Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $15 dim sum lunch + $11.04 grocery store.

We had some excitement at work at noon. The Director of IT felt the door of the server room and it was hot.

Hot is not good. The room was 99 degrees.

The servers all had to be taken down and since it was around noon, the first hour of no computer wasn't too bad. I told my co workers that I "give us about a half an hour of no Internet before we resort to savagery and cannibalism."

We got back up at around 2:30, but as I left at 5:30 I couldn't save files, so tomorrow might be very interesting.

well, entertaining lunatics...




In case you missed them, the signs said:
Needs Good Home
Take Me. I'm yours.
Cheap & Easy
If I Could Talk

Oh yes, don't be fooled. The only thing more uncomfortable than those chairs would be a board with nails in it.

(And yes that's a vault door in the background. Our building used to be a bank. It cost too much to get rid of it during the remodel, so it remains as an historical artifact.)

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $7 lunch (for 2 days)

Its a little tight for the end of this month, with a paycheck at the end of the week, and I'll have a couple of lunch meetings that I have to make and I need to save some money for. Today I did the footlong sub, gnaw on it for 2 days trick. Then, even with the two lunches out I should make the end of the month with about $60 to spare.

I looked at my Capital One credit card bill and I got the late fee charge again. The customer service guy was rude, but he did tell me where to send a written letter to dispute my charge (I double checked on the website - who knows what they teach customer service people nowadays?) and fax number. What is happening is that I've gotten in the habit of paying on the 20th when my bill closes on the 15th. Now my bill closes on the 20th, so when I pay my bill on the 20th, it might get posted to the previous month, making me just under the wire.

I faxed the letter and mailed it. There is no innocence about it - I was mad enough just to be straightforward, clipped, and direct. I gave them six months worth of data, told them why I was mischarged, and told them what I want to happen (shift my bill to close on the 15th). I have to say that I don't hold much hope here - when Cap One's mortgage business went under, it means they will grab money with both hands, customer be damned. Luckily the late fee is the only charge on it. If they aren't reasonable, I cut up the card and hand it to them.

It came to me this afternoon as I was walking to the bus.

Enjoy what you already have.

Very simple - since you already have it, why spend on the new, improved version. We all might not be the "use it up completely" types, but even if folks actually used everything they bought we would not waste and toss out perfectly useful items.

We were going to go Saturday to lawyer friend's house on the coast of Washington (Hoquiam, to be exact) to paint and barbeque and get a change of scenery.

Unfortunately, we met up with a traffic jam to Fife, Washington (outside of Tacoma). A rollover accident causing 7 car pileup happened about 30 minutes before, blocking all the lanes. The State Patrol opened up the turnout, and we turned around and went back to Seattle.

On the way, we called lawyer friend, who got the whole story from someone else's call. Paint and barbeque canceled.

It was pretty disappointing, but it could have been worse. We got a late start, so the rollover definitely could have been on us had we gotten 30 minute earlier start.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $5.35 lunch

Spent $20 at lawyer friend partner's birthday dinner. Had fun, but I did notice out of the 14 people there a couple of people cheaped out a bit. I'm glad that if nothing else, keeping an eye on the money most other times means that I can shrug my shoulders and tsk tsk to myself. Keeping an eye on the my money makes me detail oriented, which means I keep an eye on everyone else's money too.

I collected $46 in the tip box this month. Deposited it yesterday afternoon at the bank.

This afternoon sister called me a couple of times. She got the notarized forms I mailed her, and as she was getting hers notarized by her insurance agent, she noticed a slight discrepancy - 74 acres instead of 73. So did that mean they bought slightly more, or what?

I reminded her that the property line was 8 ft further than the fence post. She called her lawyer who is arranging the sale about it - before she mailed the forms. Turns out that we are still getting the 7 acres (like only 6 acres is not a farmette, hah hah); the 8 ft extra did push it a little over.. The exact acreage was something like 73.7879. They rounded up the acreage in the contract. So sister will deliver the notarized contracts to her lawyer.

This has got to be it??!!!

Apparently even with 4-5 inches of rain, the gang is working - the post that the solar panels are going to sit on has been driven in, and the electricians are working at upgrading. I don't even want to think about it with all that standing water. Oh, and the solar panels are in the sheds.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $.10 coffee

Well, had my dime spending day today. I feel almost as virtuous as I would if it was a no spend day. Made $180 in interest last month.

Voted this morning in a special primary. Normally its in September; this year's several weeks early. I voted an electronic ballot - its very rare that electronic gadgets fail for me, but not for many other people. It won't matter soon because King County is heading toward an all mail-in ballot.

I prepare for voting the night before by looking at the voters guide and writing down how I'm going to vote. It was nice to have a friend running for school board because I usually decide eeny-meeny-miny on those. But despite the planning, there's always one item on the ballot that I didn't decide on. When I pick blind it never fails that I pick the nutball. Too bad; nutballs are easy to spot in the voter's guide. Here are my EZ rules:

1. No more than two fonts in the candidate's statement. Regular and italic or regular and bold. As soon as you start with the regular, bold, italic, ALL CAPS all on a 1/2 page, well...do you really think that way?

2. No underlining passages whole passages and paragraphs. C'mon, it looks kind of stupid when you underline whole chapters in a textbook. If you think all of this is that important than none of it is.

3. Not keeping the use of capital letters to the first word of a sentence and proper nouns. Just because You have a Word you like doesn't mean You can Capitalize It.

4. No third person POV. The main reason baselle didn't vote for Bob Dole ... well, okay other than the fact that baselle normally votes Democratic.

5. A first name that's not obviously made up. This year it was Goodspaceguy Nelson. (actually his entry was pretty funny - "to glorify King County, ask that governments make it easier to make movies here.")

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $20 chiropractor + $7 lunch (2 days) + $4.25 mailing

Hit the chiropractor and teased him about the Packers beating the Seahawks, or rather, what they looked like they Saturday night, the Garfield High junior varsity team. It was in good fun though - there are plenty of Seahawk fans in Wisconsin and Packer fans out here and each group will merrily abandon their team if the other's doing better.

With increasing my savings payments by another 50$ to $100 and with nearly paying off the credit card, I'm a little short of what I normally would be. I bought the footlong sub to eat over a couple of days. That and killing off the Starbucks card tomorrow means I might get away with a dime spend day tomorrow.

What I was real short of today was time - I was racing around all lunch hour getting the notary signatures on the 3 real estate forms I got on Saturday. It was unclear on one of the forms where the notary was supposed to go, so it was go to the bank, go back to call the lawyer in Wisconsin, get the story, go back to the bank and get the notary. Then copying for my files, then a hike to the post office to send the forms 3-day priority and get a tracking number, and finally an email to sister and sister's lawyer to expect the forms.

But soon it will be all over...really.

Tomorrow we vote in a special election.

I'm surprised this one hasn't come up, so I'll do it.

Pay yourself first. Put yourself in as a line item on your budget, and give yourself a raise/ cost of living adjustment (COLA) every so often, especially if you get one from your job.

Remember that if your electric bill or the price of gas goes up a certain percent, you grumble, but you shell it out and manage somehow. And that managing somehow means the end of the month gets thinner and thinner. Paying yourself first when your paycheck is plump means you will do it consistently.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $11 Denny's + $40 groceries + $26 CDs (1 a 2 record set)

The probable pentultimate gasp of paperwork for the 74 acres (second property minus farmette and 7 acres) came today in the mail, along with a few useful letters. It came from sister's lawyer.

In front of a notary, I'm to sign the Construction and Tenants affidavit and the Warranty Deed. Apparently the Transfer Return form is just for my files - sister, since she's readily available, is to sign that one. I get to call the lawyer and confirm.

And then sister and I each pay off the property taxes for 2007, now that dad's estate is no more (out of probate). I'll check with sister to see if we can use the joint checking account to pay it off. After all, its what I envisioned this joint account would be for.

According to the DNR letter, when this batch of paperwork is done, the Wisconsin DNR will get the clear title and cut us a check.

A couple of photos for today. This afternoon, it appears that fall has come a little early to Seattle. We got a spot of rain...


And another fall sign, lots of birds congregating on a wire. I felt a tad like Tippi Hedron as I snapped it. 'IMDB' Tippi Hedron for you young whippersnappers.

Saving log - $20 tip box
Spending log - $3 cherries + $2.45 groceries

I nearly had my no spend day until about 1:00pm. I had my Starbucks coffee from the gift card ($1.60 left - so Monday it will be coffee for a dime), and the co worker took me to lunch, even paying for the tip. We went to my hideout in the Pike Market (2 doors past the first Starbucks) and managed to trip over only a few tourists celebrating its 100th anniversary.

Also, the place does a strictly cash business - not tourist friendly either - so it was a lot of Seattle regulars chewing away.

I got led away from the no-spend path coming back through the market heading toward 1st Avenue. We had to slalom past rings of tourists camcordering street musicians (noticed few coins and bills in the hats, fyi), veered around lots and lots of looky-loos listening so sincerely and intently to the speaker proclaiming some blather that the Pike Place Market will never die...

Well, it will if you don't buy stuff! Its a market, guys. Markets sell stuff. If they don't sell enough stuff, they go away. I see it right now - not nearly so many produce stands as there were even just five years ago.

So there were a ton of tourists standing there like logs in front of a produce stand. I couldn't stand it anymore. I very publically bought a bag of cherries. Good karma there.

Then an hour later I gave the cherries to my trainer and the gym - because of the picnic yesterday we rescheduled gym for today. Good karma again.

It blew my no-spend day but frankly good karma, leveraged on both ends, doesn't come any cheaper.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $0

Did it. Got one of my few no-spend days.

Used the Starbucks card to "buy" my 12 oz drip coffee (drank it black...no, no, no I want cream with it tomorrow), and I ate - gorged - at the office picnic. I shouldn't have had that piece of cake with frosting. Tasted great while I was eating it but it really, really got me even an hour afterwards. To think that as a little kid I used to enjoy that much cake preferentially going after the frosting.

DJ friend drove me home, but I could have also taken the bus.

Saving log - $2 tip box (have to pick up the pace for this month)
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $9 lunch

Got my first paycheck with the raise - $50 more each paycheck, $100/month. I get paid on the last business day and on the 15th of the month (earlier if the 15th is on the weekend). No three payperiod months for me.

Added $50 to my recurring savings at ING, 50$ to my recurring savings at my brick & mortar bank, and tried out online bill paying for my new credit card (the one I've transferred the trainer and the newspaper charges).

The office picnic is for tomorrow (Thursday) lunch, and the co worker that I worked with for that hour and a half last Friday offered to take me to lunch Friday. I'm going to team it up with buying morning coffee with my Starbucks card and attempt two no-spend days in a row. Cross my fingers that I can do it!

Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $10 lunch

Enough was enough. I packed up my half finished library book in my bag to return to the library. I filled out a 3 book list for the adult summer reading program to turn in to the library. For my trouble, I got a $5 starbucks gift card. Lucky that WA state has a law that the card can't expire or fees taken out of it.

Too bad it means that I'll have to drink Starbucks coffee.

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $7 lunch + $20 chiropractor

Sister called. She got my $14K money transfer this morning, so it looks like it takes an average of 5 business days. Good to know; good to know that the checks for solar panel installation and the electrical rewiring won't bounce.

The chiropractor told me that he adjusted my first trainer the other day (first trainer brought me to the chiropractor when I had a lot of trouble doing some of the moves). My first trainer is selling cars now an has put on a few pounds. So we've gone full circle - whatever I'm losing he's gaining.