choke on that causality

At meijer they have these funny mini-carts. Have you seen them? It’s funny because they are probably the perfect size for anything that Mike and I would need to purchase at Meijer. However…we always get the big honkin cart because we would just feel silly pushing around the mini one…why is that? I’m sure other people feel like that.

I just got my 3 day old new debit card eaten by the atm machine here at work. WTF. I seriously just got it…damn it. I stuck my card in and the machine just went dark, and said some bullshit like “This atm location is unvailable.” Fuck that. Now how the hell do I buy anything? Thank god for other credit cards…I don’t know what I would do otherwise. I can’t be trusted with cash. I believe I’ve mentioned before, I’d just end up spending it on lottery tickets and Tab energy drinks. mmmm…Tab Energy…it’s not just for chicks.

I filled up my gas tank this past weekend. Over 36 dollars! For my little Toyota Corolla. WTF. It’s times like this that it kinda sucks working for a big oil company….No I don’t get a discount. I wish.

Mike and I own a house now. We just can’t live in it for another week or so. We bought some new furniture and new bed over the weekend. We’re also looking to buy that truck still. No, I’m not Mr. money bags…quite the opposite. Credit. Gotta love it (and hate it).

I bought these little blue caps to put on my cat’s claws so he won’t ruin all our stuff. What a huge pain in the ass to get these things on. I got scratched and bit all to hell. Yesterday I managed to get 7 out of 10 to stay on all by myself. Mike helped today and we got two 2 more. Almost there. Although I bet at least 2 more have fallen off before I get home tonight.

My landlord already called yesterday and wanted to show the apartment. What a freakin mess. There is no way in hell that anyone wants to see that.

I don’t remember how we go on the subject, but this morning, I was telling Mike that my grandma always keeps tissues in her sleeve. Is that an old lady sort of thing? I’m not sure.

I accidentally spilled coffee all over my keyboard at work, and now my 1 key sticks. So if I do the hackeresque !!!!!!!111111, it’s really not a quip…my keyboard is actually fucked up. I’m too embarrassed to ask for a new one. I’ll just have to live with it.

This morning a survey was sent out at work, that I just felt didn’t make any sense. Maybe it’s the time I spent working for a corporate research company, or maybe I’m just anal, but I always seem to be able to see ambiguity and/or confusion in survey questions. Like there were a bunch of questions that had a subject and asked you to rate whether it was a significant factor on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being the least significant, and 5 being the most significant. You just have to sit back and ask yourself though…a significant factor for what?

So I’m really sick of paying for bedding. With a rat, 2 pigs, and a hamster, I really don’t have many options. I like to use Carefresh. It’s probably the safest for all my animals. Unfortunately it is also quite expensive. About 20 bucks for a 50 L bag. Yesterday, I was on a mission to find it cheaper in bulk online. I finally found it for a sale price of $14 at Petco. Also they gave a free 23L bag with each 50L bag purchased. So lets do the math.

Pet Store 300L Carefresh
6 x $20 + tax = $127
Online 300L Carefresh
4 * $14
w/ free ship
- $10 Google checkout coupon
+ tax
= $49

Total Savings: $78!!!111

I got a raise and a huge bonus. And my birthday is next week. I’m probably going to get hit by a car now or something. I’ll be a little extra careful. It kinda sucks though, cause I just have to use the money to pay off my debt. But it’ll be nice to not have any credit card bills. I can actually start saving some money. I recently opened a savings account at ING Direct. Ya know they give you 4.5% interest! That is hella more than what most banks will give you. Ahem-Fifth Third-cough-sucks.

It feels really good to finally be appreciated for the work I do. It actually motivates me. Positive reinforcement…wow, what a concept. It really works.

Not that I have anything against Illinois, but I’m glad to be back home in my little corner of Ohio. The trip was relatively uneventful, but I’m glad I went. It’s a change of pace to get out to the field sites. I was going to post some pictures of the refineries and sites I visited, but I most likely won’t for security reasons. If anyone asks…I’ve deleted them. But there was some hold equipment in there that I found funny for the pipeline metering. I got a kick out of it. Crazy old school knobs and lights, and spinning counters.

This time change has be all messed up. I know it’s only an hour, but doesn’t it feel strange? Yesterday we went to the mall and when we were walking around we realized that they were about to close cause we thought it was 5, but it was really 6. Then some bitch at GNC turned us away cause she said she already closed the register. That shit pisses me off. We still had a good 4 minutes to grab what we needed and go. I remember wherever I’ve worked, they’ve made us stay open until all the customers had left. People would walk in at 5 til, and they would still be able to order food. And some bitch won’t let me have a minute to buy some fucking vitamins. Whatevs. Ah well, guess they didn’t want to make any money.

I was expecting more, “Oh, you got your hair cut.” or complements or whatever, but no one really said anything. I guess I kept to myself most of the day hiding in my cube. I don’t like people.

So realistically, I don’t understand how people save money. Like who has 20K to put down on a house, really? The only people who have that got some crazy inheritance or bonus or trust fund or something. I can’t even fathom saving that much money. If I started now I probably still wouldn’t have it in 10 years…I’m looking into buying a house with 0 down. I’ve heard other people say they’ve had good luck with that. I’m just sick of my apartment and neighborhood. I want to be able to paint the walls, and have a puppy.

I’ve taken a few steps in the past couple of days to save money. I’ll try to think of some more good ones.

1. Cancelled my Proactiv Solution. (I have tons in stock, and I think I can pretty much get by without it. I never really had bad acne anyhow) Save 40 bucks every other month.
2. Reduced my Safari Books account from Pro to Basic. I get the same amount of books on my bookshelf, but I don’t get any download tokens (which I’ve never used anyhow). Saved 5 bucks per month
3. Called both my credit card companies, and asked for a lower APR. Both of them lowered it 4%!
4. Transferred my Dell credit account balance over to the before mentioned credit card which was a much lower rate. I made sure there was no transaction fee. Save 8% APR.
5. I switched our mobile phone contract to my name from Mike’s. Verizon offers a discount to employees at my company. 17% savings per month!
6. I’ve also recently started rounding up all of debits. This way I’ll have more than it appears so from my check register. I plan to deposit the difference once a month to my savings. Isn’t this a good idea. It’s like tricking yourself into free money…but not really.