Hmmm.... still trying to get used to having such a vocal and active cat in the house. She wants constant attention. Bought her a cat-tree on eBay. It arrived on Friday. I put it together Friday night. She has knocked it over twice and pulled both dangling mice off of it. She's very rough.
On Saturday, I worked on training her to sleep "on the other side" of the bed instead of on my feet. It works to a degree. If she falls asleep on the other side of the bed, she stays there for awhile. However, if I fall asleep before she does, as soon as I'm comfy, she wedges herself between my legs and traps me and if I try to move, she sees it as an invitation to play.
On Saturday, I also did some "greening" of my apartment and sorted through months of accumulated magazines to separate out those I truly want to keep and those I can donate. I have 4 cloth bags of those I can donate. I've also decided that I'm not going to subscribe to any more and let all of my subscriptions expire. I can't believe how addicted I am to magazines. All of that trivial information that I read once and forget about. I'm sure I can read many of the big stories online in some format or another.
Today, I printed out cable/internet/phone bill to see if there are any other ways to cut costs. I hardly ever stray past the "regular" stations so I'm going to call them tomorrow to see if I can get about $9.00 in "entertainment packs" removed from my bill. I also decided to take advantage of the dental insurance I've been paying for but never using and called a dentist and left a message for a free cleaning during the week I'm on vacation. I also called a non-profit debt consolidation place for a appointment that week as well, to see if they can help me negotiate a better deal on my credit cards. I'm so mad at myself for having credit cards again. I was totally debt-free in April 2007. Then, I moved here and was fine for awhile -- only had two cards for "emergencies". I used one card to get new furniture for my new apartment and am still paying on that. Then, over the course of the past two years, have added 4 more "low balance" credit cards to the mix, which I've maxxed out when my company reduced our salaries and I needed more $ than what I was making. I've been paying more than the minimum payment but don't seem to be getting anywhere. I had made a nice dent in them but then Molly got sick and after I used up my savings, I started to use them again -- for fuel, groceries, prescriptions. It adds up fast. I spent about $300 a month making payments to unsecured creditors. That's huge. I could be putting that towards savings.
Lastly, I sent an email to my financial advisor to ask that he reduce my monthly contribution to my retirement plan. I am currently contributing about 5% of my net income each month to an IRA but when I opened it last summer, I anticipated a higher raise and bonuses, which didn't happen, and now I'm feeling the loss of that money each month. It's really hard to live off of a salary where you can't earn overtime, can't get a part-time job because of the long hours you work and don't qualify for any bonuses. There's no way for me to generate income right now so I keep working on whittling away at my expenses. I hate this feeling of desperation of not having enough money.
I was supposed to go to a bingo social today but decided I couldn't rationalize the $25 fee. That's gas money... or groceries... so I stayed home instead.
I really wish I could win the lottery. Maybe I should play?
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