This is not a catch or creative title.

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.

Porn. Probably NSFW, but there are no pictures.

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.

The new rule of DVDs (a work in progress)

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.

Swagbucks + Amazon.com = AWESOME!

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!

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

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.

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

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.