Work majorly sucked today

I just wanted to come home put my head under a blanket and just cry. It was that bad. I think at one point I was ready to start crying at my desk. It wasn't one specific thing just a culmination of things. I'm not really under pressure at work, but I am stressed out. So every little thing is getting to me.

I just read a quote "When you're going through Hell, keep going!". I just need to suck it up, put on my big girl panties and deal with it. But man,when it rains it pours!

I need to make a shopping list

It's time for me to go shopping for stuff for my vacay. I need to make a list of all of the things I need. If I don't, I'll go in the store and buy a bunch of stuff I really don't need, and I'll forget to get something important that I really do need.

I know I need sunblock (I burn instead of tan), pj's (cause I don't own any), and disposable cameras. I'm still not sure if I need clothes or not. Or at least one or two pairs of shorts or capri pants. I'm not buying new sneakers because the ones I wear every day are still pretty good looking.

But I'm not going anywhere without that list.

Is there a stigma associated with having a tutor?

If there is I don't see why. My niece is having trouble in math and her mother wants to get her a tutor for the upcoming school year. I know what it's like to struggle with math. I had a innovative tutor when I was in 7th grade for my algebra class. I just didn't understand it at all. I worked with my tutor for 2 quarters and my grade went from a low C to a solid A.

I told my sister-in-law to go ahead with the tutor. If my niece is not happy, she can just introduce the person as her study partner. But if she's struggling with math now, it will only get worse so she needs to act on it before it becomes a bigger problem.

The checkbook is done

Yeah it was a mess. It took me an hour and a half to balance everything. Did I mention I have 3 checkbooks to balance? That's why it takes so long. Add to that the fact that all of my money is goes into separate categories and that's why it takes so long.

I'm glad it's done and I don't have to balance them again for another 2 weeks.

My checkbook is a mess

I usually only balance my checkbook once every 2 weeks. I work with numbers all day and I don't want to do it when I get home. But I haven't balanced my checkbook since the weekend after July 4th. I've been paid twice since then and paid several bills. I know I need to get it together but I just don't feel like it.

A welcome gift for our cruise

I'm looking to buy a gift for my aunt for our cruise. Me, my mom and my aunt are all going. My aunt and uncle are paying for it. It's a birthday present for me and my mom. I'm thinking of buying breakfast gift baskets so she will have something nice when we get there.

If I decide against a breakfast basket, I can send a chocolate or sweets gift basket. I can only imagine her face when we walk into that room and she sees it sitting there. I'm going to make sure there are some balloons too. I know she'll love it.

I'm not really worrying about getting my mom a gift. Her gift from them is the cruise. Her gift from me was new clothes for the cruise. This is gonna be so much fun.

The stock market dropped 300 points today

I'm not happy about it but I'm sure not panicking either. This is an excellent buying opportunity. I have 2 individual stock accounts that I send money to. I figure my money will go a longer way and buy more shares. Now if I can just find the money to buy some stock.

I might be able to get a higher paying job

We have several people leaving my area. Most of them are going to higher grade jobs. One person is just quitting. She doesn't even have a new job yet, she's just leaving. 2 of the jobs are a higher grade than I am. Technically, I don't qualify because I just got a "promotion" but because it's the same area my boss will let me apply.

I don't expect to get 1 of the jobs because someone else is more qualified. I am qualified for the other job. The only drawback? The supervisor for their team is very hard to work for. She stays on her employees backs. I don't know if I can handle that. My supervisor is laid back and mellow and this person is uptight.

I guess I should wait to see what they decide as far as letting me apply. If I get the job and it's a decent raise, I'll just have to deal with it.

Looking outside the box for ways to make money

I've thought of many ways to make money. I mean I have a regular job and I'm looking for additional sources of income. I need the money to pay for school and help pay down debt. All of my debt is school related. Student loans to be exact.

I've investigated a lot of work at home plans or multi-level marketing campaigns but they don't seem right for me. Something that seems up my alley is doing something like multivend. Multivend is one of the leading bulk candy vending machine manufacturers in the U.S. It is a 100% cash business and has a profit margin of up to 80%.

Now I know people are wondering why I would consider something like this. First I live near a couple of small strip mall shopping centers. I could put the machines up and bring in some extra cash. It would be close to home so no long commute. And I could do this around my schedule. It's not like I would have to be there for certain hours. As long as you keep the machines stocked, you should be cool.

Like I said, it's something I'm looking into. Hey, a few dollars here and a few there really add up.

My tuition reimbursement is in jeopardy

My paperwork for tuition reimbursement is due in the human resources area 20 days before my class starts. Well, my manager and her boss are both on vacation and won't be back until 7/31. There's no one in the office to sign the paperwork until they get back. They would have to sign it and mail it that exact same day in order for me to meet the requirement.

I have the papers all filled out and ready to go. On the day they get back I'll run into their respective offices and get them to sign right then and there. I don't want to take the chance that they might get lost.

I registered for my other class

I finally registered for my math class. I'm not looking forward to this class at all. Even though it's a beginner class I know it will be a lot of hard work. I mean the class is called analytical methods after all. I know I will have a lot of homework for this class. I don't mind reading homework, but this will be exercises and math problems.

It also made my school outlay for this semester a little higher than I expected it to be. I was only expecting to take 1 class, by adding one my costs went up. Tuition and fees increased but I'll also have to pay more for books. I'm thinking of taking a personal loan from my bank to help with expenses.

My economics book cost $65 last semester. I expect the book for a similar class to be about the same amount. I'll also spend $80 for the math book and I'll need a scientific calculator which runs about $60 bucks. Heck a personal loan might not cut it. I might need to take a secured loan for all of the money I need.

I know one thing, I'll be glad when I'm done with school. I know it's worth it in the end and I'll be glad I finished, but the money is killing me.

PPP and their weird request-clarification

I just reread the post that I wrote and realized that people are probably thinking what's the big deal? Or even just take the picture already.

Like I said, I don't like pictures. I never have. So I don't take them. Because of that I don't own a camera. I couldn't take a picture even if I wanted to. If I go on vacation or somewhere I think I'll want to take pictures of, I just buy disposable cameras.

That's not even my biggest issue. My issue is this: I was selected for the opportunity. So they should know that I'm qualified to write the opp. Why do I need to provide a picture to prove that I am who I'm supposed to be. The picture doesn't identify me because I could use a pet or a prop or whatever I want to be the model. As long as the model is holding the product it's all good.

What if I go next door and give my next door neighbor the product and tell him to post. He doesn't write for PPP but what if he did. Just because someone has the product doesn't mean that's who should be writing the review.

Which brings me back to my long-winded point. If they know who they sent the product to, they should be the only people approved to write the opportunity. If someone slips through who isn't supposed to, don't approve the opp or pay them. It's that simple.

I don't get this whole picture deal. It's stupid to me. Whew....rant ovah!

PPP and their weird request

Hmmm, I don't know what to make of this. I write posts for ppp. Usually they work out fine. This time I was "hand selected" for a certain marketing opportunity. So what do they put in the requirements? Send a picture with your review. I think that is rather presumptuous of them. I don't take pictures. Ever. At all. Period. For anyone. Ever. Get it, got it, good.

If they're going to add weird requirements to their jobs, I would rather not be hand-selected for anything.

Barry Bonds hit 2 hr's today

Why is this related to personal finance? Because he's only 2 from tying Hank Aaron and 3 from passing him. Whoever is lucky enough to catch that ball is gonna get paid. There was a reward of $1 million on the ball, but the company was worried about fans getting hurt and retracted their offer.

The fan that gets that ball will still get a lot of money. They will also have to fight for that ball. It could get bad, I just hope nobody gets hurt because people are gonna lose their minds trying to get 756.

Insurance is confusing

Do I want tort or non-tort? How much of a deductible do I want? Sigh. Can you tell I'm looking for auto insurance? There are so many car insurance companies out there and so many options that I'm getting a jump on everything now.

My last car was brand new so I had to have full coverage on it. I also had a $1000 deductible. I still don't know what kind of tort coverage I had because I don't understand that at all. I'm looking at getting auto insurance quotes now. I want the amount I pay to be cheap but I don't want horrible coverage. That's why I'm doing my homework now to see who will offer what I'm looking for. There are so many companies out there that you need to compare what each company is offering. I would never take the first quote I got without shopping around.

In my state you have to have insurance to drive off of the lot with your car. I don't want to have to resort to getting dealer insurance because that is such a rip-off. I want a company in place where all I have to do is fax them the vehicle information and they fax me a policy and insurance card. I'm doing all of this to get insurance and I don't even have a car picked out yet. Oh well, I'm taking it one thing at a time.

The downside of paying bills online

I can really only think of one downside and of course I'm living it right now. I can't log into my account to pay my bill. The first time I tried to log in, I couldn't remember my username or password. Then I got the password wrong two more times.

I got a try again later message. I don't know if they're having trouble with their system or if I'm locked out because I tried to log in so many times. Either way I can't pay my bill right now. I'll have to either call and pay over the phone or send in a check (Horror of horrors!). Of course the bill is past due but it's the cable bill and as long as it's not over a month late there are no late fees.

Thanks for the gift card mom

My mom gave me a $25 gift card. She received it as a incentive from one of the companies she does business with. Ok ok she got it as a comp from a casino. She always gives me her good gifts and this one was no exception.

I used it to go shopping this past weekend. I was able to get a shirt and a pair of shoes. The shoes weren't the ones I wanted but they are cute. They're black patent leather wedge sandals. I was surprised to find both the shoes and shirt on sale. I needed the shoes and who couldn't use a new shirt.

Thanks mom!

Examining money making ventures

I am always trying to increase my net worth. By paying down debt and adding to my assets. I have a variety of ways that I increase my assets. One of those ways is by being a part-time reseller on several sites and I make a small profit at it each month. Although I don't make a huge profit, I do get to keep some of the items that I sell in my inventory. That makes it worthwhile for me.

One of the ways I increased my profitability was to engage in a direct mail campaign like one offered by Martin Worldwide. My campaign was very successful. I targeted past customers and was able to retain most of them. Now when they are looking for items, a lot of them will email me to see if I have it before they purchase it from another person.

At first I was nervous about putting people on a mailing list. But I feel if the campaign is used sparingly and not as a spam tool, it can be very successful.

I won $25

I know it's not a lot of money but I'm still excited about it. You know those codes that come on the top of sodas? Well I entered one from Diet Mountain Dew and won. I was surprised when I came home from work the other day and found the check in my mailbox. They give away 400 $25 prizes per day but they have over 11000 entries. Those are horrible odds so I never expected to actually win.

I drink a bottle of Diet Dew everyday, so I enter one code per day. I generally enter for the $25 but I'll also enter for a trip if it's for Aruba or the MLB All-Star Game. Maybe lightning can strike twice.

I need to keep better track of spending

In my previous post I talked about overspending. I need to start keeping better track of the money I'm spending. I need to start charging everything on my credit card. That way all of my expenses will be in one place and I'll have an itemized statement.

I found the idea of charging everything on my credit card on the GoldStarCredit website. I visit a lot of finance websites. It helps to see different perspectives on money matters. There's different sections of the website to visit. I can find out all about personal loans, mortgages, automobile loans, or debt help.

The automobile loans section will come in handy. I'm looking to buy a car in the next 6 months and I need to figure out what type of financing options I have. I want to keep the interest rate down and I also want a short financing term. I can look around the site to see what company will offer me the best deal. Every bit of money I can save will really help.

I've overspent and I don't know how

I was looking at my account and I have a couple of hundred dollars less than I thought I did in my account. I don't know what I did what the money either. I have to sit down and really take a hard look at my account to figure it out. I don't know if I spent it on clothes, food or what.

This is driving me crazy. I hate when my money doesn't add up.

Getting ready for school

Although there's still over a month before school starts, I still need to get ready. Tuition has to be paid, books have to be bought, and I still need to buy school supplies. It's funny, I feel like I'm back in high school worrying about school supplies and all. This semester I need a graphing calculator and some more notebooks and folders.

I'll be attending classes at two schools this semester. I'm trying to keep costs down so I'm taking a class a the local community college as well as one at Pitt. The class that I'm taking at the community college doesn't count towards my requirements, it's just a refresher course before I take my math class. With all the running around from school to school I'm doing, sometimes I wish I had gotten my college degree online. I would be able to take classes in the comfort of my own home with no running around from place to place.

I guess the one bright spot is that I don't pay for my own transportation costs. Since I catch the bus free, I'm saving the money I would have normally spent for my bus pass towards a car. Now if I could only figure out how to get gas for free!

I hope this check is still good

You would think I would know how long personal checks are good for considering I work for a bank. But in all honesty, I have no idea. I just found a check in my purse that I was supposed to deposit weeks ago. That's one of the drawbacks of only balancing my checkbook once a month, sometimes I have no idea how much money I really have.

I totally forgot that I had the darn thing. To make matters worse, the person who wrote the check is probably waiting for it to clear. Oops.

I had to buy a new scanner

I've been working on a short story. Actually it's more than 1. I have so many ideas running around in my head that I need to get out. I finally made the commitment to get my ideas down on paper. I bought a new printer and portable scanner. I need the printer to print out all of the pages.

I need the scanner to put help create one of the art works for my book. I want a picture that's unique and my own. I don't want a picture like everyone else has. I've created it on my laptop and I scanned it to make a cover. It doesn't look exactly like what I want but I have a pretty good idea of what direction to take next.

I also scan hand written documents onto my laptop. That's one of the reasons I love my laptop so much. It's super convenient and holds all of my documents. I use the usb port for the scanner, and when I'm done using it I just unplug it and sit it to the side until I need it again. Plus I can take everything with me when I'm on the go.

I'll make an update on the progress of my short stories in a few weeks. So come back to see how I'm doing.

I love days off but

When they fall in the middle of the week, they mess your whole schedule up. I had a ton of work left over from Tuesday. Then I was super busy today with work. I usually use certain days to play catch-up but with the day off I'm still behind.

Hopefully tomorrow will be slow and I can at least get back on track. Then enjoy the weekend.

Dang blasted Alexa

I know I should concentrate on content and not stats but Alexa is working my last nerve. All of my rankings have gone up instead of down. That ticks me off because I have a site meter so I see my site stats on a weekly basis. My stats haven't dropped off at all. Two out of the past 3 weeks, they've actually gone up.

One of my blogs has an Alexa rating of 17, which happens to be bloggers score not mine. I did have a score on that site but as of Monday it's a 17. Like I said, I need to stop paying attention to my site stats. They're really only good for bragging rights anyway.

Site sponsor update

I didn't get my site sponsor. Well I did but I didn't accept the offer. I was expecting a low ball offer for a couple of links and maybe a post or two. But that's not what they wanted at all. They wanted a permanent dedicated section on my site with multiple posts and multiple links. I would have had over 25 links to just their site. I don't care how much they were offering, it just wasn't worth it. I guess I'll keep looking. Hopefully, something will come through sooner or later.