Happy Holidays!

I have been off the blog for a while. It has been a combination of things, including boredom from always watching the money.. and the fact that we have been away for the better part of the last 30 days, visiting relatives in London and my husband's folks in Rome. It sucked that we weren't able to actually stay for the holidays, but it would have been a big blow to our budget to stay longer. The airlines "Holiday" prices kick into effect on the 17th of December and that's when the fares increase significantly, so to save money, we came back on the 16th. It was nice to get away from all the daily pressures of budgeting and just eat, eat and eat some more!!! I am proud to say that we stuck to below our budget and spent less than 300 dollars the whole time. It helped that we didn't have to pay for lodging, just groceries and the only shopping we did was buy a soccer jersey for a friend.. (Chelsea) and some magnets for friends. The rest of the time was spent window shopping and sightseeing. Being familiar with both places, we took buses in London and my husband drove in Rome.

Happy Holidays to everyone and my wish for the next year is that it be a better one for all!

Wow! and l thought l had my head buried...

in the sand! I just read this article in the Wall Street Journal about former executives with formerly high paying jobs who are still living in a state of denial! As in the recession never happened. They still send their kids to private school, have weekly manicure/pedicures, employ maids etc... all the while running through their severance pay. Some even turned down several jobs because it didn't pay as much as their old jobs and are still waiting for new jobs that have not come so far. I don't understand this at all. I thought it was a joke, l mean, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if your expenses outweigh your income, you have to cut back a bit and make life adjustments. It's insane. I see Grace has read the same article! My problems are nothing compared to these people. Here's the link.. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125780714976639687.html

.. And she's clear..

Part of the reason my blog has been so sporadic lately is that l have been taking care of one of my older sisters. She was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago! This totally threw me for a loop. It was quite unexpected. It was even worse because we hadn't been close for such a long time. She had ostracized herself from the whole family and l had no contact with her despite the fact that we live in the same city. I'll tell you though, nothing like the big C to pull everyone together and band up against this nasty disease. She did her rounds of Chemo at Baylor University here in Houston on a new drug trial basis. Unfortunately, the shrink wasn't enough, so she underwent a mastectomy 2 weeks ago. She had her checkup yesterday post operation and thank God, she got a clean bill of health. She is healing nicely and the drainage bags were removed. I am so thankful, l just regret the fact that it took such a horrible thing for us to come together as a family again. My dad died of colon cancer and l've since learned that cancer is prevalent in my family, so l need to have myself checked out. Part of me doesn't want to.. but l do have to, l know.. We're making up for lost time though, and l am amused by the fact that despite her being completely bald right now, her hair will grow back faster than mine! That! totally sucks! :o(

Banks and the new 'local" hold

I have been reading on several blogs about the banking industries! My last blog had to do with banks and how much they collect on "overdraft fees". It amounted to an excess of 29 billion dollars a year! I feel for the most part that consumers are responsible for their actions and should not spend money they don't have! Sometimes though, they are spending money that they do have. About a month ago, l needed some money in a hurry and my sister who lives in Dallas deposited some money into my account. Now, get this, both accounts are from Bank of America, hers in Dallas, mine in Houston. The money was withdrawn from her account on the same day!!!! yet, l was only allowed to access $100 the first 2 days and had to wait 5 working days to access the rest! I was told the bank now has a "local" hold on checks! I don't even know what that means. I could almost understand it if it was a different bank, but the same? I did the only thing l could, once the check cleared, l withdrew all the money and l am going to stick with my Wells Fargo account for now, unless they start with the same nonsense. I understand the banks are trying to come up with various ways to keep making money until the consumer protection bill comes into play next year, but this is ridiculous. They make interest by floating your money and penalize you for trying to spend your own money. Someone in a truly desperate situation would have had no choice but to write checks, the banks would have been only too glad to cash said checks and then hit you with a 39 dollar overdraft fee for each check honored. Bank of America recently in the last week agreed to limit the daily overdraft checks honored to 6! as opposed to the unlimited amount. They also vowed to make customers "opt out" of the "automatic" overdraft protection. A "courtesy" they had previously extended to all their customers. Thanks indeed!!!! Vultures..the whole lot of them!

Funny Math??

Just a thought about banks and the way things are calculated! In 2007, banks made a profit of 29 BILLION dollars in from overdraft fees alone!!! 29 Billion!!!! Yet, most of these same banks had their hands out for the bailout money.. because boo hoo, they had made really bad loans etc.. Now, the FDIC (the people that insure us little people's bank accounts to a maximum of $250,000 per account) is in dire straights and is now considering asking the banks for a loan to prop up it's balance sheets! It's just crazy... It just goes to show you the bailout money was just sitting there and not really needed, but they figured, if the government was handing it out, why not take it, along with other profits the banks have raked up! Nothing is going to change.. I am so disgusted with the whole thing.

Brand vs Store Brand

I was just reading Get rich slowly's blog about how much cheaper the store brands were when compared to the brand names. I had been thinking about writing of it for a while, because l had a revelation of sorts when l was grocery shopping last week. Me, along with the rest of the world have been in a money crunch situation and have been watching our pennies. For the longest time, l had refused to give up my Tropicana brand orange juice. I always felt it tasted the best and it was not from concentrate. I just loved it so much and l refused to give it up for the longest time. Then, a few months ago, we went to the local grocery store and l was about to pick one up when l noticed the packaging had changed. The new look was very off putting to me, it looked sort of like the Target brand O.J !!! and not the familiar orange with the straw! and it was smaller, but priced the same. That day, l decided to try the store brand orange juice. I didn't like it as much, but it was much cheaper. Eventually, l got used to the taste and l like the savings. Our finances have recently improved a bit, so last week, while doing the grocery shopping, l automatically assumed l would switch back to Tropicana, especially since the old packaging was back (apparently everyone hated the new look!), but l still got the store brand. I can't figure out if this is the new mature me who is learning that flashy is not necessarily better or it's just going to take a bit of time to revert back to my old ways. I would like to think the former is true. For now, l am going to keep trying to save money. I like that!

Halleluyah!

We finally closed on the flip house. What a nightmare!!!! After what seemed like 14 years, 7 months and 2 days but in actuality was 4 months and like 10 days, it's finally a done deal. Papers signed and money in hand. Now , we can seriously get into the "shoring up our finances" mode. What a relief. It turned a small profit, and will certainly help towards paying down a major portion of our debt, not all mind you, but a good chunk. I am so overwhelmed right now, l just want to stare at my bank statement and pretend that it's all ours.. I will enjoy it for a few more days, then get down to business!