Wednesday, October 30, 2013

My biggest and constant budget blunder

First things first, I'm giving up on my goal to post so many posts a month.I knew from the get-go that was one of my allowed-to-fail goals, and right now, I'm throwing the towel. I wont be posting as much, but I'll continue to read and reply to blogs. I just don't have much to say at all and I get tired of my own writing talking about the same thing over and over.

Now that's out of the way, I came to an interesting note while replying to one of Sluggy's posts (man, I'm wearing off her name, arent I?). She had asked how much was spent on food during October, or something to that nature. Much to my surprise, my answer was this: $36.04. I know that had to be a mistake, so after much checking, I came up with the correct answer: $66.83. Ok, that is not that much better a number... but higher than the other.

Still, what gives?! That's less than $17/week. But if we really look into the details...
$7.94 and $9.86 were fast food. No excuse on those two, as one was while my dad was gone and I was the only at the house, and the other was my pity-reward for dragging myself to the outlets and not finding anything affordable to buy. That's $49.03 spent on actual groceries for a full month... not good. Not good at all! Most months, I am still below the $120/mo budget mark. I don't think I've hit $120 since December of last year.

You know how some people get upset at overspending or overeating? I get incredibly frustrated at the other way around. I don't like to eat a whole lot; never have. But I know I have to eat. My metabolism hasn't really restarted since July, and I'm not doing much to help it go. I hate spending on food (my priorities are so messed up), and I very much dislike cooking, especially with a household full of kids that aren't mine. I'm just that awkward 20-some renter who'd rather stay stuck in their room and play video games. Except that instead of video games, I am torturing my study book to give me the info that will hopefully answer questions correctly when December comes and the test is upon me. But I digress.

Overall, quite disappointed in the numbers...

Other than that, October wasn't so bad. Check it out:
The green looks intimidating, but it's mostly the $525 that I paid for the test that are out of place. The other $545 are the snowball against my biggest loan, and then regular loan payments. These student loans will go down to zero, if it's the last thing I do!

Light blue is rent, pretty typical. Auto and transport is off from the wheel issue, and everything else is pretty normal. (I did add $42 to parents' expense, but I'd take that over $100's any day!).

Here's to hoping November will come and go. Early Nov through mid Dec are my busiest months at work, so I know it will be a tight fight to keep my sanity, study (and hopefully pass) the test and not mess up royally at work... especially when it concerns employees' benefits. Stay well, everybody! Enjoy the nice fall weather wherever you are.

Friday, October 25, 2013

Anyone tried duplicating Holiday tower gifts?

We got a Harry and David catalogue at work. I just love seeing those things and all the pretty arrangements they have. My favorite ones are the 3 or 4 tier gift towers. I'll confess that once upon a time, back when I was young(er) and (more) foolish than I am now, I did get one of those towers to one of my best friends in California. I had received one myself from one of my part time jobs from that era, so I liked their quality and presentation. Then I wondered... has anyone ever tried to recreate the gift towers?

I spent a bit of time yesterday looking at the logistics of doing so. If I were to give out some of these, it'd be only to most of the people in my list (about 6 total). Only 2 would need to be shipped; the rest I would deliver. The budget is $50/person. Shipping would not be included in the budget.

Onto the materials.
Some blank boxes can be bought at Dollar Tree in different size packets (I think it's $1 for 2 of the small or medium ones), though I'd have to cover with wrapping paper, which means more supplies. They can also be bought as a set of 3 boxes around the net for about $9 each set. Or I could try and make them... or not.

Then there are the goodies...
This could be really cheap when bought in bulk. Home gathered nut mixes, skip the popcorn (or include a bag of kernels), chocolates, cookies and hard candies. Even Halloween candy would do, if it's not particularly Halloween-y in the wrappers.

But the funniest thing is that I haven't really found much about how to reproduce these online. Is it because it's too obvious, or am I looking the wrong places? Maybe the cost breaks even or becomes more expensive if done by hand, I'm not sure. But now that I have that on my head, I think I will look into it.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Free dinner, woot!

You know when there are a lot of fires around you, and work as you may, they just seem to be multiplying like dust bunnies? Welcome to my work week!

I was so busy in fact, that I completely did not have time to post about my rendezvous with Sluggy and her delightful hubby yesterday, who were cruising the coast and happened to be near my side of nowhere. We had emailed back and forth and decided on a place to commit crimes have dinner. It was truly lovely, and I'm really grateful. Kind of sad I did not decide to hide money at her place last time I was over like I normally do with my friends. Oh well. There's always next time, no? After all, I have to see that fancy new flooring and all the fresh paint.

So, THANKS, Sluggy, for treating me again. I'll make sure to pay it forward if you continue to refuse me to pay it back.

***********

It only took one 39 degree weather dark morning to make me pull out the box containing my winter gear. And to remind me that I halved my winter clothes last year because either they didn't fit, the clothes were too old/shrunk/unusable, or I didn't like them at all and didn't wear them.

One of my co-workers said that they were having sales at the outlets near here, so I'll do that tonight. It's very likely I wont buy anything (I don't have any coupons for stuff in there), but I thought I'd take a look. Today is as good a day as any, especially since I am MIA on the weekends. Has anyone fully switched closets yet?

Monday, October 21, 2013

Long weekend

I wish I could have my weekends back. I believe I've been working every weekend since about March or April (excluding vacation time), and the next break is looking like at the beginning of December if I am lucky. Bleh.

Had a fun start to my weekend, though. After driving back to my parents', we put in the new snazzy wheels and my ride looks mighty fine. And drives pretty too. And I shouldn't have any more dreams about a blown tire! But I am happy that's over with. Total cost for the whole thing: $40 per wheel, or $160, which included 2 good tires, a bad one and a wheel with no tire. 2 more tires were $40/ea (how come the used tires cost as much as used wheels?!), so another $80. Then to have the tires mounted on the wheels... my dad doesn't remember. Installation was free from my dad, so we're talking about $300 in all, which hits right on the mark of what I was saving for. Woo hoo!

Then Friday night came, and as the kind of person I am, wild and always living on the edge, I started to get drowsy promptly at 8pm. Had to help my dad with some things, so didn't actually go to sleep until about 11. Wish my night would've stopped there, but it didn't. My parents' dog is terrified of the "beep" from fire alarms that are going out of battery. And lucky me, there was one in my sibling's room that was beeping. So the dog was freaking out, came on my bed and pushed me to a corner (she never, ever does this), and kept me up from 3:30 to about 4:30, at which time I decided to relocate downstairs. The dog settled nicely, away from the beeping noise... but something else was keeping me up. The sound of a mouse. Constant, and rather loud. At about 5am, I decided to investigate where that was coming from, and it was stuck in a sticky trap (ew...). Since I wasn't going to do anything about that, I grabbed my blanket and went back upstairs. By about 6am, my sibling had shut off his fire alarm beeping sound and I slept until about 7 when my brother dropped the kids. Needless to say, I got no sleep and had to work at 3pm. I was HYPER by the time I returned home at about midnight! You know, the beyond-exhaustion hyperness? Fun times.

Sunday was more of the usual stuff (laundry, dishes, vegetating since I left my study book at the other house and my brain was fried). Watched the Bears lose to the Redskins (at least my office mate is really happy!). Best of all, I didn't spend any money at all. Today I have to go grocery shopping during my lunch break. This kind of cold weather puts me in the mood for sweet potato fries, steamed broccoli and hamburger patties.

Only 10 days left in October! Can't believe how quickly the month is going by.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Have you checked your investments recently?

I overheard some of the managers on the third floor at my office talking about their 401k's and exchanging YTD %'s. I found it curious and a bit funny people actually talk about that, but can't expect any less from a CFO and his second-in-command. One of them said they had a 21% YTD, and the other returned that theirs was close to that but a bit lower.

That's a pretty good percentage... and surprisingly, it's not that far off from mine:

Despite all the things that are going wrong with the world, the gov't and the economy, I can't help but to smirk a little bit that I may be doing something sort of right with my 401k. I only have about $12k on it. My IRA isn't quite as solid, but hey, it's not going backwards... for now. And that's something I can be thankful for.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Tire situation almost complete

Another weekend down, too many to count to go. Unless we're counting down to my exam, then it'd be 8 more weeks! But let me recap some interesting points:

Manager leaving
It was a sad weekend at my part time job. We just got notice that our favorite manager is leaving. And soon. His last day is this Wednesday! It caught us all very blindsided, since most of us wont be able to see him again. I saw him Friday, but he wasn't around Saturday, and we didn't learn about this until Saturday. So sad... we are trying to see if we want to get together and do something for him, but that's still up in the air and most likely not happening, since a lot of us are part timers with other jobs. Though he hired a lot of people, I was there a year before he started. It's still 8 years and he's been an awesome manager. Sad to see him go, but we hope it's for the best.

B-day party
This one is a bit funny on the PF world... we had a birthday party over the weekend at my PT job, 75'ish people. Total spent from what we could tell was $8,000+. It was a very extravagant affair; 3 tier custom designed cake with a lot of details and a $75 topper, bar, private DJ, photo booths, outside candy and ice cream selection bar... oh, did I mention this was for a 13 year old lady? Yeah. We were glad for the business, but shaking our heads otherwise and wondering what the Sweet 16th birthday will be like. Not that it is my business how others spend their money, but that was extravagant for the occasion.

Tires
We went to Sam's Club over the weekend, but before going there, we decided to go by 2 junk yards to look at tires. The first one was a no-go, but on the second one, we ended up discovering my car originally had 16" tires and not 15" as the ones it currently has. That was part of the reason we were having so much difficulty finding tires to match. We ended up buying 4 wheels, 2 with working tires, and 2 without for $160 (original price was $200, but my dad haggled a bit). My dad will try to get the tires today or tomorrow. My budget was $300, so I am sure we will be ok, as used tires run for about $30/ea. What a long-run saga this has been, but I'll be glad to have all real tires on the car.

Other than that, I slept a lot and my dad had a good time at California, so it was a very relaxing weekend. Back into the usual grind now.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

SPHR jitters --9 weeks prior

On my road to procrastinate even further and squander what's left of my 9 weeks of study for my SPHR certification, I found some old and new statistic concerning the test. The passing rate for the past 6 exam periods has been on a pretty good steady decline since 2010: 50%, 52%, 48% x 3,  47%.

Additionally, I found some rather... interesting numbers that I am not sure how to take. From Aug 2012 to Aug 2013, an additional 634 new people got their SPHR certification. With a passing rate of 47%, that means about 1,349 applied, and 715 failed. That blew a whole lot of wind out of my sails. For many reasons. 1) The obvious of, dear Lord, more than half the people failed! and 2) if there are over 800k HR professionals in the US alone (the certification also counts internationally), why are there so few being added to the field?

The stories of people who take the SPHR are mixed; some say they passed it on their first try with little study and lots of cramming the week prior, whereas others spend the whole $800+ for the semi-official study material and fail it time and time again.

But it's all done. My application was thankfully approved and I'm good to go. Now to kill all the butterflies in my stomach and schedule the exam for Dec. 16.

Weather's been nice and cold around here, so grabbing a blanket and hunkering down with some flashcards, notes, and sample test questions.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Patiently waiting on the smaller bill...

It is frustrating to have a small bill and, and though having enough money from other goals to cover it, not being able to pay it off (without robbing other goals). Just seeing it sit there staring me off upsets me.

Today while looking around my own blog (I don't spend much time in my actual blog, but through blogger's dashboard), I see that I'm at $750 for my smaller credit card. So close, yet so far... When I first started following blogs, I remember thinking that when people have less than, say, $500-600 compared to their bigger debts ($10k+), they should just pay that in one swift swing. Boy, how naïve I was! Everyone's job looks so much easier when they're not the ones performing it.

That card will be paid off in December due to snowballs, so I am not in a rush to throw any more extra money on it (besides, it is not interest-bearing card).

As a challenge to me from myself, I want to see how much I can gather before year's end from my PT job's income, which continues to go unaccounted for and squandered. I may be working well into the end of November, but nothing's secure. My first milestone will be $500. Assuming I work at least every Saturday, this goal should take roughly a month and a half. Once I do meet the goal, I'll raise the bar. Who knows, I may be able to salvage my car-funding goal which was forsaken back in April. This money will not be set aside for anything in specific... besides just saving for saving's sake.

Sometimes I just get tired of having to decide about what goes to what goal. I think next year I will just put all the saved money in a pot and distribute it once it gets to a certain milestone. Any change that can get me refocused on my efforts is worth a try, no?

Friday, October 4, 2013

Woo hoo, Friday.

Alright, weekend 1 of my self-imposed no-spending-on-family quest is about to get started. Lucky for me, I am working tonight at my PT job and also Saturday. Sunday, chances are I will be alone (since my father and my sister are going to CA). I definitely won't be spending any money!

Though speaking of my part time job, we've been told since mid-summer that our busy season shifted. Not sure what happened, but people just started to get married later in the year (we deal a lot with events, most of them weddings). So instead of starting in April, they didn't really get into full swing until June. And we're expected to be busy until late November/early December.

Honestly? I'm just meh with it. I like the time off, but I guess some extra moneys are nice to have too. Would be infinitely nicer if I actually saw the money... but that's a rant for another day.

This week I paid my car registration ($135) with saved money and bought a itty bitty tiny amount of groceries (about $15). I will have to buy more stuff for next week, but I'll try to keep it low key regardless. Then it will be pay day and the cycle restarts all over again. Weeks are starting to run together...

That's it for me this week. I have a few post I'd like to share, if I can stop deleting them. Personal/goal stuff I get long-winded at and end giving up on. All's good on this end! Studying is frustrating me, but I am slowly identifying where to focus on. Only 80 or so days before the test... woo hoo indeed.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Just 1 goal for October...

This is one of those "I need to fess up" posts. To be fair, I gotta bore share the good, the bad and the ugly.

Since my mother's been out of the country for the past 2-3 months, I've been spending more time at my dad' house. This past weekend, I decided to do a tally of Jul-Sept of my expenses vs what I've been spending at my parents' house. The results aren't pretty.

I've spent an average $168/mo ( vs $0 budgeted) for my parents' house expenses since July 1st. In contrast, I've spent $142/mo ( vs $200 budgeted) on myself for food, misc./personal items. It's been a $100/mo setback. Numbers are approximate, not including gas or rare expenses.

So what did I spend almost $500 on at my parents'? Mostly food. Impulse, bulk buying food for a household of ~3.5 adults, some family-size toiletries here and there because the younger siblings refuse to buy it for the household and my dad doesn't really go shopping for stuff.

My goal for October is to get that under control... and start spending my grocery/misc/personal budget where it belongs. Any wonder I don't eat a whole lot?

All that said, bear in mind most of the overage ends up coming from my part time job's checks, which have not been allocated to any other expense or accounted for in any other way. So while I am not moving backwards, I could be moving forward with some more speed.