Cady, I had a similar experience with my husband's grad school loan. He consolidated his loans to get a great rate of 3.25 and paid the minimum amount each and every month for almost 2 years. When we started our Total Money Makeover and I started paying the grad school loan I noticed the first month that the principal stayed the same and that the minimum payment amount only covered interest. Ugh! So I ran the loan through an on-line calculator and determined the appropriate monthly minimum payment to pay off the loan in 10 years. Poor husband had no idea he was only paying interest and making no progress on the loan for almost 2 years.

Loan Issues

So they agree they screwed up. They have made it better, (additional $130 off my principal and interest payment reduction next week of $155,) but I just got a phone call from some other ninny in the bowels of their building who said that my account was in arrears and I needed to make a payment. No you stupid woman. Look at the transaction history. You can see all my payments and all their fixes right there in front of you. But no. Her system doesn't see HELOC payments. Her system only generated a note that I haven't made any payment, (yeah right only about $1400 since May 25th,) since accounting had to take away all payments to put them in correctly.

Sigh. This would be way more frustrating if I wasn't in the right...

So this week I got 58.80 dumped into my checking acount by Amazon from my used cd sales. This coming Saturday I'll get another $26.52. My cable bill was reduced by $21.23 because of a week long outage. That equals a difference of 106.55. That's groceries for three 1/2 weeks.

When I looked at my sheets I realized this is how I'm gonna make it happen.

Little windfalls not big ones.

Little victories like eating for free at work all day today, completely by accident. Someone didn't want their lunch leftovers and then it was someone else's birthday and they had chicken wings and pulled pork and then the library got a gift of cookies so I had dessert. I put all the food I brought from home into the fridge for tomorrow. And this makes my lunches last one more day.

Today I spent $0.13 and I dug 6 of those pennies out from under my car seats. That's pretty darn good!

Mmmmmmmmmm. Eating for free at work.

I'm finding that an interesting thing has happened to me mentally after I put a budget in place.

Now that I know exactly how much I have to spend, I tend to get much closer to the mark than when I had a vague sense that I was over spending but had no idea where or how to cut back. Part of this is habit I'd guess because now when I say to myself "I don't need that," the object that caught my eye is much more easily put aside. But I can also hear that the old refrains in my head have changed slightly.

I'm the daughter of a depression era mother who could squeeze a penny til it bled. One of her pet tricks was to buy in vast quantities whatever was on sale.

"Heinz Cake Mix is a dime a box? Good! Fan out kidlets!! Each one take a register and then swap lanes after you go to the car to drop that off ." We ate that shit til I can't stand cake now.

For some reason, although I've lived alone for the most part since moving out at 17, I'd embraced her habit. After I put a budget in place I could no longer justify buying in bulk what isn't truly scarce or virtually free. When the Community Coffee that I love went on sale with a great coupon for only $2 a bag when I'd been shipping it from LA from $12 I bought enough to last through the expiration date on the packages. But besides a few exceptions like that, in the last 4 months or so I've learned to look at what I have in the house and use it all up before I part with my money.

When I have 6 supermarkets within a 1 miles radius bulging at the seams with thousands of choices, all within my budget, why would I buy in bulk when I live alone with limited freezer/storage space?

It is truly odd what habits get instilled in you and why. But it is also nice to look through the coupons on sundays now only use 1-3 where as before I would clips 10 or so just because I thought it was a good price, even though I might not need any of that right then.

Ah well. Countrywide is all settled. I came out ahead of the game for speaking up. What they gave me back, ($285) is just slightly shy of the amount of the early termination fee. ($350.) My principal balance has been reduced by $1000 since I got the first bill on May 25th. That's respectable and on target.

So this week I got 58.80 dumped into my checking acount by Amazon from my used cd sales.

How do you like using Amazon for this sort of thing? I have all my comic book compilations that I want to sell, and eBay doesn't appeal to me. Actually, do you know enough about this to write a guest entry for the blog?

How do you like using Amazon for this sort of thing? I have all my comic book compilations that I want to sell, and eBay doesn't appeal to me. Actually, do you know enough about this to write a guest entry for the blog?

I don't know if I know very much but I could certainly write up what it was that I did. Namely look through all my CDs and anything I hadn't listened to in a year I stacked up to check on Amazon. Then each title with a barcode, (amazon has to have a entry already for the title,) I stated its condition and then set my price as the lowest price and sat back.
Since the first one sold June 4th I've sold 28 titles for a total of $191.59. That's real money! And that is after Amazon got their cut and the shipping costs. Here's the breakdown:

Total Payments Received: USD 264.60
Total Payments Canceled: USD 6.93
Total Payment Fees: USD -79.94
Grand Total: USD 191.59

Oh and Amazon has *really* nice interface for it all. Truly brainless. If that sounds good to you I'll write something up in the next day or so and email you.

did they really take almost $80 inf ees or is shipping included in there? If so what are their fees like? Ebay is killing me, you sell an item for $90+$10 shipping but after they take almost $9 from listing fees, final value fee, and paypal fees then shipping you see $80. Including shipping I'm losing 15-20% and even without it I'm losing 10%

Maybe I should buy some ebay stock. I fail to see how they could lose money.

The last CD I sold was Citizen Cope:

They charged the buyer:
Item Subtotal: $5.50
Shipping: $2.98
Total: $8.48


and they credited my account:
Buyer's price: $5.50
Amazon commission: ($2.62)
Shipping credit: $2.98
Your earnings: $5.86
========================

So in effect on this one they gave me .36 towards the shipping since I put it up for sale for $5.50.
Their cut comes out of the buyers shipping costs to my way of thinking.
The *actual* shipping costs to me at the post office was $1.61
Minus the .36 credit I've cleared $4.25.

The envelope I shipped it in cost me $.33 at Walgreens on sale with a coupon.
So I earned $3.92 on that sale. That was a cheap one though. I sold several for over $8 and
my most expensive sale was $12 but I've sold three at that price. I'm averaging $6.98 per disk.

I suspect your success depends on the type music you have.

This is why it isn't worth it below a certain price. $4.00 is my cut off point for a sale price.
The more common, the cheaper it is. My imported Jazz, Gypsy music, Govt Mule and Grateful
Dead off-shoots like Lesh and Friends or Ratdog all make good money. Steve Earle ain't selling real well.

One more observation on the cut they take.

After thinking about your statement I agree I'm losing a lot percentage-wise but I've gained about $160 I didn't have otherwise. Those discs were just sitting there and I'd have had to put out quite a bit of effort without using Amazon to turn that stack of 28 CDs into $160. I wouldn't have made $6 per disk at a yard sale. I've tried visiting local used CD shops and I get maybe a $1 a disk if I'm lucky.

So in someways I'm paying amazon to borrow their infrastructure to reach a few million shoppers who were *not* going to be coming to my yard sale.

I probably won't try to sell other things and I have to confess the sale of books for me on Amazon is a waste of time.

That's exactly it. I've been using Amazon mainly to sell my most esoteric books, the ones I know my local bookstores won't be interested in. I sold a biography of Niko Tinbergen on Amazon, and that's a pretty esoteric one, only ethologists (people who study animal behavior from an evolutionary perspective) are likely to know about Tinbergen, although he's certainly famous in that field and shared a Nobel Prize for his work. I have a lot of very esoteric CDs as well that would probably sell on Amazon once I get up the nerve to part with them.

I just listed something on there for $150 ( on ebay I had been getting about $100) Their commission is about $24 and I'm bound by their shipping price. I'll see if the items fetch more on amazon than ebay and go from there.

When I closed on my house I had to cancel my summer vacation. So I sold my ticket to Burning Man and cancelled all my reservations and airline tickets. But I decided to carry out the personal project that I would have done on the playa here in my default world.

I'm a happy t-shirt and jeans wearer... one might say tomboy.

So to force me outside of my usual comfort zones, last year on the playa, every day I traded one item of clothing or accessory for one that was ultra feminine and by the last day I was in a sheer lace dress. Yikes. It was a costume. Fun!

Since I couldn't go this year I decided to do the same thing but at work. Yikes! It is *still* a costume. More fun!

But I'm on a budget right.

So how much has this week cost me so far?

Monday morning:

Oh NO! I need panty hose... WOW! $4 a pair... wait forget l'eggs look lower. Walgreens brand $1.99. Sold. But wait. Crap. Look at all these colors and options... sizes sheer toe, suntan, white, off black, jet black... sheesh. I grab tan and off black sheer toe. 1 pair each. Get home and promptly put my thumb though them putting them on. I flash back to my last job that I had to wear pantyhose and I remember that cheap hose don't even last a day. Damn. Should have bought the good ones. Oh well. Flash back to the same job when I'd put clear nail polish on the tip of the run to stop it from going any further. Cool. I dot the run and then head to work.

After lunch I realize part of my hose problem is a tiny tiny hangnail that I can barely feel but is shredding my hose. Off to CVS near my job to buy a new pair of hose, (CVS brand $1.29 screw it. These only need to last 4 more hours at my desk.) While I'm there I buy a nail clipper, .99¢ and a nail file $1.29.

(day 1 best catty comment: her: Love the skirt where'd you get it? me: Penney's her: Looks it. me: ouch)

Tuesday morning: I'm out of panty hose so I opt for my only other nice pair of shoes: sandals. Want to add toe nail polish. Back to Walgreen's $2.99 for glass pink. $1.29 for toe separators. Back home to stink up my house and pink my nails.

(day 2 best catty comment: her: "what's the matter with you?" after slowly looking me over head to toe. Me: ouch)

Wednesday morning: Here's a nice shirt and skirt. Drat. Both linen. I'll use that travel iron I've had for over 15 years that I've never used. Uh oh. I stop at my trash can to drop in that iron and to dig out the Bed Bath and Beyond 20% off coupon and I head to the store to buy an iron. $18.13 after tax. Back home to iron... opt for sandals. Can't handle the hose thing again.

(day 3 best catty comment: her: Well ya look really great - not unnatural or anything. me: ouch)

I have no idea what tomorrow will bring but since I've had to drive my truck instead of ride my motorcycle to work I've spent $6 extra in gas commuting this week as well.

Fortunately I took friday off. I'm not sure I can afford 5 straight days of being feminine.

A few misc thoughts offered to my future self all stream no plot.

I'm in that boring maintenance period. I've set up all up and now I need to spend mindfully and wait for time to pass.
Did I mention it is boring? Dull. Repetitive. Over and over again I look at the books and yep they add up. Just keep doing what you are doing. Nothing exciting about this at all but keep doing it chica. If exciting is worrying about whether there is room in the balance for the finance charges then you don't want to be that kind of excited again. Tick tock tick tock time is passing and you are closer to closing the HELOC.

Have I mentioned the Tio Rico issue I found? It is a spanish language edition of Uncle Scrooge. Those wacky ducks are up to their usual antics, albeit in español, but I loved the cover of it enough to make a color scan of it and put it up over my computer monitor. Uncle Scrooge is watching TV. The moon is up in the window. He is in his bathrobe sipping a hot cup of coffee with his feet up on a hassock. But the TV is his opened safe and his money and gold are all stacked neatly in that safe and that is what he is watching. His money. While sipping coffe in the wee hours.

I look at that picture and wonder if he is bored accumulating money. (Because I'm sure Uncle Scrooge would never had amassed the kind of unsecured credit debt that I have.) I almost wish I'd been born cheap but when I think about all the cheap people I know I don't much care for that aspect of their personality so I guess the grass might not be greener.

There is a story told in my family about an Uncle having a stroke and his notoriously cheap wife driving past two hospitals to get him to the VA where his care would be free. My mother told me and my brother that story with the admonition to NEVER drive past an emergency room with her. Worry about the money later. Get the best doctor you can.

Or an aunt who was married to a man who didn't believe in credit. They never relaxed and enjoyed what they scrimped and saved for. And altho they'd paid dang near cash for their house they never had money to make it nice inside or make repairs.

Cheap and frugal are mighty close together. I hope I'll recognize the line when I cross it.

When frugality becomes a habit...

I gave myself a get out of jail free card last weekend. I took monday off and gave myself $100 to spend thoughtlessly for three days. I ended up buying several xmas gifts and then put the rest into the gas tank of my pickup truck.

After accruing it carefully, apparently it is very hard to then waste it.

The other funny thing was that of the 4 meals I ate out at restaurants, two were not worth what I paid for them and at one the meat tasted almost rancid. I looked around and realized this is what people expected that restaurant food to taste like so I didn't bother to complain. I choked it down, hoped it wouldn't make me sick, (it didn't,) and vowed to never spend my money at that place again. I used to eat there all the time!

I've spent a sizeable chunk of the last 5 months pining for restaurant food only to realize that I don't really want it. I want the experience of being served but rarely is the food worth the price. Sunday when I set out of my driveway to eat out I drove around for a few hours and then came home and ate brie on crusty bread with some toasted almonds, grapes, broccoli and a small piece of salmon. Made me happy and tasted good.

At least I got some gift shopping done.