After I fixed problem number one with my car things ran smoothly. Now, my dash display is showing that my gas cap is loose again, which went away when I fixed the fuel filter, and my service engine light is back on. On top is this, the violent shake in the front is not cured, however it's still not as bad as it was. Lucky for me I will be fixing this at the beginning of next week as I get paid Friday.
I'm supposed to actually receive some child support money from my son's mother(a whole other story) by the end of the month as well, an entire 250 dollars. This is believe will go to fix the other problem with my car since it's "new" money, then it's on to Christmas shopping. My youngest daughters birthday is 7 days before Christmas, so we are blessed with a little extra shopping, and she is blessed with a couple extra presents.
On a good note, I found out that my job offers a 401(K) in place of the forced retirement. I will be looking into this soon as well, because it seems with my current retirement plan I'm not allowed to play with it any as far as picking investments, and I can't roll my old 401(K) over into it according to the people that run it. Another good note, I may be finally going to day shift! We run 3 12 hr shifts and a 6hr shift. I work 6pm to 6am on those 12hr's, and it is not fun. It'll be nice to be home with my family at night. I'll be off Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as well, which is another bonus. I see a weekend getaway in my future.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
New Account
I've opened up a new online checking account through INGDirect. I already had my savings there, plus an old 401(k). I'm still going to be using for now my current brick and mortar bank, but those days are coming to a close in the future. I have everything automatically withdrawn from my old account, so I'll slowly switch everything over, probably after taxes come in.
My current brick and mortar bank charges a $8.00 a month fee. The fee was originally $10 but they lower it $2 for setting up automatic deposit of your payroll. This fee is supposed to go away after a year. Also, the past 2 months, they've been charging me $5.95 to use their bill pay service. This is something I do not use nor ever signed up for. Apparently this is a free service if I pay 3 bills a month, and I was magically signed up for it without my knowledge.
I made a phone call on the 17th to find out why I was being charged this fee, and to see about getting that $8 fee taken away from my account. Well, since I overdrew my account by $4.00 and my payroll hit the very next day back in January, I'm not eligible to have a free checking account. But they did tell me they will be crediting my account $5.95 for 3 months (next month will be on there too because its a month behind) and unsubscribing me from billpay. Well it's been almost 10 days and I've not had my account credited anything. I'll be calling tomorrow to check on this. I'm simplistic I guess. That's why I want everything automatically withdrawn and I opened up the checking account where I have my savings and that 401(k). Makes it easy for me.
My current brick and mortar bank charges a $8.00 a month fee. The fee was originally $10 but they lower it $2 for setting up automatic deposit of your payroll. This fee is supposed to go away after a year. Also, the past 2 months, they've been charging me $5.95 to use their bill pay service. This is something I do not use nor ever signed up for. Apparently this is a free service if I pay 3 bills a month, and I was magically signed up for it without my knowledge.
I made a phone call on the 17th to find out why I was being charged this fee, and to see about getting that $8 fee taken away from my account. Well, since I overdrew my account by $4.00 and my payroll hit the very next day back in January, I'm not eligible to have a free checking account. But they did tell me they will be crediting my account $5.95 for 3 months (next month will be on there too because its a month behind) and unsubscribing me from billpay. Well it's been almost 10 days and I've not had my account credited anything. I'll be calling tomorrow to check on this. I'm simplistic I guess. That's why I want everything automatically withdrawn and I opened up the checking account where I have my savings and that 401(k). Makes it easy for me.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Eating Out
Eating Out. Seems like this is the new American Dream. I know me and my family love to go out to eat. And I've noticed that we are beginning to do this more and more. I work nights and she works 2nd shift, so we see each other a few minutes in passing and we usually have 1 day off together. I think that's where it comes from. I hate cooking and can't cook a lot so that doesn't help much when I'm home with the kids, however, I'm more likely to cook than she is.
What really stuck with me and inspired this post is the price of eating out. I'm not talking about a sit down, be waited on, family restaurant, I'm talking about McDonald's and other fast food places. If the entire family is eating, we can usually expect to pay about $22.00 at McDonald's. That's to high! Not when I can pay 4-6 dollars for a frozen pizza and feed the family, or cook a good home meal and still only be using about 7-8 dollars.
This is something me and my family definitely have to work on. We could definitely have a lot more money to spend on things that we would rather do. October is an especially bad month for us with eating out, and it has been for the last 6 years. Why? McDonalds has Monopoly going on! It's like crack.
What really stuck with me and inspired this post is the price of eating out. I'm not talking about a sit down, be waited on, family restaurant, I'm talking about McDonald's and other fast food places. If the entire family is eating, we can usually expect to pay about $22.00 at McDonald's. That's to high! Not when I can pay 4-6 dollars for a frozen pizza and feed the family, or cook a good home meal and still only be using about 7-8 dollars.
This is something me and my family definitely have to work on. We could definitely have a lot more money to spend on things that we would rather do. October is an especially bad month for us with eating out, and it has been for the last 6 years. Why? McDonalds has Monopoly going on! It's like crack.
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