Layout:
Home > Archive: August, 2013

Archive for August, 2013

403B musings

August 28th, 2013 at 06:09 am

Okay, last time. I wrote two novels of entries and lost them both.

Right now with the third month in a row of feeling the frugal burn, I'm seriously considering backing down the 403B contributions. I'm at socking in 20% of my salary, am thinking of backing it down to 15%, and I max out the match at 8%. I'm not going to go that low.

I have until the end of September to think about it. Plus, I'm getting a 2% raise sometime in late September/October. I might grit my teeth and complete the year at 20%.

test

August 28th, 2013 at 05:46 am

test test

create entry

August 28th, 2013 at 05:45 am

when I use create entry on the control panel, it eats my entry. Grr.

maybe I should buy a lottery ticket

August 16th, 2013 at 04:23 am

My youngest, least celeb in the 2013 Death bet came in (Lisa Robin Kelly), so right now I'm ahead in the 2013 Fantasy Celebrity Cemetery. This weekend, Spondulicks and I will divy up the gift certs I won during the Gumshoe.

Its been a nice staycation! Maybe Saturday I'll buy a lottery ticket.

winning

August 13th, 2013 at 05:34 am

Spondulicks and I must have had our tiger milk lattes a couple of weekends ago. I got a call from the Gumshoe Answer Man. We won the Gumshop drawing! 9 $15 gift certificates.

lucky me

August 12th, 2013 at 11:52 pm

First day of vacation, and lucky me, I was NOT on 2nd Ave downtown on a Seattle bus at or around 8:45am ... which I would have been during my normal work schedule. Neither Seattle bus that the shooter went on was my bus, thankfully.

Unlucky me though - while I had fun the night before at the Duvall friends house watching a new episode of Breaking Bad, then stayed overnight talking about it - I came home to find that V.I. (kitty) pooped on my bed and the sectional. I'm certain it was a statement for leaving her home overnight - both poop placements were definitely where l'il ol' me had resided not 16 hours before.

Turns out that the Duvall friends themselves are lucky, in that they are running (or in this case, not running) a dead disposal. You might remember that my new sink is now too deep for the disposal, so the plumber removed the disposal and I kept it, thinking I could sell it or manufacture good will. Well, I am manufacturing good will by donating my disposal to them.

Nobody had Eydie Gorme in the death bet, but her NYT obit was good reading. Who could have guessed that her high school classmate was Stanley Kubrick? That's as good as Jack Klugman and Charles Bronson sharing a NY cold water flat in the 50s.

new project

August 7th, 2013 at 04:41 am

For some of you newer bloggers out there, you might ask, "what's this with baselle and change?"

Four years ago in mid July I needed a distraction along with a goal to exercise so to combine them I decided to blog about how much change I found living and walking throughout my day. Turns out I found, well, surprising amounts. Nearly $50 the first year, just a hair over $90 the second, a hair over $90 the third, and a hair over $75 just this last.

I need the distraction less ... the condo is plenty distracting, and while I love the hunt for change as a motivation to get me to exercise, I think I've become a hair OCD about it. So after 4 years, its time to re-adjust the change finding project a bit.

I'm finding change, but I'm not going full out and putting on a spreadsheet and tracking how much I find, etc. I find, then I have a little tub I put the findings in. My project is to slowly develop an intimate emergency fund. What's an intimate emergency fund, you ask? Well in a true emergency, like the "big one", the power and the ATM are going to be out. Need money, you'll need the intimate emergency fund.

Because a few pounds of pennies aren't really going to be that helpful, I make reverse change (25 pennies for a quarter) to keep my developing emergency at its most useful. So far a bit over $2.