Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

One of the legitimate paying survey companies offered me a survey today that would have paid $20. But when I saw what it involved, it totally freaked me out. They wanted me to register 2 credit cards and one bank account with them so they could track my spending. Are they freaking nuts? Give them my bank account number and my credit card numbers? Not bloodly likely!

In this day and age of identity theft this was highly disturbing. In fact the longer I think about it the more I'm thinking I should actually lodge a formal complaint with this survey management team, that's how dangerous I think this is of them to even think about requesting this information from people trying to bring in extra income. And there will be some people naive enough or inexperienced enough to actully give this information away.

I have someone with a strong interest in doing a buy it now on the boots I put on e-bay, sent her a message with an answer to all her questions, and I am hoping that she will go ahead and buy them. The buy it now is set at $10.

I went through one of the bags of kids dance shoes and matched up several pairs and took photos so I will be posting those soon. Most of them are Spotlights, originally $15 or so, but I have a couple of pairs of boy style Bloch tap shoes, which run around $35 new, that I might be able to get more than a few dollars for.

Today was the automatic deposit of $10 to savings. I transferred that over to checking and put in a withdrawal transfer to ING. When it gets there there will be $286.53 in there.

I checked our regular account and the paypal money or $160.23 had not showed up, which it should have today, so I asked DH and he hadn't transferred it yet, so I went into his paypal account and did it myself.

When it shows up, probably Monday, I will try to get it over to the other CU so I can then send it to ING. When I do that account will then have $446.76. Slowly but surely we willg get that amount back up to $1000.

I paid the mortgage last week and the CU's computer is now up to date. My remaining balance is $35,012.81.

I have 10 years and 2 months worth of payments left. Or 122 payments. Slightly under that actually as I have about $40 less than that.

I do like seeing that number keep going down and I really like the fact that next payment that 35 is going to drop to a 34!

Okay, I'm a little overly chatty today, this being my 5th entry, but it was kind of a big day.

DH got a call today from his old employer from 11 years ago and they want to do two phone interviews with him tomorrow. I'm not sure if it means anything but he might at least be able to get a job offer in writing with a salary he can use to get a better rate of pay at work. It wasn't like he was expecting this phone call at all.

I don't think he really wants to work in town, he likes his current job, just doesn't feel adequately compensated right now.

It would also be starting our medical all over again and I'm not sure if I want to do that in the middle of this kidney thing. COBRA's are expensive, we had to do that when I was pregnant with Rose. Not fun.

I don't know what to make of it at all. I'd like to have him home every night, have paid vacations and paid sick leave that you can cash out if you don't use it all again, but the potential of his April promotion is so much more, they would really have to bring a very high salary to the table. But he left his old job with an excellent reputation and its possible they could give him whatever he asks for. They are kind of desperate to fill positions right now.

April is just 2 months away. I do not want him to jump the gun so close to it going off. It's very confusing.

But he'll give the interviews tomorrow and we'll go from there. No use storing up worry now for future use.

Technically it was a CT scan, but not the kind you have to drink barium for. The kind they inject you with radioactive dye for. So I still ended up being shot up with glow in the dark juice and run through the giant Livesaver.

Probably won't know anything until next week as my doctor has picked this week to go on vacation, so even if the results are in before that, I won't get them. Oh, well.

It was an easy enough procedure, but I am very tired from it anyway. I'm not sure why. Glad to have it out of the way. I did not have to pay a co-pay, which was nice. I'll have to pay some. I've had 2 doctor's visits so far this month but my deductible is $200, so I'll be in it for at least $50 or $60. But won't have to pay it out of this pay cycle, it'll come out of the next one.

Final auction total after all the bits were taken out is $154.03, its gone through paypal and is on the way to our main CU, then I'll have to physically take it out and move it to the other CU so I can send it off to ING. Hmm, or maybe I should just add that CU to ING. I don't know. I don't really want to attatch an electronic bank to the main CU account we use for almost everything.

DH has changed things around so any future e-bay payments will go to the paypal addy that conncects to the CU that connects to ING.

DH and I dropped the kids at MIL's house tonight (a rarity) and went to Costco and then to Fred Meyer.

At Costco we bought:

Mega Pack of Charmin
2 packages of kosher beef hotdogs
2 8 packs of ravioli

We spent $50.38.

Then we went to Fred Meyer and bought:

chicken legs
2 packages organic uncured sliced ham
grapes
1 gallon 2% milk
1 package beef steaks
1 torch lamp to replace a broken one

We spent $61.88 there.

We did a lot of looking around there. I wasn't thrilled with the lamp we picked out but it was the only one we could use a fluorescent light bulb in and was $35, on special for 25% off that price. It fit our needs best and doesn't clash with our furnishings, so that is what we bought. I like a couple of more expensive ones because they were pretty instead of utilitarian, but I did not like them 55% more than the one we bought and since that was the price difference, I'll deal. It's not like it is ugly, it just isn't pretty.

We looked at the furniture, too. We only have a three person couch right now. We used to have a rocker/recliner and an overstuffed arm chair but they were falling apart, so we put them out in the shed until we had a chance to repair them and there was a gap somewhere that prevented the shed from being airtight, so the furniture upholstry molded.

They have a very nice red leather arm chair that reclines for $400. It is smaller and fits the length of my legs perfectly. I like it a lot. Do I like it $400 worth, though? I don't think so. Maybe if it went on a really good sale. If money were no object, I would think it was the perfect chair for me.

We wandered back into garden and looked at the patio furniture and the lawn furniture and we saw a really, really nice lounger for $100. It was very comfortable and very well made and the pillow that came with it had speakers in it that you could plug a personal music player into. We are seriously considering getting it for the 4th person's seating in the living room. But I think first I am just going to try to find something on freecycle.

Either that or use my blood money to buy the $400 chair. Oh, that is what I am calling the money for plasma donation, blood money. I just like the way it sounds kind of sinister. Yes, I am a silly girl, you should know that by now. Blood money to buy a red chair, that seems appropriate, don't you think?

Well, our first e-bay auction ended at $164.50. Not bad. I don't know how much e-bay gets yet, but all in all it was a pretty successful foray into the selling side of things.

I have already taken a picture of a nice pair of size 8 women's suede, brown boots that my daughter has outgrown and uploaded it to the computer. DH and I will do the write up and get it listed tomorrow. They were originally $35 and are still in very good shape so I am hoping for about $10.

I also have various pairs of ballet slippers, tap shoes, boys tap shoes, and jazz shoes that the kids have outgrown and some soccer cleats, too that we will be listing this week as well. I don't expect the ballet slippers to sell for much over $1, the jazz shoes for maybe $3, the tap shoes for $4-$5, and the boys tap shoes for maybe a dollar or two more. The soccer cleats may go for $3 or $4, maybe. I'm not trying to get a ton of money out of them, just more than I would at a garage sale.

Anyway, the auction profit will go into the Emergency Fund.

My propane bill came yesterday. I was really afraid to open it up, but I finally did it and I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it would be sky high, but it was only $320. For six months, as the last time it was filled was in August. I have been putting aside $50 a month for this expense, so I only need to come up with an additional $20. Not bad at all. I swear, I thought it would be closer to $500, we have been using it so much. I'm just really glad it wasn't.

At the grocery store. Rose's games, which were so ridiculous I am not even going to list scores, but every single girl on that court today had fumble fingers, both sides, both teams. It was like the ball was magnetically opposed to going through the basket. Like bouncing off the inside rim and back out again. And the dropped passes...well, it was entertaining.

Anyway, so shopping.

1 package pork chops, originally at $5.38, marked down to $4.05, stickered with an additional $1 off coupon to $3.05
2nd package pork chops, from $5.57 to $4.57 with additional $1 coupon to $3.57

5 pounds of beef shoulder steak for $10.07
2 pounds beef stew meat @ $4.66, marked down to $3.66, with $1 coupon to $2.66
2nd package beef stew meat @ $4.78,makred down to $3.78, with $1 coupon to $2.78

one 5 pound whole all natural local chicken @ $5.25, marked down to $3.25, with $1 coupon to $2.25

Pretty darn good for 16 pounds of protein. It averages out to $1.52 per pound.

I thought buying the dog was dumb when they couldn't pay the phone bill. SIL called up DH tonight and they have had their cable shut off, their internet shut off, their gas is going to be shut off this week, the garbage company came and took away their garbage can, they lost their alarm system monitoring, they are behind on their power bill and on their mortgage. So they very well may lose their house now. And they bought a dog.

Guess the big screen TV and the house full of new furniture was a big mistake last summer. What were they thinking with? Because I know it wasn't their brains.

DH said when he got off the phone that he just wanted to smack his sister upside the head and ask her if she even had a tiny smidgeon of common sense in her head or not.

I made him call her back and at least tell her about the plasma donation place and give her the phone number, between the two of them maybe they can earn $400 a month extra. Although I don't know if they will qualify as blood donors, they have both had a very, shall we say promiscuous history, including a visit from the STD fairy on more than one occassion. I'm not sure if that would disqualify them or not.

Really, a modicum of common sense could have kept them from this situaion. Now they will probably have to move back in with MIL and FIL. If they'll let them and they probably will for the sake of the girls, even though they don't want them.

Trying to find an apartment that will take a convicted felon is pretty impossible around here. The only reason they had an apartment before they got the house was because they were living there at the time of the conviction. I don't know if those property owners would allow them to move back, either. They kind of burned some bridges.

I feel somewhat sorry for them, but I'm also thinking they made their bed, they'll never learn if you don't make them lie down in it. They can't do bankruptcy again, its too soon. And they didn't learn anything from it the first time. I'm so tired of their bad financial choices.

Found out some more details on the car wreck yesterday. The person who died was the passenger in the innocent driver's car. And both the one racing car and the innocent truck caught fire, not just one car.

The man who died was 62 and had just come out of retirement to help the driver take over his old business. So sad.

The at fault driver was airlifted to Harborview and is in critical condition.

I drove over that section of road today. You can see the scorch marks from the fire on the pavement. The more I find out about this accident, the more grateful I am that I chose another route yesterday.

I forgot to mention this last week when I paid the power bill, we had a big credit, despite December and all the lights. We are on budget pay and we had been doing so well that we completely absorbed the hit from the Christmas lights, which normally double our bill come January. But not this year, baby! I'm sure the timers and replacing some of the old lights with LED's helped quit a bit.

And after paying this bill we still had a credit of $23.55! That means come March when they do the refiguring, our monthly $93 payment may very well go down. Wouldn't that be something. Really goes to show just how much of an electricity hog that old dryer was before it broke.

I did my first payout with Dayslook today. Just waiting to see if it shows up next week to paypal. If it does, that's another $5 for the month.

DH's W-2 finally came today. 2 days late. If I recall correctly all tax information is supposed to be in your hands by January 31. His company is always a couple days late. Drives me crazy. DH comes home tonight and I am hoping we will get our taxes done tomorrow and get that refund on its way ASAP.

We are planning to use $2000 to pay on a credit card. The rest goes in the vacation fund.

Today is payday. So far today I have paid:

$910.37 for Medical Mortgage
$400.00 for House Mortgage
$125.00 for Homeowner's Association half year dues

Some of this money is from last payday, too, I just didn't get around to writing out those bills earlier as they weren't needing to be done until today.

I still have to do some more bills but probably won't until Monday.

Yesterday was the day of the automatic deposit of $10 to savings. I transferred that over to checking today and then transferred it to ING.

I earned $1.50 in my ING account for the month of January. I've earned 3 cents in interest so far this month.

After the transfer goes through on 2/5, the total in there will be $286.53. A far cry from where it should be, but we will be depositing the auction money in there when it comes through and I'm hoping to deposit $300 this month, but that depends on medical bills and how much insurance will cover.

I hate it that my savings account got so low but I would hate it even more if I would have had to use credit cards instead.

Would you buy a dog if you could not pay your phone bill? Seriously. I want to know. If you had your phone service shut off for failure to pay, because you could not afford to pay it, would you go out and buy a purebred puppy, with all the potty training supplies and food, vet bills, and toys that go with it?

Consider that you are 6 years out from a bankruptcy, that you will never be able to get a different job from the one you have now because no one really wants to hire a convicted felon in that particular crime, that you are upside down in not one but two car loans, and that you still have to pay child support on one or your 2 children from previous relationships (not marriages) for another 4 years and have 2 children at home with your spouse who have to use WIC and the food bank and food stamps and be in housing similar to habitat for humanity but not them because they also did not want to deal with a convicted felon in that particular crime.

Would this be considered an incredibly stupid thing to do by a normal human being? Or is this just me overreacting because I'm not a dog person? Or very tolerant of foolishness. Or of this family member (by marriage, not blood), in general.

Oh, I'll keep my mouth shut, I suppose, for the sake of family unity but I had to let my opinion out somewhere. I think its beyond ridiculous and beyond stupid. And after all these years, why am I still surpised by bone-head decisions?

Our auction has moved up slightly by $5, so it is at $159.50 now. Just $40.50 to get to where I'd like it to sell at the least. 4 days and less than an hour left.

So, my kidneys are acting up and I'm going to have to get an x-ray as regular doctor thinks there is more going on than just a simple infection. Because they are recurrent. I'm of the mind that I just have to be on antibiotics longer than 2 weeks. Give me 5 weeks and it'll kill those bacteria suckers. They're resistant, what does he expect after all these years of treating them? So an x-ray, but so far no glow in the dark juice and being run through the giant Lifesaver.

Of course, I may be in denial because I really don't want my life turned upside down again by another medical crisis. I am so done with that. I mean, the insurance is relatively decent now, but still...I do not want anymore hospital bills, anymore surgeries, anymore bits of me taken out than have been. True, what's one kidney? Just a spare part anyway, but still, I'm attatched. I've lost enough odds and ends already.

I used to joke that the only things left that they could take out without replacing were a kidney, a spleen and part of my liver. Guess I shouldn't tempt fate that way, should I now?

I mean, I didn't have a clue when they went in for other stuff that they'd find a big honking tumor growing through my appendix, or a year after that my gall bladder would be 90% dead and the remaining 10% diseased. I knew stuff was wrong with the gall bladder because I was turning yellow and couldn't do anything and was having nasty attacks and they noticed it was "a bit odd" during the first surgery but it never occurred to me that it was mostly a dead organ sitting there.

So now with the kidney, I'm either going to be in complete and utter denial or I'm going to go in the opposite direction and completely freak out and think there is a tumor pressing into the kidney and that is the problem. I'm trying to sit here and be numbly in the middle until next week when they take the x-ray.

I'm more worried about what will happen to our financial health if this is serious than I am about myself. Which I recognize as being tweaked but there you go. I'm tweaked. Well, maybe its simply a coping mechanism. My daughter is now the age I was when my mother had cancer. That brings up all sort of issues with my own kids. Or would do if I told them what was going on.

We can't take out another loan, I won't charge anything on a credit card, and I can't visit the bank of MOM because of the fact that she already took out that mortgage for us for the last go around and we'll be paying it off forever and a half. It's probably nothing serious. But...what if it is? What am I going to do?

Sell the house, maybe. Pay off all our debts and the mortgage on our own house, go move back in with mom and work on paying off that mortgage.

Then there's the whole Dad thing. Dad has cataracts, early to middle stage dementia, and MS. Mom's overwhelmed. But coping. If there is one thing my mother can do it is soldier on no matter what. I don't want to make her have to cope with me, too. Not right now.

Well, I'll muddle through, I always do. I will bend, I will not break because that is what I do.

Anyway, probably too much information. But thanks for listening. I needed that.

Our local gas station has switched from being a 76 to a Valero. It's very pretty now. But the good news is that for this first week with the new pumps gas is at $2.29! I am very excited because the going price right now is $2.54. DH gets home tomorrow so on Saturday we will fill up both vehicles and take all of our gas cans down there and fill them up, as well. We have 4 5 gallon cans and 2 2 gallon cans, so I need to make sure we have enough cash to do it all.

I figure it'll take an extra $55 to fill the gas cans, but then we can use them when the gas in the cars runs out. Of course, first we'll have to fix the flat on the Blazer but that is doable once we pick up a bolt cutter from FIL. We've never used the spare because it is padlocked to the underside of the vehicle and when we bought it, we weren't given that key. One of the minor problems of buying something used. But we have never had a flat before, though we did replace tires once before any went bad. Just never needed to use the spare.

I went to the doctor this morning and left with 2 prescriptions and an x-ray appointment for next week. I picked up the medication for $35. I was going to go to Costco today but I couldn't as I got stuck in the aftermath of a horrific car accident. The KING vultures, I mean the TV helicopter people, were circling overhead for at least an hour, so those of you in Seattle may see this on your local news.

Two kids were racing at 80 mph, and what usually happens on a busy 5 lane main highway when 16 year olds do something stupid, happened. One of them hit another car. Only worse. One of the cars ended up on fire. And they said somebody died, but not the driver from the innocent person's car. If that boy lives he is going to have a lifetime of scars to remember his actions by, not to mention a death on his heart.

I saw the wreckage. I smelled the gasoline and the acrid air. I don't know how anyone lived. Through the grace of God and the good samaritans that got everyone out before the paramedics came. I can't tell you how awful it really was to see it. Enough to make me start crying. When I see things like this I react with a mother's heart. I sent up a prayer for their families.

I'm glad I wasn't there earlier when it happened. I easily could have been. That's the way I usually drive to town when I go to the doctor, but I felt unusually strongly like going a different route today. More than that, really. Almost a refusal to go that way. Past experience has taught me to always listen to that feeling. I really don't like it when that happens and then I find out something like this later. Spooks me out for days afterwards. But better that then the alternative.

So needless to say, I didn't go to Costco today. Maybe tomorrow.

I checked my credit report last night and my credit score has gone up 23 points to 786. That's not the highest its ever been which was 803, but its the highest its been in a good long while, so I'm pretty happy with it.

I want to keep it pretty high, as we are still hoping to buy a new to us car at the end of this year and I want to stay in the excellent range.

Our auction on ebay is now up to $154! And it doesn't close until midnight Sunday. Three people are bidding and four people are watching. Pretty good first time experience, I think. Just $48 to go until we hit the amount I was hoping to bring in with these upgrades.

Well, as promised, Lightspeed had the money in my paypal account by the end of the next business day. I transferred it to my CU so it should show up on Friday. That is $18 received so far this month for my vacation fund.

Pending:
$5 from Your2Cents
$3 from ReadRevenue

I'm about 2 days out from cashing out at Dayslook. It'll be my first time cashing out with them so hopefully everything goes fine. It's a $5 cash out. I'm also 2 days out from cashing out at ReadRevenue again, although I don't think I will cash out until I find out what is going on with their system. I'll just keep building it up for awhile.

I would guess yes. Doctor's office finally called back at 2:40 and do you think I actually got to talk to the doctor? Noooooooo. They just rescheduled my appointment for Thursday morning. So I waited around 4 hours for them to reschedule the appointment. Now why couldn't they have done that in the first place and not messed up my entire day?

Well, on the bright side of things, that makes it a no spend day after all. But I'm still aggravated.

Boy, I'm just a busy little posting beaver today, aren't I?

DH held off on putting his 2 Alaska Airlines first class upgrades on ebay until last night. I thought he was going to do it sooner, but this way the auction can run for a week, end on Sunday and be mailed out quickly the next day.

It's doing pretty well. It's already up to $102.50 with six days to go. We're hoping to get $200 for it, but being guarranteed slightly over $100 already is pretty darn good. DH has seen them go for as high as $250 for a pair.

Whatever we end up with is going to go straight into building the Emergency Fund back up.

I've been thinking about little habits I have that save me money even though that was not the intention, it just turns out to be the benefit.

For example, my car has a delay on the lights. I can set it anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes, and that is how long they will stay on after the car is turned off before they switch themselves off.

For years now I have had it set on the 3 minute delay because that is approximately how long it takes me to get everyone and all their stuff out of the car and up to the front porch and get the door unlocked and get inside. So I don't have to leave the porch light burning all day long if we leave in the morning, knowing we won't be back until after dark.

Now in the beginning this was just a bad habit of mine to forget to turn on the porch light, but now I consider it a good habit that saves a bit on the electric bill.

Anyone else have this sort of habit that unintentionally saved them some money?

Well, my whole plan for the day has been shot. The doctor's office called and cancelled my appointment for some reason or other and said that the doctor will call me "sometime" today to do a phone appointment. Couldn't give me a time, of course, so basically I either have to wait around all day for the phone to ring or say screw it and go do what else I had planned to do. And with Murphy's Law being what it is, I'll be outside waiting for the school bus when he finally calls. Frustrating and annoying.