Pheeew. My summer is done!

Summer is almost over… And I'm somehow happy about it!  Growing up, we never really had much of a summer. As a family, we wouldn’t go anywhere or do much in specific. Summers were just a lot of no-school days bunched together. Since we weren’t really allowed to hang out with friends, or leave the house except for school events (wish I was exaggerating), it was also awfully boring.  Videogames and books can only occupy so much of your time.

After moving to the US, summers for me meant work and/or school.  During HS, I took some summer courses as required, even though I was way over the credit allowance for graduation, and I was already a senior.  Instead of staying another year as the school advised, I crammed English I-IV and US History I-II plus some math and science courses into 3 semesters plus summer.  I was even grouped with middle schoolers during summer classes, which was... different.  But let’s not get into that.  After HS, college meant I’d spend my summers working.  Funny, I never had a penny in my name, as my mother took full ownership of those checks.  I didn’t even have to sign for any of them!  To be honest, money just didn’t exist for me.  Just work.  And that was better than the alternative of staying at home for days on end.  My parents live 1 hour from the beach, and I still have never been there… so much for excitement.  However, starting last year, my first summer out and away from my parents’ house, I’ve traveled 9 times and crossed into 11 states.  Going from zero to that is a bit exhausting!  But oh, so worth it.  I’ve met so many people and made some of my best friends.  Amazing what a bit of freedom can do.

Putting all of this together has given me an idea I wish I had thought about before all of those clean-and-purge exercises we’ve been having around the blogosphere: I want to start keeping track of these events in a photo album!  But since I don’t really take photos, it’d be more of a scrapbook.  I can’t make it quite as nice as the pros can, but I just want somewhere to collect all of these random pieces of paper trails (like airplane tickets and ride vouchers) and photos I’ve taken through my trips.  Every time I cleaned and purged and organized my few possessions these past 18 months, I’ve looked at these items knowing they should be trashed since I don’t have any use of them, but they bring such good memories.  So now, those that survived all the cleaning trips will have a home!  I am quite excited.  Too bad my photos leave much to be desired, but they’ll have to do.

Financially (I’m such a bad financial blogger), the only black eye in these past few weeks has been that auto insurance blooper from my parents, where I got stuck paying for it and not getting reimbursed.  That’s $220 that I could’ve certainly put to good use, but I’ve learned whining about it wont help.  Instead, I’ve gotten a few auto insurance quotes, and I think I know which direction I am going after September.  

Only problem with getting my own auto insurance is taking my car from their insurance and putting it exclusively on mine.  I’d still be working over the weekend and going to their house, which means they’re likely to be using my car while I’m at work or resting at the house.  I am not that familiar with insurance that much, but will that cause problems if they drive a car that is not on their insurance policy, but just under mine?

I’ve heard school is less than 5 weeks away.  That’s scary close!  And I’m not even going to school anymore, but wow did summer really fly by.  I’m ready to move to fall, but I guess I need to stop wishing summer days away and let everyone else enjoy the season.

Little update and some interesting notes on health insurance

Very boring stuff on my end. I keep postpoing any posts because of the lack of stuff to say.  I found out the post I had scheduled to be posted on the 6/12 didn’t really go through Blogger, so now I look like a real bum for not posting for over 20 days. I started to modify it and making it fit, I just scrapped it altogether because it was just irrelevant.

Now that I am literally done with traveling and going outside of my routine, I can assess the damage. And I am happy to report that there is none! Everything got paid timely, no extra money was taken... other than my parents forgetting to pay for the car insurance which is still attached to my bank account (for discount reasons), so the money was withdrawn, but they didn’t pay me back. And they won’t at this point, either. At least it wasn’t my doing. Yes, yes, I need to get my own car insurance, but I really can’t afford it until at least the end of September. Repaying taxes has crippled these past few months, as well as that unwilling loan—gift to my parents to buy a car that still doesn’t work. I am giving myself until Sept to get new car insurance separate from my parents.

I will also be checking my credit score at some point this weekend.  I had my credit reports from last year, but that didn’t give me a number (and did I mention I couldn’t save any of them because my computer crashed each one of them?).  The only indication of a number was from my credit card application back in Feb, where they gave me something in the 670’s. Ouch. The only bad thing I have, and have had for years besides maxed cards was a late payment in June of 2007 from one of my cards I didn’t even know existed. The card is CC2, which is currently closed since that time due to non payment. To think I started with approximately 6k/7k in credit card utilization, and now I am down to 3.5k/7k. Go me! 

On a lighter note, if you’ve had health insurance through an employer during 2011, you could be receiving a letter from last year’s medical insurance provider (if different from the current), and it could mean you would be getting a small rebate.  Thanks to the new healthcare act, insurance companies are required to spend at least 85% of the premiums paid on actual claims. If they go under that 85%, they’re required to reimburse the difference to the employer. If the employer receives a rebate, they are required to utilize at least 85% of it on the employees. They can either: a) rebate all covered employees for the difference, b) use it in a way it benefits the employee in terms of wellness programs and what not, or c) use it to reduce next year’s premiums by that amount. It seems my company is electing to do a rebate, so although it won’t be much, any extra is welcomed.

A bit of info from a generic insurance company can be found here: http://www.cigna.com/aboutcigna/informed-on-reform/medical-loss-ratio.html

Time in North Carolina

Today is a bad day to update my numbers, since I just made a payment to each one of those mocking bars on my blog. The payments wont be fully posted until Monday or Tuesday, so I'll update it then. 

Financially, I'm still under the $150/mo disposable income game. Everything else is getting paid timely and I'm not behind on anything. Pretty boring on that front. But boring is good and safe! The extra money I've made went into the $350 plane ticket for my trip next Friday. Hopefully this coming paycheck will help me with parking fees... can you believe a cab to the airport is $120 ONE WAY, while parking is $80 for the full 10 days?

As far as what is going on with me... work has finally winded down some. My ex-office partner left at the end of May, and we got someone new at the end of June. I've been training her now for 3 weeks, and she's caught on pretty quick. I'm still training with her, but the workload is so much lighter. No more work making it to my personal time. Hurray!

Right. North Carolina. What can I say, it's a beautiful state. I made it there within 5 hours instead of the scheduled 6:15, and I wasn't even speeding! The only slowdown was in Virginia with their several construction sites right at the beginning and end of the state. What's up with that? Virginia looked a whole lot more industrious than I had envisioned it. Sorry, no photos. I wont take photos while driving!

... Unless it's a state sign. But I was mostly alone on the road! Ok, ok. Shame on me.

Since we're shaming me, let me continue with that. I hate to stereotype, but the first thing I found in the state was fried chicken, bisquits and iced tea. It's nice to know some things are true in this life.

But let me not bore you with that. The chicken was really good, though. Better than anything you can buy up here from a fast-food like establishment. The host family were the warmest, most sincere and welcoming people I have met. Totally accomodating of this stranger that traveled 3 states to see their son's HS graduation. Made me feel a bit crappy about my own family, but we wont get into that either. Boring!

I really lucked out with this visit; on Sunday, they had a whole family get together at a beautiful lake.

So a total of about 20 people got together to celebrate 4 birthdays, 2 wedding anniversary and my friend's HS graduation. Again, nicest people you will ever meet. And they brought food! Fried chicken, bisquits, iced tea, cakes, cupcakes and hotdogs which were cooking in the dashboard of one of their cars. I admire true rednecks and their ingenuity. We had fun. They brought two boats, knee boarding boards and other water thingies I wasnt even aware existed. They all looked like awesome fun!... but can you keep a secret? I'm hydrophobic. And I went into the boat. Oh, the things we do for love pride. Terrified and overly anxious doesn't start to describe it, but I guess I wasnt as phobic as I thought.

I must say I actually enjoyed some of it. I didn't sleep much for the next two weeks because I kept feeling the waves rocking the boat (even while lying in bed), I picked up a rather bothersome eye twitch that lasted a few days, and not to mention my anxiety was high enough to be confused with a plane in the distance, but I did it and it was quite fun. Have to try things at least once, no?

Last, the wedding I had been invited to. It is a completely different experience being at a wedding as a guest and working it as part of the staff. Needless to say, it was thoroughly enjoyable, the food was awesome, and in the most perfect day June could summon. Lots of fun, and still some to come. I must say I'm liking life right now as long as I dont stop and overthink it! Now if we could only get rid of this 100 degree weather...

Return of accountability

Wow, it’s been a while.  I have been preoccupied with other things in life and just didn’t feel I had a lot to say financially.  I still don’t have a lot of things to say or point out, but because this is all about keeping myself accountable, here’s a run of things;

- EF is inexistent still

- I’ve worked a good amount of hours at my pt job, which has kept me constantly busy and very, very tired

- Working extra hours at my part time job has made me realize I may have to purchase work shoes instead of using shoes that offer no support whatsoever; even if that means spending $40. Eventually.

- I have also increased my availability ever so slightly, which means a bit more income

- Too many things on my mind to be constantly re-checking my finances. Thank goodness they’re pretty much in cruise control and I don’t have to worry about things in the future

- I’ve gone grocery shopping 3 times since my last post.  I have regained some insight about things I know I need to purchase more often than others

- I had a blast driving to NC and visiting my friend for his graduation.  It was such an accommodating family and environment; I couldn’t have asked for a better time.  The only part that sucked was leaving in the middle of their family get together.  For only $100 in gas and 10hrs of driving roundtrip, I may do it again sometime

- I’m not ready for my vacation next weekend (7/13). Not even packed.  Not mentally prepared either, but that stays within my personal boundary

- Only 7 payments left on my dad’s car!

- 3 more months until I’m done with taxes, which means I can go fast and furious into rebuilding my EF

Reason I want to continue to blog is partially because I miss it, and partially because it feels as if I’m escaping from becoming accountable for my actions.  Though I haven’t really gone out and done anything I wasn’t planning on doing (financially), it is just uncomfortable to still be without an EF for so long and taking this much time to get it rebuilt.  I know I probably have a good 2-3 months before I can fully begin working on saving once again, which will put me into Christmas’ door... but I’ll keep rolling with the punches.  

Speaking of Christmas, I need to go over that list I created at the beginning of the year.  I haven’t read a single book, and I can’t seriously promise I will start now.  I used to be such an avid reader, so I wonder what happened there.  Oh well.  Since this Friday is payday, I'll do a major summary of how things have gone since my last post.

Stay safe, stay cool, and have fun for those of you that get July 4^th off!