Net Worth

In June of 2007, I started tracking my net worth and I was over $33,000 in the hole. Now I only have $6,841 left to get back to zero. For the first time in my adult life. Ever. Just under $10,000 of that is from paying off debt, the rest has come from money going into my retirement accounts or savings. I'm hoping that by the time that I turn 30 at the end of July, I should be within $1,000 of getting into the black. The other side of the coin is that I'm putting money into savings so that I can buy a house. So I'm doing all of this work to get a positive net worth only to put myself back in the red...

Walgreens deals

I went to Walgreens yesterday and scored some good deals. Here's what I ended up with:



Renyold's Foil Wrap shelf priced at 1.69 - 80 cents store coupon and $1 off manufacturer coupon = 11 cents in overage



Colgate Toothpaste for .99 cents, - .75 cent coupon = 24 cents.



2 -Dove Deodorant priced at $3.29, store coupons brought them to $1.99 each, and then I had a $1.50 off two coupon = $2.48



Skintimate Shave gel $2.99 - $1.00 store coupon = $1.99



I apparently bought the "wrong" kind of Softsoap, but it was the one that I really wanted. So I paid the full sale price of $3.49 for it.



I had $6 in Register Rewards from a prior trip of buying razors, so I used those this trip because it was only good through yesterday.



Grand total including .79 cents in tax was $2.88 cents out of pocket. Not too bad. Definitely better than the $16.53 that it could have been. Plus this is all stuff that I use. With these braces I go through tootpaste like it's going out of style, or at least I feel that way.

Taxes

I just finished my doing my taxes for 2008. I'm getting $715 back between the two. I thought about adjusting my federal return to get back less but since the bulk of that happens because I get quarterly bonuses which aren't guaranteed I'm going to leave it alone. What am I going to do with the money? I have a credit card that I haven't been racing that I've managed to rack up a balance on - ick. Lucky for me - it's at zero percent until July. So I'm going to pay that down and then I'll still have just under to pay off. A lot of this is work related expenses, stupid me just hasn't been using the reimbusements (hotel rooms) to put it back toward paying the card off or the difference hasn't offset enough for me to get more than $5 or $10 some weeks. But I'm tired of making excuses and I don't want to be paying interest on this in a couple months.

Chicago trip

I went to Chicago this weekend to help my friend Amanda (top right in photo) celebrate her 30th birthday. And as a bonus I got to see a bunch of my other friends who live in the Chicagoland area. I got a really good deal for the trip via Southwest ($135 roundtrip) and I took $100 in cash. By some miracle, I even brought $20 home. There was a point in time where I would have been hitting up an ATM or whipping out my credit card, but I did neither of those things, so I'm pretty excited that I managed to eat out for three meals, go out drinking last night and still not completely blow all my money. One of the best parts in my opinion, because I love pizza was that one of the bars gave away little personal pizzas if you made a purchase over $5. It was pretty decent pizza for free pizza. Amanda's boyfriend, Brad, also got an amazing cake from Whole Foods.

Random info about me...

So I haven't blogged in forever, here's some random info about me that I posted on my facebook...

1. I’ve been interested in politics since 4th grade – and I vote in pretty much every election from school board to presidential election. I never vote straight party ticket though because I think it’s important to find the best candidate for the position….
2. My favorite color is blue – but, I don’t wear much of it, I wear more red.
3. I lived in the same house in the same small town for the first 18 years of my life. Since then I’ve spent time living in 12 different places in three states if you include my summer residences in Ames.
4. I love trivia – almost any kind and I’m generally good at it – except science. I’m always up for Trivial Pursuit.
5. My new year’s resolution/goal this year is no trips to the ER – 4 trips in three years is plenty. 6. Speaking of which, my desire to go camping again, ever, is pretty minimal. Seriously.
7. I once asked a nun who she slept with at night. In my defense, I was three.
8. I’m much more of a dog person than a cat person. I lived with a psycho cat once and it kinda poisoned me.
9. I feel that pizza should be a food group in and of itself. I eat pizza at least once a week – if I don’t something is wrong.
10. I love a good deal and seek them out via websites like slickdeals.net, clearance racks in store, etc. I don’t like to pay full price if I can get it for less and I’m patient.
11. I think I’m one of ten people under 35 who don’t yet own an IPod, but I’m probably going to be buying one in the near future.
12. It frustrates me that I’m not able to recycle because I live in an apartment. I throw out an insane amount of paper.
13. I quit drinking pop around Labor Day of 2005. Once in a great while I’ll have a pop but I really don’t miss it at all. I think of the 40 lbs that I lost it helped me lose about 15.
14. My CrackBerry is quite possibly one of my favorite things – most days. Some days I think about driving it over with my car.
15. When driving long distances I try to see how many miles I can go with out turning my cruise off. My current record is 127 miles.
16. I’m looking forward to going to Vegas for my 30th birthday. And I’m also realizing that I turn 30 in just over 6 months. EEK!
17. My favorite book as a child was a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving – my sister gave me a copy of the book for Christmas a few years back.
18. I wear a suit four days a week.
19. I think student loans are the devil and can’t wait to be done paying them off.
20. I don’t really follow pro-sports, but I do love college sports, especially Iowa State.
21. I love movies and I go to see about 50 movies in the theatre every year, yet I don’t own a ton of movies. (I've already been to three this year.)
22. I majored in journalism and history in college and yet I do marketing for an insurance company – which is not exactly what I planned on doing when I went to college but I’m pretty happy with where I’m at in life.
23. My favorite season is fall, but I really don’t like winter.
24. My foreign languages include: the Russian that I remember from high school – I’m better at reading than interpreting and basic/intro Italian. I’ve never really learned any Spanish beyond counting to 10, greetings and food items found on a Mexican menu (which I’m betting I annihilate every time). And I can say “Hello and Thank you” in Portuguese.
25. My goal is to visit all 50 states and every continent. I’ve currently visited – 25 states and depending on how you classify things – 1 or 2 other continents including North America depending on how you classify Russia. I’ve also been to Portugal.

Medical Bills

All of my medical bills from my 7/4/08 accident have finally come in, including the ambulance ride. Thank goodness for health insurance and co-pays. I think my total bill for everything (the first ER, ambulance trip, two trips to my regular doctor, three trips to the wound clinic, trip to the neurologist, a subsequent trip to urgent care and ER) will end up being about $550. I'm missing one bill that's showing up on the insurance, but I have yet to receive the bill. Lucky for me, I just received my third quarter bonus and as much as I'd love to be able to put this money in savings it's going to pay these bills off. I don't even want to think about the amount of money that I spent on those pads to put on the wounds. Thankfully, they're closed and slowly changing back to normal color! YAY!

Good Explanation

So I'm backing to spending multiple hours a day in my car. Sometimes, I wonder why exactly I pay rent. Oh, yeah, because I need somewhere to keep all my stuff. And shower. Anyway, yesterday when I was driving to southern Nebraska, I was listening to NPR and heard the best explanation of why the mortgage meltdown happened. It explained from the lending at the banks and the craziness there, to the buying going on at Wall Street to the demand for that type of investment (mortgage securities) not just by U.S. investors but globally. If you're interested, it's here. http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355 and you can listen to it for free.
In other news, I need to finish digging thru my 600 pics and post some of my Portugal photos on here.