A good day, I think...

I just got off the phone with Bank of America, the lovely holders of three of my credit cards and my checking account. They moved some credit around on the cards, so within the next few days I should be able to transfer my $7,000-ish balance from one card to another with a new interest rate of 1.99%. This should save me at least $100 a month in interest until I pay the card off. I have until January 2009 to pay off the balance or it defaults to 22.99% APR. I don't see this being a problem at all, and even if it was, my interest rate was worse than that anyways. I'm happy about this, because my interest rate really ticked me off, and I hated seeing my payment being eaten up by interest.

However, it didn't come without a price. I'm going to get charged a transfer fee of "up to $75" and they also closed my oldest card. The card only went back to April 2001, and I have another card that is still open from June 2001, so I'm hoping this won't affect my credit score that much.

This is good, right?

yay! stimulus!

Woohoo! I got my $600 dollars! I didn't even notice, because it came in yesterday at the same time my bills processed.

I was going to use $500 for debt and $100 for me-money, but right now I'm feeling pretty frugal. I babysat on Saturday night, and used the money to buy some new sneakers and go see a chick flick with the gals. It was a really nice splurge and it's really curbed any desire to spend. I transferred $150 to the Credit Card this morning, and I'll wait until payday Friday to transfer more.

wedding madness

I'm a bridesmaid in a wedding at the end of summer, and even though we have four months to go, the drama is already extreme.

The bride and maid of honor are not getting along lately. The bride's life is 24/7 wedding. The MoH lives several states away, in a less affluent region. The MoH just lost her job, so she thinks about jobs/mortgages/money 24/7. This is bad. Every time they chat, it's either:

Bride: "Guess what ridiculously expensive wedding thing I got?"
Maid of Honor: ::groan::

OR

Maid of Honor: "Holy F*&%, I'm poor! I'm never going to find a job!"
Bride: ::groan::

I honestly think they both need to take a step back and remember their listening skills, but what do I know?

The latest? The bride called to talk about the rings she picked out, but couldn't get a word in edgewise because the MoH was going on and on about her economic situation. So the bride hung up and cried. Really, MoH, the world does not revolve around you. And, seriously, bride, why are you crying over not being able to talk about rings.

Is there any nice way to clue these two in before they call the whole thing off?

Shopping!

Well, today is the first day of the May Grocery Challenge. So, what did I do? I went shopping! I was going to go yesterday, but I thought that would be cheating. I spent $18.88 on....

bananas
carrots
celery
asparagus
brown sugar
ranch dressing
peanut butter
skim milk

I hope this (along with alllll the other food in my lil kitchen) will get me through a week at least. I also made a big batch of penne marinara with parmesan! Yum!

Not entirely finance related but...

I lost five pounds!

I broke down and bought a scale about a month ago. As soon as I bought it, I thought "What a waste of money! You're not going to use it and you're not going to lose any weight. You should have used the money for your debt." It was the first step in my VERY slow effort to eat better and exercise more. It seems to be working! When I got it I was at 173 and now I'm at 168. My doctor wants me to get down to 156, so I have a ways to go, but I'm doing well!

Joined the May Challenge.

I finally signed up for the May Grocery Challenge over at Give Me Back My Five Bucks. My grocery cost vary widely, but I'm hoping to keep it under $125.

I might have mentioned that work provides for my lunch every week day, so I don't have to worry about that. The problem is that I have a bad habit of buying groceries and then getting too busy to make breakfast, and hitting a patch of eating out and the produce goes bad. I'm a horrible cook with no motivation. But I am determined to change!

Here's the plan- I'll eat my way through the pantry. I have quite a bit of food in there that needs to be eaten. Let's take a look-

3 Boxes of Cereal
1 can of oats
4 Microwave soups
4 cans of soups
4 jars tomato sauce
4 cans of veggies
3 boxes of rice
7 boxes of pasta
3 bags of beans/lentils
3 jars of nuts
20 cubes vegetable boullion
2 packets of ramen noodles

and a whole lot of miscellany.

I'll be updating each week on what I've spend and what I've consumed. You know what that means- the tough broad has some cooking to do...

Stimulus!

Is anyone else checking their online banking every morning to see if the stimulus rebate has been deposited? Or is it just me?