It’s been kind of a mixed weekend. Saturday morning was the first meeting of the car group for the new semester, and it went quite well… Went to Rudino’s for lunch (great calzones), before which John changed the oil in his Camaro and I made a trip to the hardware store to pick up some odds and ends to fabricate a tool. Most of the pieces I needed to make said tool (to press out the Audi’s front control arm bushings, which are completely shot) were associated with plumbing, like pipes and caps and adapters and such. Turns out that they’re made of a remarkably hard grade of steel, and while bearing down on one of the caps, held by the bench vise, the drill bit snapped and I fell on the drill, giving me a nice bruise right in the center of my chest. Didn’t knock the wind out of me, but it didn’t feel too pleasant, either. But I got the tool made in the end–will use it later this week for the needed repairs.
This afternoon I ran in a local 5K. Deceptively downhill initially, and a couple of pretty steep inclines near the end made it not really condusive to a good time. I ran around a 21:50. Not fantastic, but not terrible either. I tried to relax during the run, which was a big difference from the UNC run back in December that I was considerably more amped-up for. My pace was pretty near dead-on relative to my current fitness level, I think–I could have picked it up a little bit near the end, but not much. I seem to be stuck at around a 7 minute mile. There’s a 10K coming up near the end of the month…that’ll be good motivation to train a little harder.
My computer’s been on the fritz all weekend. I downloaded an automatic operating system software update on Friday night, and my video card hasn’t worked properly since. So my Mac is indisposed and I’m typing from Donald’s computer. I tried to take the machine to the Mac store in the mall to have the burgeoning hackers there look at it, but it’s by appointment only, so I was turned away. Tried to drown my sorrows in a stack of recent car magazines at the Barnes & Noble next door, but it didn’t do much except give my eyes something to gloss over while my mind wandered about that situation and others that I find myself in lately.
I am terrible at managing money. That’s a hard admission. My checking account is constantly bobbing above and below the line of solvency and I can’t seem to achieve any stability. It’s just getting absolutely ridiculous, and I need to take care of it, need to manage my income and cash flow and savings, etc. I can’t go to Winston-Salem in this state; I can’t. I have a threefold plan: First, organize. I need to sort out all my bills and statements and figure out exactly how much money I have now. Next, I need to keep tabs on how much money I have at any given time. This is the area in which convenience is key. If I don’t have an immediate, down-to-the-penny accurate answer to someone who asks me how much money I have in my checking account, then I’m failing in that area. And finally, I need to budget. I have to look a couple of months down the road, anticipate expenses, and plan accordingly. Yep. This is the time to rein everything in.
High Matt.
Hallo Em. How’s the morning? It’s rainy here…I can hear the cars on the road outside skish by.
It was rainy here (and has been for the past three days) up until about an hour ago, but now it’s sunny and breezy… and puddle-y.
How are you today?
I’m pretty good. My finances have stabilized somewhat and I have a plan for them that’s going remarkably well, so that’s a good feeling.
And Lauren just came into the office and gave me a chocolate + pecan + caramel Godiva truffle. Holy cow.
And I watched You’ve Got Mail last night and that was fun. Watching Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan banter back and forth is comforting somehow. Can’t explain it.
Stabilized your finances? How so? Did you just follow your heart? That’s what I always do.
Matt. Chocolate + pecan + caramel = turtle. You know this, I’m sure.
Me too! I watched that (well, part of it) and part of City of Angels. LOL. Happy VD to me.
You didnt happen to pick up the latest Top Gear mag at B&N’s did you? Has a really good article about the Enzo and Masarati…written in a typically brilliant, very english style. I really think you’d like it. Seems like there was something else n particular i was going to mention about it… Ah well.
Knowing exactly how much money you have at a given time isn’t easy, much less having to calculate what checks have gone through, which ones will go through this week, and which bills are about to come in that you need to pay. I’m not too great at it, personally, but i usually have a pretty good idea about where everything is at a given time…just not down to the last dollar. There’s always a certain time of the month where i get predictably stingy about spending money on anything. It’s usually right after all the big bills came in and were sent back out, the funds for the rent check have finally been drafted out of my account, I had to write my girl a check for groceries, gas, and the doctors bill, and i just paid for five or six hours worth of parking on Franklin St. All of a sudden anything that costs more than $5 becomes ridiculously expensive. But that only lasts a few days and then i’m back to my good ol’ self, ordering something new for Kristi’s truck. It’s just that for a few days i feel the need to eat Ramen noodles and bring balance to force and order to the chaos that are my finances.
It’s really not so bad…sometimes i just feel it is. Drives Kristi nuts when i’m in that phase though… You ever feel like that?
Just a little bit of organization and a working out a system that will help me keep things under control.
I actually had no idea. What’s a truffle, then?
Whenever I see the letters “VD” I think “venereal disease.” Romantic, no?
Y’know, I looked at it sitting there on the rack, and I wanted to read it, but I read Automobile and R&T instead. Ah well.
Yeah, I feel like that sometimes…except I drive myself nuts since I don’t have a S.O. :) I think the goal at this point is to eliminate all “hunches” from my finances–to know whether I really can afford that $9 meal at Quizno’s or that $7 movie, etc. I think that keeping track of it all will induce me to spend less overall too, since being aware of the rate at which little stuff adds up will make an impression.