Sometimes, It Just Works Out

I've been frustrated by the cost of glasses, as you know. I know I have a "large" prescription which necessitates thicker lenses. But "sales" are not "sales" when the only thing on "sale" is the frame and I don't give a rat's patoot about saving 50% on a $75 frame. That's not going to get the cost of glasses down.

So, I get my JCPenney bill yesterday and there is a flyer for 2 pair of glasses for $99 INCLUDING no-line bifocals. "There has to be a catch," thinks I, but I should go see. There was a catch. The selection is limited and, because I work on the computer, no-line bifocals will cause me problems with reading.

Therefore, I have to get progressive lenses. I know what this does. It jacks up the price exponentially. I told the gal that price is the biggest issue in purchasing glasses. If the price isn't good, I won't buy glasses. She understood.

I found a couple pair I liked and we priced them out. Folks, I am getting TWO pair of glasses for $254, including tax. This is $10 LESS than anywhere I'd been able to find for ONE pair, without taxes. I don't want fancy lenses; just give me some which meet my script.

They should be here next week.

I did not have to dip into my Disney fund to get these. I could put the purchase on my JCPenney card. I am still paying off the fridge, which I got during at no-interest for 18 months promotion. The fridge will be paid off in May, way ahead of the 18-month ending. If I take a couple months to pay off the glasses, I'm still way ahead and puts these much, much cheaper than any place I'd found.

An additional benefit is qualifying for the "frequent buyer" program which rewards people with a coupon based on how much they spend. It's been a good year for that, for me. I'll have another coupon to use, thanks to this purchase. I need a fitted sheet to go with the flat sheet I have, but Penneys doesn't have any kind of selection. I'll have to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond for something like that.

The other financial shock of the week was a rate increase on my car insurance. I get that my rates would go up when I bought the Malibu. But when I opened the notice I get telling me State Farm would be deducting x amount from my account on the 28th, the rate had gone up $12. This put it over $100 a month. Shocked, I called my agent. He could not give me a reason for the increase. "Well, you did buy a newer car," he stammered. "Rates go up for a time until the car gets beyond a certain age, then they go down." Wha...? This is a 2011 we're discussing here, not a 2016. I don't have any tickets and have not been in an accident. Why is my rate going up? Realizing I wasn't going to get a straight answer, I thanked him and decided I needed to look around.

Now, I equate buying insurance with the same noxiousness of buying a car. I can't help feel that, if the person selling me insurance had better skills, they wouldn't be selling insurance. I know that's not true and if they didn't sell insurance, there would be really smarmy people who would, but I've felt talked down to by agents so my opinion of them is low. This increase forced me out of my comfort zone to check online for rates. My rates had been going up by a dollar or two a month. This put the effective rate increase at 18% since buying the Malibu in July. There is just not a justification for it.

Well, Progressive is always touting their low rates, let's look. I didn't go anywhere else. I'm saving 50% on my car insurance. Between now and September, that's an additional $300 in my pocket; in my Disney savings. It's the exact same coverage. Plus, Progressive is insuring the house. That rate went down $20. "We have an $80,000 replacement guarantee," the agent said. I looked around my house. I don't have $80,000 worth of stuff I'd want replaced, but that's nice to know.

I've been in a private funk since trying to find glasses. It has colored this whole month. How can I make the ends meet when there's always something I have to throw money at to fix? Life has a way of forcing me out of my comfort zone and that is, sometimes, good for me.

JCP is closing 138 stores around the country as the retail industry deals with a massive customer shift in how they shop. I'm one of those who has shifted to doing more online than in brick and mortar stores. The "mall" concept is dying. I enjoy poking around in downtowns with mom and pop stores instead of the mall and I do a lot of shopping online. It's not unexpected that JCP is facing this reality by closing stores.

There is laughter at JCP, too. "Old fogey store", I've heard it called. Well, this old fogey bought a fridge in the perfect size for me and now glasses from JCP. Finding glasses has made my day and my whole month.

Beverage:  British Breakfast Tea

Deb

I Wish...

I bought myself a birthday present in early December. I enjoyed Despicable Me and really wanted to see DM2 in the theatre, but never got there. All the good words I read and heard from others who saw this as well as the thoroughly silly promos done for the movie told me I would enjoy this as much as I like the original.

Truthfully, I have laughed and chortled and giggled and guffawed through this movie. I watched it again last night and turned on the director's comments. I have to watch it again because they pointed out the action going on in the background of some scenes. They gave a great deal of thought to what one could see behind the main action and, after pointing that out, there is quite a bit of hilarity behind Gru and Lucy or the girls. Computer animation being what it is now, the depth of vision in animated movies is huge. So much can be added from textures to creatures that it's going to take me awhile to see everything. I didn't know the rocket ships at the end have city names painted on them and one of those names is Hoboken, New Jersey because director Chris Renaud lived there for awhile. Now, I have to pause the movie at that point and read the rocket ship names.

When I got the movie in the mail, I had to watch everything, all the trailers for upcoming films (a Barbie film? Seriously? It's awful.) and then there was this flashed on the screen.

Whoa. Sadly, it's to advertise their iPhone, iPad and Android phone free games. I wouldn't use my phone to play games. The screen is too small. Maybe if I had an iPhone but this is not a reason to get one.

Then, there came an advertisement for the "ultimate" in minion experience. Universal Studios has teamed up with the creators of Despicable Me to create a 3D ride opening, according to the DvD, in spring of 2014. But, if you go to the ride at Universal Studios Florida, it sort of seems as if it's open now.

Oh dear me. I've never been to Universal Studios in Florida. I've been to Walt Disney World several times, but there was never enough time to take in both. Looking at the map of Universal, it's probably a 3 day adventure for me as I wouldn't be able to handle all the walking and standing in a couple days. Some things, as with Disney World, I'm not that interested in, but Minion Mayhem? Wow.

This is a long-term goal. The first year we went to Disney World, we made a chart, one of those thermometer-type charts, that showed how we were saving for the experience. I could do the same thing. A visual graphic makes the event seem much more real when the saving has to be done over a long period of time. I'd get an all-inclusive package with airfare. I have a friend in Orlando, but I would never presuppose to have her put me up. That's way too cheeky, so I'd look into hotels too.

I did a very good job of figuring out costs to go to Virginia last year. I could do this. It's at least a year out because there are other things that have to be fixed before I can look at dedicating funds toward a trip like this...unless...you're going soon. Can I go in your luggage?

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

Saving For the Next

Looks a bit sparse, doesn't it? Part of getting ready for vacation was hauling this container to the bank to have the saved change counted. It always looks like more than it is even as I tell myself, "It's only $37.82 worth" so as not to get my hopes up that I'll be independently wealthy based solely on my pocket change.

It weighed 5 pounds; five POUNDS. That's a lot of weight in coinage even when coins of today have less mass than coins from my youth. Don't believe me? Go find a penny from 2001 and hold it with one from 2011. There is a very noticeable difference. So too with nickles. Jefferson's visage grinning at me does not compensate for the innards of a nickle being substantially reduced. I've heard new coins cause problems with vending machines which rely on mass to trip levers which record amounts and allow you to have that candy bar, soda or bag of chips.

Off I went. I heard the clank clink of the coins in the machine and the whirr of gears as things were separated and sorted. When all was accounted for, I had $75 worth. Not bad. Not bad, considering I almost never use paper money anymore which means the contributions to both the lucky cat and the change box have slowed to a trickle. I should conduct an experiment to see if I'd spend less, more or the same amount if I had to pay with dollars and change versus hauling out the debit card and having it pulled from my account. It would take planning, that's for sure, since I use my debit card for everything.

The $75 I started the week of 8-11 with wound up being $45 by the time I actually left on vacation. This and that and something else gnawed at the bills. But, this was 'gravy money' to me. I had not planned for this cash in my total needed for the trip. It helped tremendously, with lunches and a metro card and other little things that I needed during the week. I returned with $13 and change, change which has gone into the lucky cat and the container.

The next thing I want is a printer for the new computer. I'd get more letters written, more pictures printed, more things done at home if I had a home printer. That will be substantially more than 7 quarters but the savings has begun again. I found a loose penny in my purse at lunch today. Score!

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

For Vacation

It was time to empty the Lucky Cat over the weekend. This is the change I was carrying around in the wallet. The quarters never go into the Lucky Cat because they can't get out the other end without major help. (Yes, I'm aware of the image I have just implanted in your mind. *snicker*) When the nickles, dimes and pennies one is trying to stick into the bank fall back out due to lack of space, it's time to empty the bank.

I last emptied the cat a little over a year ago. I don't carry much in the way of cash. Most every place takes debit cards now so it's easier to whip out the debit than to carry cash. This is particularly true when expense checks and my salary are automatically deposited into my account. I remember the days when dad would cash his check and bring home a wad of bills for mom. In fact, I can remember when dad would simply endorse the back of the check and mom would take it to the bank. Everyone knows everyone else in a small town so her depositing his check and getting cash back was nothing out of the ordinary. I wonder if you can still do that in a small town.

Mom would take the cash and pull out a bunch of envelopes. On these envelopes were written all of the items for which we would need money during the course of a month. She put a set amount into each envelope and that envelope went into a box. Then, when it came time for lunch money for school, for instance, she'd pull out the appropriate envelope and send the amount with us to school. If there was an emergency, she'd do some math and pull money out across the board, making notes on the front of the envelope. Once the envelope front was covered with notes, dates and amounts, a new envelope was procured and the old one was saved until taxes had been done. Perhaps there were easier ways of budgeting but this worked for mom.

I shook out all the change inside the Lucky Cat and dropped it into the larger bank where I save my coins.

A year ago, I mentioned how I was within an inch of the top and would, possibly, need to take this in for counting. I think this added another half inch of coinage to the bank. It's getting heavy. I'm tempted to see just how much I've managed to save. When you don't walk around with bills in your wallet, accumulating change is much harder to do.

I thought about mom's budget system. There's probably close to $100 in change here. I could use that to start my own envelope system. A bit here for the gas bill. A bit here for groceries. A bit in this envelope for gas. A year ago, I contemplated using the debit card just for gas and groceries. I don't remember how I did. Did I actually follow through with that?

I'm going to keep dropping change into the Lucky Cat and use all of this for a vacation to see Carole this year. Circumstances prevented me from going anywhere last year. I miss my daughter and I want to see how she's doing. I think this is a good use of a long saved amount.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

The Last of the Tax Return

I've become, as I've grown older, rather anal about my tax return. It irritates me that my personal IRA takes the entire month of January to prepare my statement. I want to get the forms filled out and out of here. That way, if I have to pay elebenty billion dollars to the gov'mint, I have several months to figure out how to mail all those pennies.

This year, they were quicker and I received my statement on the last Monday of January. I spent the next weekend with TaxAct online doing my taxes. I had used TurboTax but found the fees they charged for electronic delivery to be distasteful. I've also found, and this will be the 3rd year of using TaxAct, that their forms are easier to fill out and they have suggested things I wouldn't have considered. I think it's your preference.

I was rather amazed at what I was to get back this year. It was more than last year. I wound up owing the State of Illinois an amount that constituted the price of a delivered pizza. I hope they enjoy it. Knowing I had this refund coming, I spent a whole week analyzing my financial life to decide the best way to use this.

I whittled down my needs to the following: 1) Replenish the savings account. This is kind of a no-brainer but with the financial problems I sometimes have, I have to make a conscious choice to put this first. 2) Fix the car. There has been a small problem with the steering dampener for over a year. It had a leak. It's not the kind of thing you have to jump up and fix NOW. It doesn't cause a safety or driving problem until the dampener is nearly empty. It just makes the steering column shake more when you go over bumps. But, I decided that I would fix it because I could and that would prevent a bigger repair later when perhaps I can ill afford it. Get an oil change and new wipers at the same time. I'm good to go now. 3) Get my eyes checked and get new glasses. It had been over 2 years since I'd done this. I noticed a very slight degradation in vision, not enough that I couldn't see, but enough that I knew I needed to do this for myself. I picked up my new glasses today. They are the ones on the left. Yes, there will be a before and after photo next week.

There was some extra after doing all these things. I saved my initial target amount and realized I could save more. What a wonderful feeling! I decided I deserved to take myself out and have tickets for The Tannahill Weavers and Red Green in concert, not together although that would be quite the show. I have not been to a live concert in several years. I couldn't afford it. I think the last concert I attended was with Pam and we went to see a Scottish Military band. Fitting that my return to concerting would be a Scottish folk group.

So, with the pick up of my glasses, the divvying up of the tax return has ended. I think I was much smarter this year, than last year. I don't think I planned as well. It's still baby steps to get where I'd like to be and sometimes I think someone moves the markers back. But I'm happy and that's what matters.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb