The Magic Money Trick

This post should be titled "The Disappearing Money Trick". 

Funniest & truest meme 
I've seen

Money doesn't come and go around here, it comes and evaporates. Or something. Here's what's happening now... 

I managed to get through my birthday without shopping myself broker than usual. I even managed to save a few bucks because I didn't have to re-order some of my household items. Also, one of my brothers always gives money for gifts because, you know, it's the best color and size and fits any wallet.

Well, Satan must know when I have the slightest chance of having extra money because he will gunk up the works for me. Once, I had a bunch of unexpected (and un-insured) medical bills that I had to pay off. Another time, I lost a box of the extra contacts I had just when my prescription expired. How did I lose a box of contacts? You got me. I'm starting to think there's a mystery triangle somewhere in this apartment because that's not the first time I have weirdly lost something...

Every dang time I get two steps ahead, I end up moonwalking back ten steps. 

So, this time I had some saved money and some birthday money. I will give myself some credit that really belongs to my mother who taught me how to make a dollar out of fifteen cents. As broke as I am, I have "excellent" credit and last time I checked, I was rocking a 788 score. I am frugal without being cheap - because I have to be.

Anyway, where was I going with that? Oh yeah, I have been saving up to buy a real sofa (to replace the futon I never sit on) but instead, I was going to buy some new bath towels and bed sheets. I have a few decent sets of sheets for myself and one really nice set for guests only. But bath towels? The only ones that match and still look good are the ones on the racks. I don't touch those, not even to dry my hands. I haven't even moved them since I hung them on the racks. So, yeah I need some new linen closet stuff.

But guess what? The old Dragon must have seen my search history and decided I don't need new linens. Instead, he must think I would rather have to buy a new computer. Not a new coffeepot or a new fan or a new anything I can get from a Dollar General.

I don't have any new computer money. At least not like what I spent on this one. However, this one just came from under the warranty about two weeks ago so, of course, it's acting a fool. Actually, it started acting silly a few months ago but Dell was no help. I suppose in their view, I have a credit line with them that I haven't used in two and half years so I should dip into that to replace my battery. That's not going to happen. What happened to be able to easily remove and replace the battery yourself? And, on top of the battery having an attitude, the screen is glitching. I have not dropped this thing or treated it with anything but love and this is how it acts?

Since I don't want to mess with the Dell credit line - and maybe not even Dell  at all after this - and I just cannot afford another laptop like this one, I had to go bargain hunting. 

Woot! is a decent place to find bargains in almost any category. You have to put in some work though. There are great bargains, some decent bargains, and some should-I-or-shouldn't-I bargains. It took a couple of days, but I did manage to find a new laptop in my price range but I am worried about whether or not I chose a good one.

What I decided on is an HP 255 G8 with a 15.6" with these quick specs:

AMD Athlon Gold 3150U CPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Windows 10 Home 

It's not a Chromebook, a refurb, or an unboxed item - like every other non-Apple laptop was - so I was able to get a cheap additional warranty for it. Still... 

I paid around $170 less than list and $200 or so less than some other sites were asking for it. In my desperation for something with enough storage and a decent brand name, I was afraid to hesitate for fear I'd miss out. And I might have been just a tiny bit wooed by the fact that it has a numeric keypad. It sounds like a small thing but you try having my brain and paying bills without a numeric keypad.

Anyway, I snagged it the spent the next few hours trying to find reviews and feedback about it. That's not easy because there are so many variations on the model. Some come with Intel chips or have a whole other setup. My brain is not in the best shape this week so I can't handle all that. I didn't want to ask my brothers to help me in the search because they'd just buy it and I don't want that.

Anyway, I bought the thing.  I figure if I really hate it, I have 30 days to return it for a full refund (minus shipping). And - this is really important - the credit card I used has a special payment plan for purchases over a certain dollar amount.

But still. 

Did I make a good choice? Am I going to regret getting this particular model? Should I have paid more for something better? 

I suppose I will find out soon enough. In the meantime, this Dell is having a couple of other issues that make me regret what I paid for it. So the HP budget model might not be such a bad deal after all. I don't need anything fancy. As long as I can get on the internet, do some tele-med appointments, pay bills, and blog I will be fine.

On the plus side of the money front (and I surely hope Satan ain't listening in on this), I haven't had to replace my cell phone for almost exactly 5 years. It still looks good and works great... I'm telling you, if you take decent care of a Samsung, they just won't die. Of course, they do eventually stop getting updates but I can worry about that another time!

Now I have to go and do some budgeting acrobatics just in case I need coffee and bread anytime soon.

Peace

--Free

P.S.: While I am always a little wallet-light and like to joke about that, I am still so blessed. I just like trying to laugh about how life sometimes is. I am thankful for everything I have, truly. I am eating and housed and clothed. Let's all count our blessings, big and small.

The Happy Dread of the PFD

Well, it's about to be that time of year again. The time when it's advisable to avoid Walmart, Target, Costco, Sams, Best Buy, Toys R Us - and any other place that sells anything.

For those who don't know about the Alaska PFDs, they are not personal flotation devices (and, yet, for some people, I guess they kind of are - of a economic type). They are the Permanent Fund Dividends.

The PFDs are about to be deposited into bank accounts all over Alaska on October 3rd. People who receive the money generally lose their minds. The impulse shopping will commence. Or maybe I can't call it 'impulse shopping' if people have been sorta, kinda planning it from the second the amount was announced.

I was at the library two days ago when it hit the news that eligible Alaskans will be getting $900. People reacted in various ways. Some of them shrugged because they know what they have to do with theirs and it doesn't include the luxuries of saving or taking a vacation. (Mine, for instance, is going straight for medical bills and car repairs.) Some folks got on my nerves with their complaints about the "small" amount. Other people went right into shopping mode. I swear I saw the Amazon and Best Buy websites popping up on computers all over the library.

I use my dividend the way my sister and mother and I always did before. Needs come first, saving comes next, whoo-hoo last. (There was usually very little to whoo-hoo about.)

When the kids were still at home, my mother, sister and I would pool everyone's PFDs and use part for the house (paying extra on the mortgage or replacing a dying appliance). Part would go for stocking up the freezer with enough stuff to keep the kids in school lunches for months. The year that two of the kids decided they wanted to be the Dizzy Gillespie and Robert Mapplethorpe of their high school, we sprung for an band and photo supplies. (And the fees - you never count on the fees that come with any extracurricular school activity.) For our kids that were teenagers, we'd give them fifty bucks of their dividend to hold. If they were younger, they got a hotdog with everything the next time we were out somewhere. The rest of the money went in the bank.

We used to get criticized by some friends because we didn't give our kids their whole dividend. My mother shut them right up. She'd tell them that our kids got their dividend all year long - when we paid their medical bills and fed and clothed them. The love was free, but because we weren't their bio-parents, they weren't covered under insurance from our jobs. Let a kid break an arm and need the local E.R. You can go damn near bankrupt.

All our kids are grown now. The ones who live here and get a dividend are dealing with their own families to take care of. So far, they've remembered how we raised them and always use any extra money well. If we taught them nothing else about the PFDs, they know to avoid the stampedes going on outside every major retailer in town.

What do the rest of you plan to do with your dividend? Save, spend or split?

Peace
--Free

Super-Sized Stupid

I looked at this picture in this article and had to ask myself: "If I could, would I?"

A 1 million dollar shoe collection? Seriously? 

No, I don't think that I would. Even if I trade the word "shoes" for "purse" or "perfumes." No.

I swear, I think what's wrong with us all today is that we have no limits. We are a "super-size" mentality. Food, sex, cars, homes, shoes, clothes... Anything we can have, we want the biggest, most expensive, fastest, fattest, richest - just any-est.

I know that somebody reading this is saying, "So?" But it is a "So?" issue. It matters.

This is why people are starving themselves to be the thinnest. You know that centuries back, people were being gluttons to be the fattest. How silly are we? Women are risking surgery and other medical procedures to have the biggest boobs and/or butts and/or lips. And, wait though - sometimes people let freaks off the street or operating out of their kitchen sink perform these procedures! Like they're getting a relaxer put on their hair by Mr. Leo or something... Too bad there's not a procedure to force us to better use our brains.

I have seen the most ridiculous "news" stories over the past year about people being so damn silly with money. There was the one dad who bought his daughter an apartment that cost something like 60 million dollars. There were the two rich guys competing to have the most expensive yacht. It's as if these fools - rich, super-rich or freak-me-mama wealthy are trying to see who can spend the most money the fastest. One rapper was in a club, just fanning hundred-dollar bills across some stripper's ass. (In two years, I might get to read about his bankruptcy or non-payment of spousal or child support, right?)


Let's not just pick on the rich. Poor people are almost as bad, sometimes worse. People who don't have next month's rent are in the stores, just knocking each other over to buy tennis shoes for two- and three-hundred dollars. Or they are driving cars with more value in the rims than the car itself. Or - this was my favorite when I was in one small town a couple years ago: they are like the guy that had a Bentley (I am dead serious) parked outside his house - a house that looked like those tar-paper shacks you see in photo-essays about American poverty. A Bentley. A Pepto-Bismol pink Bentley. I didn't even know what kind of car it was until I asked somebody. Broke-ass, dumb-ass, embarrassingly stupid person.


Look even at the way we see food. It's already been talked about how we "super-size" everything (except our salads) when we go out to eat. What kills me is the way we have started using food as a status symbol. It used to be enough to be seen in an "exclusive" restaurant, but now we go another step. Now, we want be-jeweled food. I guess rich some folks can't just have a hamburger unless it's garnished with gold dust or dust of diamonds or some such! Or - and I guess this is if you're too classy for blinging out your food - there are the recipes using some outrageously priced meat or mushroom. Maybe one that only grows in the Himalayas every six years and on a full moon. Or meat from a cow that was fed caviar and grapes. People don't care as long as they think they are being "exclusive."

Personally, I want to be inclusive, especially when it comes to my food. I want to know that lots of people have eaten (and lived through) what I'm ordering. I don't want to be the idiot that gobbles down something exotic and new. Find out a few years later that the knot growing on the side of my ass is from some weird and unpronounceable shit I paid a lot of money to eat.

I don't know, though. I guess we started to doing these crazy things to feel more important than someone else. Now we can't stop.

Of course, this is the "broke-ass" me talking. Give me a few million dollars to play with and we'll see...

Peace
--Free