Layout:
Home > Archive: August, 2008

Archive for August, 2008

Farmer's market

August 28th, 2008 at 07:05 pm

I stopped by farmer's market this morning.

This farmer's market is on my way to work, and I know they have it every Thursday morning throughout a year. I always drove by without even checking them out. You know how mornings are. I'm in a hurry to get to work.

But this morning, I decided to stop by to see what they have. I'm glad I did because there were some great deals for fruits and vegetables. Needless to say, they are fresh! I was especially happy to find the price tag for tomatoes, 75 cents per lb. I didn't buy any tomatoes this time because I just bought some from Trader Joe's, but I will definitely pick some up next week.

I bought 4 green peppers for $1, and five pears (including three Asian pears) for $3.30. They also had some yummy looking peaches and nectarines for $1 per lb., so I'm planning to buy some next week.

Back to school stuff

August 27th, 2008 at 07:38 pm

I added all the school related fees, and it's $504!! No wonder we are so broke....

Marching band fee $180
PE clothe $25
Theater tech fee $22
School picture $58
Year book $60
ASB fee $75
AP test $84
Total $504

At least, I didn't spend much on school supplies. We still have a bunch of index cards that were dirt cheap at Office Depot. and I bought some notebooks from Staples that were 5 cents each.

Talking about school, I'm going back to school next week, too. I will go to school from Monday through Thursday.... It sucks... On Wednesdays, I leave my house around 6: 30 p.m. and won't come home till 9:30 p.m. I only have 5 more classes to finish my B.S., and I am doing 3 classes in fall. So, I will just suck it up and do it. They are all accounting classes. Fun..... Audit, Advanced Accounting, and International Accounting. I started reading International Accounting book and it is actually interesting stuff. It talks about different approaches of reporting by countries and mentions how German company would report lower profit in their financial reporting than American company would do. I work for a German comopany and always wondered about that. (Germans like to "hide" their profit, and want to report nice linear growth curve.)

I guess I will spend my Labor Day weekend reading textbooks.

One more reason I hate paying tax.

August 27th, 2008 at 04:33 pm

This is in today's MSN money.

Taxpayers give fat cats $20 billion

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/TaxpayersGiveFatCats20Billion.aspx

Free Sprite

August 26th, 2008 at 06:29 pm

There are a couple of free items at Safeway this week - L'Oreal Vive shampoo & conditioner and 2 litter bottle Sprite.

I paid for the shampoo at in-house Starbucks when I was getting my coffee. And the cashier asked me where I got BOGO coupons. I gave her a couple of coupons because I am well stocked with them. I was buying them to use overage to cover my bread. She told me she works so hard and get paid so little, and said "These decent kind (L'Oreal) are expensive." It is so true. Their regular price is $4.99 a bottle. If she makes $10 an hour, one hour of hard work will be for a couple of bottle of shampoo and conditioner. That sucks. She was so happy and gave me high five, and that made me happy, too. It is nice to know some people actually appreciate coupons.

I haven't bought any Sprite so far, and sale cycle ends today. So, if I want free Sprite, today is the last day as the coupons expire on 8/31. They are Buy 3 get 3 free, and I have a lot of BOGO coupons. Store pays for 3, and coupons pay for 3, thus, free for me.

As for household finance, August has been very expensive with school related expenses. Fees, fees, everywhere.... On top of that, everything came more than usual. Gas & electricity bill was over budget, water was over budget, and we had to pay for our car insurance. Gee..... I guess we will have a nice and quiet staycation on Labor day weekend.



Best $6 I've ever spent

August 25th, 2008 at 08:31 pm

I bought a water pitcher with filter at Walgreens the other day. It was $10 and I will get $4 back by rebate. This is one of the best $6 I've ever spent. My DD does not drink soda, and mainly drinks water.

One day I looked at two large trash bag full of plastic bottles to be taken to recycle place, and then, saw an ad for a water pitcher at Walgreens. I went to the store that day and got the pitcher. WAG even had replacement cartridge for free (FAR in August), so I bought it, too.

It has been working great. We only have it for about a week, and constantly refilling it. I'm sure we recover the cost already. Well, it's not hard to do when I spent only $6 for it.

These small things make me happy : )

Smaller size ice cream

August 12th, 2008 at 08:06 pm

I found this article and this is so true.
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/105542/The-Price-Is-the-Same;-It's-the-Size-That-Shrinks

I knew the size of ice cream shrunk. I buy Dreyer's Rocky Road for DH, and noticed the package had changed. My DH is one of those people who cannot deal with the change. I could tell he is going to go nuts and say "This is not the same!!" So, I looked and looked in the shelve to find the "original" package.

Well, they were gone, gone, gone. Welcome to the world of smaller size. I have to tell DH to get used to it.

Boat repair & car insurance

August 6th, 2008 at 10:03 pm

Our boat repair estimate came. $700. This was much better than we expected. I can totally live with that. What a relief.

In the meantime, I'm shopping around Auto insurance. Our premium gone up so much because DD (16 yrs old) started driving last year. It's unbelievable how expensive insurance premium is for teenage drivers. We're paying about 3K a year and her portion is 2K!!

I checked Geico and we may be able to lower our premium about $500 to 600 a year.

What really makes me mad is coverage for uninsured drivers. Shouldn't be illegal to drive a car without insurance? Hello???

Anyhow, I need to take care of it in next two weeks as my renewal date is getting closer.

Series of unfortunate incidents

August 5th, 2008 at 12:28 am

I lost my cell phone due to a series of unfortunate incidents last Saturday.....

It all started from our neighbor wanted to borrow our boat. We don't have any problem with that. The only thing was we wanted to make sure it runs ok because we haven't taken out our boat this year because there's no water in the lake we usually go to. Last few winters have been pretty dry and there's no such a thing "rain" during summer here.

Anyway, we drove to the river instead of lake this time. Everything was going very well. We launched a boat, cruising down the river, looking at gorgeous homes along the river.... Then, my DH felt something is wrong with engine and looked back. Huge smoke was coming out from engine area!! He stopped the boat immediately and opened the cover. OMG..... I don't know what happened, but we knew something went really wrong.

Another boat noticed smoke and approached us and asked if we are ok. Guess what my DH said? "Oh, we are fine." I was like...."NO, WE ARE NOT!!" But, I thought he might have some idea how to go back to the boat launch. Naaah. He just didn't want to ask for help. Damn.

We managed to temporarily park at the private dock of one of those homes by the river. Now, my DH wanted me to look for someone to help us. Geee.... I was really upset and told him "Next time, if someone offers to help, say YES!!"

Well, long story short, I ended up calling 911, and they said they will contact coast guard and will call us back. We waited for a while, but there's no sign of call back. So, finally, I waved an orange flag to send a "help!" signal to other boat, and one boat was nice enough to give us a tow to nearest marina.

About 20 minutes into being towed, a coast guard boat drove by. We told them that our boat broke down and need a help. Guess what they did? They gave us a business card of towing service and told us to call them!! What??

So, cost guard drove away and we are still being towed by other nice boat owner. They told us they will leave us at the sandy beach area where we can wait for towing service to come. Fine.

I called towing service and the guy told me that the towing person will call me back when they come near the area. In a mean time, we arrive at the sandy beach area and my DH asked me to go out of the boat and hold it. I saw a bunch of people enjoying a summer day there and the beach looked shallow, about the knee height. So, I went into the water thinking it's shallow. I sunk. Completely. It was so deep I could not even reach the bottom of the river. Well, I had my cell phone in my pocket and it was gone because I had to wiggle my body to come up to surface.

Now, no cell phone, and I was still waiting for towing service to call me back. How can they reach me now? I wanted to cry.

I asked a teenage boy who was standing there and had a cell phone if I can use his phone. Thank God, he was nice enough to let me use his phone. I called the towing service back and told them to call the new number.

Then, the guy at the towing service told me "By the way, we only take cash." Ha?? I didn't even think about how much the service was. So, I asked him "Well, we don't have that much cash with us. By the way, how much is it?" "It's $120 an hour." I almost fainted. On top of that, he tells me it will take about two hours for them to get here, and the clock starts when they leave. OMG..... I told the guy, just call me when he gets near the area.

Fast forward one hour and half later, finally, the phone rang. It's the towing service guy. "We won't make it there. Our boat broke, too." I said, "That's fine. Thank you anyway." And hang up the phone. I walked over to people who have their boat by the beach and asked "Can anybody give us a tow? We will pay for your gas!!"

One guy was really nice to give us a tow and we could come to the boat launch. But, what a day.... For some reason, I don't believe towing service's boat breaking down, but it's ok. It saved us at least $300 or so.

Now, we are waiting for boat repair place to give us an estimate to fix it. Oh, by the way, our extended warranty expired last year. Sucks....