Cha-ching!!!

Why I love my Graduate School Alma Mater:

They sent me a check for about 1500, for overpayment. I graduated two years ago, so it was an extra happy day! When I first moved to California, they sent me a check for 7000 for overpayment. Don't ask me how I overpaid so much (something to do with some screwy loans?), but it allowed me to put down a good down payment on my car, and combined with the other few thousand I'd already saved, pay rent until I found a job. Now? It's going right into the emergency fund and hopefully, staying there. 

Now I don't feel quite so terrible about NOT saving the past couple of months. 

FICO

I just checked my FICO score and it's 800. That's just 50 points away from perfect credit! 

I'm really proud of that score. Now if only I could be as responsible with my debit card!

the debit card experiment

Last pay day, I never withdrew cash for my groceries. It wasn't intentional, I just never made it to the bank. How did I do with my debit card? 

Horribly. I've already maxed my entire 4 weeks worth of grocery money and… I'm only two weeks in. Yep, I'm so very careless when it comes to that little piece of plastic. I had been updating my checking register, but not really paying attention to the entire total. I noticed that I still paid attention to the price tags, but not whether or not I needed it. Yes, I made a lot of impulse buys, which I had no need for, but found myself justifying them. Lesson learned. I suppose I'll be eating Mac and Cheese and soup for a week! 

When I was in college, I spent an entire semester broker than broke. I literally had NO money. I had pbj's for lunch and dinner for months. It was AWFUL. Maybe I should have learned my lesson back then?

On a more positive note:

My IRA has been worth just half of what I contributed. Today it's only short 23 dollars. I'm happy. Let's just see if it stays…

ING lowers interest rates again

1.835. SERIOUSLY!? I think I'm going to have to rate hunt now. This is getting ridiculous. 

Bad News. Silver Lining.

We had a fireside chat at work yesterday. Here's the grim news: we have very little work. And none coming in. Our biggest clients are in real estate, which as you can imagine, is not happening right now. They have either put projects on hold, or have shut down departments entirely and laid everybody off. This means bad news for my company. We were informed that no decisions have been made, but they don't know how much longer they'll be able to continue making such a large payroll with not enough income to sustain it. They were thinking about going to 4 day weeks (and thus reducing my paycheck), but they don't think it will be enough. Although they didn't bluntly state it, they're most likely going to be laying people off. They did say, no raises, no bonuses. And we were getting a new health insurance plan in March. That's on hold too.

I knew this was coming… 90% of my work the past few weeks has been non-billable. Not good. I'm glad that my company's principals are so honest though. At least now I can prepare for the imminent rather than get a pink slip one day out of nowhere. 

The silver lining? A client contacted us this morning and they want to go forward on a project I worked on months and months ago. Perhaps this means I'll have a job for the next month?

I do not want to look for another job. But… I think I'm going to have to start this weekend. I really can't afford to live off the stingy unemployment checks, and my savings account won't hold out for as long as I think I'll need. This economy is 

uh…

I'm thinking when the upper level management hole up in a room with the company's principals for an hour… it's not good. Especially when they were just talking about how we have no work coming in this morning. 

taxes

I've officially filed!

I'm due a federal refund of 140, which I'll be putting in my Bank of America savings account. I'd like to build that account up to 1,000 and this will give it a little boost. My california refund is 36, but I won't be seeing that for awhile. It'll also go into my savings. 

This year I used turbo tax for my federal, which I adore. It's so easy to use. In the past few years, I've also used it for my state, but I've had to pay 30 for it. This year, I was smart, and filed on the California state tax site, which was free! Much better option, and now I get to keep my 36 dollar refund, instead of a 6 dollar refund. Every little bit helps!

Now I just need to get all my papers organized. I currently have the past 4 years of tax papers in one file folder. It's a disaster. I'll work on getting that remedied so I can find everything I need quickly. 

But at least I can cross one thing off my ever growing to do list. 

Steals and Deals

Boyfriend has been needing new jeans for awhile now. He's lost a ton of weight this year, and his old ones no longer fit him. His preference is Lucky jeans, which don't come cheap… until now! I stumbled upon a huge lot of Lucky jeans at Nordstrom Rack this weekend. I scored 4 pairs for less than I would pay for ONE pair in the Lucky store! Just $35 each… which is cheaper than GAP even. Even though we don't really have the money for clothes right now, this was something he really needed. And I just couldn't pass up such a great deal. 

Our Valentines Day was pretty low key, but that's how we like it. We had lunch (to beat the crowd) at the Cheesecake Factory (we had a gift card from Christmas!) which was delish. Then we saw He's Just Not that Into You (that one cost some money, but it was worth it). Perfect!

Money is really tight this month (I'm not going to be able to save anything… again). Next month, our bills will be drastically cut however due to some changes with our cable, and cutting out two bills entirely, so it should loosen up a bit. I'm looking forward to that. And I'm not expecting to have to fix my car again… that was an expensive day. 

Parking Permit Drama

My town has very clearly posted signs on residential streets: "2 hour parking 6am-6pm M-Sat, except Sundays and Holidays"

Seems clear? Wrong. Apparently there's a little known law that sates that you have to have a parking permit in order to park on the streets between 2am and 6am. Is this information posted on any signs? No. Would any sane person have any clue unless they received a parking ticket stating the contrary? No. I only got the message after receiving a few parking tickets. Since our apartment only has 2 spots and we have 3 cars, one car has to park on the street. Since I'm the only person with the car registered to this address (actually, in this state) I'm the only one eligible. 

So I got my registration form from the dmv (we'd just moved, so I had to transfer the address) (17 dollars) and filled out my parking permit application. I waited three weeks for a rejection letter to come in the mail. (all the while, having to pony up 3 dollars a day for a temporary overnight pass… times 2 months = $180) So… I had the landlord write a sob story letter about how there was no parking available and wouldn't ever be available. Three weeks later, I got my permit! (Cost: 65… since it was pro-rated for the rest of 08). 

Two months later, I need to renew it for 2009. So, I filled out my renewal application (made sure to attach another landlord sob story letter) and waited… 2 months. Today I finally called, since my permit expires in 2 weeks. "Oh we sent that a month ago, you should have gotten it by now." Not so much. So, boyfriend went to City Hall today to pay the 135 for my permit ( the exact amount that I had set aside for this specific purpose). And paid 202. 

I had an outstanding parking ticket from July. And a subsequent late fee. We can't issue your new permits until its paid. Great. I NEVER got a ticket. I'm guessing some evil person stole my ticket to be funny, or the meter maid forgot to leave it. Obviously, I would have paid it! "When I paid for my permit in November I had to clear up all parking tickets and was told there weren't any." "Oh, well I guess that one slipped through the radar." "Can I contest the ticket since I never even received it in the first place?" "No." Lovely. 

For the record, how many parking tickets did I manage to accumulate while I was waiting for my permit application to be accepted? 5. Swell. 

How much money did I drop in order to be able to park?

DMV registration transfer = 17

5 parking tickets = 190

1 late fee (which so wasn't my fault) = 21

Pro-rated Annual Permit for 08 = 65

Temporary Overnight Permits (for 2 months) = 180 (or so)

09 Annual Permit = 135

= 608

It's nauseating, really. 

Why can't they just post a sign? 

Parking from 2am-6am by permit only. 

Is that really so difficult?

But at least I can park worry free for the next year. 

Upates

• We went to lunch at Buca di Beppo on Saturday. (I had a $10 gift card to use!) All was well until they charged somebody else's meal to my debit card on top of my own. I called and they said it should drop off, but to call back on Wednesday if it hadn't. This is the second time this has happened to me! What did I learn from the first time? ALWAYS get a receipt unless you pay with cash. It has the check number and the server name. Otherwise? They won't look back at the records for you. It's still there today, so you can be sure I'll be calling tomorrow if it hasn't dropped off yet. 

• I had gotten a gift card to Victorias Secret for Christmas, but hadn't spent it yet, so Sunday I got some lovely new things! I figure I better spend it before the company decides to go under :-)

• I will be transferring no money to the e-fund again this week. Instead, I will be paying my (entire) credit card off which is where I charged all the car repairs to. Sigh. Next month? Of course, my windshield did get dinged with a rock (I'm guessing) on my drive to work this morning. I can tell there's a teeeeeeny divet, but it's just the size of a pin so I think it should be ok. But I'm going to have boyfriend asses the situation tonight. If I have to replace the windshield though, I'm going to have to… insert explatives here. I should not own cars. 

• I got my resume partly updated… I thought it was going to be an easy update… just adding the information about my current job. But then I decided that the entire thing needed to be redone. So, I hope to finish it this weekend. 

• I'm gathering up all the files for my portfolio from work. Then I can work on an update. I anticipate this will take a long time to finish, since I'll only work on it on the weekends, and I've done this 4 times already. It always takes forever. Which is why I figure I should start now!

Stupid economy

Why does the interest rate for ING keep dropping? Not. Fair. 

The Plan

Let's be honest. My company has lost a lot of business this year, and haven't gotten any new. It's no. good. I'm kind of expecting to lose my job within the next 6 months. This terrifies me a great deal. But, I figure I can make a plan. 

This weekend I plan on revising my resume and updating my portfolio. This way if I need to use them, I'll have them prepared on day one. This seems smart… no sense in wasting a week of my life doing this when I should be spending the time searching for employment. 

But, here's the steps I'll take if the worst happens:

1. File for unemployment, and hope that I get at least a couple weeks severance. 

2. Send out a zillion resumes. Follow up. Network. Apply for the freelance jobs that get emailed to me daily from the creative temp agency I did stuff for (I never stopped them when I found a job).

3. Cut the budget. We have already cut our housekeeper back to 3 weeks instead of 2. And we are going to (within the week) cancel our satellite tv and just get basic cable. We only watch three shows a week on basic cable. There is no need to pay for anything else. Boyfriend is canceling another bill for something we just don't need this week. Attempt to cut my grocery budget way back. I'll need to stretch the money I've saved as long as possible. 

Anything else I'm forgetting? 

When it rains, it pours

For the past year, I've have two nails stuck in one of my tires. I've kept it usable with fix-a-flat and filling it up with air. Today, I was on my way out to work, and my tire was flat as a pancake. Since I needed to take it in soon for my 6 month service anyway, and it desperately needed the front end realigned, I just brought it over to the dealership on my way to work (after boyfriend had put on the spare tire of course) and I'm going to have them replace the tire. The estimate is about 290 (for everything but the oil change, which is "free" since I bought the service plan). We'll see how accurate that is tonight when I pick it up. (I guess that's another month with no money in the e-fund. This is no good. 

I also had them give me an estimate to replace my right side mirror. It may or may not have been decapitated… a year ago. That's gonna have to wait a few months though. I do not care to spend the estimated 390+ dollars to fix it this month. Hrmph.

I just hate spending money to fix things on my car, when I'm still making payments on the stupid thing. Live and learn.

Frugal Marketing

This weekend proved to be quite successful in the grocery shopping department! There were some fabulous sales to be had. Here's how it went:

Vons:

My biggest haul, as per usual. 

The best deals: 

Today only, a free pizza with a $25. min purchase. (free pizza? yes!)

$10 off a purchase of $50 or more (free money? yes!)

Cheeze It's (which are boyfriend's current snack of choice) 1.88 each

Campbells Gourmet Soups: .99 cents each! (Regular price? 3.09)

Kraft Fat Free Singles 1.99 a package (Regular price? 5.19)

The rest of the items were things we needed (sandwich bags, peanut butter, produce, frozen veggies, mac and cheese, etc), most of which were on sale. I ended up saving 49% of my grocery bill. The total before my club card savings, coupons, was 88. Price I paid? 44.88

Trader Joes: 

I find Trader Joes to be a fabulous place for snack type foods. But, there are a few staples which are so much cheaper here than any other store:

Chocolate / Baking Chips (white, milk, semi-sweet)

Milk

Wine, and Chardonnay

Egg Substitute

Tea Bags

Half and Half

Olive and Canola oils

They also have this make your own guacamole kit, which is great. While it takes much chopping, slicing and dicing, it's so much cheaper than buying all the ingredients separately, and it's delish!

I also got some freshly squeezed oj, plums, shredded cheese, hansens soda

Total: $47.42

Rite Aid

There were some great sales on cereal (1.99 a box!), so I got a couple

There were also great deals on Valentines Day candy (necco sweethearts, hershey hugs, hershey's with caramel) [i keep these in the pantry for making cookies and things]

And deodorant (2/$4)

Tostitos (Buy one get one free)

And Splenda (pack of 100 for only 2.99!)

Total: 22.74

Whole Foods

While WF has a reputation for being pricey, I find that there are some items that you can get here cheaper than anywhere else!

Raspberry Jam (I plan to use it to make Valentines Day cookies) (1.99!)

Canned Pumpkin (at any given time, I always have at least 4 in my pantry… I make amazing pumpkin bread. I love anything with pumpkin in it, really) 1.19 (actually last time I was there it was only .99 each. It went up.)

Butter (2.49)

I also picked up some crackers, olives, cranberry jelly, baking cocoa, pureed sweet potato, and butternut squash

Total: 23.69

It's also the cheapest place to get baking soda and baking powder. And the best place to get freshly ground peanut butter (it's honey roasted!). Of course, due the the salmonella-peanut debacle, they don't have it for the time being. 

99 Cents Store

I'll admit that I stop by sometimes. It's a little sketchy, the clientele likes to talk to themselves out loud, and I would never go here after dark. There are some things which I will never buy here (produce, anything in the fridge section), but there are some great deals. Things like aluminum foil, plastic bags, are not a good deal, because there is so little in the package compared to a grocery store. But…

Gatorade .79 cents each! (Boyfriend likes to mix half water, half gatorade for the gym)

Bread Crumbs, Stove Top Stuffing Mix, Cream of Chicken/Mushroom soups, canned veggies, hamburger helper, spices, salad dressing (this yummy kind that's over $4.00 at Vons!)

Total: 15.76

Total spent? 154.82. I also spent 20 bucks at Subway for our lunch yesterday. And I still have 25 dollars left! It's plenty to buy more milk, any misc. items we might need, and most importantly, cookie cutters for Valentines day :-)

And my pantry is now well stocked :-) There are a bunch more items that I need to fully stock it, such as Mac and Cheese, Chili (I refuse to buy it unless it's on sale. I won't pay 3.99 if I know it will go on sale for .99) rice a roni (also won't buy it unless it's $1.00 or less per box… but it goes on sale frequently), turkey bacon (actually I forgot to get it), iced tea, corn meal, etc. But I'm pretty well stocked for now!