this rule works. But so far so good. I just realized this morning that I could preorder House Season 5 on Amazon for 2.5 cents/minute. So, I'm going to spring on that right now. But as with everything, I'm going to have to have some enforced moderation.

Fun for Cheap

2009-08-16T06:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, SS4BC and I went with my friends J&L to Six Flags. OMG! So. Much. Fun! But, amusement parks are known for sucking the money out of your in exchange for said fun. However, I think the way that we handled it was perfect.

We got discount park tickets through L's work ($25 each). Parking was $15. We rented and shared a large all-day locker ($16). We managed to get a large, good lunch for about $15/person. Plus, instead of getting lots of drinks all day long, we splurged for the souvenir cup ($13), but it came with free refills all day! So that $13 covered all the drinks for the rest of the day for all four of us. And that's all it was for spending for me. L got a snack at the end of the day and shared. And for some reason, adrenaline or excitement or the heat (who knows?), none of us were hungry for dinner.

So, total cost for me at one day of awesomeness: $51 (Plus, an extra $28.75 for me, because I paid for SS4BC's ticket and parking for her birthday)

Seriously, not bad. We would have paid around that much per person just for tickets at the gate!

The downside of living in a region of the country where the park isn't open year round (curse you WINTER!) is that it's PACKED as all hell in the Summer. And Six Flags capitalizes on this by offering "Flash Passes". For a tiny fee of $159, you and a friend can skip ahead to the front of the lines for the big roller coasters at scheduled times. If money were no object (dare to dream), I would have been on that like screams on a little girl, but I was totally okay NOT spending an extra $159 to wait in line for about an hour. Really, on one line was totally horrible in the grand scheme of things. And judging by the facts that (1) I can't talk today, (2) my face is sunburned, and (3) I'm totally sore, I'd say that we had an awesome time!

Now to relax today enjoying a lazy day with SS4BC and recuperate from all that fun.

UGH. Procrastination SUX!

2009-08-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

It's the 11th. August has totally been a huge suck on the motivation department, and I was late paying bills this month. Along with that, I have yet to balance my checkbook or enter any of said bills into my Quicken. I'm sitting here tonight sweating on my couch with the Quicken open on my PC, but I have yet to do it.

What's dragging me down? Why can't I just do it? I think that part of me is worried about what the balance will be at the end. But I really shouldn't.

UGH. I need to find some motivation. I'm dying to turn on the air conditioning, but I don't think I should.

It's just too damn hot!!

Another bit of retarded banking, but hopefully the last of it.

2009-08-11T16:47:00.000-07:00

I was in a foul mood yesterday anyway, so I went down to the bank to try yet again to change the PIN on my new debit card that I didn't want anyway.

I told my friend that works at the bank that I wanted to change my PIN, and she had me take a seat and wait for someone to help me. Luckily, D (the overall bank manager) was back from vacation, so she helped me instead of E (who is just a useless sack of hair). Anyway, D sat me down and cooed over how cool my new card looked, and I made a point of telling her that my friend made me get a new card. Well, D did the EXACT same thing that E did on Friday with the computer. And she said, "There. That should do it."

I tried my PIN with my friend the teller. Nope. New PIN didn't work... AGAIN! So, D tells me that I can change my PIN at the ATM! She waits in line with me for a few minutes, and then lets me loose when she's tired of waiting. After the three people in front of me in line finished their business, I walked up to the ATM, and 30 seconds later, I had changed my own PIN!

WTF? What's the point of even having people working in the bank? And you're seriously telling me that I could have done that myself all along WITHOUT all the retarded drama!

Thank you Bank of America for your EXCELLENT customer service! (please note the sarcasm)

Okay. So, I caved.

2009-08-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

Mother nature had it in for me today. It is so frakking hot today; I feel like I'm going to die.

Everything was fine at work and in the car on the way home. Of course, those places have air conditioning. I got home and opened the door of my apartment to be hit with balls deep heat, right in the face. I looked at the thermostat... 90oF! And that's a minimum, because the little red needle was pegged all the way up! I laid down on the bed for a while in front of the fan, but that didn't help. So, I tried my old college remedy for when we had that heat wave/black out and the temps were over 110oF in the shade. I took a hot shower, which (in theory) would cool me off when I got out of the steam by evaporating the water off my body. Well, it worked... for about five minutes. Then, I was just sweaty again.

So, I did what I had sworn never to do. I turned on the central air conditioning. I closed the windows and made sure that the vents were uncovered (meaning, I had to move my bed). I positioned my two window fans over the vents in the living room to help move the cooler air around more. But damn! It is just too damn hot!

I'm hoping that this doesn't kill my electric bill for August, and I'm hoping that this doesn't become a regular thing. My plan is to run the air conditioning just long enough to get the heat out of here and have it cooler outside. Then, I can go back to normal box-fan only mode at night. But I'm worried that the heat will just continue, and I'll have to run the a/c all the time so the cat won't melt to death during the day.

Swagbucks + Amazon.com = AWESOME!

2009-08-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

A while back, SS4BC suggested to me that I sign up for Swagbucks. Basically, you get swagbucks randomly for searching the internet using their search engine, and then, you can trade in your swagbucks for prizes. The awesomest prize on there is a $5 Amazon.com gift card.

So, I had decided that I was going to save up my swagbucks for LOST Season 5. Well, then I got sucked into Eureka, and I realized that I had enough swagbucks for $30 in Amazon gift cards. This, coupled with the fact that (a) LOST Season 5 doesn't come out until December, (b) I have had a craving for new DVDs, and (c) I would buy Eureka DVDs anyway, I decided to spend my first gift cards on Eureka DVDs.

I traded in my swagbucks for gift cards, and I discovered the downside of buying things this way (for me anyway). The conversion from swagbucks to gift cards is soooooo sloooowwwwwww, which makes the whole instant gratification of internet shopping kind of a moot point. BUT, this is good for me, because it gave me a week or so (6-10 business days, officially) to mull over my plans and decide if this is really the way to go.

Anyway, there are three Eureka sets currently available on Amazon. I was all set to buy some when over the course of about 12 hours, one went up in price by about $10! I was pissed. (Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for two gift cards to clear.) Tonight, on a whim, I decided to look again. And lo and behold, it's back down to $14.49 (instead of $25). So, I caved. I bought DVDs.

So, here's how it breaks down...

Eureka Season 1: $25.99
Eureka Season 3: $14.49
Shipping: $0.00 (YAY!)
TOTAL: $40.48
Gift Cards: $20.00
Total Paid: $20.48

I'm perfectly okay with this. Between the two sets of DVDs, there are 21 episodes. This works out to paying $0.98 per episode. I will definitely get $0.98 of enjoyment from the DVDs. If I was paying to download per episode, websites (or iTunes) would charge roughly $2 or $3 per episode. Not that I would actually pay that much, but I'm sure that people do.

Anyway, back in the day (ie. four months ago), I would have become obsessed with the show, and just bought all the DVDs at whatever Amazon price they were at the moment without gift cards, and I probably would have paid extra for the two-day shipping (an extra $12; I looked it up just now). So, I just saved myself $67 over the "me" of the past.

Now, I can relax, my need for DVDs satiated. I know that I'll buy season 2 at some point, but it was the most expensive of the three sets of DVDs. But I know now that I can wait until I have more swag bucks and gift cards.

So, yes, thank you SS4BC for the inspiration, swagbucks for the gift cards, and Amazon for working with swagbucks!

Still more retarded banking drama.

2009-08-07T15:37:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I got my new debit card in the mail. YAY!

So, today, I went down to the bank to get them to change my PIN number. I walk in and tell the teller that I want to change my PIN number. And my friend (not the teller helping me) says, "Oh, E will have to help you with that."

Instantly, I groan in my head, because E is the same chick that screwed up this whole debit card thing last week. I didn't have high hopes for this working, but seriously, how hard could it be to change a PIN?

Anyway, I sit down with E, and she starts doing things on the computer. She has me enter my desired PIN and confirm my desired PIN. Everything seems okay. I see the pop up on her screen that says "New PIN accepted". Cool. She clicks "OK", and an error message pops up. "That's odd," she says. And she does the exact same set of key strokes and menu options as the first time. I reenter and rereenter my new PIN. She clicks OK, and again, error message.

"Well, let's just go see if this worked," she says. And we walk back out to the teller line. She has me swipe my card and use the new PIN. NOPE. Doesn't work. So, we go back to her desk in the back, and she does the same things again. Finally, she calls the help desk, and she walks the person through what she did (I guess since she gave the person on the phone her IP address that the help desk person could see what was happening on E's computer screen), which means that I have to enter the PIN AGAIN. She gets the error again. And now, E is convinced that the type of card that I signed up for (that I didn't really want anyway) doesn't exist any more. But I tell her that it MUST exist, because I got the card in the mail YESTERDAY.

Now, it's been about 20 minutes, and E is confused as to why my card isn't appearing in her book of cards. So she looks it up online, which takes her several tries to find the right website. My confidence in my bank has plummeted to ZERO at this point. The person on the phone (yes, she's still on the phone) has no idea what's happening (so much for the help desk). And E tells me that I may just have to use the PIN assigned by the bank. WTF?? If I cared to use the assigned PIN, I wouldn't have come in to request to change it!

So, she asks the person on the phone if it's a problem that my account was opened in a different state. I never got exactly what the answer was, but I did get the impression that that wasn't the problem. Anyway, after about 30 minutes in the back room at the bank, the consensus between E and the help desk was that I had to use my card with the assigned PIN a few times and then come back to the bank to try to change the PIN again.

OH MY GOD! What the hell is wrong with these people? First, you tell me I can keep my same card number. Then you tell me I can't because you accidentally canceled my debit card. I have to live for a week with no debit card, and now you're telling me that I can't change my PIN until I use my card! FUCK YOU BANK!

I know for a fact that a friend of mine (married to my friend that works a this shitty bank) changed the PIN on his new debit card before he even got the PIN that was assigned by the bank! How is this possible?

So, I'm going to use my card a couple of times this weekend WITH the assigned PIN, and then I'm going to the bank first thing on Monday and trying to change my PIN again. If they can't do it, I'm going to fucking close my accounts there. What the hell? Banking should NOT be so damn retarded!

At long last!

2009-08-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

Finally, after ~~eons~~ a week of waiting, I have my new debit card. All that's left is go to the bank tomorrow and change my PIN.

Grr. There has just been way too much stress and drama surrounding my bank account this week. It's been exhausting, and I'm so glad that it's almost over.

Pimping My Brother

2009-08-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

At last!

I've been telling my brother that he needs to share his writing with the world. He's just told me that he's started up his very own blog: Ephram delMoniq: a creative blog with a dark imagination.

Personally, I'm really looking forward to reading and rereading his stuff. So, feel free to check him out. I'm sure that he'd appreciate the readers.

Retarded banking update

2009-08-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

So, I get a little thing in the mail today from the bank. I always get nervous when I get mail from the bank. I open it up and it's a notice of my NEW PIN NUMBER! Frak! That's something that I never even considered. Of course, thinking about it now, it makes sense: new card = new PIN. But seriously? I can't learn a new PIN number. I'm going to have to go the bank when I get this stupid new card and get them to change my PIN number. But seriously. I'm so annoyed by all this completely unnecessary drama just because I wanted my friend to just shut the hell up about changing my card.

UGH.

Banking Retardedness

2009-08-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

I don't know how I end up in these situations, but I do (too frequently for my taste). So, a friend of mine works at my bank, which just happens to be in the building where I work. She's also the wife of a buddy of mine with whom I work, so we all carpool (which is great, because parking is ridiculously expensive). Anyway, I like to get cash at the tellers in the bank instead of the ATM, because the ATM is retarded, and I hate using $20 bills to buy lunch from the carts at work. Lately, every time I go in to get money, she's needling me to convert my account to this special type of account that will let the bank give to a charity of my choice (of course she's pushing the HRC on me, but it's probably what I would choose for myself anyway).

Well, the other day, she was super annoying and persistent about it. So, to get her to shut the fuck up about it, I said sure do it. Thinking that she could just do it right there at the teller window and it wouldn't take long (that's the impression she gave, anyway). Well, she sends me to the back to deal with someone else (which I HATE). And I give her my info and tell her what I "want". Then my friend comes back in the back and sees that this other woman is having a problem with it. So, she says that they have all my info and I can go back to work.

A few hours later, I get a text that basically says "Don't hate me". UGH. Turns out, that the other woman was retarded, and my friend promised me something that they couldn't do (keep my same debit card number). So, she canceled my debit card and issued me a new one. Ordinarily, NOT a huge problem, but annoying. However, I had been in the process of making plans with a friend of mine from thousands of miles away to meet up after work in the city. Hmm....can't buy train tickets without my debit card! Turns out that plans with my other friend fell through.

But seriously! You can't just cancel someone's debit card without their permission! So, until I get the new card in the mail, I have to be cash only. It's not that bad, but I don't like the thought of NOT having the card, just in case. It's just extra maddening, because this is all for something that I didn't even really want. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving to charity, and the HRC is a great cause. But this is way too much stress and hassle that I didn't want.

Hopefully, my new debit card will be here soon.

I've been a bad boy.

2009-08-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

I should feel bad, and I kinda do. But I didn't realize it was the end of the month until Friday. I did realize that I got paid (thank goodness for emails from the bank when I get direct deposits). This reminded me to go get a money order for rent. I bad been thinking of trying the bill pay thing, but I didn't want to risk it cutting it this close. Anyway, I ended up watching Heroes on Hulu (the episodes expired on Aug 1, so I had to finish the season) and chatting online with friends. So, no bills got paid. Saturday, I went to work, and then I had dinner and Lost night with friends. I got home too late to worry about the bills. So today, I had to go to work again, but I took all my bill stuff with me so I could pay them and mail them and not have to worry about it. Well, as I was leaving work this afternoon, I realized that I left all the bill stuff in my desk and didn't pay a goddammed thing! UGH.

I've not been this late with my bills in a long time. So, I'm going to have to remember to pay them all in the morning with my coffee at work. I've just been feeling so lost and weird all week, so I'm not entirely surprised that the end of month caught me by surprise. But damn. I was trying to be so good.

To top this off, I had plans to write several new blog posts about things that have been going on, but I never actually got around to it. I'm not exactly tired tonight, so I may try to get some things written out tonight. But ugh. I'm annoyed with myself.

An interesting find...

2009-07-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

So, I'm bored tonight and scrolling through my livejournal (which rarely gets updated these days), and I came across a post that I thought I'd share here...

Oct. 13, 2008

Interesting. Rereading it now, I'm curious to look up these numbers and delve deeper into this, but the Quicken is on the other computer and I'm all comfy here in bed.

An excellent post...

2009-07-28T18:04:00.001-07:00

...of course, it's not mine. Dr. Faith sent me a like to This Post by Trent over at The Simple Dollar. I think that most people, or most people in my situation anyway, have had a moment like this. Maybe they don't even realize it, yet. Or maybe they're like me and living in the harsh, poor reality that they created years ago.

Ever since I read this tonight, in the back of my mind, I was searching for that moment in my history. There are lots of moments like those. I've posted before about my college spending habits, and I have to say that that is where a lot of my shit started. But was there a defining moment? I don't think in college. Well, I did buy a computer on a credit card that was top-of-the-line (for 1997). I remember years later still thinking how I was still paying for that computer. I still have it. It's in the kitchen, not hooked up, and collecting dust. I still have that credit card. I don't (can't) use it. But for a long time, the bulk of that balance was that computer.

There were plenty of things in graduate school (I swear I plan to write that post...trust me) that were horrible spending choices. I'm telling you Best Buy was the bane of my existence. Kinda still is. The most memorable was the day that a friend and I left lab early, went to Best Buy, and dropped a total of over $2000. ON A WHIM. All on credit cards. I get nauseous just thinking about it now.

Anyway, really I just wanted to share Trent's post and get you (and me) thinking about these things. One must learn from the mistakes of the past in order to grow and move forward. Oh but if I had a time machine, I'd slap myself silly. (Unless, of course, touching my past self caused a crazy paradox reaction as in Timecop.)

It's hot as BALLS in here!

2009-07-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

Summer has "officially" (finally?) arrived in the shitty state of Connecticut. And it is balls-sticking-to-your-thigh HOT. I'd complain about the humidity too, but growing up in the south has pretty much desensitized me to humidity.

So, I'm having a crisis and a battle of wills with myself (myselves?). My apartment has central air conditioning. I've never had an apartment with central air before, so I know that I don't need it. I also know that running the bloody thing will drive my electric bill through the roof. These two things are what's keeping me from turning it on. I've promised myself that I wouldn't ever turn it on, because I know how horrible my bills could get (or I fear how high they would be).

But still, sitting here at dusk in a pool of my own sweat, I'm tempted to turn the frakker on. Last night, I rearranged my bedroom furniture so that my bed could be by the window with the fan blowing directly on me. It helped some, but I still yearned for the dry frostiness of the central air.

I think I may need to break down and turn it on when Dr. Faith comes to visit. But I fear that I won't be able to make myself turn it off when she leaves.

Oh but it would be so nice not to be sweaty and gross all the time I'm at home.

**sigh**

One day, I'll be financially stable enough that I won't have to worry about spiking my electric bill in the summer and my gas bill in the winter.

History of My Wordle - Parts I & II

2009-07-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

Dr. Faith discovered this wonderful website the other day (wordle.net). I thought it would be cool to make one from my blog. The following image was created with Wordle using the History of My World Parts I and II.

I find it interesting how prominent certain words are. Really makes me think.

Seriously Addicted to Toaster Strudel

2009-07-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Since I shut down my personal website a few months back (I didn't feel like spending $10/month for something that never got updated), I needed to find a new place to host my photos. Who wants a blog without pictures? Not me!

Anyway, I got a Photobucket account, and I wanted to test it out. Here's a current shot of my freezer, just to emphasize just how addicted to toaster strudel I really am.

I seriously need a 12-step program.

Woah. Too much data in a short amount of time.

2009-07-24T19:26:00.000-07:00

So, I'm sitting here tonight, awaiting the impending thunderstorm and watching The Bold and the Beautiful, and I get to thinking about my money. Well, I was thinking about all kinds of things, really, and chatting with Dr. Faith. She's got me excited about something that I never thought that I'd be excited about (but that's for another post). Anyway, the conversation turned to finances. She pointed out to me that Debt Ninja posted about getting your free credit report today.

Of course, I check it out. Holy crap! There is a ton of information out there about me, and there was a lot of stuff that I hadn't thought of in years on there. So, I've got 29 pages of my own personal financial data to go through this weekend. Most people would yawn or scoff, but I'm excited. At first glance I've noticed a few things:

(1) I'm not as horrible as I thought I was.
(b) No one has stolen my identity.
(iii) My total revolving credit is down to 47% (meaning that 53% of my credit card debt is paid off).
(4) My student loan is kicking my ass.
(e) I (again) owe my parents a HUGE truckload of gratitude.

It's getting late, and I still want to watch these two episodes of Samantha Who?. So, I plan to tackle all this head on this weekend. I don't have to work this weekend (thank GOD), and I've got 30 episodes of Days of Our Lives to watch. So, I'm going to multi-task some major PF blogging with some hot soap watching tomorrow.

I intend to discuss my student loan in more detail, which will probably come in the form of the long awaited History of My World - Part III post. I'm going to use the summary table from the credit report to rekajigger my status bars (and possibly adjust my 2009 goals). I'm going to figure out how I'm doing on my $100/week plan for July, and figure out where my money is going this month in a more systematic way (instead of a haphazard list). And we'll see what interesting information we can gather from my credit report. I'm totally stoked.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy (for probably, and hopefully, the last weekend of my life) my one remaining bad-vice, and then settle in for some more TV.

My PF Mad Lib

2009-07-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

Yanked from Debt Ninja (Thanks, Dr. Faith for the link.)

Hi my name is Okturn DelMoniq. I currently have $1 dollars in my wallet. When I started managing my finances I was worth -$45,807, and now have a net worth of -$46,097. I currently work at a university and have been doing it for 3.5 years. I make roughly $45k per year. I want to have money waiting for me when it comes time to retire. Aside from learning about finances, I really enjoy soap operas, toaster strudel, and my cat. I think the world would be a better place if Connecticut didn't exist. I had Raman Noodles for dinner last night and it was beeftastic. I have had 30 total and 6 major significant others over the course of my lifetime (counting awkward middle school relationships). One thing that makes me different is my ability to be obsessively organized and haphazardly messy at the same time. Now that I'm done with this mad lib, I think I'm going to find something to eat in the kitchen and finish my Jean-Claude van Damme movie.

Okay, that being said, I feel like crap that my net worth went down by $290. Mainly I attribute that to the difficultness surrounding the events of June and finally getting my taxes taken care of. The bulk of my debt at the moment is my student loan ($34,575), so if we don't count that, my net worth looks much better. But still not good. But I've only been anally keeping track for about 6 or 7 weeks. There is much more work to do still.

The first step on the path to independence.

2009-07-21T17:18:00.001-07:00

I know that this isn't exactly financial-related. Well, kinda tangentially, it is. Sure, yeah. Totally!

Anyway, off and on I've been toying with ideas for independent research projects. Independent here meaning my own research idea that I can start now and get some preliminary data that are also related enough to my boss's research to justify spending her money on the project but also something that she herself doesn't want to persue, so I could take it with me when I get a job. Basically, if I can get this started, get some sexy data, and write a great grant application, I can get a job. WOO!

Anyway, I've been thinking of ideas in whatever downtime I have for such thoughts. And I was toying with sticking in the polymerase field and possibly working on polymerases related to the one on which my boss (and I now) currently work. I hadn't nailed down anything specific, but I had a jist (a couple of proteins and a vague plan). Well, in the past month, I've stumbled upon some fabulously sexy results with my current polymerase, and at the same time, discovered that two other polymerases have the exact same structure and the same key conserved residues...these residues are conserved through practically every species that has these polymerases (human, mouse, chicken, dog, bacteria, virus, etc.). It's totally awesome.

So... BOOM! I have a concrete idea and a plan. And not 24 hours before a meeting with the boss where I propose said plan, she emails me and suggests that I do my plan. AWESOME! She had the same idea, so I know it's a good one.

Anyway, this past week, I've decided is the "official" start of my independent project. And it's totally exciting, because for one of my polymerases, I have to clone it, and this is actual cloning (cells -> RNA -> cDNA -> plasmid), which I've never done before. So, yeah, I'm totally pumped on this. So much so, that I've been designing my cloning strategy tonight at home. (Yes, I am that much of a nerd.)

So, while not completely relevant for this blog, it indicates that I'm a smidge closer to being able to get a real job and do real work. It's a great feeling! =)

A Brilliant Idea? (maybe not)

2009-07-20T18:10:00.000-07:00

I was looking up the company that makes one of our instruments at work today, and this lead to some internest daydreaming. And this lead to my (probably not) brilliant idea.

I should get a job in London.

What? Work in the UK? "Hells yeah!" I thought. This isn't a fully thought through plan, or even really a plan at all. But now, it's a bee in my bonnet (not to put to fine a point on it).

Sure, there are universities in the US where I could get a professor job. But don't they need eccentric assistant professors of Chemistry/Biochemistry/Materials in the UK? This will, of course, require lots of thinking and some serious soul searching. But I'm not ready to jump on the job hunt bandwagon just yet. I have some job security (word from The Boss is that I'm not getting kicked out anytime soon), but I can't stay here forever. I do, however, need to publish two (hopefully three or four) more papers, finish up my work, and get my independent project started (I have a plan, and I'm 0.05% started already).

Now, I just have to decide...Los Angeles? or London? Hmmm. Either will be 4000% improvement over Connecticut.

It's Sunday... Where'd my money go?

2009-07-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

I have some time on my hands tonight and figured it would be a great time to get back on my more regular schedule of these posts. So, a short week...

July 15 - 19, 2009

Groceries - $10.69
7-11 - $12.85
IHOP - $12.38
Convenience Store - $6.03
Walgreens - $5.21

TOTAL DEBIT CARD: $47.16

Starting Cash: $3

Cash Withdrawal - $35

Wed. Lunch - $8
Thurs. Lunch - $8
Fri. Lunch - $8

Cash Spent: $24

Cash in hand now: $14

Not too bad. But I still spent $71.16 in five days, and considering that I haven't left the house today, it's actually been only four days. That's $17.79 per day. Yipes. My $100/week allotment comes out to just over $14/day. So, I'm dead on if I count this spending as five days instead of four. So, not so bad, really. But there's still room for improvement, I'm sure.

I'm SHOCKED! (July food "budget")

2009-07-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

Oh. My. Frakking. Gods.

So, Dr. Faith just posted an excellent blog about food budgeting. This inspired me to take a look at how much I actually spend on food.

My thoughts were this... I'm a HORRIBLE person, and I rarely eat dinner or breakfast (I know. I'll be dead by age 50.) My main expense is lunch at work and what little groceries I buy for at home snackage. My guess is that I would come in a tad over the $125/month that Dr. Faith discussed.

I just scrolled back to my recent Where'd my money go? post for the past two weeks and added up what I spent on food.

$136!

Holy crap. I spent $240 for the two weeks, so I spend 57% of my money on food? Really?? Then again, when I think about it... what else do I buy? Where does the money go REALLY?? ALL of my cash spent the past two weeks was on food ($102). $112 of the food money was spent AT work or ON MY WAY TO work. The rest ($24) was spent on actual groceries. Mind you, my "groceries" for the past two weeks were a box of cereal, 20 bottles of Powerade (this doesn't count Powerade purchased at 7-11 or at work), two boxes of toaster strudel, and things I forget from my trip on the 1st. Oh and a case of Raman Noodles for $2.

I think I could fill a swimming pool with the Powerade that I drink in a month. Shit.

Okay, things I've learned tonight. (1) I spend WAY more money on food than I think I do. (2) I should eat better.

I find myself wondering (and not just tonight) if cooking at home and bringing lunch to work would really be cheaper than buying lunch at work from the carts outside. IF my now famous (or infamous) casserole of death (it has broccoli so it's good for you, despite the fried chicken strips, sour cream, cream of chicken soup, and cheese) costs roughly $25 to make. I pulled that number out of my ass; the major expense here would be the chicken and the veggies. And I get say four lunches out of it, I'd about break even. However, I'd eat a bulk of it at home and not save 100% of casserole for lunches. So, if only half of it went to two lunches... I'd still about break even. This is how I justify it to myself that it's okay to buy lunch every day. I'm going to have to make said casserole of death to get the exact cost, eat dinner once, and divide the rest into lunch-sized portions. See, to me, the "extra" hidden cost is eating the dinner at home. If I didn't make the casserole, planning to bring it to work for lunch, I wouldn't eat anything for dinner (most likely). So, there's no money saved, and the casserole actually has cost me the money I saved on lunch by eating a lunch portion for dinner at home. But I don't know if this is ACTUALLY true, or only what I tell myself to justify my hatred of going to the grocery store.

Hmm. Lots of things to think about here. The other variable here is the dread of having to deal with the endless comments and questions from people at work who would be shocked to see me bringing my lunch to work. I hate that. On the rare (read 5 or 6 times in 3.5 years) occasions that I have brought a lunch to work, it's been a horrid experience, simply because of the comments and conversations that ensue.

Anyway, this has become rambling. (Click "Publish" you jackass!)

Laters.

Laboratory Finances

2009-07-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm going to get a little bitchy about my work. I've been absolutely IRRITATED the past several days about recent events in the lab. BUT, I feel I need to qualify this whole post by saying that (1) I love my job; I bitch and moan a lot about it, but it's the best job I've had ever and (2) I love my boss; I'm convinced that without her this job would blow major chunks, and I know for a fact that if I had my previous boss for this job I would have been fired years ago. And with that said, I do have to bitch and moan about lab finances for a bit.

Our boss announced in our weekly meeting last Thursday that one of Program Project grants from the NIH did not get renewed and that the other labs on the project decided to take the rewrite in a different direction, so our lab is no longer included. This totally blows, but is not at all catastrophic. We have plenty of money from other grants, and she's working on writing several other applications to make up for this loss. However, what this does mean is six months to a year of "conservative spending" (her term).

This was contrasted with the announcement that no one had to worry about his/her job/salary/stipend. She was going to rearrange things so everyone would still be paid. That's nice; I enjoy job security (especially after my last job). HOWEVER, she also just took on a new grad student. AND she keeps refusing to fire the bitch of the lab who deserves to be gone. Rumors have been swirling around the lab for over a year that AC would be gone "soon". First is was Jan 2009. Then, I was even told by the secretary that June 30, 2009 would be her last day. Then, the summer meeting schedule came out, and she's listed through August! WTF?

Okay, don't get me wrong. I'm all for saving money in lab where appropriate, and I do think that we've been a bit over frivolous (partly due to lack of supervision and partly do to being spoiled for the past couple years). HOWEVER, AC uses the most supply money of any one person in lab (by my rough "calculations" in my head), and she yields very little good results. I know, I'm a complete hypocrite by saying this (and I cringe looking at my typing of it), because I was fired from my last job for not bringing in enough results to justify my salary.

But this is just a simple case of her not getting along with ANYONE. Her lab meeting presentations are frequently punctuated with shouting matches between her and the boss. Her individual, bi-weekly meetings are spent arguing loudly with her. It was 2 years after she started when the boss said at a meeting (where AC was not present) that "she finally had data that she believed". AC comes in at 1130am and leaves at 4 or 430pm. She'll talk on the phone a lot of that time. She monopolizes equipment and leaves messes (fungus growing in "sterile" hoods) everywhere. She makes one of the techs do most of her work, so she doesn't have to do it. She's generally just a horrible person. She was told a year ago that she had to find her own source of money or she'd be gone. Well, she didn't get the fellowship, and she's still around. Everyone in lab has come to me separately and said "I know how to cut out a HUGE chunk of money" (or words to that effect), all meaning that AC really needs to go.

Granted, AC does not have a job lined up. She whined about being a single mom with no job, and our boss pitied her. And I've been told, that as long as I want/need to be here I can be. But the boss can not keep hiring people when people aren't leaving the lab. We're out of space!

When I joined the lab, there were 5 people regular lab members (I make 6). In the past 3.5 years, two people have left, and 9 people have joined. We're now 14 people (not including my summer high school student). The boss expects lots of work being done, but less money spent and not enough space to do the work she wants.

I have a feeling that AC really will leave at the end of the summer. There is a week on the current schedule when she's not listed, and that's an excellent sign. I really just hope that the extra work of this "conservative spending" is worth it. I trust that the boss knows what she's doing. It just makes the lab a completely different dynamic now, and I'm not adjusting well to the change.

Thank you Target!

2009-07-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

So, in writing my last post I realized two things: (1) I really shouldn't have bought two sets of Legos and (2) my one collectible vice I'm allowing myself (U.B. Funkeys) rang up at $10.99 instead of the sticker price of $3.45!

So, after posting my post, I hopped back in the car with Legos and Funkeys and receipt in my red, reusable Target bag and headed back to Target. I returned the two Legos and got the price adjusted on the Funkeys. Total refund: $30.75!

So, now I'm only over my $100/week by $40, which is so not bad for my inaugural two week period. Of course, I'm going to try better for the second half of July. Quitting smoking now would definitely save me at least $40 over two weeks. So, that's what I'm going to do. I was going to say try. But really need to DO THIS.

Granted since I picked up the disgusting, lethal habit again in November, I've been much less of a smoker than when I was going whole-hog before (3 or 4 packs/week vs. 8 or 9), but cigarettes cost WAY more now (~$7/pack), so I'm guessing that I'm spending about the same amount of money despite smoking a lot less.

**sigh** or rather **cough cough**

Okay, with this detail out of the way, I have something else that I've been thinking all evening about blogging.

Stay Tuned...

It's (DAMN!) been two weeks! ... Where'd my money go?

2009-07-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been a huge slacker with the blog lately. I hate myself for taking so much time away. But sometimes shit just happens. Anyway, in lieu of two weekly posts, let's squeeze two weeks into one post and see how I've been doing with the $100/week plan. I have no idea. I'll just have to see what the receipt jar has to say...

July 1 - 14, 2009

13th - Walgreens - $3.41 - Unnecessary candy and drinks for work.
14th - Hosp. Caff. - $2.92 - Breakfast this morning.
13th - 7-11 - $13.11 - Drink and cigs. (yes, kick me in the face for that one)
14th - Target - $60.06 - Cat litter, cereal, and a bunch of crap I didn't really need. I'm thinking that I'll return the Legos. I don't need them, and they did cost $21.47. Plus, I just realized that one thing rang up $10.99 instead of the $3.45 sticker price. I feel another trip to Target coming on tomorrow.
12th - 7-11 - $6.47 - Snacks and drinks.
14th - Groceries - $9.31
14th - Gas - $23.55
8th - 7-11 - $17.59 - Snacks & cigs.
5th - Walgreens - $31.99 - Candy, drinks, meds, & cigs.
7th - Transfer - +$100
14th - Transfer - +$100

Starting Cash = $28

9th - Cash Withdrawal - $35
3rd - Cash Withdrawal - $35
1st - Lunch - $6
2nd - Lunch - $5
1st - Groceries - $12
1st - Breakfast - $3
3rd - Lunch - $8
4th - Lunch - $6
6th - Lunch - $7
7th - Lunch - $6
8th - Lunch - $6
9th - Lunch - $5
10th - Lunch - $13 (me and JY)
10th - Drink - $3
11th - Snack - $5
13th - Lunch - $7
13th - JY for lunch on the 10th - +$5
14th - Lunch - $5
14th - Drink - $5

Cash left over = $3

It doesn't look good folks.

Total money spent = $270.41

This is $70.41 over my $100/week. And the sad thing is, I thought I was doing well with this. I'm not in dire straights, but I really need to be more careful. And I do plan to hit Target and try to get some things returned and refunded. That would help by about $30. We'll see how that goes.

2008 Taxes UGH.

2009-06-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

Due to circumstances that are mostly my fault (and will be blogged about in future posts), I owe big time money to the government (both Federal and state). I had been putting off dealing with it, because it just depresses me to think about how much money this is that I don't have. But since I got another notice from Uncle Sam the other day and today is payday, I figured better do it now.

I owe (including most recent penalties and fees)...

Federal: $3,876.88
State: $1,185.43

Yes, ouch. Big time.

Anyway, a while back, I got a horrid piece of junk mail from Capital One that promised that I could get a credit card with no interest for a year. So, on a lark, I figured that I could pay a big chunk of the debt to the government that way, and pay off the card no interest before June 2010 (one year later). So, I applied online, hoping that they'd tell me what the credit limit would be and that I could accept or decline. Unfortunately, there was no such thing. And about a week later, I got a card in the mail saying that I had a $500 limit.

Well, crap. The limit isn't really enough to pay anyone in full. So, I put it off to the side and didn't think about it.

Tonight, I figured that I'd spend the $400+ in my savings on the taxes to get the ball rolling. I looked online at the Federal website, and I saw that I was eligible for a monthly payment plan. So, I signed up for that and promised to pay $250/month (I'll probably send more), until it's done. It also says that if I am eligible for a refund for 2009 that they'll apply the refund to my balance instead of sending a refund. That will be nice, since now that taxes are being withheld (they weren't before), I'll probably be getting a small refund. So, Federal is taken care of, for now. My first payment is due in August.

As for state, no such luck. So, I went online and paid $400 on the Capital One card (for a $9.96 fee), and I used their bill to mail them a check for an additional $350, which is coming from my savings. This should bring my balance down to $435.43. That's way more manageable.

It's going to suck major ass not being able to put much money in savings, but I was only putting money in savings now to pay the taxes later. So, it evens out. Plus, I'll be reducing fees by paying the state taxes off in the next few months. And I know that I just increased my credit card debt some, but it's interest free for a year, and I can pay off the $410 in a year (well, 11 months). And I'm not going to use the card for anything else. It's already in the drawer in the kitchen and not in my wallet.

And this has been way too much dealing with money for one night. I need some Toaster Strudel.

Trying a new way to save money away.

2009-06-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

The other night, I was reading The Simple Dollar, and he posted about a two-account system for savings. And I've been thinking about this ever since in the back of my head. I think that I an adapt this for my own routine. So, here's my plan...

What I would ordinarily do is on Bill Day I'd transfer the difference of my checking account balance and my paycheck to my ING savings account. This works, but it leaves me to my own devices for the whole month with my whole paycheck. This is not always the best thing, especially when I get in one of my "shopping therapy" moods.

So, my plan is this. Once all the bills are paid, I'll transfer nearly all of my money out of my checking account into my savings leaving only $100 behind. On one day, each week, I'll set up an automatic transfer of $100 from my savings to my checking.

Hopefully, this will (a) force me to subsist on $100/week, (b) have more money in savings at the end of the month, and (c) gain a small amount of interest for having more money hang out in savings longer. Of course, the ultimate goal of this money is to pay off my 2008 taxes by the end of the year (an not go to prison). I'm planning on writing a post about the whole taxes thing later tonight, so hold on for more details.

Anyway, I'm going to enact this plan for July and cross my fingers that it works (and that I don't overdraft my checking account.

Bill Day (July 2009)

2009-06-30T16:53:00.001-07:00

Today was payday, which can only mean one thing... it's also Bill Day.

This is the first "official" Bill Day since starting my blog. I anticipate that this will be easier than usual, since I've been putting my receipts in the Quicken each week for my Where'd my money go? posts.

(1) Balance checking account

(20 minutes later...) Starting Balance: $4,016.29

(2) Ordinarily, this is where I'd transfer the difference between my paycheck and the balance to savings. But, as I'll post about once this is finished, I'm going to try something new for July. So, we'll leave the full balance where it is... for now.

(3) Bills

Rent: $925 (I posted before about my rent being annoyingly cashed late. So, today I got a money order at the bank. Luckily, I know the people at the bank really well, and they waived the $5 fee for me.)

Insurance: $75.16

Care Credit: $1,176.26 (Balance Paid in Full! Thanks Laura for the advice, and thanks mom, for the money.)

CitiLoan: $217.19
Cell Phone: $50.97
CitiCard: $170
Student Loan: $105.66
Gas: $38.45
Cable: $70.85
Electricity: $65.09
Mastercard: $131.00
Netflix: $18.01
TiVo: $13.08

Total Bills: $3,056.72

Money Left for July: $959.57

It's Tuesday... Where'd my money go?

2009-06-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

I've been off my schedule this month due to unforseen circumstances. So, here's my "Sunday" post on Tuesday. It's also the end of the month, and I've been thinking about some new things lately, so I'll probably make a few posts tonight.

It's Tuesday... Where'd my money go??

June 23 - 30, 2009

$8.99 - Amazon.com - I was week. I saw Black Sheep via Netflix over the weekend. And it was just so fabulous that I had to own it. Luckily, it was under $10, or I probably wouldn't have bought it.

$35.21 - Target - All necessities: shower stuff, mouthwash, laundry detergent, drinks ($0.79 vs. $2.25 at work), and cat litter. Plus, I had to get some new headphones, because I keep breaking the ones I have, but those were only $10.

$11.12 - 7-11 - UGH. Yes. Cigarettes. It was a 2-pack sale deal, but still. I need to quit. It's just so difficult right now.

$27.75 - 7-11 - Gas for the car. An unfortunate necessity.

$19.86 - Groceries

$12.05 - The Little Store - Drinks at work and a pack of cigs. (I should be slapped.)

$7.14 - 7-11 - Cigs again. Seriously? That's for one pack and nothing else. I remember when I was pissed that the price went up to $2.50/pack. I really need to quit.

TOTAL MONEY SPENT (Debit Card): $122.12 (ouch)

Now for the cash...

Starting cash $14

$85 - Cash Withdrawl (one $50 and one $35)
$5 - Tuesday Lunch
$8 - Wednesday Lunch
$13 - Thursday Lunch (big group lunch out for Chinese buffet)
$5 - Strawberries (big group out berry picking on Thursday)
$1 - Drink on the way home
$6 - Friday Lunch
$4 - Walgreens (needed Tums at work)
$12 - Saturday Lunch (for me and J, whom I owed for dinner the night before)
$3 - Weekend drinks
$6 - Monday Lunch
$5 - Tuesday Lunch
$3 - Extra drink at work today

TOTAL CASH IN: $99
TOTAL CASH OUT: $71

Difference: $28

Actual Cash Left: $28 YAY! Balanced.

What to do with $1,000?

2009-06-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

So, I got $1,000 from my parents to help cover the vet costs. So, where's the question? Use the $1000 to pay the vet bill. But here's my conundrum...

(1) The vet bill is $1176.26 that is on a credit card that is only usable at the vet and is interest free for 3 months.

(2) I owe a total of about $5000 in state and federal taxes for 2008.

(3) There's only about $330 in my savings account.

So, what should I do?

(a) Pay the vet bill in full and have a net loss of $176.26 in my accounts.

(b) Use the money to pay part of my taxes right now, which would reduce fees and penalties that would be accrued over the rest of the year.

(c) Put the money in savings to gain a bit of interest until I eventually use it to pay the taxes at the end of the year.

I can kind of see the up-sides and down-sides to each option. Of course, no matter what option I pick, I need to tell my mother (when she asks) that the money did go to the vet bill. But she has no clue of my overall financial status. I think that right now, I'm leaning toward paying the state taxes with this money. The state tax has the lower amount owed, and with this money and what's in savings now, I could probably pay the whole thing in July. This would mean ZERO penalties and fees from the state of CT, but no payment to federal.

Hmm. I, of course, welcome opinions and additional options. I just deposited the check today, so I'm going to have to wait a few days anyway to make a final decision on this money. I just wish that things weren't so complicated right now.

It's Monday... Where'd my money go?

2009-06-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

I was too tired last night to write this post. But now I'm home, watching The Young & the Restless (my newest addiction), and ready to pour over my spending from the last six days. Due to my busy weekend, last week's Sunday post was postponed to Tuesday. So, this is only covering from last Tuesday through today.

June 16 - 22, 2009

$9.13 - 7-11 - Yeah, it was a shitty week, so yesterday, I went out and got some cigarettes. UGH. I wish that Toaster Strudel was my only vice.

$7 - Cappuccinos - Friday's comfort lunch of pancakes. YUM!

$32.11 - Target - Target is a wonderful store that has the power to SUCK money out of me. They were having a great DVD sale. (Major League for $3.98 and House Season 4 for $18.99! I couldn't say no.) The rest was groceries, which did include the best Toaster Strudel of them all Strawberry & Cream Cheese.

$6.65 - Dunkin Donuts - Bagels for lab meeting. It's the tradition that the person presenting at the meeting in the morning buys breakfast for everyone. Seeing as how I only present about four times each year, it's not too bad.

$7.47 - The Little Store - Snacks and drinks at work. Sigh. I need to stop doing this.

$13.96 - Krispy Kreme - Donuts for lab meeting. I drive way out of my way to get Krispy Kremes for the meeting instead of walking the 1/2 block to Dunkin Donuts, because Dunkin Donuts is the spawn of Satan. Plus, everyone gets Dunkin Donuts; it's nice to mix it up. (Krispy Kremes are WAY better.)

$8 - Groceries

$14.29 - 7-11 - Yes, the shitty week required more cigarettes that I would like (ideally, none).

$84.42 - City Tax - UGH. It's once a year, and it always surprises me. But it's based off the value of my car, since my car is a POS, it could have been a lot worse.

$1176.26 - Vet Bill

+ $55.36 - Surprise settlement money

+ $1000 - A gift from my mother to help defray the vet costs.

Now for the cash...

Starting Cash: $3

$35 - Cash withdrawl
$10 - Thursday Lunch (me and a friend to whom I owed a lunch)
$6 - Monday Lunch
$7 - Coffee at Target ($6.31, but the change went in the change bucket)

TOTAL CASH IN: $38
TOTAL CASH OUT: $23

Cash left over = $15
Actual cash left over = $14

Just remembered I gave Lyndsey $1 for a lottery ticket. So, WOO! Balanced.

TOTAL MONEY SPENT THIS WEEK: $1,394.29 Of course, this is far from a usual week. But there are places were I could have definitely spent less money. And thank my parents so much for that extra $1000 to cover most of the vet costs.

Additionally this week, I blogged about this when it happened, but it's worth mentioning again here. I opened a new ING savings account with $20 for future vet costs for my surviving cat.

Also, my Amazon Prime membership was up for renewal. Since I'm curbing my spending all over the place, I decided that I'd be spending less at Amazon in general, so I wouldn't use the Prime as much. I canceled the membership and put the $79 that I would have spent to renew the membership into my savings account. It's a win-win that will hopefully pay off in the long run.

Posts coming soon

2009-06-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

I know that I'm still really new at this whole blogging thing (aside from my personal journal) and that there aren't very many people that read this or expect anything from me. But I just have to apologize for the lack of things going on with Addicted to Toaster Strudel lately. I still need to write a few more history posts, and I need to do this week's Sunday post. But today was just one of those days where it's so difficult to make myself do anything. Part of it is that I'm planning a trip to the bank tomorrow, and I wanted to write it all in one post. And part of it is that it's just been a difficult week in general.

But I'll get better. I plan to write the Sunday post tomorrow after work.

13 Hour Vet Crisis and a Plan for the Future

2009-06-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

Last night, I had to take my cat to the vet. It's been a very difficult time, and I've blogged about the details in my personal journal. But there are some financial things that I wanted to discuss that seemed inappropriate to post there.

Last night, I learned that my cat was way more sick that anyone originally thought, and he required an overnight hospital stay. I was prepared to spend a few hundred dollars getting things taken care of, but I got a that what I thought was constipation from a hairball actually being advanced cancer and at "deposit" for the hospital stay of $1,306.

I was not prepared at all for that. Even if I sold my car on the spot, I couldn't scrape up $1,300. But the vet has a credit plan, and she signed me up for it. I was approved for a $1,500 limit. The good things about this is that most importantly, the vet got paid and my cat got some help and the account is interest free for the first 3 months. The downside is that this is $1,500 in the wrong financial direction with more credit cards. But, you have to do what you have to do.

This morning, things got much worse when my cat's health deteriorated rapidly. Sadly, he needed to be put to sleep. And as awful as that was, I know that he's not hurting any more, and he's with his old pal (another cat that passed in 2005) in Kitty Heaven. Dealing with all of this is extraordinarily difficult, but still, you're at the vet and there are money issues to handle. Luckily, because he passed before the more detailed tests that were scheduled for this afternoon, my deposit was an overpayment. So the credited my account $129.74.

I talked with my parents (they were here visiting this weekend and saw him and helped when we thought he was just constipated), and they offered to send me a check for $1,000 to go to my cat's final expenses. This is an incredible gift that will definitely help off-set my costs of last night. She also demanded that I get vet insurance for my other cat.

I looked into vet insurance yesterday (ironically) before taking my cat to the vet. It sounds like a good idea on the surface. However, reading into it and how it works, it doesn't sound like it's going to work for me. Based on what I've read and talking to Dr. Faith, it looks like if your cat is in good health and needs only minor and routine visits to the vet, getting the insurance is actually costing more money than paying the vet directly. Odd. Plus, the insurance doesn't actually pay the bill. They are reimbursement plans. So, not only would I need to pay $30-50 each month in premiums, there'd be a $50 deductible per visit, and I'd have to pay the whole bill myself and then get reimbursed. For me, at this time in my life and situation, it makes more sense to open a new savings account and deposit $30-50 each month. In addition to saving the cost of the preimiums, I'd be earning interest as well. I thought about it more this morning, and that's what I've decided to do. Thirty minutes ago, I opened a second ING Savings account that will be strictly for vet funds.

Here are a couple of links that I was reading, if you're interested: Veterinary Pet Insurance and ConsumerReports: Pets & Vets, is pet insurance worth it?

Where'd my money go? (addendum)

2009-06-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

I just figured out why my cash totals were off.

I said that I should have $2 left over, but I had $3. I forgot that I started with $7.

That makes...

CASH IN: $59
CASH OUT: $50

And means that I must have paid $6 to park at work on Sunday, which was the only cash transaction that I forgot to write down.

That leaves $3 left over, which is what I have! WOO! I balanced.

It's Tuesday... Where'd my money go?

2009-06-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

I realize that I intend to do this post on Sundays, but my parents were here for the weekend. So, I'm doing it on Tuesday instead. That makes this "week" long and next "week" short. Oh well, it's blog, I'll do whatever I want. Deal with it. =)

June 8 - 16, 2009

$7.01 - Walgreens - Drinks for at work. Grr. It's a dirty habit, but I need an afternoon drink at work. But, I got $2 cash for buying a drink for a friend that didn't go to the store, so really, it's only $5. We'll balance out the cash at the end.

$9.28 - Walgreens - UGH. Snacks and drinks for work. Seriously? I'm a snack-whore, I guess.

$23.44 - Groceries - Reasonable.

$15.60 - 7-11 - Gas for the car.

$13.31 - 7-11 - A drink for the road and two packs of cigarettes. UNACCEPTABLE! I'm shaming myself right now. Really? I didn't need to spend $10.49 on DEATH! Plus, now I know that I can get my drink from the grocery store at 5/$5 instead of paying $2.19 at 7-11. That's way better! Live and learn.

$31.13 - PetCo - My cat's not been feeling well, so this is extra cat expenses, but worth it if he'll just poop already.

$10.45 - Ikea - Probably unnecessary. $2 on lions (I would have bought more, but I only found 4 in the bin). Lions are a really bad habit I should break. They're only $0.49 each, but seeing as how I have about 400 of them... I've spent roughly $200 on little stuffed lions, and that's retarded! I also got some more hangers (8 hangers for $4, not a bad deal), but I've been living without these extra hangers until now, so I probably could have gotten by without them. But I'll use them. This is what happens when the driver of the carpool wants to stop places on the way home. I have no impulse control. I'd have spent $20 on lions, if I could have found 40 of them. Retarded!!

But that's it for Debit card transactions. Not bad for 9 days. ($110.22) Okay adding it up, it sounds like a ridiculous amount of money to spend on things, when really only $70.17 were necessary. I could have not spent $40.05. Again, something to work on.

Now for the cash. Per last week, I had $7 cash.

Cash In:
$45 - ATM withdrawl
$2 - from JP for a drink
$5 - from mother for airport parking

Cash Out:
$6.50 - Monday Lunch
$7 - Tuesday Lunch
$3 - Tuesday Drink ($2.33 $0.67 into change bucket at home)
$6 - Wednesday Lunch
$7.50 - Thursday Lunch
$4.50 - Thursday Airport Parking
$4 - Monday parking at work
$2.50 - Monday Airport Parking
$7 - Tuesday Lunch
$2 - Tuesday Ikea hot dog and drink

Cash in hand now: $3

TOTAL CASH IN: $52
TOTAL CASH OUT: $50

I should have only $2 in cash, and I know that I paid to park at work on Sunday (I don't remember how much). So, I'm off somewhere. I'm still not used to keeping track of cash).

TOTAL MONEY IN: $107.36
TOTAL MONEY OUT: $244.64

The totals reflect additions and subtractions from today's mail, and those transactions aren't listed above (mainly because I wasn't sure where to list them. (+$55.36 and -$84.42)

Seriously, no more frivolous spending. **kicks self in face** But really, June is more about keeping track of things so I know how and where to change things for July and the future.

An interesting day at the mail box.

2009-06-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

So, I was planning on making some of my posts that I'm behind on tonight after I take care of some things. But I was so excited about the mail, that I had to share this before I did anything else.

At first I was worried, because I saw two envelopes from some random lawyerly sounding place. I immediately jumped to worry and dread, because I'm a very nervous and high-strung person. I opened the first one and this is what it read...

Dear Consumer:

The Federal Trade Commission...filed a lawsuit against...(long list of names). The complaint charged that the defendants were billing consumers without authorization for alleged visits to websites. Consumers saw charges on their credit card bills under the names...(long list of names). The defendants bought access to lists from a bank that provided the account numbers for more than 3 million valid Visa and MasterCard credit cards. Rather than use the lists to confirm that potential customers had valid cards, the defendants debited the cards for web site services the cardholder had never used.

The unauthorized charges were incurred by you many years ago, and you may no longer have the credit card that was charged. The enclosed check is your share of the funds collected.

...(more details that are irrelevant here).

At the bottom is attached a check for $27.68! And I got two identical letters! That's $55.36! And that's totally awesome. The sad thing is that I probably never noticed the unauthorized charges way back when. I had really bad habits, and even though I was scraping by to pay the minimums each month, I never took the time to look over statements too carefully. So now, I get a little extra money this month!

Unfortunately, this is canceled out by a third piece of mail. A statement from the city for 2008 taxes for $84.42. Luckily, the tax is based off of the value of your car, and I drive a piece of crap. So, the tax could be a LOT worse. And I have these mana from heaven checks to help offset the tax. So I'm only out $29.06 instead of the whole $84.42.

Plus, I got a late birthday present DVD from a friend, so it really was a banner day of mail today. Hopefully, I'll be able to get to some more posting tonight. I still did to do the "Where'd my money go?" and "History of My World Part III" posts. Fingers crossed that that actually happens tonight.

Frustrated as Frak

2009-06-15T08:14:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted for a few days, mostly because my parents were in town, and I'm completely wiped out. I never like to do this, but I'm posting a little snippet from work.

I'm just really pissed at my landlord. Why the hell is rent due on the 1st, and I get charged a late fee if he doesn't get my check by the 5th if he's not going to cash my rent check for weeks and weeks. It's the 15th, and my rent money is still in my checking account. For some people, this isn't a problem, because they have a month or so cushion in their accounts. But for me (and others I know), this is a dangerous thing to do, because I live paycheck-to-paycheck. If I'm not paying close attention to what's going on, I can easily overdraw my account and bounce my rent check, all because the landlord holds onto the check for weeks longer than he should. I've done this before, it's not pretty.

Luckily, I've set up Bank of America to email me every morning with the balance in my account. That's how I've caught it this time. As much as I would LOVE to actually have the $1550+ in my account like it says, I know that $925 of it can disappear in an instant. I'm contemplating enclosing a little note next time asking him nicely to cash the check promptly. I don't know if this is an assholy thing to do or not. But I may just do it.

It's Sunday... Where'd my money go?

2009-06-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

When I first started thinking about this blog, I thought it would be a good idea to sit down every night and post about what money I spent that day. In practice, this is not a good idea, because it invites failure on my part. It would just be too easy to fall behind.

So, a happy compromise was found, and here's the inaugural post of this type. For me, Sunday is the end of the week. Monday is just around the corner, and another week of work is about to begin. It seemed only logical that I should post about my spending tonight. Also, posting about what I spent where and on what is an excellent way to keep tabs on myself. If I know that I'm going to have to justify a purchase to the blog, I may think a bit harder before I actually buy it. Plus, this will make Bill Day a lot easier, because I won't have a month's worth of receipts to enter into the Quicken, as long as I enter them on Sundays along with this post. So, without further ado...

It's Sunday. Where'd my money go? (June 1 - 7, 2009)

$32.97 - Amazon.com - Timecop, Blade - Trinity, and Repo! The Genetic Opera DVDs. Yes, it's a splurge, but they were all on sale and all cheaper than the equivalent at Best Buy or Target. Plus, I get free shipping, so it's there's no extra cost. However, I need to note that this is a splurge and should not become a habit. Typically, I'll limit myself to one "frivolous" Amazon.com purchase per month; it's just sad that it happened in the first week.

$14.50 - Snacks at the movies - A friend took me to see Star Trek this afternoon for my birthday. He paid for the movie, but I felt bad (he and his wife are just as poor as I am), so I offered to pay for snacks. He gave me $5 cash for sharing.

$5.56 - Groceries - No biggie.

$26.90 - Walgreens - I went to get a new inhaler and picked up some drinks and candy for my desk at work. So, it's $21 necessary and $7 junk.

$42.99 - Best Buy - Guitar Hero Metallica. Okay okay. Yes, bad idea. But it was a present for myself for my birthday. That's okay, right??

$27.84 - Target - Okay, Target is one of my weaknesses. I can easily spend hundreds of dollars at Target without blinking. I've gotten better over the years, and this trip wasn't too bad. Household items, shower supplies, and (of course) Toaster Strudel.

$5.48 - Dunkin Donuts - Breakfast before work on Friday. **sigh** It's hard to resist the ham, egg, and cheese croissant.

$12.57 - The Little Store - That's the nickname we have for the store under the parking garage at work. This was a totally avoidable expense. I spent $6+ on a pack of cigarettes, which will hopefully be my last. I just needed to get through the weekend and get a drink for me and my friend while we were working on Saturday. The cigarette spending will disappear this week, I promise.

CASH - My major cash expense for the week is lunch at work. It's difficult to keep track of, but we'll see how we do. I started the week with whatever cash was left from last week, plus $20 cash in a birthday card. Plus a $25 birthday check from my mother. And during the week, I withdrew $50 from the bank. That's roughly $100 cash to start (following Sundays will have a more accurate cash start count), and I ended today with $7. So, where the frak did that $93 go?? Approx $7/day for lunch at work ($42). Chipping in for dinner with friends on Friday ($14) and ice cream out afterwards ($3). That's only $69. My guess is that I ate the rest ($24) in snacks and drinks at work. Holy crap!

TOTAL MONEY IN: $45
TOTAL MONEY OUT: $150.17 OUCH!

Cash remaining to start next week: $7

Here's my promise to be more frugal this coming week. Shouldn't be too hard, my parents are coming for a visit this weekend, and they'll likely at least chip in for some expenses.

History of My World - Part II

2009-06-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

I was just sitting on the deck with the laptop, headphones, and a cigarette (yes, quitting is still a goal) trying to get comfortable to start Part II of my financial history. The rain is nice and relaxing; however, it's just too chilly to get comfy outside to focus. Now, I'm snuggled in my bed with blankets and Shamus the Bedtime Whale. That's spelled like Shamu but pronounced like Seamus (an Irish dude's name). The Captain just joined me on the bed, and that can only mean one thing: it's time to get serious about blogging. So without further ado...

Part II: The College Years (mid-1990s; Age 18-22)

Unlike the majority of people I went to high school with, I decided not only to go to college but to go to college and NOT live at home. This without a doubt can be counted as one of the best decisions I have made in my life. It's just one of those things. Being raised to be independent, I needed to get out on my own. I moved out of my parents place, and really, never went back.

College was a fantastic time in my life with many, many personal discoveries and life decisions. Most of the talk of college isn't really appropriate here, and I think that most people that go away to college have similar experiences on some level. It really is about getting out on your own, meeting people, gaining knowledge (both book learning and life learning). Of course, what I'm going to focus on is my financial learning, which save for a hard-earned C in Economics class my senior year is real life learning. Unfortunately, the real learning for me happened in retrospect years later.

Right off the bat, I have to say that NONE of this would have been possible without my parents. My story would have been very, very different had they not made the choices for me that they did. During the early years (discussed yesterday), my parents were socking away money for college for both me and my brother. Having grown up and done the college thing themselves, they knew that my brother and I needed the college fund as well as a college education. I got a small scholarship that paid a portion of my tuition (as long as I maintained a 3.2 average). The rest of everything was paid for by my parents. They told me several times that the didn't want me distracted having to worry about money for school or having a job and wearing myself out. The ultimate goal was for their son to get an education and join the world with no debt from school. I will be forever grateful for this, and I don't think that I really thought about this much during my time at school. Unfortunately, I don't think I fully expressed my appreciation to my parents for their hard work behind the scenes of my education. I'm going to have to rectify this.

Even today, I'm not entirely sure how my parents managed to pay for four years of a private university for me (and my brother). But this is what I do remember. I had offered to take out student loans to help out, but they insisted that I not do that. Instead, they paid my tuition, room, board, books, etc. on their Visa card. It seems kind of insane to do such a thing, but they had a scheme. Their Visa card gave them points for air miles and miscellaneous things, which they needed and used. Then, they paid off the balance in full each month from the college fund, which netted them very few finance charges. Pretty, smart I think.

Anyway, how this relates to me, I really had nothing to worry about financially in my first two years of school. I lived in the dorm and had a meal plan through the university. My parents paid for bills and supplies. And then there was The Credit Card. Given to me again to cover emergency expenses, groceries, trips to Target, and what not. Also, my minuscule savings account from high school had money place in it for when cash was needed. Looking back on it now, this was the perfect set up for me -- had I not been an ungrateful brat at the time.

Quickly I developed abusing schemes involving The Credit Card. The mini Post Office at the local grocery store sold money orders that could be paid for by credit card. I joined a mail order CD club, and paid for my CDs with money orders bought with The Credit Card. Receipts from which were marked as from the grocery store. So, all the parents knew was that I was buying groceries, which was an approved use of The Credit Card. I do believe that sometimes, I'd use The Credit Card to buy groceries for friends in exchange for cash, as well. Eventually, the mini-PO stopped selling money orders on credit cards and that scheme ended.

At the end of my freshman year, I was approached by one of my professors about doing some summer research. Faced with the facts that (1) I didn't want to go back to my parents' house for the summer, (2) I really loved science, and (3) I wanted/needed extra money, this was a win-win-win situation. My parents loved the idea as well, and thus I started spending summers at school working in the lab. During the school year, I got class credit and I was paid in the summers, and I never had to live with my parents again. That first summer, I had to move out of the dorm and into a house with five strangers (I sublet a room from a guy I found on a message board for the summer). I reiterate that this was another great decision. Not only did I gain work experience and stay away from "home", I met one of my best friends of my whole life that first summer. We're still friends to this day. And seeing as how I was living at school for the summer, learning and working, my parents were happy to pay the rent for the summer. My pay check paid for me to do fun things or buy groceries and stuff.

The next year was back into the dorm, and really nothing of too much consequence financially. Other than to say that sophomore year is when the smoking really kicked into high gear. I dabbled at parties and social things my freshman year. But that second year, it was apparent that I was addicted. I'd go out and talk with friends in the 10 minutes between class and smoke. I'd smoke on the way to class, on the way home, on a break from research, and pretty much whenever I got the chance. It never really occurred to me at the time that this could end up being a huge mistake. It was cool, I felt cool, and it was something that my parents definitely would not approve of. The Credit Card was often use to buy cigarettes at the grocery store. I distinctly remember when the price of cigarettes was jacked up in one swoop during college. All of sudden they were $2.50/pack! I thought of quitting, but didn't. Now, $2.50 sounds like nothing as I pay about $6.75/pack now. What a waste.

Moving on, junior year, I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment with friends. My parents thought that since they were paying for the dorm and meal plan and rent and groceries were cheaper that they'd pay for it as well. Looking back, I really was a spoiled brat and didn't appreciate how easy I had it. This makes me sad now, and I wish I could go back in time and kick my own ass. Junior year was also the time when I was introduced to my own credit cards for the first time. Again, the thought was, I'll have a "real job" later and can pay it all off in the future with no problem. I understand that this is a common thought for people, but it's oh so horribly wrong. Nevertheless, I dove head on into consumer debt. By junior year, I was getting regular lectures about the proper use of The Credit Card, and there were many fights between my mother and I on the subject. I was working on not using this card, and since I had several (yes, several) of my own, there wasn't too much of a problem. Quickly, my tiny credit limits were maxed out (~$500-1000 each over 3 or 4 cards), and I was stuck. So, I'd have to use The Credit Card again, which would lead to another lecture/fight. It really was a downward spiral.

And what, you might ask, did a 19/20 year old man-boy buy on credit? I don't even remember. Computer games, porn, clothes, alcohol, cigarettes. NOTHING that I still have now (with the exception of one porn magazine kept for sentimental reasons). That's the awful truth. I got in huge debt for really no good reason, except for the fact that I wanted things.

My senior year was a bit more of the same. I moved to a different apartment with different friends (my friends from the junior year place were no longer my friends after living with them for about 3 months). I kept spending and paying minimums. I started my VHS collection (DVDs were still years away). I had my part-time employment through my major department, which paid for some minimal spending money. My junior year, I got a second part-time job at a local government research lab, and this helped the money in-flow some. But at this point in things, I was already at the point where I was paying everything into the cards and then having to use the cards to buy things.

Unfortunately, I learned nothing about my personal finances during college. It's really only been in the last 6-7 years that I've learned my lesson, and even today, I'm still trying to dig myself out of the mess I created 15 years ago.

After graduation, I decided to move across the country and go to graduate school. My birthday just happened to be around graduation time, so as a combination birthday/graduation present, my parents bought me a car, paid for my move to California, and helped me get settled in my new place. This was all given to me with the explicit words that I was now "on my own". My brother was going to be starting college soon, and he was going to get the same treatment I did. This meant that there was no way they could pay for me. Being 22 years old, I was fine with that.

Now officially on my own, started the third part of my story: graduate school -- a story for another day.

Lessons Learned Part II: The caveat here is that I didn't learn these lessons during this time. It was only on dealing with the future that was created did I learn.

(1) Credit Cards are good, if you can manage them correctly. I thought this was the case and that I just wasn't doing it right.
(2) My parents were awesome, and I was very lucky. I don't think that I really learned this completely until tonight.
(3) Smoking is expensive, but manageable, because it's cool.

Next Up: Part III - Graduate School

Some Goals for 2009

2009-06-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

If you noticed over the past hour or so, I've been updating the Strudel Trackers with some actual numbers and goals. For 2009 the goals are all about debt of some form or another.

I have four sources of debt right now. Credit Card, Student Loan, CitiLoan, and my 2008 Taxes.

Basically, the student loan is inconsequential in the long run. It's a huge loan (more on this in the coming days), and my monthly payment is only $105.66. As long as I pay it each month... no problem.

Credit Cards: A topic to be discussed in more detail in future "History of My World" posts, since it is a prevailing theme in the horrors of my financial past. Currently, I'm down to only two credit cards only one of which I can actually use. The Mastercard is closed and being automatically paid every month. The CitiCard used to be that way until a while ago when my "good payment history" allowed them to open it again. As of January 2008 statements I owed a total of $10,394.74. WAY down from past highs (again, more later), but still high. Upon looking at what I typically pay each month, I've set the goal to pay a total of just under $4,400 in 2009 to get the total debt down to $6,000. After paying the June bills, my total balance is now $9,694.69. So, I've paid $700.05 so far in 2009, and for the first time in a long time, my total balance is down to four digits! Go me!

The CitiLoan: The reason behind this loan is ridiculous and worth of more discussion in future posts, but the short version is at the end of 2007, I took out a $7,500 personal loan from Citibank. At the end of 2008, I restructured the loan to get roughly another $1000 from Citibank. I can't find a current statement, so I don't know what the total balance is right now. But this loan seriously damaged my finances. So, a goal for 2009 is to pay this down. I hate that I had to take out this loan, but there were no other options at the time. My minimum monthly payment is $217.19, so the goal for 2009 is to keep that up and pay off roughly $2,700 of this loan. Since I've paid for six months, I'm half way there.

My 2008 Taxes: This is another horrible situation that I've found myself in. Okay that's putting myself in a passive position, which isn't the case. We'll talk a lot about the taxes and the horrors of being blessed with an NIH fellowship. But for now, just accept that I owe roughly $5,000 in taxes to both Federal and the state of Connecticut. The goal for 2009 is to pay my taxes, which for the most part is going to involve frugality and throwing every spare dollar and penny I get into my savings account in hopes of getting it all taken care of by the December 31 deadline. In the grand scheme of tax evasion, I'm small potatoes, but the idea of prison does not sound good to me at all. Basically, my savings account is what I paid into it on Sunday, so there's a long way to go on this one. The goal for 2009 is to get $6,000 to pay the taxes and start rebuilding the savings account for what it's actually for--saving money.

There's one more goal. It's not entirely financial, but it does involve money. I need to quit smoking (again). Another thread throughout my history, and there definitely will be more on this later. But smoking is gross, addictive, expensive, and can kill me, so it's got to go. I'm going to start this month, so I'm hoping to get this kicked over the summer. Part of this blog will be about that as well.

So, there you have it. My 2009 goals: pay down debt, quit smoking, and don't go to prison.

A Good Start (well, a start)

2009-06-04T17:53:00.001-07:00

As a first run at getting this PF blog up and running, here's my thought. In my original thinking, I would have started this on May 31st to go over my bills and my routine, but I dawdled and hemmed and hawed. So, we'll just have to be content with doing this a week late. Sue me.

So, the best place to start this off is to present my routine. I've been working in academia for quite some time, which typically means a monthly paycheck instead of biweekly (which I understand is how "normal" usually get paid). When this started for me, it was a bit of a shock -- having access to a month's worth of money all at once was exciting, but it wasn't until I ran out of money mid-month a few times to get in the habit of getting myself under control. So, here's what I do.

I get paid on the last working day of the month. That evening, when I get home from work, I balance my "checkbook" (I use Quicken, so it's all electronic... no book.), and pay ALL my bills at the same time. This was the key for me that I learned a while back to avoiding overdrafts and late fees (for the most part). Now, all my bills are due between the 1st and the 15th or 16th of the month, so it's a bit easier. Used to be that some were due before I was paid, so those were always late. But more about the past later.

Moving on... Here's what happened last Bill Day:

Checking Balance: $3229.92
June 2009 Pay: $2906.30
Difference: $323.62

This difference is immediately transferred to my ING savings account, which (in theory) should earn me some interest. This also forces two things: (1) forces me to save money and (2) forces me to subsist for the month on only my paycheck. This I have learned is a good thing.

The next step is to pay all the bills and see what's left for the month:

Rent: $925.00
Gas: $41.02
Cable/Internet: $70.85
Electric: $64.16
Cell Phone: $51.17
Insurance: $75.16
CitiCard: $150.00
Mastercard: $131.00
Student Loan: $105.66
CitiLoan: $217.19
Netflix: $18.01
TiVo: $13.08

And that's it for monthly recurring bills. Mastercard, Netflix, and TiVo are automatically deducted from my account each month on a set date, so all I have to do is note it. Most bills I can pay online, which saves checks and stamps. Getting this nailed down took me several months. I keep an Excel file with all my bills listed out with URLs, usernames, and passwords, so each Bill Day, I simply have to go down the list clicking and paying. It only takes about 90 minutes to go through the whole routine, and it spends about 1/3 of my monthly pay. It's depressing, but really it's just one really painful day followed by 30-ish days of not having to worry about it. This really works for me.

History of My World - Part I

2009-06-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I really wanted to do with my PF blog was to tell my story. I've had some high points and lots of low points. Mistakes were made. But instead of one really long post, I figured that I'd post in chunks. So, over the next few days, we'll get the history of my world.

Part I: Life in the DelMoniq House (Birth - Age 18)

This will likely be the shortest chunk of history (but cover the most time). Honestly, I don't remember too much about my childhood--good or bad. But we'll see what I can dredge up from the bowels of my brain.

Of course, being a child/teenager, I was under the direct financial influence of my parents and, for the most part, was completely supported by them financially. I'd definitely classify our family as middle-class. I'm not entirely sure what that means in "real people terms" but for me that means we weren't wealthy. We didn't live in a mansion and have servants, but my parents owned our home, and I have no memory of ever lacking any of life's necessities (food, shelter, clothes, etc.). I do remember being embarrassed, because the latent-hippie in my mother would make clothes for us when I was really young.

Ingrained in me from as early as I can remember was the fact that one had to earn his/her own way in life and should never expect things to be simply given to him/her. Well, when you're 10 years old, this is a HUGE bummer, because you don't get an allowance. No matter how hard I begged and presented case after case of friends at school that got allowances, I never got one. My brother and I were told that if we wanted/needed money for things we had to do chores. Different chores had different monetary values, and we could do things around the house to earn the money we needed to go to that movie with our friends, for example. This worked very well except for a few major flaws (most memorably from my high school years). My brother would frequently decide that he didn't really want the money enough to justify what ever chore was expected of him, and he opted not to do the chores. This typically lead to yelling, because for my parents it wasn't so much about teaching their two boys about financial responsibility as it was about them not wanting to do the chores themselves. So, after a while, my mother would talk me into doing whatever chores my brother was supposed to have done. The second major flaw was that my mother never seemed to have cash on hand for payment for said chores (never mind the fact that I was expected to do my brother's chores without compensation). She said that she was keeping a tally of things that I had done around the house and monies that I was owed. Very rarely did she ever pay up. **sigh**

This lead to the very awkward high school job hunt, for me. I remember applying to Burger King, and I actually got an interview. Of course, believing (as my father frequently told me) that the world revolved around me, my interview skills were quite lacking. Turns out that honesty is not always the best policy in job interviews, especially when you say that you want spending money and to get out of the house and away from the parents instead of saying that you really like Burger King burgers and want to be part of the fast food community or some other bullshit.

Eventually, though, I learned (some), and I landed a job at a department store at the mall. Ah yes, the naive, young Okturn folded clothes and such for hours on end, often helping clueless mothers pick out outfits for their teenaged sons that were "about your size". This job was great, because I did make some money and get some real world experience. This included the realization that seasonal help was NOT a long-term part time job and that creepy old men that work at department stores like to hit on younger guys by smacking their asses with hangers.

The downside of the high school job was that I was sucked in to the 25% employee discount (10% off at other stored owned by the same parent company). Nearly all of my pay went back into the coffers of the Dayton-Hudson corporation, and I got some really awesome early-90s fashions for my closet.

This also lead to my first taste of credit cards. Dut-duh-duuuuhh (dramatic music). But to get the full thrust of the credit card talk, we need to dial back a couple years.

Picture it... suburban Chicago, 1992. I'm offered a great opportunity as one of the honor students in the school district to travel Eastern Europe, recently after the fall of the Iron Curtain. It's a great opportunity, and my parents were all for it. Nine cities, six countries, 18 days, no parents. At 16 years old, this is an AWESOME thing (hell at 33 years old, I'd still kill to do this again). This trip introduced something into my life that would last for the next six or seven years -- The Credit Card. I use capital letters instead of just the credit card, because this was not just my introduction to credit cards as a financial concept. This was The Credit Card.

To explain... on top of the trip adviser recommended traverlers cheques, my parents decided that it would be a great idea to give me a Visa card. This card had my name on it, but it was not my own account. No. This card was linked to my mother's Chase account, and with her excellent credit The Credit Card had an unholy credit limit (I wouldn't learn the exact limit until years later, so you'll have to wait as well for that bit). The Credit Card was given basically for emergencies, but they trusted me.

In high school, The Credit Card was never a huge issue. I think, if I remember correctly, I gave The Credit Card back to my mother after the Europe trip. However, the spending habits of my parents that I watched and absorbed throughout the flourishing 1980s and early 90s really was a lesson that in retrospect should not have been learned.

I mentioned that they taught us that we needed to earn our way in life. However, my parents did not practice what they preached. I don't think that my parents over-spent themselves to financial ruin or anything that dramatic. But we always had the latest gadgets and electronics. My parents remodeled every house we ever lived in. And there were frequently new cars and such high ticket items being purchased. Hell, we had internet in our house in 1993! Not many of my friends at the time could say that. We had several computers when most people had none. So, really, instead of completely embracing the "earn your money" lesson, I rather learned that really, anyone could get whatever he/she wanted as long as he/she had a little piece of plastic and promised to pay for it later.

One non-financial lesson from my early years (that has direct bearing on my financial life now) was how to be self-sufficient, independent, and take care of myself. I guess that's three ways of saying the same thing, really. But seriously, by the time I was leaving home for college, I was cooking dinner for myself, if not the whole family, several nights per week. Doing my own laundry and caring for my younger brother on my own. Well, I had been de facto babysitter for my brother since I was 12. Some people that I've shared more personal details about my young life have said that this is a result of bad parenting or lazy parenting. I've even been told that my parents shouldn't have had children. I can't say that I completely disagree with that assessment, but my parents' parenting is not what this is about. The end result, and I'm glad this is how my life was (now), is that I'm a rather independent person for the most part. I may not like doing "grown-up" things, but I know what to do and how to get things done without relying on my parents. And that is definitely a good thing.

Lessons Learned in Part I:
(1) Earn your way in life; don't expect to be handed money/things.
(2) Credit cards are good (although the full thrust of this lesson had yet to hit home for me).
(3) Independence.
(4) My parents favored my brother over me (whether this is real or imagined is subject of debate, but this is from MY perspective).

Next up: Part II - The College Years

Welcome to Addicted to Toaster Strudel

2009-06-03T20:31:00.000-07:00

Woo! My first blog post on my new blog. I'm on the cusp of falling asleep (after working the past few hours on customizing and setting up and tweaking the blog), so this is just a quick welcome message and promise to do my best to start the "real" blogging tomorrow.

On of my dearest friends friends writes her own personal finance blog, and a while back, she suggested that I join in and write about myself and my trials and tribulations with my personal finances. She suggested a couple of blogs to check out: Give Me Back My Five Bucks and The Simple Dollar. I spent some time considering this idea, talked it out with the cats, felt intimidated by other bloggers, and then ulitmately decided that I had something to contribute. Thus, tonight, "Addicted to Toaster Strudel" was born.

As with finances, it's good to have goals, and I'm going to start this off with what my goals are for this new venture of mine. This is going to be a way to hold myself accountable for my finances and to set and to monitor my financial goals. Also, I'll be posting my own personal history struggling with money and working on being able to live more comfortably and responsibly with my money. I'll do my best not to get sidetracked with non-finance related things and save those posts for my personal journal.

I hope that by narrating and sharing my own financial life that I'll be able to think more objectively and critically and my highs and lows and to keep track of myself and my money more effectively.

Also, please note, that I'm a scientist by trade, a writer by desire, and that I got a C in my college Econ class by shear force of will and a butt-ton of luck.

(Side Note: The Strudel Tracker bars to the right are by no means accurate right now, because I'm too tired to go to the other computer and look up some actual numbers. This should get fixed with a new post tomorrow evening.)