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Archive for December, 2009

Merry Christmas! Payday update.

December 25th, 2009 at 05:33 am

Merry Christmas to everyone on Savings Advice.

I had to work till almost 9 pm today but I'm off Christmas day. I'll be going to my brothers for Christmas dinner. I complain every holiday that I'd rather just stay home. But everyone feels sorry for me or whatever and want me to come to their house. So I go more to make them happy than myself. The food at my brothers will be good though.

Today was payday. It was actually deposited in my account yesterday but I like to count thursday as payday.

After deducting all my regular budget items and spending money I had $59 extra.
I'm going to transfer $20 to my IRA savings and $20 to my travel fund. The extra $19 can just stay in my checking cushion. So that puts me ahead (just a little) for my 2009 goals. Next pay will be the start of my 2010 goals.

Hope everyone has a great holiday and a great new year.

Some various notes and maybe a rant.

December 19th, 2009 at 07:24 pm

My luck as far as finding money has changed for the better lately. I used to find money all over the place. Then suddenly I was lucky if I found a penny on occasion. Wednesday I found a dollar bill and Thursday I found a 5 dollar bill. Whoever lost it had it crumpled up
about the size of a quarter. Only bad thing is that it probably belonged to a little kid. I think its a shame how I see people all the time letting their little ones run around with cash crumpled up in their hands. The odds are that they are going to lose it.
In this particular case the money found a good home. ME! :-)


My nephew that had a stroke a short time ago had surgery yesterday to fix whatever caused the stroke. He had 2 options and chose the surgery. The other option was
free experimental medicine. He chose the surgery cause he wanted it over and done with. I really don't know which choice I would have made myself. It would definately be a tough choice to make.
Nephew's surgery went well to the best of my knowledge, but I haven't had contact with him today. He should be already home, resting right now.

Well I'm heading to work very soon. Its a bit nightmarish at Christmas time working in the toy department of a Wal Mart store.
I'm sure that this is all part of the punishment for past mis-doings in this or some previous life.

My boss made me change my work schedule.
Most everyone else doesn't think its a big deal. But to me it is a big deal and
adds a lot to my stress level. They used to be very happy that I work in the evenings and on weekends. At one time that worked in my favor. Now they say things changed and they want me to work earlier and no longer have Mondays and Tuesdays off. I'll get whatever days off they decide to give me. And I wont really be "The Toyguy" anymore. Technically I am still in toys but they don't really want anyone working in toys so i'll be working all over the place. They are nice about it in that they gave me total control about changing my hours. But that control means either changing it to what they say or not working. Makes me feel so good to have choices.

Take care everyone.

A quick Payday update

December 16th, 2009 at 06:43 pm

This past Thursday was my payday and of course I'm only getting around to posting it now. LOL.
There isn't much to post except that I got about $419 as a Bonus added to this check. And I got a Christmas Bonus of $50 added to it too.
I can't really do anything very special with the extra money because it basically just is going towards all the extra money
I've been spending. But at least I'm not broke and at least i've accomplished this years goals. I'm going to see if there is anything at all I can still accomplish in the next couple of weeks before the new year. If I do i'll post about it. And I'll be posting my 2010 goals very soon too. They will be pretty simple basic ones but I do have the new twist on it this time that I talked about on my last blog.

I've been spending (wasting?) too much time over on Facebook. Especially they have a new thing going on with the game Vampire Wars and I'm trying to keep up with that. I think the whole concept behind their gamnes is to keep people logged on as long as possible. At least I only do the one game. Most of my friends do 3 or 4 different ones. I don't know how they manage to go to work or anything.

Thanks for checking in. Have a great week everyone.

2009 Goals

December 9th, 2009 at 03:08 am

I figured now is as good of a time as any to post the results of my 2009 goals.
Even though my goals were not very grand by comparison to some of the things others on here have accomplished, it was still a somewhat of a challenge for me.
Especially with all the extra money that I've had to spend as of late in various repairs and replacements.

I hearby declare that all my goals were achieved. Yay!

- Re-paid myself the money that I spent
on the Dec. 08 muffler repair. In addition I also had to make a few repairs to my car since then and have also re-paid myself for those.

- Added $400 to my E-Fund which brings the current total to approxamately $2097.

- Saved for my 2009 IRA and put $4000 in for the year.

- Started saving for my 2010 IRA. I wasn't sure how much I could save but I ended up with $690. That goal will continue through the new year.

- Had my first ever yard sale. It didn't go well at all but it was something I wanted to try.

- Took my vacation to Costa Rica.

- And have paid at least $100 or more every month on the Principal of my mortgage.

- Although my Travel Fund was not specifically included into my goals I managed to continue saving into it. I currently have $2,840 in it. And the trip to Costa Rica was paid for before I got on the plane.

I haven't decided on my 2010 goals yet except to continue adding to my IRA and
continue paying extra on my mortgage.
With times being tough, and may get even worse I'm not going to make very aggressive goals. But I'll see what I can do with what I have.






New Washing Machine

December 8th, 2009 at 06:39 am

Finally bought a new washing machine today. My old one still works BUT just barely. The cloths are drenched when they are done. It takes forever to get them dry. I can't complain too much cause the washer is somethong like 17 years old.

The new washer wont be delivered till after Christmas but I'm not in that much of a rush. I think I got a great deal on it. It originally was $499 but was on sale for $449. Plus they took off another 10 percent on that. They will deliver and haul off the old machine for free. So I'm (a little to) excited. :-)

Nothing much else financial to report except they fired quite a few people at my store on Monday. Basically they say that the store made good money but not what they wanted so they were told to eliminate a bunch of new people. They also say that we are getting our hours greatly reduced after Christmas. Thats WITH the store making good profits. We are getting a bonus on my next paycheck. Just think if we were losing money.