Spending Less

Catching up

2007-01-03T02:17:20Z

Now with the New Year here and the holidays behind us, it is time to get all caught up on things and back into a normal rythym. I love the holidays, but everything just seems to get out of whack around then, so it nice when some sense of normalcy returns. In December, I'd taken a week off at the beginning of the month (right after the holiday for Thanksgiving, which meant even more time off), time off for Christmas and New Years, was sick, work was completely quiet the few days I did return between...(read more)

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-26T08:05:00Z

Merry Christmas to all out there in personal finance land! God bless you all! As for my wife and I, we got to spend out Christmas sick with strep. My wife is a pre-school teacher and strep has been going around school. She had a cold part of last week, then it looks like it changed to strep around Friday. Sunday is when it kicked it up a notch, and it came down hard on me all of a sudden. This morning, it occurred to us that it might not be a cold and could be strep, so we went into urgent care in...(read more)

Update on the move

2006-12-22T18:54:02Z

Finally have some good news on the housing front... we are moving on January 20th! My wife and I had gone to look at a couple of houses that were available for rent and the last one we went to we absolutely fell in love with it. It was perfect. Great price, great neighborhood, great shape, everything was splendid. So we applied for it and had to wait while we went through the process of credit and reference checking (sometimes nailbiting). Just the other day, we found out that we got it and we set...(read more)

Some companies will never get it

2006-12-14T20:34:00Z

Come across this article regarding how Craigslist isn't interesting in maximizing profits, but are focusing on the customer experience. It is amazing how many people don't get it. One thing that kind of bothered me is someone called Jim Buckmaster of Craigslist "delightfully communist". Why communist? The word "communist" doesn't quite have the same negative connotation it did years ago, and it was most likely meant jokingly, but why can't people just realize that...(read more)

Tip for Christmas Gifts for Bosses on a Budget

2006-12-13T22:51:10Z

As a part of my Christmas shopping, I always like to get something to give to my bosses and other people at work who I regularly deal with at work. I don't normally get stuff for others on my own team at work, but I like to for other people who I regularly annoy ask for favors. For instance, our IT guy. He has a pretty demanding job, as he serves a lot of roles. He is always taking care of server deployments, management, migrations, etc, etc. Also, at my job, we have an "office mom" (she likes being...(read more)

Neighbors from hell, part deux

2006-12-09T02:56:27Z

A while ago, I'd mentioned some problems our neighbors downstairs. Seems the drama continues. We've been in this apartment for a year and a half, and most of the time, we haven't had much of a problem. Some of the people around us smoke, and it can come in through our slider, but we traced it to one person and the problem had gone away. Then we had a neighbor who always thought our TV was too loud and would bang on the wall some, but that problem went away. But then, back around September, we had...(read more)

November 2006 Networth

2006-12-05T21:57:00Z

I was not looking forward to compiling our networth stats this month because I knew they were going to be bad. This is the first time we've had a somewhat indulgent month since tracking our networth, so now I can see how much of an effect they have and how far they can set you back. While I don't regret doing the car maintenance (it was definitely needed) and I don't regret upgrading my computer (I use the thing all day long, so I want it how I like it), I do see how much of an impact...(read more)

Two steps forward, three steps way back

2006-11-28T03:38:53Z

Unfortunately, looking over this month's current progress, it looks like we're taking a major step back in our debt progress. Despite our payments, it looks like we will be adding on about $2,800 of credit card debt. Several things have been going on this month: $2,000 in computer hardware purchases. Since Windows Vista was officially released (and available to MSDN Subscribers and beta testers), I decided to go ahead and upgrade my computer. I wanted several things just done and out of the way....(read more)

iTunes money pit

2006-11-21T20:37:07Z

Found this post about a guy who ran up an tab from 8,000 downloads on iTunes (via Get Rich Slowly ). That is one reason I consider iTunes to be evil. I had recently turned my wife onto iTunes and set her up on my account. Every time she made a purchase, it would email me the invoice the next day. I didn't really care what she was buying, since I figured a little here and there wouldn't hurt. And then, in the course of 3 days, she purchased 60 songs, and 40 in one day. In the emails, it lists the...(read more)

Expensive car repair

2006-11-09T21:38:00Z

On Monday, I had taken my wife's car in because it had been leaking oil. Ended up being caused by a crack in the oil sending unit, just above the oil filter. Though while it was there, I also had them do the 60k tune-up on the car and also replaced the battery, since it was running low. Final costs? $550. It ended up costing more than I thought it would, but the bulk of the cost is from the tune-up and the battery. I could have gone without the tune up, but I have always felt that car maintenance...(read more)

October 2006 Networth

2006-11-05T01:26:00Z

It has been a busy month, especially the last two weeks. Now that October is over, welcome to the holiday season! Probably the most expensive time of the year. But, we are confident that we are in a much better position now than we were a year ago, so this time, we're approaching it prepared. September 2006 October 2006 $ Change TOTAL NET WORTH -$3,896.30 -$3,645.07 $251.23 Assets Checking $2,143.66 $1,033.81 -$1,109.85 Savings $500.69 $603.97 $103.28 CD $30,635.68 $30,775.19 $139.51 Retirement...(read more)

Paying for things you only think you need

2006-10-30T02:53:00Z

Lately, I've been looking for some ways to trim our expenses a little here and there. I was mainly thinking of canceling my Netflix subscription, and my Vonage phone service. I don't use Netflix much anymore since the new TV seasons have started, and I don't use Vonage a ton, so Skype sounds like a cheaper alternative. But then I was doing some thinking... these are only like $17/mo bills... I wasn't even looking at some of the larger monthly expenses, such as my cell phone bill....(read more)

Non paying Ebayers suck

2006-10-24T17:39:07Z

In order to help get some more funds for our debt reduction, I've been planning on selling some stuff that I don't really need on Ebay. Last week, I posted the first item. I decided to only do one to keep it simple, and it was going to be a nice ~$400. The day before the auction was the end, someone had bought it using the Buy It Now option, since the reserve hadn't yet been met. I was cheering... woo hoo, my item sold, $400 richer! That was Friday afternoon. It is now Tuesday morning. Still no money,...(read more)

Paid off another card!

2006-10-20T18:55:29Z

Today, I submitted the payment for the remaining balance on my Chase credit card! It felt good to select the option for "Pay current balance" instead of "Pay current minimum" or "Pay other amount" and enter in some small fraction of the balance. This is the first time I've had a $0.00 balance on a regular consumer credit card since I got my first card! I like looking at my list of accounts in Microsoft Money and finally seeing some accounts which say $0.00. Next on the chopping block: my Dell preferred...(read more)

Fell a day behind in my blog reading

2006-10-20T04:00:32Z

I fell behind a day on reading new posts, and after my earlier post about mortgage tax savings, I find that yesterday, JLP at AllFinancialMatters posted a tidbit on mortgage deduction and taxes ....(read more)