Sabrina's Money Madness

What’s wrong with this picture

Sabrina — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:45:17 +0000

Look at the picture and the dates on the calendar. I just got this calendar on Wednesday. And it’s out of date! I know a lot of people don’t write checks anymore and banks have extra checkbook covers and checkbook registers laying around but this is ridiculous.

It’s a good thing I won’t be using this book to keep track of the date.

I’m going to a new casino

Sabrina — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:00:36 +0000

Well it’s new for me anyway. It’s Seneca Indian Casino in upstate New York. I’ve never been there but my friend says is fabulous. She asks me to go every time her sister sponsors a bus trip. The last time I told her I would go and it’s already here. We leave Saturday morning at 7am and get back around 9pm at night. We should have a good 7 or 8 hours there. I’ll probably spend at least an hour in the buffet so I won’t be losing any money then.

Whatever cash I decide to take is all the cash that I’m taking. No hitting the atm for me. Not this time anyway.

Saving for my own home is hard

Sabrina — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:38:47 +0000

I started saving money to buy a house. I’m on a 3 year plan that will hopefully end with me making a down payment and paying closing costs. Right now I’m saving very little and as my bills are paid off, that money is getting redirected to my savings. Now that I’ve made this a plan it seems like something is always coming up to snatch my hard earned cash. If it’s not my car then it’s something like needing new boots or a new coat. I don’t have a habit like e-cigarettes or online gambling anymore.

I’ve started putting my house fund into a savings account that I don’t have easy access to. This way I won’t be tempted to take cash out and buy stuff that I really don’t need. Now I just have to apply this logic to my other accounts and then I’ll be ok.

I almost paid double for my 30 day free trial

Sabrina — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:27:14 +0000

I paid for a 30 day “free” trial upfront, totally my choice. Once the free trial was over I noticed that they hadn’t hit my card. So I called them and asked when I would be charged. The poor customer service rep was totally confused because she couldn’t figure out why I was pre-billed. Then I remembered that I had paid in advance. I gave her my confirmation number to make sure that’s why I was charged. She confirmed my charges and a year’s worth of service.

It’s a good thing I wrote down my confirmation number. That saved us both a lot of hassle.

Dealing with my first bad eBayer

Sabrina — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:33:44 +0000

This is a drag. I usually have great experiences on eBay but this person is the worse. They bid on a item and now they don’t want to pay for it. They probably felt like they over-bid and they’re trying to get out of it. Instead of just emailing me and explaining what happened, they’re ignoring me.

I waited 2 weeks and several invoices before I filed to get my final fees back. Then I waited another week and a half before I relisted the item. None of my previous bidders wanted the second chance offer because they had already bought the item they were looking for while I was waiting for my deadbeat buyer.

I got significantly less for the item than was bid the first time and I still have several days before the feedback option expires. I want to make sure they don’t try to hit my feedback. I didn’t leave any for them because I’ll just let eBay handle it. I understand that something may have happened in their personal life causing them to back out of the auction. I just wish they had contacted me instead of going this route.

I hope this is the last bad eBayer that I’ll have to deal with.

My sweepstakes wins for February 2010

Sabrina — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:50:59 +0000

1 prize. That’s all I won again. It was a pretty decent prize. I won a $25 Gift Card from Mars. The only thing I’m worried about is that I never received the prize, which I won on 2/4. I also never received a confirmation email which is pretty unusual. Hopefully I’ll recieve the gift card pretty soon.

I only won 1 prize in January and February after winning multiple prizes every month last year. Oh well, as long as I win at least 1 prize I’ll be happy.

I didn’t get the job

Sabrina — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:01:43 +0000

Again. Sigh…. I know there’s a job out there for me. I’ll just be glad when I finally find it. I’m starting to get really discouraged. It took me a long time and a lot of applications before I finally started to get interviews. Now I’ve had 2 and I didn’t get either job. The ironic thing is both times I competed against someone in my department and both times they got the job.

The next time I have a interview I’m making sure no one else in my department is in the running for the job. They’re jinxing me.

I need another air conditioner

Sabrina — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:40:35 +0000

I just bought a air conditioner at the end of last summer. However my house is so hot that one air conditioner doesn’t even do it. I have a window unit for my bedroom and now I’m looking for a portable model for the living room. My mom suggested that I get a dehumidifier to pull all of the hot air out and use the air conditioner to put cool air back in. I don’t know what I’m getting but I do know that I have to get something. It’s the middle of winter and my apartment is so hot that I have a window open and the fan going.

I can only imagine how hot it will be once we hit mid-summer.

I got my new card

Sabrina — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:42:37 +0000

And it’s not a rewards card which is a bummer. It’s one of the plain platinum cards that doesn’t offer anything. I really want a rewards card though. If I can buy food, photo graduation announcements, clothes or even pay bills and get rewards points then that’s good for me. The service associate that I spoke to said they did a product for product swap. Since I didn’t have a rewards card before, they wouldn’t automatically make this one a rewards card.

I’ll just wait between six months and 1 year and call and ask them to switch me to a rewards product. But for now the card maintains it’s position as the number 3 card in my wallet.

I thought I was going on vacation

Sabrina — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:31:20 +0000

But it looks like I won’t be going. We were undecided on a ski vacation and a trip to Jamaica. My friend decided for the group that it was going to be Jamaica for a weekend. Not a problem for me because I wouldn’t mind going for just a weekend. Then we saw the resort and the price. It’s a brand new exclusive resort that really costs a lot of money. It’s $885 for 4 days but you leave Monday morning at 8am so it’s really like a 3 day trip.

That’s way too rich for my blood. Especially for only a weekend trip.