Finance Gets Personal

Last month, I expected that my net worth would take a hit in May due to home repairs, but I’m happy to report that it went up anyway!

Net worth as of May 1: $67,943
Net worth as of June 1: $70,247

Here are this month’s highlights:

• We spent about $105 on Mother’s Day presents, including baseball tickets for me (yea!)
• My mom’s birthday ended up costing us a bundle, even though not all of the costs were incurred in May. She wanted to go to a play that cost us $100 for our two tickets, we went out to dinner ($30), bought her a present ($30) and paid for parking ($7).
• We got a bid for painting our house and it was only $2,600, so we decided that we’ll hire someone else to do it instead of painting it ourselves. Since then, I’ve gotten another bid for $2,100, and am trying to get some more bids, but painters apparently don’t like returning phone calls. We’ll probably have the house painted late summer/early fall, and will be taking a vacation in our own city (staycation!) instead of going out of town.
• We received our $1,500 economic stimulus payment and $213 state tax refund, which went toward replacing our heat pump ($3,467) and hot water heater ($674).
• I started snowflaking toward my credit card about halfway through the month, and paid an extra $171 through snowflaking techniques such as selling things on Craigslist, spending less on gifts, matching spending on indulgences, etc. I also created a website for graphic design to get some additional income from a snowflaking business.
• I began playing “The Drugstore Game” and it’s been pretty successful. Before too long, I’m going to have a year’s supply of razors, shampoo and toilet paper!
• My husband got a bonus of $885 and about $200 extra in his paycheck (due to having three paychecks in May - they don’t take insurance out of the third one or something), which went toward the credit card.
• I’ve been putting more effort into getting to work on time, and I’m getting closer to “on time,” though I’m still not quite there.
• I have been trying to lose weight, and lost five pounds last month, but I’ve been slacking off lately. I’ve only managed to maintain my weight loss from last month, but I think I’ll be able to get back on track if I start tracking my calories online again.

  Welcome to June, the fifth month of Finance Gets Personal!

On Tuesday, I’ll be hosting the Carnival of Money Stories, my very first carnival! (I made it through the wilderness…)

This carnival deals with people’s personal experiences and stories about finance. If you have written a post about this topic in the past month, please submit it here by 5 p.m. Eastern on Monday, June 2.

I’ve mentioned before that I have a problem with being chronically late.

I’m not sure exactly what’s causing me to be late almost every day, but I do know one thing: I hit the snooze button in my sleep.

Like this morning, when my alarm clock was set for 7 a.m. I remember waking up at 6:00 a.m. and thinking, “It’s not time to get up yet.” Then, I think I remember hearing the alarm at 7:00 and pushing snooze. The next time I wake up, it’s 8:24, and the alarm clock is still showing that it is in “snooze” mode (which means it should have been going off every 10 minutes or so).

I’m not really sure how to resolve this, but I need to. I’ve always heard advice about putting the alarm clock across the room or down the hall, but that doesn’t work for me because I run to turn it off and get back in bed. So, I have an experiment for tonight:

I programmed our coffee pot to start making coffee at 6:45 a.m. Although I don’t usually drink coffee, I’m hoping the smell/chance of fire will get me out of bed.

I bought a programmable timer for my bedside lamp at Target for $10. I’m going to set it to turn on at 6:30 a.m. I’m hoping this will simulate sunlight and help me get up.

I’m going to set the alarm clock on my cell phone too, just in case.

We get the newspaper on weekends, so I’ll wear something decent to bed tonight that I can go out and get the paper in the morning and read it over breakfast.

I bought frozen strawberry waffles and syrup to eat for breakfast, since I usually just eat a cereal bar in my car on the way to work.

If I’m on time tomorrow, I’m going to reward myself with a glass of wine during intermission of the play we’re going to that night.

Here goes nothing…

Photo Credit: Maker of the day - Matty Sallin, Bacon-cooking alarm clock by pt, used under Creative Commons licensing

I just got done taking a half-hour telephone survey about panty liners.

Can you imagine being the interviewer who has to ask questions like these?:

“At which of the following times during your menstral period do you use panty liners?”

“Did you read any of the cover articles in the Cosmo issue that included the ad for panty liners? If so, which ones?” (”Yes, I read the article about when your boobs do weird things…”) “Excuse me?”

Ha ha!

Six years ago:
I graduated from one of the country’s top journalism schools with a degree in advertising…
I had held part-time jobs and internships in marketing, graphic design and public relations, where my duties included writing copy for websites and designing ads…
I was accepted into a well-regarded advertising portfolio school in Atlanta with hopes of becoming an art director…
I began a graphic design program at a highly-regarded art school…

Today:
I’m an analyst who was lucky enough to sit in on the meeting discussing our small company’s new logo and website, which is being designed and written by friends and family members of my bosses…

This was not a good day.

Photo Credit: Kern this… by clared23, used under Creative Commons Licensing

Welcome to the new (and dare I say, improved?) Finance Gets Personal.

That’s right, it only took two days and several hours of “page not found” errors to get to this point. I apologize, but my DNS/CSS/!@#*#%$ knowledge is extremely limited.

I’ll probably be making more tweaks as I go along, and possibly adding some minimally-invasive advertising.

Yes, that is me in the picture. Hope it’s not too creepy looking.

Now, time to actually write some posts!

Yea! I finally figured out how to post without my whole computer locking up!
I’m switching from wordpress.com to a self-hosted site, so bear with me.
I should have everything fixed tonight.

I challenge everyone to do one positive thing for your finances this weekend.

It doesn’t have to be big.

Here are a few ideas:

• Shop around for your cable, cell phone, insurance or other services and see if you can get a better rate
• Take your change to the bank
• Post some things for sale on Craigslist
• Open an online savings account
• Start getting things together for a garage sale
• Cut coupons out of the Sunday paper
• Calculate your net worth if you don’t already know it

What will/did you do this weekend?

I’m going to work on setting up a website for my graphic design snowflaking business.

Photo Credit: Un piccolo passo…/ One small step… by aldoaldoz, used under Creative Commons licensing

If you or your fiance/spouse purchased any diamond jewelry or loose diamonds between January 1, 2004, and March 31, 2006, be sure to get your claim in for a piece of the $295 million class-action lawsuit against DeBeers.

You can read more about the lawsuit here. 

Although there’s no telling whether you’ll get $10 or thousands, you can look at the table in the article to determine the maximum amount you’re eligible to receive (it depends how many people file a claim, and for how much).  But hey, ten bucks is still ten bucks, and you can always turn your ice into snowflakes (yes, I plan to continue using lame wordplays on “snowflaking” - deal with it!).

To submit an electronic claim, click here.  To download a .pdf version to mail in, click here.  Remember, your claim must be submitted/postmarked by May 19, 2008.

(This post was included in the Carnival of Snowflaking, hosted by Dreaming of Ferraris.)

Photo Credit: Engagement Rings by elmada, used under Creative Commons licensing

Speaking of emergencies, I’m concerned we’re going to have one if we attempt to paint our house ourselves. No, this isn’t our house, but it’s about the same height. Yikes!

We are definitely in over our heads, and we haven’t even started yet. Last night we watched “10 Things You Must Know About Exterior Painting,” and we’re sitting there like, “What? How long do you have to wait to paint after it rains? You’re not supposed to use flat paint? Those little clips do what?”

Yeah. So we are getting some bids this week. I figure it will cost us between $1,000-$1,500 to do it ourselves, so if it costs $3,000 for someone else to do it, it’s probably well worth it.
I have a feeling it’s going to be more than that though…

Photo Credit: Our Scaffolding by nuanc, used under Creative Commons licensing