Nickeled and Dimed

I'm in Chicago on a business trip. Had to pay $15 to check my suitcase on the flight. The very expensive hotel I'm in charges for wireless internet access. Cheaper hotels usually give you wireless for free, along with breakfast. (Right now, I am using the free wi-fi at the convention hall.) I skipped the expensive breakfast at the expensive hotel and grabbed some tea and banana bread from Starbucks. My 16 ounce hot tea costs more than a 12 ounce tea, but they both only use only one tea bag. The vending machines for Chicago's rail system do not accept credit cards, and they don't give back change. I will have to hunt around for correct change next time. You also don't get a receipt, which will complicate my expense reporting. My employer wants proof of every little thing to a ridiculous degree, so I guess I will try taping the used transit card to my paperwork and see if that satisfies the corporate overlords. If nothing else, now I can say I've ridden the 'L'.

Some Serious Change

$332.50

That is how much change we have rolled up after today's session, not counting the dollar coins. My old silver dollars have sentimental value. The oldest dates to 1899. But all the other coins are just a nuisance.

We haven't dealt with our spare change in a couple of years, and it shows. We had several stashes around the house, not including what we keep at work and in our cars. And there was already a large amount of previously rolled coins that we never did anything with.

A pile of metal isn't easy to deal with as a unit of exchange. We'll be converting the stash into Christmas gifts and charitable contributions very soon.

If you haven't scrounged around your house, cars, coat pockets, couch cushions and other hidden places for spare change lately, I suggest you give it a try. You will be surprised how much money you might have just lying around.

"Would you like to save 10% on today's purchase?"

No, I would like for you to STOP ASKING ME THAT QUESTION every time I come in here.

Big Receipts

No, I don't mean the dollar amount. I mean the actual physical size. Receipts have grown in recent years. Especially grocery store receipts. Good gawd! There are several linear feet of extras in those stupid things. Coupons, surveys, and all manner of unwanted crap.

I save all receipts, at least temporarily. I enter them into Quicken, and keep 'em until statements arrive and everything matches. Durable goods receipts get put into a file, in case we need to take things back or prove when we purchased an item. Everything else gets binned for eventual shredding in a month or two. The smaller receipts are the easiest the deal with. Size, not dollar value. Just give me the basics. Gas station receipts are the best. Tiny size. No extras. Grocery stores are the worst. Way too much stuff, nothing terribly important. *sigh*

And why is it so hard to find the DATE and TOTAL? Those two bits of data are the only things I care about on most receipts. Would it kill companies to make them bold, or larger font? It takes far too long to find these amidst all the clutter. Inefficient! FAIL.

Dumb Things To Do During A Financial Meltdown

1. Start a big home improvement project.

2. Drop several thousand dollars on your sick cat.

3. Open your 401(k) statements.



Guilty.

Stimulating the Economy

We are doin' it all over the place this week, in spite of not going much of anywhere on vacation. Dropped some cash at the Tennessee Aquarium on Monday, and even bought the souvenir photo, mostly because it was a good picture of both of us and we don't have many of those (and the fake background made us laugh). Spent some dough today on a new sofa and chair for our living room. We'll donate the old sleeper sofa and loveseat (they were a hand-me-down to PDM years ago). Still looking for coffee and end tables. And we'll need some smaller speakers to replace the big muthas that we are currently using. Went shopping for porch furniture and narrowed it down enough to plunk down some moolah tomorrow - two shops will be competing for our business. Picked up Big Daddy and Grandmother's 60-year old glider and took it to a mom-n-pop shop to be sandblasted and powder coated. I can't wait to see it looking just about as good as new. We'll order some custom cushions for it, probably at yet another locally owned business. Or, I might get industrious and order the material to make them myself.



On deck for tomorrow: some unusual altruism involving... the big chop. I'm a bit nervous about it. Gulp.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ack."

That was me, looking at the quarterly "earnings" statements from my three retirement account statements, and then looking at the interest rate trend on our savings accounts. Crap! I wasn't feeling all that bad about the economy (in spite of everything costing more all of a sudden) until I tallied up how much freaking money those accounts lost. Dang. I realize it is just ones and zeros in some computers somewhere until I decide to cash it in, but man, that stings. I got a whole lot less ones and zeros than I did before. It is a pretty high price to pay for a mortgage crisis and credit crunch that we had no part in bringing about.

And if those "glad tidings" in today's mail weren't enough, we also had a letter from the county informing us that they increased the assessment on our home by about 15% (in spite of the fact that real estate values have stagnated over the last year). I guess they need more money, probably because of the shitty economy. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Update: Now that I think about it, and am wondering how the county can increase my assessment when our propery has the "homestead exemption + freeze" that is supposed to keep assessments from going up. I'm gonna have to investigate that. Seems fishy to me. Hey Dave... care to comment?

Seven

I've been tagged by Jeni to list seven things about me. Err, thanks, I think.

1. I procrastinate. A lot. In fact, half of the stuff I listed last December is still not done. I knocked out one of them just today (local cell phone number, a mere 3.5 years after moving). Another one (the window treatments for the not-so-new house) was completed just a few weeks ago. That is the way it works. Nothing happens for months (or years), and then all of a sudden I decide to "just do it" and have a spurt of productivity.

2. Back in 1984, during my first quarter in college, the only "A" I got was in Marching Band. Lets just say high school was way too easy for me and I had NO IDEA how to study, and not much inclination to do so because I was busy having fun. It got better as time went on.

3. When I went back to Tech in 2004 to work on a second MS degree, I didn't get any final grades less than an "A". Older + wiser + genuinely interested + good work ethic = CURVEBUSTER!

4. I lived in Massachusetts for over twelve years, but never went to a Red Sox game. Meant to. Procrastinated... At least I got to see a Celtics game in the old Boston Garden.

5. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. Things didn't quite work out that way, but space travel isn't exactly the way I had imagined it either. The food and sanitary facilities are far superior in my current occupation.

6. I've been debt free (except mortgage) since 2003. Love it! My best advice is to not get into debt in the first place. It was hard to get out of. But doable. If you don't know how to do it, this book will show you the way.

7. I've been growing my hair out so that I can donate it to Locks of Love. I started well over a year ago, and my hair is about as long as it has ever been in my adult life. It will take another six months to a year before I have the minimum 10" ponytail that they ask for and still have enough hair left for me to not freak out.

Which one is flatter?

A pancake, or my boobs during today's mammogram? Hmmm. That's a tough one. Are the pancakes fluffy?

Then there was this strange incident in the parking garage on my way out. I knew that the parking fee would be $2, and the smallest bill I had was a $20. So I decided to get rid of some of the loose change I had been carrying around. I gave the parking attendant four quarters and ten dimes. He gave me a withering look as if I had just handed him a fistful of dog turds. "What is this?" he spat, in a haughty tone reminiscent of a snooty waiter. Then he just sort of threw the change into the register without bothering to count it. As if dealing with coins was somehow beneath him (or maybe he doesn't know how to count American currency). He's a parking lot attendant, for cryin' out loud. Bizarre. Do you think he would have been more or less pissy if I had given him some of those spiffy new dollar coins?

The good news is that my boobs did spring back to their normal shape, they didn't find anything alarming in the images, and I don't have to do it again until the next time my doctor starts badgering me about it.

My one and only somewhat Oscar-related post.

I see a strong resemblance here. Maybe it's the hair. Or the jowls. Tell me I'm wrong.