Tag: money

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I downloaded a new peice of software to try out on my PDA. It’s called Ultrasoft Money and it’s basically a portable version of Microsoft Money which is what Heather and I use to keep track of all our banking. I get really bad about keeping receipts in my wallet and such, so I thought, since I keep my receipts in my pocket for so long and don’t ever enter them into the “checkbook” I shoudl carry the checkbook with me and enter them in right away. This Ultrasoft Money think is awesome. It does everything Money needs to do in your pocket, including auto entering data and such. It makes entering receipts a piece of cake. So not only do I know exactly how much money I have, but then I can take it home and sync the PDA and it will enter all that stuff into Microsoft Money on the computer.

The only problem is that it’s $40 and I don’t have that kind of money, even though, technically, it will save my hundreds in bank fees since I’ll be more on top of my finances. Like, I last looked at my account information at home on like Saturday morning and I had $47 dollars. Since then I’ve bought two things and now have only $41, but if I wasn’t entering the data in immediately, I’d only be guessing at ammounts rather than being able to say for certain. Now when I estimate how much money I have, I often get off by $4-5 which can mean the difference between being okay or being overdrawn. When I get overdrawn, because of the delays in posting with the check card, I can often buy two or three things, thinking I’m still okay, but actually being overdrawn before the bank and I realize. Then they charge me $33 an item for being overdrawn. So really, if this software even keeps me from being overdrawn once, it’s almost paid for itself.

I’m also trying to make more and more reasons to carry my PDA with me at all times because often it would be really helpful to have it, even though I tend to forget it a lot. By finding more and more ways it can save my life, I’ll be more likely to pick it up and slip it in my pocket when I leave the house. Oh well. I guess I really should find something to do rather than just writing journal entries.

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Oog, 5 hours of sleep is not enough for this job. I will not offer to run any more games on Wednesday nights. From now on, gaming doesn’t start until at least thursday.

So my bank account, the one I use for my “allowance” got screwed again last night. The preorder that I placed in August for Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II went through last night while I only had $6 in my account. So now I’ve gone from $6 to -$75 (as a result of penalty charges from going negative). I think, due to unscheduled charges this month (things I didn’t actively purchase but were pre-ordered or part of a subscription) I’ve been charged almost $100 in overdraft fees. From now on, no more subscriptions, no more pre-orders on my allowance account. They’re too chaotic to plan for.

I was informed yesterday at work that we would be redoing the S.O.V.A. web page. I’ve been wanting to do that for some time now and I’m finally getting the chance. Unlike last time, I’m not in full control. One of the faculty is doing the bulk of the design work and I’ll just do the coding and data entry, but it’s still going to be a lot of work. Not only that, but the deadline is ruthless, they want to have something online by Feb 15. What sucks is I already scheduled a weekend out of town on the 7th and 8th, so there’s a whole weekend I can’t work on it. I paid to go out of town already, so I can’t really back out of it. I’d be out $20. I’m just going to be pushing hard all that week. We have our first official design meeting tomorrow. I hope I get the initial design comps soon so I can start the layout.

But I get to go to the office now, so no more looking at cute girls in the lab for me.

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A Letter to Discover – Am I over reacting?

This isn’t a question so much as a comment on how I’ve been
handled lately. Through some errors on the part of Discover Card,
a ballance transfer was made twice from to my Discover Card from
another store credit card I was working on paying off. There were
some timing issues that resulted in Discover Paying them twice
and as a result, my Discover account was put in a negative
ballance. I was far over my limit.

When I contacted Discover about this, they explained why it
happened, and promissed me I would not be penalized for this
action. I was thankful. When I asked if they could fix the
situation, I was informed that they in fact could not, that I
would have to contact the other Credit Card, get a refund from
them, transfer that to a check and pay it back to Discover.
Needless to say, that took almost two months (from the initial
mistake) to get all cleared out and I’ve still sitting at a
negative ballance.

I called to figure this out, and I was informed that large
payments to Discover can take over a week to process. That’s
added yet another week to the already excessively long time that
this error has been plaguing me.

My opinion of this is that even though Discover Card made a
mistake, and essentially locked my account for two months, all
they’ve been able to do to make ammends for it, is to promise not
to penalize me for their mistake. Seems like poor business.

I just wanted you to know how I feel and how little respect
Discover seems to give their card holders. Sure, my card says
member since 1997, but I think I’ll probably be canceling my card
once all my problems are all sorted out, if in fact they ever are
sorted out. This is a poor business model and I hope you do not
treat all your “members” this way.

Thank you for your time and I hope your hollidays are less
stressful than mine have been.

Sincerely,
Kenneth Close
Member Since 1997

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I’m having mixed feelings of anticipation and concern about this weekend. I’m going to go do this Slot-0 interactive in Tulsa and I’m still not sure if I’m excited at all about it. I think my excitement begane to wane when I realized that I’m not going to have a free weekend for the rest of the YEAR! Today, we’re leaving at about 7:30 to drive up to Tulsa. A 5 hour trip. I’ll be spending the night in the house of someone I don’t even know, helping out at the interactive Saturday by playing possible the hardest character in the module, sleeping a second night at the same house of someone I hope I know a little better, and then driving back 5 hours on Sunday, hopefully in time to go to the SOVA Holiday Party for work.

I was really excited about this interactive this summer, but since then, my excitement has diminished a bit. I don’t know why, but I’m just not as thrilled anymore. I think it’d be better if I didn’t have to go to Tulsa two weeks in a row (yes, I’m going back next week for the actual interactive). Oh well, I’ve voulenteered myself, I’ve made my bed, now I guess I have to lie in it.

I’m concerned about money again, and I still have yet to finish my christmas shopping. Unfortunately, as I said before, I’m not going to get a free weekend at all for the rest of December. That means I need to take a day off from work, just to do holiday shopping. I keep getting money in my account, and it keeps going away before I have a chance to shop for Heather. I need to “fill her stocking” as it were. For me, that usually costs $50-75, but right now, I think I have less than $50 and I have to buy her another gift and I’m still going out of town two weeks in a row, which means I need to pay for food. I’ve even sold over $50 in D&D books and I still don’t seem to be making any ground. I need to sit down this evening and figure out how much our joint account owes me because I’ve bought a lot of stuff for us out of my money. It’s an interesting ballancing act with our money, but it seems to work for the most part.

Damn, I still need coffee.

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Ugh, it’s been a long, excrutiatingly boring day. Fridays are always so slow and monotonous.

I don’t even really have anything to write about.

So I’ve been shopping for Christmas and Birthdays. As I said before, I’m concerned about going overboard like I always do. I’ve put some old 2nd and 3rd edition D&D books on ebay and I’ve already made $22 with a guaranteed additional $23. I’m padding my gift expenses by getting rid of nostalgia. I think watching Clean Sweep has helped me to realize that just because items have sentimental value, doesn’t mean you have to keep them. Find another way to stay connected to you memories and feelings (journals for example) and get rid of the bulk in your home. It can be worth money and make your home more lievable. I may start taking this further as I find other things that no longer serve any purpose in my home.

I also need to finally finish my case so that I can sell or trash the old one. That way I don’t have two computer cases lying around the house (though if I found parts enough to build a second… bah!).

Things have been really good between Heather and I. I love just having her in the same room with me. When she goes shopping or I stay home from work, I enjoy my time alone, but when it’s time for her to come home, I immediately start missing her. It’s freaky, but cool, very cool. I remember, before we had any problems, I would feel spontaneously “twitterpated” just sitting in the living room watching TV with her. That feeling is returning, and with gusto. I just love sitting with her in silence, chatting about mindless crap, going for car rides, watching movies…

…I just love being with her.

And I won’t even talk about the other stuff here, I’ll save that for a more private journal entry.

Tonight I have a lab meeting. If I didn’t, I’d probably be home already. I’ve got a lot of stuff to cover, but I hope it goes by quick. I like staying late as little as the lab attendants, so maybe we can buckle down and get this taken care of quickly. I’m going to drop a bombshell on them today. I’m going to tell them about a new time-clock system we’re going to be using rather than filling out time sheets all willy-nilly.

Oh, crap, I gotta go tell the students the lab is closing in 30 minutes. I feel sory for the lab attendant because they all just walk all over her. The students may mock me, but at least when I say to leave, they get the fuck out.

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I really enjoy shopping for gifts and, unfortunately, tend to go overboard a lot. I love to give people things and as a result, spend more money than I usually want to on them. I was bidding on my dad’s gift on ebay and in the last 5 minutes, someone started upping my bid like crazy. I went about $11 over what I wanted to spend, but it is his birthday and christmas all at once, and I’ve been kind of lazy in the last few years so I hope he enjoys it.

Heather, this is about your gift, but there are no real spoilers, read at your own risk “”
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Money’s been tough, and it’s not necesarilly getting any easier. I’m trying very hard not to spend any of my allowance this month. I think I’ve only ever once had any rollover so I’m wanting to see what it’s like to have more than $100 in my account. We’ll see what happens. I don’t recall any new games or books on the horrizon, and if there are, well, Christmas is right around the corner.

I canceled my Citibank Visa today. It was really wierd to do so. It’s not really my oldest credit card, but it’s my most used card. It’s a Sony card so I get points to use toward Sony products when I use it for stuff. I didn’t have enough points in the end to get anything else, so the remaining points just went to waste. It’s probably best to have cancelled it though. I know this is kind of sick, but I had the number memorized. And just to add insult to injury, my only subscribed porn web site was tied to that account, too. Looks like I’ll be losing that as well. Too bad too, it was an awesome site. I also paid off my Best Buy card today too. As soon as I get the refund check in the mail, I’ll probably cancel it as well. I won’t be as concerned about it though, I can’t remember what I specifically got the card for, but I’ve pretty much abused it along the way (I think it was my old Toshiba computer, which is pretty scary). It’s so hard to give this stuff up, but I know full well that it’s for the best and it really is the best thing to do. We need to get ourselves out of debt and having credit cards around isn’t going to help at all. I really wish we had more money, I wish the school realized my importance and paid me more, I wish Heather was compenensated as well as she’s praised. She is more kick ass at her job than I am at mine and I know we’re both underpaid for the stress we suffer (but then again, I’m sure a lot of people feel that way).

She’s looking at car insurance options to see if she can lower that any, looks like we might be able to go a bit lower if we swtich to Progressive from Geico. I wonder what Geico would say if we told them we were switching. Could we get them to meet or beat Progressive’s rate (Heather, are you reading this?).

For now, I just have to learn to appreciate the things I have, sell the things I don’t need, and not long for the things I don’t have (Digital SLR camera, Wide Screen LCD TV). I really need to get back to selling on eBay. Anyone looking for a pile of 2nd Edition AD&D books? They’re all well loved, but the content is mint and none have dropped a page yet.

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Tuesday evening: In the lab

Well, I didn’t write yesterday to say what a good weekend I had. I just never got myself in the mood to write. I often find that when I want to write in my journal, I either am not, or don’t feel like sitting at the computer. When I’m sitting at the computer, I’m just not in the mood to write. I used to keep my journal on my PDA, but that was really a joke. I was worse at it there than I was on this thing.

I played LotGR on Saturday. Had a great time. Really enjoyed playing in a game with Tim again, I haven’t played with him in years and I forgot how much fun it was. All I could ever remember were the horror stories, but I forgot that I really like Tim and his play style. We had a good time and managed not to die.

Sunday, I did a lot of nothing. It was great.

I’ve been a bad boy. I downloaded iTunes for one of the two PCs I have at work. It’s not the greatest music player/manager I’ve ever used, but it’s not bad. It rips CDs really slowly. So slow that I find myself impatient with it, even though it’s connected to a computer that just sits by my feet and does nothing all day. Maybe it’s just because I’ve had little to do lately so I end up staring at the cd tray waiting for it to eject. Yeah, pathetic.

Heather just informed me that we’re ordering food for dinner tonight on my credit card. I hate doing that, but we’re stretched a little thin so we’re gonna splurge on either pizza or wing zone. I liked the idea of hawaiian BBQ pizza at lunch, but I smelled fries in the hall earlier. Oh the drama!

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Anyone notice I pretty much only post on “Mondays”

Yeah, it’s Tuesday, but I played hooky yesterday so it feel like Monday. It’s just a really cool Monday because it’s Tuesday already.

Well, it was a lazy weekend, so I’m happy. Friday, HeatherEJCHeather and I rented a crapload of movies (5) and ErezethJeremy came over and played some Magic. We had a good time. Played some games, ownzored him a bit, then watched Boat Trip. It was a lot funnier than we (Heather and I, Jeremy had gone home already) expected. We were expecting kind of stupid comedy with b(.)(.)bs. It turned out to be a really funny romantic comedy ( with b(.)(.)bs).

Saturday we watched Holes. It was really cool too, and awesome modern fairy tale. It had a whole bunch of plots that revolved around eachother and wrapped up together in the end. A lot of cyclic stories and myths. Very cool. Saturday night I went to Corwin75Steve’s game and had a pretty good time. Not a lot of fight, but I think we actually got some decent RP in. First good character development since I joined. I still haven’t got my character nailed down yet, but it’s tough to do when the games are two weeks apart and I didn’t have a solid inspiration in the first place. I based the character on a combat concept rather than a character concept, so I have to let the character develop as I play him. He’s getting there though. I know he’s standoffish (represented by being a pole-arm fighter) and a little naieve about the world. He’s inventive and creative, a crafter, but not of standard weapons or items. I think, if I get enough play, he’ll be really interesting.

Sunday, we watched Bend it Like Beckham in the morning and Identity in the evening. Both were fantastically entertaining, in their own ways. Finally, Monday we watched A View From The Top which, while entertaining, was not all I expected it to be. Also, Monday, Jeremy and I played some more Magic, he was redeemed and we are now at a score of 4-3 (my favor).

I’ve been thinking about our money again. thanks to Heather. I don’t want a second job, but I keep thinking that’s the only way I can think of to help us out. I really like my ballance of work and leisure right now, and would actually prefer more leisure, but if we don’t start moving in a more positive direction, I may feel forced to take a second job. I keep looking at this Utopian point 5 years from now when our cars and cards are paid off, but it seems like a ways. We both want to feel secure and stable before we think about a child and by then I’ll be 35. I know people are having children later in life these days, but that still seems pretty far off to me. I think about how I’ll be in my 50s by the time our child even graduates high school. I’m not in a rush to have a child, but at the same time, I’m want to be spry enough to enjoy it.

I’m also thinking about excersize a lot more again, recently. I feel unhealthy. I’m not what you’d call out of shape, by any means. And fat doesn’t apply to me at all. But I want to be proud of my body, I liked being toned and tanned from when I was working at the mill. I think if I do get a second job, it needs to be a labor job, lifting and hauling. Sure, it would have to be at night so I woudln’t get the tan back, but I could at least get the tone back. I don’t know what kind of job could possibly provide the workout I got at the mill though, we worked our asses off in a steaming, 200º workplace. It was like being in a sauna and working wieghts at the same time, while at the same time running aerobics. Where the hell can I get all that at the same time, and get paid to do it?

I tried jogging a while back. I like to run, I mean I actually enjoy it. So Heather and I bought a treadmill a few years back. I ran on it off and on, but back at the beginning of this year I put some serious effort into it. I ran hard three days a week for three months. Not only did I not see any physical change (fat changing to muscle, less bounce in my body), I didn’t see any change at all in my weight. I stayed a solid 190lb. the whole time. It was depressing and unmotivational. I quit. I admit that it was weak of me to quit, but it obviously wasn’t doing anything. I need to do more, but I don’t know enough about what to do to do anything else. I keep thinking I could ride my bike more, that works out a bit more of the body, adding some strength to the aerobics, but I haven’t motivated myself to do it. I’ll have to start considering it. I’m sure I could ride three days a week and do isometric strength two days a week. I just have to get motivated. Come on, someone motivate me!

poop, I ran out of things to say. I always feel like I should have more to write, but when I write, I feel like I’m just rambling. I’ll have to see if I can start focusing my writing in here. Hmmm. I got an idea, but I’ll have to see if I can flesh it out a bit.

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LiveJournal Archives – 09/16/2003

Brandon and his girlfriend came over last night and bought us pizza. He’s the best nephew I’ve ever had. We watched Léon and generally just hung out. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before. I mean, come on! It’s Léon! Anyway, it was a good time, I really enjoy his company and he seems to really enjoy hanging out with us and watching movies.

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