Mercifully, the much beloved Abby Perry, proprietor of I Pick Up Pennies and author of Frugality for Depressives, is back home and back in action after a brush with a potentially life-threatening ailment while she and her mom, Donna Freedman, were at FinCon. They were able to get to a hospital in San Diego, where the medicos succeeded in identifying the bacterium that had attacked her and beat it off.
So, welcome home, Abby! And…keep on truckin’.
The dust having settled here at the Funny Farm, in another hour I need to make this month’s Costco run — the shopping list is surprisingly short, lhudly sing huzzah — and then get to work on a) the video that we hope will land a grant to support the Boob Book and b) the ever-growing list of house and yard chores that I’ve neglected.
In the general hysteria over the car purchase adventure, I’ve generally neglected life, the universe, and all that. Late last night while cleaning out the 74 unopened emails, I came across an essay I was supposed to have critiqued for an anthology whose board I volunteered to serve on. Ohhh well…10 days late and a dollah short… So by the light of the moon I found myself plodding through some truly execrable writing and trying to formulate a polite way to say “the highest and best use of this thing is to be run through the shredder and turned into compost.”
Got a great idea for the P&S News blog but have not managed to shift the engine into gear to write that.
Have not…
…sprayed the bermudagrass that’s taken over the poolside flowerbed
…cut back the rampant cat’s claw and Lady Banks rose that are smothering the pool equipment like jungle overgrowth burying the ruins of a Mayan village
…raked up the mountain of limes dropping from the tree
…fertilized the citrus
…ordered some more “beneficial nematodes” from Arbico
…tested & adjusted the pool chemicals
…brushed the dog
…vacuumed up the dog hair
…wrestled the bike into the car and schlepped it up to get its tires repaired
…cleaned out the now empty garage cabinets where the Dog Chariot’s back seats were stored
…trimmed back the elephant’s foot plants
…watered the vitex and the feral olive tree
…contributed to the FB author’s group I joined awhile back
…contributed to the Author’s Guild website
…rejoined the Chamber (grump!) (or, around here, more like “Trump,” something I’d prefer not to have to listen to)
…joined up Toastmasters
…done any paying work
Mea gulpa!
The September AMEX bill, the one with the miraculously low general spending balance, was at the same time one of the highest AMEX bills I’ve ever racked up: I charged the $4,000 down payment for the Venza. So I had to pony up $4,579 in a month when living expenses (exclusive of utilities & the like) only ran to $579. Drat!
On the other hand…that card has a kickback. So we should soon be seeing a nice balance in that department.
Let’s hope the English major math is correct that I’ll about break even at the end of each of the coming five years, despite the car bills of almost $400 a month. This is the stuff of Bag Lady Syndrome.
Well, the coffee is consumed and the hour is late. And so, away!
I love getting those cash rewards on my credit cards! I bought my last car with cash…except for the $5,000 I put on my Discovercard. I would have put more on the card if the dealer had let me, but they said that was the maximum I could up on a credit card. Of course I paid the balance in full since that was the plan all along.
Thanks for the shout-out, ma’am. And may I just say: Reading about your typical days makes me very tired.
Did the dealership charge you a “convenience fee” to use the Amex? Every time I try to use my CC’s to get the rewards for utilities and the like there is a substantial fee. Pretty scary about Abby….especially how quickly this all took place. Good thing they acted when they did. Just read a brief news bit about a gal in England I believe who got a scratch from gardening and the wound became infected. By the time she went for care sepsis was the diagnosis…and she perished….Scary indeed…
Apparently not: the only figure that showed up on the bill was the $4,000. I thought charging you to use a credit card was illegal, or against the card issuer’s ToS. But…hmmm…no! Lo and behold, they CAN gouge you for using your credit card: https://www.cardfellow.com/checkout-fees-charging-credit-card-fees-to-customers/
Ha ha! And our honored leaders want to make cash transactions a thing of the past. Charming.
In 2013, they changed the law so that merchants can gouge you either for a “convenience” fees (rules are so complicated it’s hardly worth their effort) and now for a “checkout” fee to cover any costs that that would not have been incurred if the customer paid by cash or check. Several states have bans on surcharges, but the credit card companies are challenging these bans by claiming they’re unconstitutional, and this fall the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments to that effect.
Wow. That stinks. If merchants start charging for the privilege of using a card, then it’s back to checks for me. Either way, it costs you something: you have to pay to buy the checks, too. Plus it’s an enormous time suck to have everyone in a grocery line writing checks or counting out pennies.
Interestingly, you can print checks through Quickbooks. You need to buy special paper and use magnetic ink, though. I’ll have to look into that…having to pay for new checks makes me mighty crabby.
My credit union gives me free checks. Check those out.
That would surely be nice!! Mine doesn’t do that. It’s actually cheaper to order them through Checks Unlimited or Costco. :-/