I realized I hadn’t kvetched in a while about finances. In this case, it’s going to be a very good kvetch. lol. You probably know that I’m not too fond of Bank of America any more. Yes, they were the first credit card provider that took on this poor needy post-college student, but now, I’m grown but they don’t want to acknowledge it! I think I can feel free to say that my card has a $1,000 limit. I currently owe nothing (zip, zilch, nada) on this account and right now, I’m only keeping the card to make my credit to debt ratio look good for my credit score’s benefit. Which by the way, according to all 3 credit bureaus, is so close to 700 that I can taste it. That’s awesome considering I only had credit starting in late 2006. The other credit card is on its way to being paid down and I anticipate keeping this other card because they have a way more reasonable APR (13.99%) than Bank of America’s eye-gouging 20.49% for purchases and 23.99% for ATM withdrawals, etc. I’m just glad that I got rid of that debt and can focus on Sun Trust. I plan on closing out the account right before they have a chance to charge me almost $30 for the "privilege" of having an account with them. They can suck lemons. I plan on calling every month till about June to ask for an APR decrease or try to have my account converted (hopefully without a hard credit pull) to a credit card account without the annual fees & hopefully a reduced APR too. However, with the folks I’ve spoken with, I don’t think they’ll bite so the alternative: they’ll lose me as a customer. Just not yet. I’m going to milk this cow till I’m good and ready. Once again, let me see them collect fees on a $0 balance account. LMAO.
[in heavy drawl]Anyways,[end of heavy drawl], I’m doing fine. I just saw a brief glimpse of my sister and her husband (dang, we’re both off the market now) and she looked simply put, beautiful. I’m itching to get my hands on some video of the event. I’ll put up bite-sized chunks up on my gallery (password-protected, obviously). Life is good at Hotel California (inside joke) and I’ll tell the joke. In short, we (all the residents of the house we live in) got T-shirts that read "Hotel California" from one of the residents (JH) and that’s what we’re calling the place we live in: Hotel California. Where the thermostat goes straight up to 72 degrees Fahrenheit at the whisper of lows of 62F in Winter. Jeez. lol. Don’t get me started on this heat rant again. Our utility bills went up quite appreciably for January and I can tell you that that was not appreciated by yours truly. PC came over and kept trying to explain the reason for the jump and while there was one particular reason for it to go up (a leaky faucet that dripped hot water), I truly think it was the fact that I eased off on my fanatical monitoring of the thermostat. Well, that’s over. I gave PC the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t abuse it i.e. switching it to higher temperatures unnecessarily, but I can honestly say that there were several occasions that that heater did not need to be going on!! I mean, I just have to vent here because I can’t express myself to him without feeling like I’ll be construed as "ungrateful". Again, it’s going back to the whole mentality of knowing that he’s got tenants who will bear the major brunt of the utility bills and thus, feeling free to go crazy with the thermostat. Don’t tell me: it’s his house, yes and we can put up or shut up. Well, as it is, we’re in a symbiotic relationship and he needs us just as he needs him. We have a common ground even though I make Hotel California sound like a war zone. It’s actually nice and definitely keeping our living bills still below $450 monthly (I can’t say that for the summer though. It was awful). So, I’m not in too much of a hurry especially as the "deals" we’re seeing for housing aren’t that great i.e. ~ $455 just for rent and water excluding utilities. Right now, we pay for water and trash and they probably amount to ~ $60 so it’s a relatively small price to pay versus the ~ $100 utility bills we may be receiving in an apartment complex (that’s without cable). It shan’t be for long though and I’ll leave it at that. 🙂
I’m currently embarking on an "experiment" that’s leaving me a little bit more tired than I’m used to being. So, I’ll monitor the situation and then, make a decision to take it or leave it. Dad/Mom, don’t freak. I promise it’s nothing crazy. lol.
Finally, I need to put M on blast. lol. What did he do? Where do I start? 😀 Okay, I got a coupon book from a lab mate who was gracious enough to spare from her excess. It has great deals like buy one/get one free (BOGOF) from places we eat at (I believe I’ve mentioned this book before). Well, M decided to go eat at Subway (bearing in mind I’m not too big on the whole subs idea especially Subway’s subs). I went along because he’d been dropping mad hints that he wanted to scratch his sub itch. So, we broke out the coupon booklet and behold, we had a coupon for a BOGOF on 6-inch subs. Well, I decided to substitute my free sub for a salad which cost a dollar more. Then, suddenly and inexplicably, M asked me if I wanted a drink. lol. You have to be with us to understand why this was so earth-shattering. We never get drinks at fast food restaurants because we’ve both concurred (a long time ago) that those deals were rip-offs. Now, in his defense, he had just done an intense workout and I was even extra-tired too and we were both acting loopy. So, he got 1 sub, 2 small drinks and a salad that was essentially $1. The bill totaled to approximately $8.50. I literally did a double-take as did M. You guessed it, the two drinks were $2.60 and the sub was nearly $4!! That was what threw me for a loop. I didn’t know subs had gotten so damned expensive which is a testament to the truth behind my assertion that I really don’t do sub shops. 🙂 Anyhow, lesson learned: avoid getting drinks when getting meals. The main redeeming aspects of our trip to Subway were the awesome salad, the free refills which I took liberal advantage of (I made M get his refill too) and the pleasure of knowing that M was going to be hungry again due to the malnourished looking sub he got (I love you Matt!!).lol. I was right. Just kidding. I wasn’t being a downer, I promise. I took it like a champ and we had fun. Now that I’ve put him on blast, I know I’ve jinxed myself and will slip up on something. 🙂 *crosses fingers and toes*
And that’ll do it for now. Peace!