Last night I was sitting in my room and just typing away on my laptop when I heard this high pitched beep. At first I thought it was just my imagination. And then the beep happened again. The smoke detector in my room was beeping because the battery was low. So I was looking for a 9-volt battery to replace it with. As I was rummaging through the drawer where my grandma usually keeps the batteries. I came across a little plastic case of dimes. And I looked at them closer and I was like, "Hey these are silver dimes". I wouldn't never know this if I hadn't worked as a teller and developed a fascination with currency. And then wrapped in paper were 10 mercury dimes (even older than the silver dimes). I showed my grandma the case of dimes. And she said that my grandpa use to save them. And then she said that I could have them as long as I promised not to be careless with them. I promised, not that I would ever do something careless with them because again I'm so fascinated with currency. It will go with other collection of coins and bills. But that made my day. I looked them up on online, they are worth about $1 a piece since they aren't in mint/uncirculated condition. That's pretty good for a 10 cent piece.

Well, my 1 year and 1 week anniversary since I've moved to California!

Wow time does fly.

What have I accomplished in that one year span? Plenty.

I landed myself a full-time permanent position. I am no longer a temp, yay! My savings really took a hit over the year for not having work from Oct 08-Nov-08 and then have to take a leave of absent in April-June after my dad past away to go back to Virginia to help my family out. I've been back in the full swing of thing work wise since the beginning of July and has able to slowly but surely build my savings back up again.

I consolidated my student loan of $12800 from a variable rate to a fixed rate of around 3% and having a monthly payment of $97 from my previous $160. I could afford the $160 from before, and so with that I am still throwing $160 at my loan to pay it down faster. And as far as the rest of my debt, I have none. Yup, that is right I have none. The little credit card debt that I did accumulate from not working in April-June I was able to pay off when I started working again.

Also since last year I have created 4 new savings categories. Well more like the envelope system. It's really working out for me and I'm able to see exactly where all my money is going.

Categories
Dad Fund - I am setting aside $20-25 each paycheck (I get paid once a week) to donate a charity/organization in memory of my dad. I will be actually cutting the check on the anniversary of his death in April. So far, I have set aside $160.

B-day/Gift Fund - where I can set aside maybe $10-15 each week so that I'm not using my Credit card to pay for Christmas or Birthday gifts. $50 so far

Travel Fund - where I can set aside money for my airfares and just basically saving up future vacations about $100 so far.

Cell Phone Fund - this is not really a savings more like the balance should equal zero each month. I calculate how my paychecks I have before my cell phone bill is due (it's the same each month for the most part) and just divide it by the amount. This way I don't have to worry about having to come up with the money on my last paycheck before the bill is due.

But a quick overview of the financials. (rough estimates because I don't have my spreadsheet on this desktop)

Savings #1 - $9000 (definitely took a hit)
Savings #2 - $2900 (this one doubled since last year since it's the savings account attached to my checking account)
Savings #3 - $500 (ouch too)

Roth IRA - this year I've only contributed $500 so far for 2009. Trying to get this up as much as I can before its time to start contributing for 2010.

Student loan $12,700.
Credit Card - $0.00


So yeah that's pretty much sums up my 1 year in California. I'm excited to finally be back into the full swing of savings, budgeting and of course dreaming.

I'm going to try to update and blog more often. So until next time!

So me and my cousin are just 1 year apart. He's 25 and I'm 24, not that makes much of a point in the scenario or maybe it does just to make a point, but needless to say we are pretty much the same age.

I never really grew up around him living on the east coast and all and he being here in the west so really we grew up in entirely different situations. Well just a few months ago we were both struggling to find steady work. He's excuse... no one is hiring college grads. My excuse... I don't have enough experience. So we both eventually got a steady job and earning a steady paycheck. He invited me out for drinks with some friends of his just so I could hang out with people my own age. He decided that since he was earning a paycheck that he would pick up the tab. I had like one drink. So I just said thank you and that I would get him back the next time. I come home and was just chit-chatting with my aunt and uncle were making a case that they would be shocked to see my cousin offer to pay for anything. And then I just casually mentioned "oh he paid for drinks". And then they proceeded to lecture me about his spending and that he should be saving up his money so that he can move out of his mom's house (my cousin lives with his mom, my aunt is his step-mom, in case it gets a little confusing there). And I was like don't look at me. So then I felt bad, maybe I should have just paid for my drink. And this is were the differences between me and cousin are like night and day. My cousin was never taught the value of money and so he spends it freely because $100 to him is just that $100 of pure spending money. I look at $100 and I'm like okay... $10 - to savings, $20 to credit card, $30 for gas, $30 to student loan and then $10 for spending.

I just think it's rather strange that my aunt and uncle are lecturing me about my cousin's spending, I mean they are clearly talking to the wrong person. I can pull out an excel spreadsheet of my finances.

They are the same people that told me if I were to ever win the lottery that I was too young to retire and that I better still work.

But the point of the story is that I should have paid for my half just so that they could get off his back. But then would they be lecturing the both us if we had split that we should be saving money and moving out?


But on a side note... my credit card increased my credit limit. They didn't send me any notice, I just sort stumbled upon it when I logged in to my online account and saw that the limit increased. I'm never even close to reaching the the first limit they had for me but whatever... if anything is makes my debt ratio even lower because of higher total available credit. I just thought it was strange because I didn't think the credit card companies were uping limits, I thought most of them were decreasing limits without notice. lol. Oh well.

Okay so I'm back to blogging again.

I get so caught up with other things I just forget to log-on once in awhile and update. Man, the summer has gone by super fast.

So since the last time I blogged, I turned 24. Hmm, I got a new assignment/contract. Not any better than the previous one. My previous assignment may want to take me back and hire me on permanent. I'm working on that as we speak.

Hmm... back to saving again still not quite back to where I want to be but at least I'm saving even if it's only $50 a week.

Also, I consolidated my student loans. I now have a fixed rate of 3.... something. It's in grace period until 9/21. So I'm trying to throw some money at it right now because everything I pay towards it goes straight to principal. And then once it's off grace again it will start accruing interest. So the entire loan is like $12890.

And I know previously I said that I was going to do a charity of some sort and I had originally picked the animal shelter, but I had a change of heart. Not that I don't care about the animals, because I do but I've decided to go with one in honor of my dad. The National Aphasia Association. My dad had a stroke back in 2001 and as a result of his stroke he had aphasia. So I've decided to set aside $20 each paycheck (I'm currently getting paid every week, so roughly $80/month) and on the 1 year anniversary of my dad's death (April 2010) I'm going to make a donation of what I had set aside. So far I have $105 set aside. I thought about doing it around Christmas time but I figure if I do it on his anniversary I can save up more money to donate.

But that's pretty much it, work and the small little projects that I'm working on on the side to keep myself busy.

I should update my stats soon. Maybe if I get a chance this weekend. But until then.

So, I have my first assignment. I started working on Tuesday. It's an interesting position. I'm an "accounting assistant" but really... I'm working along side the controller and doing some clerical stuff in the down time. I'm getting some really good experience I think.

But let me just say. So, I have to take care of the petty cash. And of course I get the cash from the bank today and I open up the straps of $20s. The bills were every which way. Ugh! You've got to be kidding me. Shame on that bank. As a former teller, I was taught to have all the bills facing the same direction. It took me twice as long to count the money because I had to sit there and fix the bills, because I'm so use to handling large sums of cash, but facing the same way. I fixed it all, because it was just buggy (even my wallet has all the bills facing the same directions with $1 in the front and larger bills in the back). So now this company has a petty cash drawer that is in organized.

But enough with work.

I'm starting a new project. Last night laying in bed trying to go to sleep, but secretly wishing it was the weekend so I didn't have to go to work in the morning, I started thinking about starting a project. A project purely not based on profit or obligation. I was just thinking that some thing really positive just needs to come out of this year. After having a horrible April with losing my dad and nothing being the same since I just need something good. Because even after everything I still feel incredible lucky. So I've thought about it and I want to take a part of my paycheck each week maybe like $20-30 and buy pet supplies and donate them to the local animal shelter (a no kill one, of course). And hopefully with my new ventures in coupon clipping I can double my donation. And hopefully by the end of the year I can drive up with a car full of goodies. Well I haven't decided how often I plan on making the drop-off yet. Some of the things I don't even have to buy, like newspaper, old towels/blankets so that's something. Actually what I really wanted to do is donate to an animal food bank. I know sounds crazy, food bank are for people not animals. Well, I found one back in my hometown. They just opened a Pet Food Bank to help people feed their animals. Because during hard times like people are more incline to do without to feed their pet instead. And the Pet Food Bank sorta helps both by providing pet food to those who need it so they can use their money to buy food for themselves. I haven't found one around where I live now yet. I haven't really had a chance to look into it. I actually wanted to donate to the American Heart Association, just because of my dad but... I wanted to make sure my donation was actually going to be used for the cause and not to pay some CEO's salary. So since I can't control that I figure I rather do something where I know that my donation is getting to the cause. And I love animals so I'm helping the animals, lol.

Okay, that's pretty much it for now. I can't wait for the weekend. Too bad tomorrow's Friday and not Saturday. lol.

So today I was sent to the grocery store to pick up 3 things.

-5 Bananas
-5 Nectarines
- 1 Jar of Mayo because it was on sale for $1.99 at Safeway w/coupon.

So anyways, I actually decided to look at the Safeway ad because of the 4th of July specials. So I made my list, checked it twice... everything on the list was on sale and I had coupons for. Everything... except for the Bananas and Nectarines.

I ended up spending $80. But... total savings... $69.10. This is with coupons and in-store sales. I've never saved that much grocery shopping ever. Well this was the first time I actually made an effort to make a list and stick to it. I had my coupons already sorted out, pulled already.

On my list also included stuff I didn't really need right now but the sale combined with the coupon couldn't resist. Like aluminum foil. I bought two... I didn't really need it but it was on sale and I had two $1.00 off coupons that were about to expire.

So... yeah. I ended up spending a little more than i was originally planning on spending considering I only was suppose to get those 3 things. But I'm just excited to see how much I saved, usually it's no more than $30. But $69.10. I'm going to try to out do myself next time and get the bill down lower. I think it would be so cool to be one of those people you hear about buying all these groceries and spending like $5.00.

But this is how I set up my grocery list

-(5) Bananas
-(5) Nectarines
- Mayo (Coupon)
- (2- 75cu) Reynolds Aluminum Foil (Sale 2For, Coupon)
- Viva Papertowel (6pk) (Sale, Coupon)
- Oceanspray Cranberry Juice (Sale, Coupon)
- (6) Cat Treats (1 BOGO Free, 1 B2GO Free, $1.00 off one, $0.50 off one coupon, Sale)
- (5) 12pk Soda (Sale B2G3 Free)

and then other things. But yeah I know there is still room for more savings in my list. But this is the first time I actually made a list like this. So, it helped me save a lot of time by have it all written out and know exactly what size I need to make the coupon or sale valid.

Does anyone else have helpful ideas that they use to help them save money grocery shopping? Just curious. I'm always open to new ideas.

So I was looking on ebay just typing away searching for treasures. Not that I was going to buy anything because I've never used ebay before except to buy my college textbook once. But I decided to be fun to search toys that I use to play with when I was little. Ok, so I grew up in the 90s. That was 10 years ago. I typed in one of the toys... and up came the word "Vintage". I had to laugh. But then again. Really? Well, needless to say my so called "vintage" collection of Polly Pockets (the original) have like starting bids of $15. About 6 or 7 years ago, I sold quite of bit of my old toys off at a yard sale because I thought I was too old for them. I sold those sets for $1.00 at the most. Huh. If I had waited maybe I could have at least gotten my money back from them because I'm sure I never paid more than $10 for them because I was buying them with my allowance back then. I still have a plastic container filled with some of them, my most favorite of the bunch. I didn't have the heart to part with them, and I still don't. But at least it makes me fill a little bit better that I'm not really hanging on to Junk because apparently there are people out there on ebay world that are willing to bid on them. lol.

Random I know, lol.

Man, I'm still waiting on my first assignment. Hopefully by the end of the week. I'm getting really bored waiting around the house as you can clearly see, in the opening paragraph of this blog, that I have time to ebay so called "vintage" toys that I use to play with. lol.

The savings thing has kinda slowed down... because I currently don't get paid until I get my first assignment, which like I said is hopefully by the end of the week. And so with no income... no savings. But, I haven't really spent any money either. I went to costco yesterday and picked up a $4.99 rotisserie chicken for dinner... lunch and probably dinner again. People go really crazy in costco and the lines are always so long. I'm starting to think it's not worth saving the extra couple of dollars to wait in long lines for a $4.99 chicken and the very few items I get when I go there. But it's not like I pay for the membership there, my mom gave me the "spouse" card to use. So I guess I have to decide the cost effectiveness of continuing to shop there. Next time I'm bringing a calculator. I use to have my small financial calculator on me all the time. Not that it's necessary for it to be a financial calculator, it's just the one that I had because of my finance classes so I was just use to all the functions. I guess I better go dig it back out and throw it in my bag.

But that's basically it. Until next time.

So I was doing the Blockbuster deal. Ended up watching 14 movies for 1 week for $20.

These are the movies that I rented.

-He's Just Not That Into You
-New In Town
-Revolutionary Road
-The Ramen Girl
-Vicky Christina Barcelona (btw... I was very disappointed in this movie, but then again I'm not a huge Woody Allen fan)
-Smoke Jumper
-Faith In Potatoes (or vice versa, I call it the Potato movie, lol... it was alright for a true store)
-Living Proof
-Hotel For Dogs
-Pathology (eh... not a very good movie)
-Role Models (eh ok)
-Where God Left His Shoes (I enjoyed this movie)
-Madea Goes To Jail (hehe)
-The Family That Preys (actually this ended up bring a pretty good movie, nothing like I expected)

But I think after all those movies I enjoyed Revolutionary Road the best along with The Ramen Girl (Brittany Murphy).

I was going to rent Frost/Nixon, but I figure eh it might be a little boring for my taste. And then everything else I think I pretty much already saw or have no interest in seeing.

But now, that the deal is over I can get off my behind and enjoy the gorgeous weather! I'm still waiting on my first assignment probably by the end of next week I should have it. Hopefully.

Today I might be babysitting in the afternoon. My aunt's co-worker/friend has a little girl that's 3. She is so cute. Unfortunately, she's been misbehaving all week and been pretty upset for no apparent reason. But we think we've figured out the reason. Father's Day is coming up on Sunday. And my aunt's friend is a single mom. And lately her little girl has been asking why she doesn't have a daddy. So I think at her daycare they been making Father's Day gifts and that's probably why she's been in a bad mood. I guess they made one last year, but she was too young to understand and now that she's a year older she's starting to understand. So if her daycare decides to throw a little party this afternoon for father's day... (I honestly don't know why they would in daycare) I told my aunt's friend that I would watch her little girl for her for the rest of the day. So I went out and bought a small bottle of bubbles. So if she indeed does come over we can go play outside with the bubbles instead of sitting inside watching movies. (hehe, like I've been doing all week).

But as far as father's day goes. I bought my dad a father's day card so that I can put up at the cemetery. And that's as far as that goes. We'll probably do something for my uncle, well we'll see if my cousin does anything for him. My cousin is a little selfish at times, so we'll see. My uncle told my aunt that she doesn't need to get him anything for father's day. lol. My aunt said she wasn't planning on it because he isn't her father, hehe. I thought that was kinda funny. And then he asked about his "daughter", their cat that is their baby. I guess we shall see if Annie the cat gets him anything on Sunday, hehe.

But that's pretty much it! I hope everyone has an awesome weekend!!! And I hope that everyone has gorgeous weather too!

So I got a full time permanent job!!! Yay! It's still doing contracting jobs/projects for other companies, but basically I'm representing this one consulting firm and they assignment to work at different clients for various projects and so on. So yay!!!

I'm most excited because I get medical. Which by the way I haven't had medical coverage in over a year, since I left my full-time job at the bank a little over a year ago. Yikes, I know not a very smart thing. But I figured, keeping my fingers crossed that I hardly ever get sick so I never bought an individual plan because of the cost and luckily enough I never got sick, I mean the common cold here and there but not sick enough to warrant a doctors visit. Thank goodness. Now I will have coverage and I get all caught up and get back into the routine visits and so on. So I won't have my first assignment for at least a week, so I have the rest of this week to just hang out I guess.

So anyways my aunt got this blockbuster summer deal, where you pay an extra $10 (one time) and you get two movies out at a time. And if you watch them and bring them back the next day you can get another 2 movies out for free and you can keep doing this for an entire week. So yeah, we paid $20 total for a week worth of rented movies. So far it's the 3rd day and we already rented 6 movies. Yesterday we made this list of movies that we want to see while we are on this promotion. It's been great because we don't feel so bad renting something that is not a good movie at all because we can rent another movie for free essentially. So I have to return the 2 that we currently have today and get 2 more out. Man, talk about a bargain. I calculated that if we watched 2 new movies everyday on this promotion we would only pay $0.70 per movie. So hopefully they will have this same promotion at the end of the summer because once this ends we won't continue it because we probably won't have anymore movies to rent and we'll have to let the movies we want to see stack up again. I mean we could just do netflix or the blockbuster version of netflix, but we usually don't rent movies that often so this other promotions works out really great since we can see all the movies we want to see and pay only 1 time instead of every month, especially if there is no good movies out that month.

And oh yeah, so this weekend I went to B,B & B. And I bought this 3-pack of sponge cleaning things for the grill for my aunt and when I got home I realized that there were only 2 sponges in the package, someone stole a sponge. This makes me so mad, because now I have to go back to the store to get a full 3 pack. Ugh, the nerve of some people. This is not the first time this has happened either because I was at costco and bought a brita water filter 10-pack and it was missing 1 filter, and those things aren't cheap enough to just let it go so I had to go back and I just returned it because I was just annoyed. It's a shame that I now have to 100% check everything I buy.

Okay that's pretty much it.

So I was looking at my sidebar and I just realized that I have almost hit 1 year on this site. At the end of April will be 1 year. Geez, I should have blogged more, now that I think about it. Oh well.
So now I'm going to reflect a little over the past year. One year ago I left my full-time job at the bank to pursue other options and stuck with a part-time job in retail until I could find something else. Well, I never really did find anything else. This was before September when everything just started collapsing like dominoes. Over the summer I basically decided that I was going to move out to the west coast to take on new adventures and opportunities. I must say, it's been the best decision I've made thus far, post-college life. Moving out of Virginia, my home for 18 years was hard at first but probably like I said it was for the best. California, besides the nice weather has indeed opened up a lot of doors for me. Virginia, home, just has so many more distractions. Here in California, since I don't really know any one yet has offered me the real change to FOCUS. I have a hard time focusing. I don't have ADD or anythin just at home I'm too busy being a social butterfly and hanging out with friends that I never could get myself to sit down and focus on my career and where I want to be. Here in CA, I have been able to do that. Of course there has been a couple of rough patches here and there, but over all good. My best friend even found me a job in Washington D.C. so that I would go back to the east. I had to turn it down because I know exactly what would happen. I'm determined to make things work here, where I didn't care in VA. Maybe that's growing up... or maybe some people need the change in environment to properly function. I wasn't properly functioning in VA, where as here I'm on my way.

As far as finance wise. I am above where I was a year ago, saving wise. Not by much because be unemployed can do that to a budget. I'm getting there. I'm slowing starting to realize what I can and cannot live without, which does wonders for savings.

But anyways, to conclude. I'm really glad I found this site. Even if I don't post I do read other post. I think the best part about this site is realizing all the different backgrounds and stories people have. And how people all over can have a similar situation but yet be completely unique. And I really enjoy the freedom that this site allows me to talk about finance/budgeting or not/savings or not/work stuff, because without it I don't know where else I could go.

I hope everyone has a great rest of the week!!! I have some cleaning to do before my family gets here on Saturday!

I know two blog entries in one day. But I couldn't resist.

I landed another contract job this afternoon. So my two interviews tomorrow went down to just 1. And the one is more like a info session on a permanent position with my temp company. The contract job is a temp-to-hire, which is very very good. My staffing manager... she did good. I guess she bragged enough that I got the position and I didn't even need to interview like she originally told me that I would have to. So YAY because I dont like interviews I always freeze up because I'm so nervous. I start on April 9th. So I still get a chance to spend time with my family. Hopefully soon I'll be permanently employed with benefits!

I'm even more excited this go around because I have my credit cards paid off! So... now I have even more money to save, since that is one less payment i have to make. Man, it's so freeing. I'm thinking I'm going to put that extra money to my IRA and student loan... after I cover the $500 for my glasses! Yay! So now savings #3 doesn't have to really take a hit.

Woo hoo my day has gotten so much better.

So tomorrow I have 2 job interviews. Keeping my fingers crossed that I land one of them. One is temp to hire and the other is a direct hire. I mainly need something because I need the benefits. The medical I have right now is really buggy. I don't know if it's even kicked in yet because I didn't see the deductions on my last couple of paychecks. Ugh.

My staffing managers was like if I get both offers then I'll have to choose because I can't do both. Hello? No duh. (I just rolling my eyes when she tells me that over the phone). And if I have to hear one more time that the economy is not doing so well and the job market is tough I'm going to go... it's annoying. I know I keep up with the news.

This week should be a good week because my family is coming to visit from Virginia. The first time I've seen them since I moved in September of last year. Mom, dad and sister. My brother can't come out right now, but he'll be out for two weeks in July. I can't wait. It should be fun. Now since I know my way around the Bay Area a little bit I can take them to all sorts of places. One day we'll probably go up to Sonoma to visit other relatives. And then I know they want to go to Monterrey Bay. So we'll see. Somedays I miss Virginia. So it's sorta like Virginia is coming to me, by my family coming out here. So Yay!

So I've decided that the $500 from my glasses is going to come from Savings #3. Only because it has the lower interest rate. And it's the money that I don't really have a plan for.

But yeah that's pretty much it.

So, I bought new glasses today. $500 total for exam (contacts and glasses), new frames and lenses. But the lenses were 50% off since I bought frames. It would have been cheaper but I had no insurance because lack of constant job. Oh well I need to see better. So my headaches will stop. I can't tell if it's from eye strain or from caffeine withdraw, which it could possibly be from.

Yup. That was my big purchase for the next few months. Luckily my contact prescription didn't need to be changed, and I still have some supply left so I didn't need to reorder yet. I haven't decided where the $500 is coming from yet. Most likely savings #1. Not too concerned yet. Big purchases I like to pay off right away. I usually put it on my credit card and then do a bill pay the next day. That way I get points on my credit card, but save on the interest by paying it right away. I should have my cc paid off though by next week so that will free up one bill for me since I'm not working this week.

I'm still struggling with my staffing manager at the temp agency. She's kinda buggy. Hopefully... something will come up.