baselle's Financial Diary

5$ in the tip box.
T-bill interest that made it to my ING account this week - 7.22$

A quickie favor to write up my DJ friend's bio for his website. I figure to take a whack at it and see what I come up with.

Spent 7.75 on lunch, which kept it from being no-spend day. My boss treated me to a coffee close to my caffeine sensitive cutoff time of 10am. Usually if I have coffee after 10am, its worthless and I have trouble getting to sleep. Today I had a second cup at 10:15am. It wasn't worthless - I was buzzed for the day and went at gym with a passion. LOL, bedtime'll be a good little experiment.

About a week ago I got a letter from my brick and mortar bank - my 30K CD is maturing at the end of September. Since I've decided what to do with it doesn't involve re-upping for another 6 month stint, I went to tell 'em to put the 30K in my checking account.

I was too early. The grace period is 10 days and its 10 days from the day it matures, not 10 days before it matures. I get to come back nine days later. Oh well, at least I made the mistake in a way that's correctable.

Bought my cheap coffee ($1.37), but also bought a pint of non-fat milk to put in the refeer. A little more expensive than the free cream ($.65), but I'll shave a few calories off.

no tip box doings today

So let the waiting begin.

Today DH drove me to work...just because. Because this is the first rain of the fall, the drivers were crazy and it took us 45 minutes to get into downtown Seattle. Hwy 99 was packed, the Fremont Bridge was packed. The only route that wasn't packed was 15th Ave NW, it was just slow.

And since it was cool and cloudy, everybody got the same idea for lunch: curry. Big line for the curry special. Found out from the curry place owner that he uses corn oil, so not so bad.

Talked with the trainer about the possiblity of splitting with my friend (yesterday's lunch partner). She told me that it was up to me and they have done it in the past. The "bad" news after the corn oil good news is that she told me my daily caloric intake was supposed to be 1400 calories, not the 1600-1700 that I was aiming for. Hmmm, it might be amazing that I've lost the few pounds that I did.

I'm still psyched about the size 14 jeans. I've been joking and laughing at work and I just seem ... brighter and a bit more extroverted. Best 18.99$ I've spent this year.

Talked with the lawyer friend about the possible sale of the second property with the WiDNR. He told me that usually the government price is market value + 10% or so, and thought that right now they would give us probably the best price. Here's hoping, but not hoping too hard.

Put 5$ in the tip box.

Wore my new jeans to work (I'm a department where we put the casual in business casual), got my compliments.

On the bus - the first one had some sort of issue so when its replacement parked behind us, I motioned to my seat mate that we want to make a break for it to get onto the bus behind us when the back door opens. We did and we managed to get decent seats. He laughed and said that he's so oblivious when he was reading.

Man, its just so nice when you just take up your side of the bus seat. You even feel confident enough to flirt. Kinda flirt.

Had a serendipitous lunch with a friend. She came to my office and told me we had to cancel the lunch to my "hideout" two weeks from now. I countered that I was going to go to the place for lunch today - would she like to come? So we went, and we had a nice gossip session. The food was great, cheap, light, and best of all, no one from work goes there.

Actually, she's one of people I sent to my trainer, so we had a nice conversation about that. She asked me whether she was willing to split a few sessions with me. I'm very interested, but she does tend to be flaky, and I'm pretty consistent. Oh well, maybe she'll will be useful for dropping that expense by a few bucks.

Spending log - 1.37$ coffee + 10$ lunch

Saving log - 5$ in the tip box. I should be depositing this month's scrapings at the end of this week.

That's what I bought today - $1.75 coffee + $4.90 2 grey L tops + $21.75 tweezers. A few footnotes.

Coffee - at the weekend place, where I have a punch card and have saved up for a couple of free-bee coffees.

2 grey L tops - at the thrift store. I always go for the best feeling stuff in solid colors. Nice to be able to buy Ls, as opposed to XLs, but when I try them on with the 14s, I get the "muffin top" effect. So I'm jazzed, but I shouldn't be too jazzed because I have plenty of work to do.

Tweezers - couldn't find my favorites and my eyebrows needed shaping. Anybody got a problem with that?

Got an update letter from the executor (US Bank, in case you forgot) regarding the second piece of land, the house, and barn. It's in a holding pattern. Sister and I are waiting for the formal appraisal from the Wisconsin DNR (WiDNR) which should happen in 4-6 weeks, and the formal offer a month later. I'm getting from the tone of the letter that everything from the WiDNR is happening too slowly for even the executors. But its hard to know - the WiDNR considerations are different, perhaps more scientific and observational. Flight of fancy here - how good is the water quality, how many chemicals are in the soil, how many and what type of bird uses the creek and wetland as a migratory stop... To the WiDNR, finding a rare bird or rare critter might be part of the assessment. The cynic in me is thinking that the WiDNR is simply waiting for land prices to drop to their price.

And the executors are asking whether we should winterize the house. Wonder how sister's garden on the place is coming along?

On a more shallow front, I hit Ross today and bought new clothes. 2 size 14s jeans, 1 size 16 (in case of a couple big meals and monthly bloat) jeans, and a black DKNY turtleneck - $70.86. Increase in self esteem - priceless. No thin spots in the crotch - also priceless.

Nice quiet day at work - did the data intensive project today (the type that distractions are very unwelcome). Still have a couple more updates before I'm really ready for the months to come.

Sent off the passport and renewal application by certified mail. Since I won't need the passport for at least another year, I should get a new one back in eight weeks.

My 30K CD is maturing at the end of this month. I'll double check the APY on the next leg just in case, but really my plan is to put 6K of it on the credit card (bed and the next set of personal training appointments) to pay it off, then put the rest into a simple Vanguard index fund. Come January of 2007, the maximum goes into a Roth IRA.

Had a chiropractic appointment today - next week I'm down to one/week, which will free up another 20$/week. I asked him what he meant yesterday. He was still cagey, but promised that he would do something for me "legally". I said that I have to keep my clothes on.

No sense pushing anything. Let people give you a gift and be modest, grateful and appreciative if they do so.

Put 6$ in the tip box.

A few questions answered...

Toiletry drive: buy toiletries and they will be packaged and given to once-homeless folks now moving into several of the newly built non-profit apartment complexes scattered around downtown Seattle. I've toured the downtown emergency shelter 3 times in 6 years; each time I've seen fantastic progress. The shelter itself is now not a "snake pit" and folks are moving up and out into clean apartments. Still lots to be done but compared to 6 years ago, its phenomenal.

Got the Walgreens passport picture for $7.99. Not fantastic, but it does look like me and will probably look like me after 6 hours on a plane.

So I was getting my cheaper coffee and it turns out that my chiropractor gets his coffee there too. We chatted - lawyer friend is thinking about trying out a chiropractor and I was going to send him the business. At the end of the conversation, my chiropractor said to me that since we were finishing up that he wanted to do something special and that he was going to talk to his accountant. I wonder what that could be?

it just happens to drive a big Safeway truck. During my evening hike home, I waited at the slow crosswalk when said grocery truck slowed, then stopped before the crosswalk. Crosswalk light still showed not to, but the truck blocked both lanes on the left, with no traffic coming from the right. Normally, if its a car, I much prefer to wave the car on. A bad driver could make the love/hate relationship I have with my knees even worse. I knew how much effort this truck took to slow and stop and it seemed a crime to wave him on. I went against the crosswalk light and waved back.

Gave 7$ to a toiletry drive at work. Shopping for that stuff doesn't give me enough of a thrill; better to give the money to someone who likes shopping for that stuff.

Got another rain check at a different grocery store, this time for diced canned tomatoes. 2 for .98.

Put the old passport, the passport renewal form, the check for $67 (yikes!) into the padded envelope. All that remains is to get 2 current passport pictures.

Not much financial happened today. Got the cheap coffee @ 1.37, with tax. So only a 17% savings.

We are doing a living room reorganization and DH found my passport. Even though its older than ten years, its still exciting because it be a whole lot easier and cheaper to replace than to get one from scratch.

Work is getting crazy again. Today in gym, my trainer was shadowed by another pre-trainer. I ran through the exercises pretty well - I must do better with an audience.

Put 6$ in my tip box.

Forgot an energy bar today, and since my usual coffee place only has bad-for-you stuff, I checked out the little deli that I sometimes get sandwiches from. The energy bars were 1.69 (sob - better remember my .89 bars tomorrow!) but they also sold my usual brand of drip coffee...

For a 1.25$, or about .40 cheaper than I usually get it, or even better, for 25% less. Time for a switch. No harm, no foul, just a cheaper way to run my routine.

Waiting for my paycheck on Friday.

Put 35$ into a drip.

Hard to believe it had been five years. Five years ago this morning, I rode on a quiet bus. I heard a laugh from someone, then a growl, "don't you know we are at war?" At work, we watched buildings pancake on CNN and the dust cloud roll into the street, and watched them over and over. We were allowed to go home if we wanted and many people did. I was numb; I wanted to stay and do a simple repetitive task. It had to be better than watching tumbling buildings.

DH and I ate breakfast out, at decidedly unfrugal prices. We are both getting in the swing of asking for a box at a restaurant. No sense treating a gargantuan meal as a challenge (who wants to be known as being able to eat an 8 egg omelet?), but no sense in pitching out good food and good money either.

I've been asking for the box a lot lately and I've become expert at dividing meals in half. I think I'll get into the habit of asking for the box faster, maybe about the same time as when the food comes. Another advantage to following a routine - the restaurants and lunch places that know you by face usually let you get away with a lot. Several have even noticed my new look and are happy to help me out.

Next...

Tried out a new grocery store in a nearby shopping mall. Grapes and cottage cheese were as cheap as I've seen them. It's not that much further - matter of fact if I rode my bus 10 blocks further I'd hit that mall. The only thing that I don't like is that they have data cards, too. I'm trying a different tack. They gave me a card and an application for me to fill out later. I'll just substitute never for later and see what happens. I did that with Safeway - or did I just use a fake email and phone? I forgot, but I haven't been contacted and I haven't had my card taken away from me. Call it the Gandhi method. Non violent, but private.

At another grocery store (sans card) I found my energy bars for .89/ bar, or .10 cheaper anywhere else, or even better at 10-11% cheaper. Yippee!

Also found 2 for $1 tuna. Last time I it was that cheap was back in May of 2005. (See what a price book can do for you?) Unfortunately everybody else found it before I did. The second frugal thing I did was ask for a rain check. The store was happy to provide it - even had a little slip for the purpose. The rain check was even better - I really didn't have a need to buy tuna, but now I can create my own tuna sale whenever I want (well, within reason). What a concept - if you don't have coupons, make your own by hunting for things that you use, are on sale, but have been sold out. And its easier to store rain check slips than it is to store the food itself. And its easier on the diet.

Had a chat with the chiropractor. Week after next, I'm just going once a week. One $40 check drops to $20.

Glancing at a before and after diet commercial, I realized how incredibly frugal I am. Everyone else in these commercials is wearing the great condition fat pants, sticking their thumb out from the waist to show how big the pants are. Dammit, I'm wearing my too big stuff until it falls apart (or it falls off - hah hah). No one's getting me to pose in perfectly new usuable stuff. Besides, everything's incredibly comfortable and easy to get on.

Put the $7.45 from this week's T-bill into ING.

Put $10 in the tip box, sent $40 to my MMM drip.

With the stocks that I hold as Drips, the transfer agents are like the bank. I send my check to them, they buy the stock and keep track of my holdings. Since I have four Drips, each with its own different transfer agent, I have become a connoisseur of transfer agents. My order from best to worst...

Wells Fargo (MMM) - The online interface screams 1997, but the math is right. My check is posted as a pending transaction within 3 days of me mailing it. Every transaction is regular. The transfer agent buys this stock every Tuesday, so if my check makes it in by Friday, its bought and I'm off to the races. They then send an invoice and SASE envelope so the buying cycle begins again. If I'm on the ball, I can buy stock every three weeks. Awesome! Dividends are posted about two weeks before they are bought. MMM pays dividends on a September 15, December 15, March 15, June 15 schedule.

Compushare (KO) - Nicer online interface, but it recently got revamped (it bought out Equiserve) so when I'm clicking at tabs to find what I want I feel a little like pigeon pecking at a disc for a reward. The transfer agent buys this stock every month on the first, and pulls the money out on the 28th for a 1$ fee (which I hate!). The stock shows as being in my account around the 5th or so. In other words, not quite as regular as Wells Fargo. Dividends get posted along with that months purchase. KO pays dividends on a October 1, December 15 (avoid the holiday rush), March 1, June 1 schedule.

Bank of New York (WEC) - The online interface is nice enough (dandy graphs if you happen to have more than one stock with them), but you have to run Internet Explorer to see it. Firefox shows it as a black, weird garble. Again, this transfer agent buys it at the 1st of the month. I mail this one in, and the check is posted as a pending transaction about a week after I mail it. Dividends get posted along with that months purchase. They send an invoice about 10 days after the stock gets bought so I can buy more on a comfortable 1x/month cycle. WEC pays dividends on a September 1, January 1, March 1, June 1 schedule.

Continental (MI) - my newest drip so I have less than a year's worth of experience but sheesh, transactions are poky. I have to beg for forms to buy stock, the check gets posted but it seems to hang there for months and months before the stock gets bought. I can apparently buy 1x/quarter. The online interface is the same as MMM, so I really have no complaints about the interface itself...its just that what's in it and the speed of how it changes is the problem. MI pays dividends on a September 1, January 1, March 1, June 1 schedule, but the transfer agent seems to post them between 9-15 days later.

I glanced out the bus window this morning. A tree was beginning to get some red color and around its trunk were plenty that had fallen. Fall is here.

Just a weird thing I've noticed. I write $40 checks the chiropractor, and $40 checks to one of my Drips, and I take out $40 in cash when I go to the ATM, and when my tip box gets to about $40 I'm thinking its time to stick it in the savings account.

It makes my online banking reconciliation a bit cryptic. Just what is this $40 for, anyhow? And what is it about two twenties, anyway? It must be my breakpoint, when I think something is cheap vs. expensive, or at least if its $40 or under, I don't complain about it to DH.

Put $6 in the tip box. Got a lot done at work today.

Retired the Larry's entries from my price book. My local Larry's is all chained up. Word has it that it'll be an Asian food superstore, a bit like Uwajimaya.

The trainer was very happy to hear about the 2 sizes down and that I was in shape enough to hike for 6 hrs and be comfortable.

"You have to celebrate!" she said. "Don't be shy, tell the world. Your homework assignment is to tell at least 5 people after you leave the gym."

"But I bl--" and then I stopped. "Never mind. I will tell the world."

Honestly, it probably would be all right if I told her, but like any good journal, this blog works best as a secret inspiration.

Paid back the free coffee I got on Friday, added 3$ to the tip box to replace some of what I took to make it through Friday. I could have made it one more day without getting money, but a girlie emergency caught up with me. Tampons are way more expensive downtown than they are in my neighborhood. Sigh. They know.

Trip 1: to get an emergency nice outfit in case I have to go out on the road with the fundraising staff for the non-profit that I work at. The mission is to look nice, but not too nice. You don't want people to assume that their gift goes to your favorite boutique, and besides, this blog is part of Saving Advice, not spending advice.

So it was Ross Dress for Less, where I got a wonderful surprise. I am 2, count 'em 2, sizes down. I'm now a 14, instead of an 18. Freakin' Woo hoo! Got a brown suit and a pair of nice black pants = $38.06.

Trip 2: Best Buy. More of a treat, but it will be used a lot. Got an FM transmitter that plugs into the cigarette lighter of the cushmobile, and it broadcasts what's on your MP3 player on an unused FM band. Not fancy, but it'll work with either mine or DH's MP3 player. Set it up and it did what it advertised. Best of all, you can unplug it and take it with you or hide it from prying, thieving eyes = $54.39.

Used a 2 for 1 coffee coupon at a local coffeeshop - coffee for DH and myself = $2.00.

Oh yes, the bed came on Friday night. DH was not happy that he toasted an entire day waiting. Even if they had said morning or afternoon, he could have planned.

But I finally got a good night's sleep Friday, Saturday...ah. The hardness adjustment works, the position adjustment works, the massage works. But I could hear the vibrations coming from the massage all the way in the kitchen.

Saturday, the five of us (me, DH, friend, friend's wife, friend's dog) went hiking on Heliotrope Ridge, on the northwest side of Mount Baker.

We didn't quite make it to the end of the trail to the lookout, but me and the friend did make it far enough to see the Coleman Glacier from afar. It was rated strenuous (2000 ft elevation change), and I was very very thankful that I was in decent enough shape and had enough energy to enjoy the trip...and I was not the least fit person in the group (like I usually am). Turns out that the dog, a little white poodle, was strongest hiker of all us. It was fun, it was even fun enough to take up as a hobby.

My only nemesis was this. The picture's deceptive - what looks like a friendly little bridge crossing is at least a 30 ft drop into the stream and onto rocks. I'm deathly afraid of heights. The only way I could cross it was sandwiched between friend and DH, and look at friend's backpack while I mechanically moved my feet.

Our goal was this. We did get close enough to see it from afar here.

Cost of the trip = 17$ food (sandwiches, water, trail mix, McDonald's breakfast) + 5$ trail pass + 56$ (split in half - Mexican dinner after the hike...after 6 hrs of hiking, what's a little lard?) + 45$ gas (we took the white Buick cushmobile - fantastic to be able to stretch your legs after a hike). The Buick gets surprisingly good gas mileage - in the upper 20s, despite the fact that DH has a bit of a lead foot. Friend paid for a bit of gas, but he had driven me so many places for work and social stuff that we considered this trip payback. He's a DJ and gave us one of his CD mixes to sweeten the accounting.

Ran out the door with my purse, my wallet nestled in its little pocket. I walked to my bus stop just as the bus was pulling up (I love it when that happens). I reached for a compartment in my wallet...

No bus pass.

Its okay, especially on a commuter bus in Seattle - they know you have a pass and that you've bought the ride already. Besides, the driver said, its the first of the month and it'll happen a lot today. Get on.

Got in line for coffee. The cashier knew my order, poured my coffee while I opened my wallet and discovered no money in it. Worse, I had no debit card. Got my coffee anyway, because I was a regular.

So I went fiscally commando all day today.

I hate the surprise. I hate it when I forget that I stuck my bus pass, money from the ATM and debit card in a spare pocket for speed. I especially hate it when I have to dip into the tip box for the necessities.

Spending log - 4.50$ curry

Yesterday I got all bummed out and wigged because I took that test that I promised to take after the Nashville trip...

I failed it. By 3 questions.

The Director of IT took it about a month and a half ago and my other two compatriots took it and passed, so we got our three people for the cheap rate, and yep the questions were crapily worded (blame the tools, not the craftsman)...but still. Sigh...

I'm not the gal I used to be in that regard. In my first year of grad school, I took a immunology midterm when I hadn't even bought the book and had to borrow a pencil from a nervous pre-med (frugally excellent psych-out technique, FYI) and scored second in the class. "Imagine how I'd do if I bought the book," was all I said.

Good times, good times.

Bought my third 4-week T-bill. So my plan is to have 4 $2000 4-week T-bills, staggered so each is bought a different week, and bought from the account that the T-bill matured in. The interest earned from the bills gets scraped back into ING. This $8000 and the $6000+ in my ING account comprise my liquid emergency fund. Everything else is medium and long term-investment.

Got paid today at the raise rate - it was a 30$ increase, so increasing the pay-yourself rate to 75$ from 50$ at the top of the month means I've saved my raise.

Gym was upper body. For the last several days, I've been stopping on 15th NW, a 7 block further walk.

Its weird how people will bust their butts and get all excited about a 4% raise. It is exciting, but if you save 4 pennies off of each dollar, its like giving yourself that raise.

I was talking to a mid-aged friend of mine who remembered $60/month rents, and how he joked that he was bugged when it when up to $70...all for only $10, he said. What do you mean? I said. You should have been bugged - that's a 16% increase. Man, that's an accountant's answer, he said.

And why save a dime per pound on 99 cent potatoes. Yeah, sure that's a dime, but that's also 11% savings.

Well, it's a lot easier to get into the frugal mindset and easier to rationalize your purchases if you calculate your savings in percents.

As far as gym is concerned - 0%. I lost a pound, gained .5% of bodyfat, lost an inch on the waist and chest, gained an inch on my arms and legs. Considering I punked out on eating and exercise for 2 weeks, I dodged a bullet.

Found a quarter sitting on an empty bus seat this morning as I was leaving. That was a good sign for my first day back to work. Best haul I've had in a year or two. Mostly I find pennies and dimes.

And it was just in time, too. Vacation just breeds spending opportunity. If you work on an outside job, you have little time or opportunity to spend. I was okay with not buying lunch, but it seemed like everyday I was shelling out bucks for printer cartridges or a bed or a sheets. Good deals, but the best deal of all is 0$.

Shoveled out 155 emails and went through my day. Caught up with the groom from the second wedding I attended (the couple who got four personal finance books) - we hadn't talked for about 6 weeks. Most of my department is getting back from various vacations, so very soon we will be at full strength.

Got my other habits in order. My back was stiff, but the chiropractic adjustments seemed to hold, even with two weeks on the air mattress and couch. The personal trainer threatened measurements tomorrow. Got the footlong sandwich so I have lunch today and Wednesday - got the special for 5$, so it would be $2.50/lunch. Tomorrow I have lunch with lawyer friend (before measurements). I should finish the month with $60 in my checking account.

Savings log - 7$ tip box.
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $5.00 lunch.

Eventually she'll get into the 21st century. She's buying a Dell laptop (hold the flaming battery) with WiFi and that will be delivered next week. Her 6 month CD is maturing, as is mine, so she's been asking me for advice for what else to do with the bucks. At least its advice on how to save money, not on how to spend it.

Off and on, as long as I've had my ING account, I've sent her several ING invites to try to get her to try out Internet banking, to get that immediate 9% return. Now that I'm down to my last invite, and I know of a couple of people who will bite, I'm thinking that its now or never. Of course I've said that several times. I just know that if she sees the advantages of one, she'd get mad at me if I could have offered it to her but didn't.

My latest argument is that since she's going on vacation in mid-October, if she needs emergency money, she can tap an Internet bank anywhere she can find a secure connection.

My other argument is that my little fiscal empire is dependent on me being able to move money easily to other places. Its a lot easier to buy a T-bill or move dollars to Vanguard electronically. But electronically moving dollars requires a bit of faith the first few times one does it. I know that a couple of other bloggers much prefer the paper/in the hand method. A week of cleaning and trying to find assets in a two story undefended, barely padlocked farm house taught me the problems with that. All it would have taken for some of the assets to disappear was gasoline and a match. (Plenty of items outside the house walked away.) Even now there's the story of the homeless guy who found savings bonds in a jacket bought at the thrift store. I'm half expecting that some of our assets could have been found that way.

No really good buys at Larry's when I went for what I figured to be the last time, but I did get a couple of good deals on pork, chicken drumsticks (DH can perfect his fried chicken recipe), and ramen. Sometimes I have a hankering for ramen! It's sad seeing empty spaces and knowing that the stock is going. Shopping at Larry's in North Seattle was a real Saturday routine and I got to know all the cashiers and grocers. Next week we'll be at a loss.

do I seem to wear out my jeans at the crotch? Even when they are officially 1 size too big? Don't answer that, and I am fully ready to delete the obscene comments (after I wipe my eyes from laughing)...

Got the recycling bin cleared up. All the paper/cardboard I chucked from the linen closet and the home office is gone, gone, gone.

On my last real vacation day (DH tells me I should count the weekend, too, but I'm not), I got my haircut and walked 1/2 of Green Lake, listening to Vanguard podcasts.

The second T-bill matured yesterday, and after Treasury Direct automatically rebought for the next 4 weeks - I scraped the leftover back into ING. Another $7.89.

Larry's Markets - the grocery that I got the good deals from in salmon and milk. At the time, everyone was full of optimism that they had a good buyer. Unfortunately a different buyer came in and bought several of the pieces for the buildings and land. The grocery that I shopped at wasn't part of that deal. Their probable last day is next Thursday, the last day of August.

Now I only have two grocery stores within walking distance of my house.

Larry's didn't usually have the best rock-bottom prices, so I cut my teeth using a price book and teamed it with their Internet flyer with them. I found some great surprises - cheap(er) butter, eggs, corned beef, stew meat, romaine, wine. Their tuna was cheaper than Costco's. Produce was good looking, but rarely rock bottom. On the other hand you didn't have to be alert while you dug. Best of all, you didn't have the evil club cards.

I'd watch other folks in line drop hundreds of dollars there--mine would rarely hit 30$. My high was 80$, and that was during Thanksgiving.

I do expect, however, to find some good last deals as their stock gets bought out. Potatoes are already at .39/lb.

Since many of us take care of laptop batteries, cell phone batteries, PDA batteries, MP3 batteries, and since batteries are pretty much the reason electronics get busted, I thought of you all when ran across this link:

Oh yes - bedroom carpet is dry, and a fine perchlorate product (oxy-clean) did a fine job of getting rid of the musty smell. A final shampoo and we have moved back into the bedroom. DH bought a better, queen size air mattress and I can sleep okay on that.

I still wish the bed would hurry up and come. I noticed that we've paid for it already.

On day 3 - I took down the boxes that I shoved on top of the bookcases "for just a little while" back in February 2000. It was quite a productive box - I found 2 copies of my birth certificate, a copyright form from my dissertation, and reviews of my last paper (unpublished).

Its funny - I remember the review being so awful that it was the last straw of my scientific career. When I reread it today, one reviewer liked it, the other didn't but the consensus was fix this and we'll publish.

I wasn't able to fix it (I was 2000 miles away from plants, genes, and equipment), sure, but my 40+ year old self is kicking my 30+ year old self ...why so sensitive - one person was positive, so what if the other's negative? Look at the glass as half full. It wasn't so bad.

Oh for a time machine! As if I would have listened.

And so it goes. I really feel much more optimistic and happy in my 40s than I ever did in my 30s. Just in case any of you 20+s and 30+s are reading and blogging. It might well be the level of savings above the debt gets you to sleep at night. Life is always better after you wake up from a sound sleep.

Anyway, I finished cleaning and dusting all the books. We still have slightly more book than bookcase, but less than a shelf.

Day 4 - Picked up a paper rope basket for 50% off at Cost Plus (think Pier 1, but cheaper and less kitchy) and put all of the blank office supplies in it. They fit nicely and it looks good on the floor. Fingers crossed that it'll be a good self-nagger, and we'll want to use what's inside. $13.

Got a call from sister about getting a Dell laptop. I was positive - I blog using a Dell laptop, although mine's a bit older with an older battery and the recall didn't affect me. Still going strong after 2.5 yrs.

No word on anyone interested in the second property. I consider the breather to be a blessing. I'm learning a lot on how to invest 30K and that is proving to be intense. I can't imagine handling 10X that amount all at once. Sister was interested in my 4 week T-bill buying, although I sensed that she didn't quite understand it. T-bills would work even better for her - she pays state and local taxes on interest (state of WA has no state income tax) and she would not pay that on a T-bill.

Put 40$ into one DRP and 35$ into another.

I was flush with linen closet success, so I tackled the home office and library (aka the second bedroom). DH uses it about 80% of the time and I use it about 20%, but in the last year its been running 95%/5% because the office is a total squalid shambles. Total ick. DH makes nests despite several books on organization and cleaning clutter (hah hah - teaching the organizationally challenged organization is a bit like teaching an elephant to fly), and I have to be in the pitiless, ruthless mood to do the task. Perfect: sleeping on an air mattress and the couch for nearly a week has put me in ferocious, ruthless mood. And after that blog entry about enjoying your own box - well, I've been in that vibe all week.

Day 1 - desk, floor, and 2/6 bookcases. My technique is pretty simple: sort into empty boxes. Clean the desk down to the wood making several piles: paper to toss immediately (including pamphlets/CDs of equipment that I know we don't have), paper to put in a pile for DH to sort, CDs and video games, computer equipment and cables. Dust the desk.

The bookcases are bit more problematic. We both love books and we have more book than bookcase, but I figure if I can dispose of 3-4 pieces per shelf (dups, outdated, bad condition, items I was given that I'm never going to re-read), I can get everything back in place. Dusting, though, is brutal!

I finished by vacuuming the floor and turning the HEPA filter on. Here's hoping that the dust on the bookcases makes it into the HEPA.

The pile technique is very useful for DH, because he can make pretty good decisions once his attention gets narrowed down to a box. He got his CDs and video games sorted and sold them at Half Price Books for 18$.

Day 2- file cabinet and 2 more bookcases. I started another box of office supplies. So many reams of paper, blank labels, blank envelopes, pads of paper, blank journals, pens & pencils, computer tools, postits, a binder or two! I've got to use this box before acting on the cravings when I'm at Office Despot.

Found Clif bars for .99/apiece at Trader Joes. Now both DH and I use them as breakfast bars. Not bad with a cup of coffee and the serving size is highly defined.