Thoughts from last week's post
I originally planned to give myself back some money in my budget for the east side pies we had last weekend. then i read through last weeks post and saw that i had written unnecessary in all caps. why did i feel so strongly about it then? was it because i was still food-hungover or because i regretted the expense? as i thought about it this week (trying to make my $100 budget work), i realized that was the only time we had eaten out that week. it was one meal that we didn't cook for an entire week. that is not frivolous. that's actually pretty impressive. so i am going to give myself back $12.
55.74+12 = 67.74
Unfortunate Events
Before i began this financial documentation, jessica and i purchased a new power adapter for her old powerbook and a new apple airport as ours was malfunctioning. the total of my half of these costs was $75 :/ we have since found out the powerbook needs a new logic drive and the airport was not working properly so we are using our old one again and it works fine. we are not sure about returning the power cord (to macworks) and we missed the return date for the airport. so thats $75 for nothing. not sure what else to say about it except that is aggravating. what lessons do we stand to learn from this? i'm wondering if there is still something we can do about the airport (sell it on ebay? use it as a repeater?). maybe dudes at macworks will still let us return the power cord.
So now we have to decide what to do about a new computer. Jessica feels very strongly that we need a backup computer. I think i agree. i'm not totally convinced, but we both use our computers for work, and it would cause serious problems if either of us were ever without a machine for an extended period of time. especially when both of our machines have been on the fritz lately. i think we've settled on buying a cheap pc that we can possibly also use as a media server and editing machine. the cost to fix the powerbook is $400 so we're looking to spend about that on a new machine. i see that as a totally justifiable expense, especially if it could help the TPP workflow.
Good Decisions
We've decided to take up running. A huge motivator for that, outside of being able to eat more, is the self-tracking. We went from never running in our lives, to deciding to take it up, to being convinced that we needed to purchase some sort of 'device' to self track in all of, oh, 45mins. We wanted to buy they fitbits on black friday! we thought on it though, and realized we don't need it. we are using an iPhone ap that does basically all the same things and it is free!
Capital One Card
I forgot to tell you last week that my limit on my credit card was increased. i have two CCs, one is a best buy card that i used to buy my computer two years ago and the other is a capital one card that i got before i moved to texas in case of emergency. The best buy card is almost all the way paid off (i would have paid it off, but i used it to purchase my iPhone a couple months ago). The capital one card was sitting pretty close to its limit for awhile, but i had been paying over the minimum payment and incrementally working it down. When I logged in a couple weeks ago, I saw they had increased the limit. This is cool, but it also sucks. Its nice to have that padding in case i really need it, but all it does is burn a hole in my pocket! i feel i am going to have to work hard to not blow the 'money'.
As you can see, I have already charged over $300 on the card since finding this out. Work is slow, so i was thankful to be able to charge the groceries (wal-mart). The new egg purchase is for a new power source for my PC. I went with the most expensive one because i wanted to make sure it lasts. i probably would not have done this if i didn't have the extra credit, but it will probably save me money (and stress/time) in the future to not have to deal with it again.
Obviously neither of those charges is frivolous ;)
I did save myself $26 by calling capital one to request my payment assistance service be stopped. they charge you a percentage of your balance each month for a service that takes over your payments for you if you can't make them. i figured it was time to let this go since they were charging me $12/mo for it. when i called to cancel, customer service mentioned that part of the service was that they could make your minimum payment for you once per year. so instead of cancelling the service, i had them pay my bill. so i really only saved $14. the lady also told me that i can call next month and have them pay january's bill as well since it will be a new year. so i will save another $14 and then cancel the service. that's pretty good, i guess.
Chase Checking
| Pending | ACH Debit | PAYPAL INST XFER WEB 46R223YAJ9ASA  | $1.00 | | |
| 11/27/2009 | ATM Transaction | NON-CHASE ATM WITHDRAW 004596 11/252701 E 7T | $42.50 | | |
| 11/25/2009 | ACH Debit | HSBC RS Online Pmt 000000509029645 WEB ID: 1000000077 | $50.00 | | |
| 11/25/2009 | Debit Card Transaction | SAO PAULO S AUSTIN TX 11/23SAO PAULO | $72.28 | | |
| 11/25/2009 | Debit Card Transaction | ATTM *232013597061 08003 11/24ATTM *232 | $85.12 | | |
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| 11/24/2009 | ACH Debit | CAPITAL ONE ONLINE PMT 932739910266441 WEB ID: 9279744991 | $50.00 | | |
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| 11/23/2009 | Account Transfer | Online Transfer to MMA XXXXXX6466 transaction#: 282568773 | $50.00 | | |
| 11/23/2009 | Account Transfer | Online Transfer 282556257 to wells fargo ######2358 transaction #: 282556257 | $150.00 | | |
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*blank rows indicate deposits or repeated transactions that were pending last week
transfer to wells fargo is our joint account. we are working on being able to pay all of our bills from this account
other transfer is to savings(!). i have not put anything into savings in ages, so im making a conscious effort to contribute even small amounts from each check. it really adds up quick when i just contribute little by little.
capital one credited my account so it ended up only being the 34.67 from above
ATT is $20 more than verizon bill. i guess its worth it, but still seems steep
Sao Paulo with sharon im having a hard time with this one. paying for sharon's meal was definitely not frivolous because she has been so generous to us in the past. ok so im gonna guess $18 for meal, one drink, and tip. That leaves 54.28 that jessica and i consumed n mostly drinks. i'll subtract $6 for food since all we had was a couple sides. so then we split 48.28 in drinks. my share is 24.14. i can justify dinner and drinks with a friend / colleague, but i think i spent a little too much on drinks (had like 4). i'm going to deduct $10 from my budget for excess drinks and give myself the rest.
67.74 - 10 = 57.74
HSBC is my best buy card
the 11.27 atm withdraw is for cabs to joy's. we had $15 left over so that means the cabs combined were $25. split between jessica and i that's $12.50. i am torn on what to do about this. it is not a typical expense, but it is better than driving and cheaper than a DUI. jessica mentioned i should have a budget for 'emergency expenses' such as this, which i explained is what my 'incidental budget' is supposed to be for. so that would stand to reason that i should subtract it from my budget right? i think what i have to learn from this instance is that even though your budget seems like a lot in the beginning of the month, you never know what is going to pop-up. i realize now i shouldn't have spent the money in the beginning just because i didn't have any incidental charges that week. i should have saved that money for this instance. so i am going to begrudgingly subtract the $12.50 from my budget.
57.74 - 12.5 = 55.24
paypal charge is me testing a button
wells fargo joint checking
| 11/27/09 | CHECK CRD PURCHASE 11/25 HEB GROCERY #465 AUSTIN TX 486830XXXXXX3907 331940000404436 ?MCC=5411 111900659DA90 | | $52.76 |
| 11/25/09 | JPMorgan Chase Ext Trnsfr Nov 25 XXXXX6257 KELLY CREE | $150.00 | |
| 11/24/09 | BILL PAY TEXAS GAS SERVIC ON-LINE xxxxxxxxxxxxxx7309 ON 11-24 | | $21.78 |
| 11/24/09 | PAYPAL TRANSFER 091124 4XHJ23XYRRKUU JESSICA MULLEN DESIGN | $82.43 | |
these are a couple shared charges from our wells fargo account. paypal deposit is podcast money, w00t!
gas bill, duh
the HEB charge is for misc. Thanksgiving charges. we bought a pie and whipped cream to bring to joy's. that's justified because they made us dinner. we also bought chocolates to bring to the mullen's on TG. justified. then we bought about $33 worth of wine. is this justified?? i really don't see it as frivolous to drink wine on the holidays with family. how could one do it without wine? plus we drink the cheapest shit possible. i'm going to give myself this one.
Things to deal with
- Verizon - pretty sure those sick fucks are still charging me! need to call them and deal with this