TinapBeana's Blog: Money Wars!

Yeah, buddy!

Walked in to the office today, and the paint fumes were so thick you could almost cut them with a knife. I work in one of those office complexes w/ brick buildings, 4 suites per building 2 on top 2 on bottom. We're on the bottom and they're renovating the other 1st floor suite: 2 months of banging drilling, and yelling. Yeehaw...

They started painting on Friday. The fumes were noticeable, but not horrible (had the windows open in the afternoon). Today, though, it could almost make your eyes water. Plus, the windows aren't open and the heat is cranked way up. OMG I THINK MY HEAD IS GOING TO FLOAT OFF!!!

Woohoo!!! Yesterday was my first consciously chosen and worked for no-spend day since I joined SA!!!

Now, there may have been no-spend days over the past month, but there was no thought behind the action you see. Yesterday took will-power.

I cooked breakfast and dinner and chilled around the house during the day. The cats were almost out of food and were starting to look restless. I had to give 'em a little somethin' or else they might have killed me in my sleep. So, they munched on beef scraps generated when I trimmed the round roast. Cats: pacified.

Last night we had been invited to a fight party (Meriweather vs the guy who lost) by one of the cigar store customers. Free drinks, free munchies, free cookies! And they paid for the pay-per-view for the fight, too!

Then, temptation reared its ugly head again.

Green felt, clinking chips, and cards as far as the eye could see. The room was kinda small, so I'm being realistic. Anyways, they were getting ready for a night of poker. $40 buy-in.

NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

DH hopped right on in. (aside: DH finished the night $20 ahead, too!)

I had cash, but some of it was $1s alloted to the change and buck bucket. I wanted to play, and DH even offered to spot me my buy-in (so I could have started out for free!). And I almost did it too...

But no, will-power and determination won out in the end. I knew that, though I might start playing for free, the chance of losing my money was still there. Losing money is the same as spending money on a no-spend day.

Right? If not, then I may just start lightly kicking myself...

--UPDATE--

ANY SMILIES WHOSE CODE STARTS WITH A COLON : AND p OR o WON'T WORK PROPERLY, BECAUSE THE COLON : PLUS p OR o GETS INTERPRETED AS AND RESPECTIVELY

here's the built-in smilies from the forums:

GENERIC SMILIES


ACTION


ANGRY


CHEEKY


CONFUSED
: : : : :

COOL
arty-smiley-003: arty-smiley-021: arty-smiley-047: arty-smiley-050: opcorn:

COSTUMES


COUNTRIES


MISCELLANEOUS GRINS
: : :costumed-smiley-073: : : : : : : : : : : : :
: : : : : : : : : : : : arty-smiley-048: : :

LAUGHING
: : : : : : : : : : : :

LOVE


OTHERS
hmy: : arty-smiley-048: : h34r: : : : : : : : :grinning-smiley-036: : : : : : : : : : :costumed-smiley-073: : : : : : : : : : :

FEELING SICK
:vomit-smiley-003: :vomit-smiley-005: :vomit-smiley-006: :vomit-smiley-007: :vomit-smiley-009: :vomit-smiley-011: :vomit-smiley-015: :vomit-smiley-020: :vomit-smiley-023: :vomit-smiley-001:

SAD


SHOCKED
06: 12: 13: 17: 18: 20: 23: 39: 03:

And yes, it is in that order!

Date Night
Well, last night wasn't intended to be a date night, but that's OK. After work DH and I hung out at the cigar store for a while. Turned out to be a good thing, b/c my accountant is a customer there and he popped in for an hour or so. He likes to 'talk shop' as it were, so I took the opportunity to pump him for information at no charge! *evil grin* The down side is that we wound up writing him a check to cover work he did for another friend of ours. Interestingly, this friend is also DH's boss, so we'll see how that works out.

Other activities at the store included setting up DH's 401k and dropping me from his benefits for next year. Got my own, you see.

After the store we ate at Wendy's. How romantic! Actually, it was kind of nice, b/c I can't remember the last time I sat in a restaurant and had a burger and coke (ok, diet coke). Absences makes the heart grow fonder, I suppose.

From there we headed to an irish pub to meet aforementioned boss-friend. Beer, darts, and a blues band. Gotta love it!

Beef Stuff
After sausage biscuits, brown sugar oatmeal, and homemade cocoa this morning, I decided to pretend to be productive. While working on organizing my freezer this am, I came across an angus bottom round roast I'd gotten on sale, 60% off. I decided to make something with it and had no clue what I wanted. So, I defrosted it, seared it 15 seconds on all sides, and plopped it in the crock pot with salt, pepper, and mad crazy garlic. Added 1.5 qts of water and the juice from 1) a jar of pearl onions and 2) a jar of sliced mushrooms. I had visions of beef & barley soup (oh my!).

A little later DH walked in the kitchen and said something to the effect of "MMMMM, beef stew....". Dammit, man, I started getting visions again! Now I was seeing a big pot of mashed potatoes, beef stew, and potato cakes in the morning. Beef & barley will have to wait. I strained the broth, cut up the roast, and added beef, pearl onions, and 3 cut up potatoes back into the crock pot. Dehydrated veggies will join them in about 30 min, then a bit of cornstarch, then the feasting begins. WOOHOO!!

Feelin' Stupid
DOH! While puttering around upstairs I noticed that the storm window in the bathroom was up. 'No wonder it's been chilly when I get out of the shower' I thought to myself. So, I close it up, and realized maybe it would be a good idea to check the rest of the windows upstairs: there are 9 total, but one is completely blocked off. Of the 8 left, only 2 had their storms down. ACK!!! The windows directly behind our headboard might as well have been wide freakin' open! Geez....

So yeah, I'm feelin' stupid. The good news is, it should be much warmer up there now!

OK, Lau gave me the courage to load 2 pictures of my backyard I took yesterday morning

First the Good: this is some of the foliage in my side yard. The second story window (which you might not be able to see)is my BR.


Now the Bad: This is my 'greenhouse'. HA! Told you the property had yard issues... This building has been nicknamed "The Crack Shack"

Been reading around in the blogs, and what with the holidays and New Year's coming up fast, there appear to be a lot of folks thinking about getting into a healthier lifestyle. Eating better, exercising, etc.

So I was thinking: what if we had a $20 Health Challenege for 2007? Set goals for yourself and an amount you would pay into your challenge money when you meet those goals. Like Ima does right now paying herself when she walks on the treadmill?

You could even throw a curve-ball in there too: you have to fund unhealthy stuff by using the challenge money. Want chocolate cake? Pony up some Challenge Money. Gonna rent pay someone to do yardwork instead of doing it yourself? Have to use Challenge Money.

I dunno, the more I thought about it the more I thought it might be interesting. Funny, in the 'normal' world, folks make themselves pay when they do something bad! HA!!!

Anyways, let me know what you think.

Sad but true, ya'll: my house would be cleaner if I didn't live here. Granted, it would still be cluttered...

See, as I dust mopped my staircase I started wondering "where the heck does all this junk come from?!?". So I hunkered down and took a closer look.

There's some sand, which means I need a front door mat. Bah, will have to fight the temptation to get a cutesy holiday one! But without doubt, the biggest contributions to the dust elephants on my stairs were some really long hairs and, um, skin. sorry, gross i know!

I have really long hair and really dry skin. I mean bad dry skin: I itch as soon as I towel off from a shower, and I have friends who say I'm the only ashey white girl they know! Anyways, with long hair and dry skin, apparently I shed a lot. Everywhere, all the time.

And that is why the house would be cleaner if I didn't live here. If I could get DH and the cats out, too, my house would be immaculate!

Dear readers, it is that time of day again. Time to curl up with one's coffee, one's thoughts, and one's cat inside one's jacket.

I'm being serious: my cat just crawled inside my fleece. I think she has womb issues (at age 7).

At any rate, the day is winding down, I've caught up on blogs and threads (is it just me or was it quiet here today?), and now I'm settling in.

I'll start off with the "coincidence", since I think that's what some might be most interested in *grin*. Tonight is DH's pool league night, so it's pretty much an evening apart. DOn't worry, it's by choice: I can go if I want, but all there is to do is sit there for 4 hours and watch people play pool. Once you've done it a couple of times, it starts to lose the thrill...

Anywho, DH asked me to meet him at Zaxby's on my way home from work so we could have dinner before he went to pool. He paid out of his allowance, and that's the third time this week. The house and I haven't had to pay yet. Hmmm.

But wait, the plot thickens. During our dinner DH somehow manages to bring up both the move "Bad Santa" and the fact that I haven't changed my last name, all in the course of casual conversation. I throw this out to you, readers. Is it coincidence that DH is bringing up topics that I have discussed online within the past week? More specifically: what's up with the "Bad Santa" reference? I dunno...

Anywho, on to more mundane blogging topics.

Went grocery shopping today since I pulled grocery/allowance money out early this week (it was payday, I was at the bank, I'm weak). As some of you have read in the threads, I got a great deal on a a bunch of meat. Over 10 lbs of steak and bacon for around $30.

As you probably have figured out, I'm not a vegetarian. Personally, I firmly belive that cows, pigs, and chickens would kill us all if given the chance Actually, I do have a general philosophy on eating meat, but that's another topic for another day.

To go with my meat I soda (sale) OJ (sale) coffee creamer (sale + coupon) bread (sale) organic fries (sale) chicken (reduced for quick... sale) and glad press'n'seal freezer edition (on sale and needed, what with 10 lbs of meat to deal with).

Anyone care to guess what I did at work this afternoon between database issues? Gotta love having sales papers online!

In addition to my sale items I got crushed tomatoes, local dairy milk, sage, garlic powder, wild rice, hulled barley, and split yellow peas. Combine this with the fact that it's going to hit freezing here in the next 2 days, I think I feel a soup coming on.

So there it is. I spent, I saved, I wondered at the coincidences.

I started stashing the change and dollar bills from my allowance 10/12. Here's my progress:

----------------------------------------------
PREVIOUS TOTAL
----------------------------------------------
  $49.43 total as of 10/26
- $ 4.04 reward on 10/30 for meeting

1W1G #2
--------
  $45.39
----------------------------------------------
THIS WEEK
----------------------------------------------
  $27.00 dollar bills
  $ 4.25 quarters
  $ 1.20 dimes
  $ 0.20 nickels
  $ 0.19 pennies
--------
  $32.84 total this week
----------------------------------------------
  $78.23 total as of 11/02

$15 of this week's dollar bills were poker winnings.

... is that I don't leave the office to go get food!

What I mean is that when I bring my lunch to work, I sit at my desk and eat. I don't actually take a lunch hour, which means I'm putting in 9 a day when it's neither needed or required.

It's a little too chilly to go to the park, so I need to brainstorm a bit.

You know, it would be great if someone opened a brown-bag friendly cafe! Go to lunch with your friends and it would be OK to bring your own food...

Bluh.

Catchy, huh? Anywho, I'm feeling not quite great right now, which I'll rant about in a moment. First, let me cover

Why I feel 'ducky'
I had to drive 359 miles round trip (6 hours total) today to make a yearly on-site visit with one of our software clients. The visit took about 1.5 hours, and involved performing the same computerized maintanence we perform every month from 350 miles away... At any rate, after breakfast coffee lunch and gas the trip cost me right around $40. Since i get reimbursed at $0.445 per mile, I will get a check for over $159 for the trip. Gotta love driving a 2-door spec!

Now, why I feel 'yucky'
Bluh.

I'm starting to feel like I'm getting sick. I work w/ someone who has 5 kids; he therefore brings to work the patience of a saint and a lot of germs. Patience good, germs baaaaaaad. I think I've become a short-term living space for several thousand or so (germs, that is!), and am therefore feeling poorly, physically speaking. Plus driving for 6 hours is somehow very tiring.

Mentally speaking, I'm starting to feel a little ragged around the edges and am trying to 'keep my chin up' as they say. I hate chin-ups.

At any rate, cruising around on this site is making me take stock of more than just my stocks, as it were. I felt very warmly welcomed here from the moment I joined, and it's something I'm starting to miss more and more in 'real life'. I lost a lot of friends in June when we closed our center: folks just scattered to the wind all across the country. Other than family and DH's friends, my 'circle of influence' is almost to the point of either being laughable or depressing. Still trying to figure out what to do about that.

Along the same lines, and yet completely unrelated, is the fact that BA's post about feeling lonely made me very sad. Not just for BA, but for myself because it brought up some of my own painful personal memories regarding DH. This is relates to my shrinking circle of influence b/c I've only talked to two people IRL about what happened; one was a work friend and one was our roommate at the time (who now won't talk to us cause he owes us money). I haven't discussed it with family or our mutual friends b/c I don't think it would be appropriate, but it still leaves me with a really big festering yuck that I can't seem to get rid of. I guess that's why I'm spewing it out here, to at least try to get some of it out of my system. Sorry if I got some on you!

Bluh.

And while I don't know if this is yucky or ducky, it is somewhat interesting: I starting to think DH is reading my blog. Little things pop up into conversation that seem almost a little too... convenient.

I have no problems with him reading what I've written since "All names have been changed to protect the innocent" so to speak. But at the same time there is a nagging urge to change what I'm writing, maybe the tone or the rawness, just in case he is out there. I don't think that would be very fair to me, though, to change my words and my thoughts just to protect his ego. Actually, I think that would be pretty darn self-defeating, don't you?

Therefore, kind readers, rest assured that all future entries from tinapbeana will remain, as always, a bit weird, off-topic, and somewhat emotional in a cathartic kind of way. And on a serious note, please know that I appreciate each and every one of your kind words, suggestions, and 'atta-girl's.

Well, my first automatic deposit for GYD finally hit today. It was 'processed' Friday, came out of RLC on Monday, and got to the online account today. Since they have an SLA of 3 business days, all appears well.

Oh, and I earned a penny in interest on my original $5 for the month of October! Not bad seeing as it was there a week *g*

Still working on my

Frugal Failing when it comes to food.

By 10p Tuesday 11/7 I will...

Clean out and organize my fridge, freezer, and pantry.

I know I've got leftovers in that fridge somewhere, my frugie sense is tingling all over! I've got a mostly full pantry, and completely full freezer, but nothing has a designated home.

Well, obviously the freezer stuff has to stay in the freezer, duh!

What I mean to say is freezer leftovers are mixed around with bags of veggies, potatoes, biscuits, and at least 7 species of meat. Hard to maneuver in there. The pantry and fridge are no better, so I've got a week to work on it.

Argh..... ARGH I say!!!

Backgroud
I have one savings account online (Grand Yield Direct), and a membership at a local credit union.

At said credit union I have

* Savings, known to the credit union as my "member account"
* Primary Checking where money goes in and bills come out, known to the credit union as my "10 account". This is the only checking account with any activity in the past, oh, year.
* Secondary Checking: the only thing linked to PayPal, known to the credit union as my "11 account"

Primary Checking has overdraft protection by way of the savings account. Meaning, something comes in PC can't cover, it pulls automatically from savings at no cost. Secondary Checking isn't set up with this feature since it is linked to PayPal. Side Note: both checking accounts have $500 'courtesey pay' limit (aka standard overdraft protection).

The Issue
Today is payday (yippee!). Since I have worked my budget and worked it well, I keep only enough in my primary checking account to pay my bills. I withdraw grocery & allowance money in cash, and everything else gets parsed out to savings accounts. Secondary checking sits there with $21 earning half a percent. HA! Since it is the last day of the month, PC is sitting at just about nothing since all bills were paid 2 weeks ago. No biggie.

I get my paycheck today, and endorse the back and specifically note to put it into the '10 account' (aka Primary Checking). I get a deposit slip for the '10 account' and fill it out for my deposit, minus allowance and grocery money through next Friday.

I go through the drive up teller, make my deposit, get my receipt and go about my lunch hour.

When I get back to the office, I go to the bank website and find out the teller has kindly put my paycheck in the secondary checking account! Moreover, the cash I witheld from the deposit 'came' from my primary checking, which put it below 0 and resulted in money being pulled out of my savings!!!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I'm pretty lucky that this isn't generating any overdraft fees, but it's the principal of the matter that annoys me. To fix her mistake I had to transfer my paycheck from secondary to primary, and then deposit the 'overdraft' amount from primary to savings in order to put everything back where it should have been to begin with.

I am upset about this because A) bank tellers should be able to deposit money in the right account! and B) my savings account has a max of 6 withdrawals per month (it's a fed thing). What if her mistake had put me over my 6/month limit?

OK, well, I feel a little better now *sheepish grin*

Read about My "One Week, One Goal" quest here

Also, visit the new thread

Text is "What is Your Goal This Week?" and Link is http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22948

"What is Your Goal This Week?" to see what other folks are doing!

Text is The Goal: and Link is http://tinapbeana.savingadvice.com/2006/10/24/1w1g-2_16173/

The Goal:
By 10p next Tuesday 10/31 I will...

Cook three meals that result in enough left-overs for me to freeze (rather than just toss them in the fridge, never to be seen again!). This 1W1G episode is intended to fight my Frugal Failing when it comes to food.

The Result:
goal set, goal met (and ahead of schedule!): i made not 3 but 4 meals that generated enough left-overs to freeze:

* chili (2 servings stashed)
* chicken stock (3 quarts remaining)
* spaghetti sauce (2 quarts remaining)
* dirty rice (4 quart size freezer bags each half full)

best of all, i used the chicken stock to make the dirty rice.

Text is The Reward: and Link is http://tinapbeana.savingadvice.com/2006/10/23/1w1g-rules-update_16073/

The Reward:
I will splurge today and buy myself lunch out while running errands. It'll be a taco from Barbaritos ($2.99) plus a small cheese dip ($0.75) before tax. The tacos are huge and easily count as full meal: chicken and black beans and fresh pico de gallo and guacamole. I ask for it in soft corn torillas b/c I don't like the crunchy ones and they give you more filling this way! *grin*

I have a loyalty card from this place, too, and I'm 7 $2.99 tacos away froma free $6.50 burrito. WooHoo!

** UPDATE ** my reward cost $4.04 after tax, and the nice lady double-punched my card. now i'm only 5 tacos away!

OK, so you've seen those posters some places put in the work environment, the ones with the black border and a big word at the top like TEAMWORK, COMPETITION, MOTIVATION, etc? There's an apro-pro picture and a wonderful quip at the bottom designed to inspire productivity and a thrilling workplace.

At any rate, if you want a laugh today check out

Despair.com, which has this same kind of thing but all of their quips are de-motivating. IT'S TOO FREAKIN' FUNNY!!!

I've included the titles and quips below, but go to the site to see the pictures (didn't want to post a picture-rific entry two days in a row).

Achievement
You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.

Adversity
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.

Agony
Not all pain is gain.

Ambition
The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly

Apathy
If we don't take care of the customer,maybe they'll stop bugging us.

Arrogance
The best leaders inspire by example. When that's not an option, brute intimidation works pretty well, too.

Beauty
If you're attractive enough on the outside, people will forgive you for being irritating to the core.

Bitterness
Never be afraid to share your dreams with the world, because there's nothing the world loves more than the taste of really sweet dreams.

Blame
The secret to success is knowing who to blame for your failures.

Burnout
Attitudes are contagious. Mine might kill you.

Change
It's a short trip from riding the waves of change to being torn apart by the jaws of defeat.

Change (winds)
When the winds of change blow hard enough, the most trivial of things can become deadly projectiles.

Cluelessness
There are no stupid questions, but there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.

Compromise
Let's agree to respect each others views, no matter how wrong yours may be

Conformity
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Consulting
If you're not a part of the solution,there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

Dare to Slack
When birds fly in the right formation, they need only exert half the effort. Even in nature, teamwork results in collective laziness.

Defeat
For every winner, there are dozens of losers. Odds are you're one of them.

Delusions
There is no greater joy than soaring high on the wings of your dreams, except maybe the joy of watching a dreamer who has nowhere to land but in the ocean of reality.

Demotivation
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all of the unhappy people.

Despair
It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black.

Destiny
You were meant for me. Perhaps as a punishment.

Discovery
A company that will go to the ends of the Earth for its people will find it can hire them for about 10% of the cost of Americans.

Disloyalty
There comes a time when every team must learn to make individual sacrifices.

Disservice
It takes months to find a customer, but only seconds to lose one... the good news is that we should run out of them in no time.

Do it Later
The early worm is for the birds.

Doubt
In the battle between you and the world, bet on the world.

Dreams
Dreams are like rainbows. Only idiots chase them.

Dysfunction
The only consistent feature in all of your dissatisfying relationships is you.

Effort
Hard work never killed anybody, but it is illegal in some places.

Elitism
It's lonely at the top, but it's comforting to look down upon everyone at the bottom.

Failure
When your best just isn't good enough.

Fear
Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea

Flattery
If you want to get to the top, prepare to kiss a lot of the bottom.

Futility
You'll always miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and, statistically speaking, 99% of the shots you do.

Get To Work
You aren't being paid to believe in the power of your dreams.

Goals
It's best to avoid standing directly between a competitive jerk and his goals.

Hazards
There is an island of opportunity in the middle of every difficulty. Miss that, though, and you're pretty much doomed.

Humiliation
The harder you try, the dumber you look.

Idiocy
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Ignorance
It's amazing how much easier it is for a team to work together when no one has any idea where they're going.

Incompetence
When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do.

Indifference
It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile, but it doesn't take any to just sit there with a dumb look on your face.

Individuality
Always remember that you are unique. Just like everybody else.

Ineptitude
If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.

Insanity
It's difficult to comprehend how insane some people can be. Especially when you're insane.

Inspiration
Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99% perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.

Intimidation
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent, but you'd be a fool to withhold that from your superiors.

Irresponsibility
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.

Laziness
Success is a journey, not a destination. So stop running.

Leaders
Leaders are like eagles. We don't have either of them here.

Limitations
Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Loneliness
If you find yourself struggling with loneliness, you're not alone. And yet you are alone. So very alone.

Losing
If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.

Madness
Madness does not always howl. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "Hey, is there room in your head for one more?"

Mediocrity
It takes a lot less time and most people won't notice the difference until it's too late.

Meetings
None of us is as dumb as all of us.

Misfortune
While good fortune often eludes you, this kind never misses.

Mistakes
It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.

Motivation
If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.

Nepotism
We promote family values here - almost as often as we promote family members.

Overconfidence
Before you attempt to beat the odds, be sure you could survive the odds beating you.

Pessimism
Every dark cloud has a silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people each year who are trying to find it.

Persistence
It's over, man. Let her go.

Planning
Much work remains to be done before we can announce our total failure to make any progress.

Potential
Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up.

Power
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it rocks absolutely, too.

Pressure
It can turn a lump of coal into a flawless diamond, or an average person into a perfect basketcase.

Pretension
The downside of being better than everyone else is that people tend to assume you're pretentious.

Problems
No matter how great and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you've probably only seen the tip of them

Procrastination
Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.

Quality
The race for quality has no finish line- so technically, it's more like a death march.

Regret
It hurts to admit when you make mistakes - but when they're big enough, the pain only lasts a second

Retirement
Because you've given so much of yourself to the Company that you don't have anything left we can use.

Risks
If you never try anything new, you'll miss out on many of life's great disappointments.

Sacrifice
Your role may be thankless, but if you're willing to give it your all, you just might bring success to those who outlast you.

Sacrifice (Temple)
All we ask here is that you give us your heart.

Strife
As long as we have each other, we'll never run out of problems.

Stupidity
Quitters never win, winners never quit, but those who never win AND never quit are idiots.

Success
Some people dream of success, while other people live to crush those dreams.

Teamwork
A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.

Trouble
Luck can't last a lifetime unless you die young.

Underachievement
The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the lawnmower.

Wishes
When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

Worth
Just because you're necessary doesn't mean you're important

this one was showing someone else's pics? should be a lady carrying a baby through a crevass known as Devil's Kitchen












self portrait!








this one was showing someone else's pics? should be a pic of my town 30 miles away

And I mean it, too.

See, I'm married, and as DH is a boy he is prone to the messes that, um, boys make. No offense to the guys here, but how the HECK can you get golden droplets everywhere? I used to have an etigere behind the commode, and there would be pee on the back of this thing! It's like the magical JFK bullet in urine form, I'm telling you!

Anyways, the bathroom is an area where the concept of "you made the mess, you clean it up" just doesn't get through. And I personally find it gross and somewhat humiliating to clean pee off of, well, anything. So when we bought our house, the upstairs toilet had no seat and I happily plunked down $30 on a toilet seat. You heard me, $30!!!

First benefit is this sucker is self-closing, so the seat and lid don't slam shut. Pretty nice, but not worth $30.

The fact that the seat and lid are designed with quick release hinges? PRICELESS!!!!!!

All I gotta do is flip 2 hinges, throw this baby in the tub and hose it down (or spray with bleach). The rest of the toilet is now exposed to be brushed clean with the toilet brush and then wiped with disinfectant. No flipping the seat up to clean one part, flipping the seat down to clean another part, getting grossed out and frustrated by the eeeeewwww that invariably hides in the cracks along normal hinges.

NO MORE!!!!

Best $30 I've ever spent, and I fully intend to spend $40 to get the elongated version for the bathroom downstairs when we redo it.

Now, if I can just get the cats to stop staring at me and silently laughing when I clean their litter box...

** UPDATED ENTRY W/ A HEADLESS COSTUME PHOTO! IT'S A PIC OF A PIC, SO NOT GREAT QUALITY**

Yes, it's only October but that means the holidays are here. Part of the whole commercialization thing, in my book, is the fact that all holidays now begin at least 2 months early. Drives me batty.

At any rate, all the holiday hubbub has gotten me thinking about things that are frugally festive, and I decided I wanted a category just for this topic. Frugally festive can be any event, not just Christmas et al. It's about getting the juices flowing and thinking 'outside the box'. Or, in my case 'outside the wallet'.

So, here are my ways of being Frugally Festive for Halloween

1. Costume: get an old prom/wedding dress from the thrift store or yardsale of your choice. Many options here: princess, fairy godmother, bridesmaid, Bride of Frankenstein, dead whatever.

2. Costume: My all-time favorite and one I wear year after year since I can't top it. Guaranteed to make drunk people scream! Get a trench coat from the thrift store or yardsale of your choice. On either the right or left side remove the lining from the pocket, and carefully rip the seams on both the top and bottom of the slit for the pocket. Stuff some gloves with whatever you have on hand and pin them inside the arms of the coat. Stuff the arms and torso of the coat, leaving room near the pocket you have altered. Make yourself up to look all dead from the neck up, slip into the bottom of the trenchcoat and poke your head out through the pocket. Wrap one of the stuffed arms around your head and stick the hand in the pocket. TADA: you are now a 7ft tall headless guy!!! Tip: the top half of a Swiffer handle works well to hold up the torso, so you don't have to.


3. Entertaining: I don't do candy (I mean, I eat it, but I won't buy it for a party, too pricey). I make peanut butter eyeballs, witch finger cookies, breadsticks shaped like bones with 'blood' (marinara) dipping sauce, and *chuckle* kitty litter cake. EEEWWW!

4. Drinking (hey, I'm young!): I make jello shots with pineapple off-brand gelatin and set them up in little Dixie plastic bathroom cups. They look like urine samples. Again: EEEWWW!

5. Decorating: If I'm having a party, I'll do up the bathroom (it's cheap!). Buy a clear plastic shower curtain ($1), 2 white handtowels ($1 each), and a small bottle of red acrylic paint ($2). I also add a strobe light since I already have one. Take shower curtain & towels outside, lay them on the ground, and splatter with the red paint. Hang up shower curtain and toss handtowels around. Since I have the strobe light I also rig up man out of stuffed clothes, hang him from the shower head, and put the stobe in the shower pointed at him. Even more effective is to disable the rest of the lights in the bathroom! All of this decor at $5 is reusable year after year...

And that is my Frugally Festive Halloween!

The movie

"Fun with Dick and Jane" is on TV right now: I caught the first 30 min or so before DH flipped the channel & I went back to the kitchen. Anywho, I've seen it before, but it being on TV today reminded me of this group so much it was eerie!

For those not familiar, Dick & Jane both work & live in a McMansion. Their son speaks mostly Spanish b/c he's being raised by a Spanish speaking nanny. Dick gets promoted, Jane quits her job, Dick looses his job, and hilarity ensues. After selling all their possessions, trading in the beemer for a used whatsit, and having their lawn repossessed, they decide to become criminals in order to be able to provide for their son. Everything works out in the end, they get most of their stuff back, and the bad evil corporate guy that 'caused it all' gets his come-uppance.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight...

At any rate, it's the lawn getting repossessed that gets me every time. First of all, just the thought of having a lawn repossessed cracks me up. They're rolling up the sod, putting flowers back into pots, the whole 9 yards. Needless to say, the neighbors are all out & about and intrigued by what's going on.

Even better is the way Jan reacts. She's flustered for a minute but then, quick lady that she is, starts picked up pots and shoving them to the workers screaming "This isn't right, none of it's right, this isn't what I ordered at all!!!" That way, you see, the neighbors won't know that her lawn is being repossessed.

Bear in mind that the neighbors all know Dick has no job. Several of them also lost their jobs, and are probably in the same boat. But Jane's doing her best to make it look like everything is fine.

Thing is this movie only did OK at the box office. It was funny, it was timely, all that good stuff, but America wasn't quite into it. My theory? It hits a little too close to home for the majority of our country. Forget living paycheck to paycheck: how many folks do we know are just one layoff away from having their lawn repossessed?

About as good as the lawn is the fact that once everything gets straightened out, I'm pretty sure D&J go back to being stuffaholics (i'ts been a while since I've seen it the whole way through). Now, if you've just been through times hard enough to take a shower in the neighbors sprinklers, why would you turn right back around and fill your house with a bunch of things that represent money you can't use to keep your own water on?

At any rate, the movie cracks me up when I see it, and now moreso than ever. See, I don't intend to ever end up like Dick or Jane.

Then again, who does?

Here it is, Sunday morning, and my blog is still reeling from the Starbucks rucus. BTW, for those interested in Google's most poular searches, the

Zeitgeist keeps track of it weekly. Hehehehe *evil grin*

Just to play catch-up: Allowance and grocery day has come and gone. Chickens were on sale $0.39/lb, more on that later. DH spent Friday afternoon with his father and came back with a load of firewood & about 20 lbs of venison sausage. Plans for the sausage include: dirty rice, spaghetti sauce, breakfast this morning. Yum, yum, and yum! DH needs to visit his folks more often!

Saturday was pretty much fun all around. Grocery shopping, and then a drive up to the mountains to see the fall colors and crawl around on rocks. Cost: gas there & back, so in my car about $4.00.

We also had a poker night scheduled with DH's sister & boyfriend. Luckily, the boyfriend is a former chef/part-time caterer who needed to test a new recipe, so dinner was free couscous, asparagus, spinach-artichoke dip, and 10 oz LOBSTERS!!!!! OMG!!!! Tasty and yummy and free, some of the best things in life!

I funded my poker night with $10 from the Change and Buck Bucket and came out the big winner: got my $10 back plus another $15. As I got my winnings in all $1s, they went straight into the Bucket...

And here it is, Sunday morning. I've had coffee, made a fire, and have a chicken boiling in a pot for chicken stock/pulled chicken. And tonight: spaghetti.... Add those with the chili I made earlier in the week, and I will meet my 1W1G ahead of schedule once again!

Wow, yesterday was my blog's biggest day ever for pages viewed and visitors. Maybe I should rant about Starbucks more often!

Somethings are worth paying money for, and in my opinion flipping off Starbucks is one of them.

Background
My parents currently own a coffee/cigar store, and used to have another coffee shop in a nearby town. We are all bona fide coffee snobs. We take our own coffee pot, filters, and coffee when we stay in a hotel. We tried 20? 30? kinds of coffee before deciding on the blend to serve in our store. At home, I go through a half pound of a fair trade, organic, shade grown coffee blend called 'Bean Martin' every week.

I kinda like the stuff.

With that being said, Starbucks charges obscene money for what is, to me, really bad coffee. They roast the beans a tad too much, and as a result when they grind then up they overheat and wind up tasting burnt. Bleech! In our shop, we have a bumper sticker on the counter that says "Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Starbucks". HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

There is another coffee place here that actually has good java. They only have 2 locations, it's all drive through (therefore not really our competition), and their prices are acceptable for retail coffee. For me, the biggest selling point is that they are a locally owned business, and even sell locally baked muffins & cookies (from the same baker we used to use, actually).

Anyways, I've always had a hard time rationalizing buying their coffee when I'm out and about b/c I can get piping hot coffee from our store at, ahem, no charge. See the quandry? But I silently root for them to keep afloat b/c they're local.

Enter Starbucks (aka StarCrooks)
One of the locations for this local chain is in front of a shopping center with a grocery store in it. Said grocery had a StarCrooks inside. Not really any competition for our hero the local coffee business, since drive through customers aren't likely to get out and go inside the grocery for coffee. No biggie.

Then StarCrooks, in their infinite !@$(*&# wisdom decide to close the location inside the grocery and build a brand new buiding, you guessed it, right next to the local chain. Those dirty dogs!!! Corporate America strikes again, trying to push the little guy down!

So What Now?
Well, as I said at the beginning of this post, I feel that flipping off StarCrooks is worth spending a little money on. So, every Friday afternoon during my lunch break, I go through the drive-thru and get a $2 cuppa coffee even though I could drive the same distance and get it for free at our store.

Why?

Well, our store gets 95% of its traffic from the cigars and there's no way StarCrooks can change that. The coffee is just a bonus. This little establishment, though, is likely to go under once StarCrooks opens, and I hate the thought of our area loosing yet another local business.

Remeber: "Friends Don't Let Friends Drink StarBucks. At Least Buy Local!"

BTW, I wanted to say something other than Dag Nabbit, but didn't know if it would be socially acceptable to mildly curse in the blog title. So, translate 'Dag Nabbit' to whatever your heart desires!

Seriously, though, when did being frugal make everyone think you were poor? I mean,

Mother Earth News started publishing in the 70s as kind of a frugal/environmental hodge-podge and has been going strong ever since. My mom tells me stories of adding fabric to the legs of your pants to make them into bell-bottoms, and that's the way everyone did it. It was OK, they didn't 'have' to be bought that way.

Was it the 80s? Was that when it became socially unacceptable to be frugal. I'm starting to think that might be it.

At this point, people look at me like I'm from Mars when I go around the grocery store with a list, coupons, comparing prices. Heaven forbid I have a calculator or another store's sales paper! I get to the checkout with coupons in tow (and my own grocery bags but that's another issue), and have actually felt uncomfortable writing a check for my purchases. Why should I feel uncomfortable writing a check, I know I have more than enough money to cover what I'm buying?

It's the people, you see. Here I am, a late 20s chica in jeans & a T-shirt buying nothing but sales priced and couponed items. For most folks, this screams "POOR!!!!" and as a result I get the 'look' when I whip out the checkbook. They take down my DL #, home phone, & expiration date, as if they just 'know' the check is going to bounce. Annoys the !@#$ out of me!!

I've started buying my groceries in cash at this point, just because I'm tired of the looks. Samething when I go clothes shopping at sale + clearance time. The fact that I enjoy getting a $300 purse for less than $40 doesn't mean I can't 'afford' to pay for said $40 purse (or even the $300 one).

SIDE NOTE: Yes, I did actually pay $40 for a purse, and yes it was originally over $300. It is extremely well made, good thick last-forever leather, and properly maintained could easily last me till retirement. $40 / 35 years of usage = well worth it in my book!

I guess the gist of it is I'm tired of feeling poor because I am frugal. Actually, let me reword that: I'm tired of *other people* making me feel poor because I am frugal. I don't like feeling poor when I am poor, much less when I'm actually *not* poor. Sheesh!

Maybe I'll just stop by the ATM every day and get a balance statement to carry around. Just in case I need to whip it out and yell "Who're you calling poor NOW, huh?" to put someone in their place!

*chuckle & snort* Not that I'd ever do it, but just picturing the scene in my mind does my heart good!

Degrees, that is. Today it is 10 degrees warmer outside than it was yesterday morning. There's only a degree or two difference inside my house, but it definintely feels less chilly in here that it did yesterday morning. Funny how that works, seeing as it's the same temp inside that it was yesterday... Maybe it's mental. Hey, in that case I just need to practise thinking it's 51 outside all the time!

I love cereal, and I should eat it more often. It's tasty, fast, good for me, and after 2 bowls I'm definitely full. See, the first bowl leaves me "not hungry", but that second bowl puts me right over the line into "full" territory.

Luckily, cereal is on sale at Publix next week: General Mills is BOGO for $3.99, and I have a wad of $1 off two coupons. I can get a Life for $1.50! Actually, I can get several kinds of Lifes (Lives?). Hmmmm, cereal reincarnation. HAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHHAHA! Laughing because reincarnation is, of course, serial by nature.

Boy, maybe I'm a little sleepier than I thought....

Alright, just a quick update on my new GYD account.

I set it up to take $200/wk every Friday out of RLC (part of my budgetary diplomacy). I got an email yesterday just to remind me my automated withdrawal will be made this Friday, and to please make sure I have the funds available to cover it.

Personally, I don't need the reminder, but I like the fact that they send it out as a courtesy.

I started stashing the change and dollar bills from my allowance 10/12. Here's my progress:

----------------------------------------------
PREVIOUS TOTAL
----------------------------------------------
  $33.44 total as of 10/19/06
- $ 2.55 reward on 10/22 for meeting

1W1G #1
--------
  $30.89
----------------------------------------------
THIS WEEK
----------------------------------------------
  $ 6.00 dollar bills
  $ 6.25 quarters
  $ 3.70 dimes
  $ 1.40 nickels
  $ 1.19 pennies
--------
  $18.54 total this week
----------------------------------------------
  $49.43 total as of 10/26

About a third of this week's change was found in a bag in my dresser when cleaning out for 1W1G #1.

I don't know if these would be considered growing pains (since they are due to intellectual and financial growth) or shrinking pains (since the available disposable income is shrinking). Who knows, makes my head hurt!

Either way, I've made some excellant (cue Mr. Burns!) progress regarding sticking to my financial guns. Well, at least where I'm concerned (more on that later). All the bills are scheduled and covered to come out of my two paychecks, as are my allowance, the weekly grocery money, and 300/month for taxes, insurance, holidays. No problems here, it's all smooth as silk.

Since DH and each get an allowance, I had intended to take the extra 1100 per month and stash it in savings till the end of the year, then use it each month to aggressively pay down debt starting in January. This is a good and sound theory, but DH is not particularly happy with us not having as much disposable income as we did pre-budget.

Yes, I know that saving disposable income is the goal of a budget. I also know that between the two of us, we get enough allowance to more than cover entertainment expenses. Regardless, DH isn't buying into the current budget, which is making life unfortunate, making him grumpy, and making me feel like the bad guy.

So, here are my thoughts. See, the $1100 extra each month comes in as $550 every 2 weeks. My revised strategy is to auto-transfer $200 per week from RLC (real life checking) to the online savings at 5.25%. This will leave $300 per month, $75 per week, of cushion while still stashing $800 per month.

Adding the $75 cushion to the $100 grocery budget gives us $175 per week for groceries, random household necessities, and all the other things that have DH feeling deprived. I know it's way more than necessary, but it's not so much that I'm breaking the bank. Plus, if it gets DH to buy into the budget and not want to dip into savings, it'll be money well spent.

So, what do you think? If my spendy DH knows that as a household we have $175 on Friday and that is it until the next week, could that be enough to keep him content and out of the savings? Or, am I just rolling over and being a schmuck because of my

Frugal Failing with telling DH no?

Alright, more info regarding my quest to roll my 401k in to an IRA, then from IRA to a Roth (fully aware that the tax man cometh). I am interseted a small-cap aggressive growth fund (WGGFX) for a portion of my money, and have been researching a more conservative place for the rest of it. I think I may have found it in PRBLX.

*FYI: I'm selecting socially responsible funds that perform rather in-depth screens on the stocks they choose, so I'm expecing higher than normal expense ratios...

Parnassus Equity Income Fund PRBLX

Exp Ratio 1.07%
Redemption Fee n/a
Max Front Load % 0.00
Max Back Load % 0.00
*Min Inv 2000
*Min IRA 500
Manager Name | Start Date
Todd Ahlsten | 5/01/2001
1 Yr Return* 12.04
5 Yr Return* 8.92
10 Yr Return* 10.54
Since Inception 11.2


Winslow Green Growth Fund WGGFX

Exp Ratio 1.45%
Redemption Fee 2.0%
Max Front Load % 0.00
Max Back Load % 0.00
*Min Inv 5000
*Min IRA 2000
Manager Name | Start Date
Jackson W. Robinson | 4/01/2001
1 Yr Return* 5.85
5 Yr Return* 16.35
10 Yr Return* 18.14
Since Inception 17.82