I am bad at raises- Need Help!

So, I work for the government doing web application development. When I got hired on I felt like I should have asked for a bit more. I was a moron. Now, I am getting an assistant..I saw the request form for this position and the salary range was from $11,000 below mine to $1,000 below mine. I would feel pissy even if there were any less than 8,000 below me. I haven't been here a year, but our evaluations are in September and usually being in the government we get a set amount for a raise. Should I talk to my boss? What would you do? I need help.

It's a zoo in here!

We have a dog, a cat, a parrot, and a canary. All in a two bedroom apartment. Well, this morning we awoke to animal trauma. The parrot sleeps outside in his cage. He likes the outdoors, plus there are some wild parrots around that he likes to talk to during the day. We are on the second floor and have never had any problems with this arrangement in 8 months. Well, as soon as I woke up this morning, I stumbled onto the porch to say hi to the plants and the bird. I saw tail feathers all over the porch and ran over to look. He had been attacked. His tail was plucked - nothing left and it looked like he had a gash on his side. It was obvious that he was tired and got no rest. Something must have climbed up a tree about 10 feet away and jumped onto the porch to get him! Poor bird. We rushed him to the doctor. His butt looks fine. The rest of the trauma was to his wing feathers, but the blood was mostly coming from a few blood feathers. The doctor plucked those out and checked him all over. I have to give him 2 shots a day for 5 days to make sure nothing gets infected. 90 bucks later and the bird is ok and all of us are tired. It was well worth it for a happy family. No more outside play/sleep without our supervision.

With all of these animals we really don't have many things like this come up. We have been lucky. Poor birdie was very lucky that he is still alive.

Over and out from the zoo.

How I scored .29 greeting cards

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to purchase enough cards to get me through birthdays and a few other holidays for the next 2-3 years. Each at a max cost of 29 cents each. How? Well, Albertsons is going out of business in our area. They had most food items at 30%-40% off, but even with that discount that just brought their prices down to our regular store's prices (HEB). No wonder they were going out of business. So, we were pretty disappointed upon finding that out, but then we saw that all greeting cards were 90% off. I bought bday cards for my mom, dad, niece, brother, and nephew. I found a father's day card or two and a few blanks. Awesome! Wine was at a pretty good discount too, but we were there before noon, which is a no-go in Texas. The girlfriend might be going back for two bottles. We don't drink much wine, but we have friends who invite us over and want us to bring a bottle. This way we can get away with only paying 5 bucks a bottle! :)

This whole experience really made me appreciate my normal grocery store.

Trying to stay on plan- obstacles!

Our financial advisors said we should save $850 a month right now. This month I have put $900 in savings. I figure we will have up months and down months, but as long as it evens out in the end, then we are ok.

My check engine light came back on. I tried replacing the gas cap, so I am going to drive it 50 miles and give it the chance to let me know all is ok. If not, then I have to take Jeep to the shop! $$ oh no! I hope it won't be anything too expensive.
AND to top it off - my 14 year old Huffy bike has died on me. I have to figure out what I am going to do there. :( Sadness.

I have found a hybrid for $240 at one shop. I will go to all of the other bike shops and see what they have. I have been checking craigslist, but nothing in my price range (cheap) has come up. Austin is such a bike town and these people spend serious money on their bikes!

If it isn't one thing, then it's another.

The best frugal wedding!

I officiated over my best friend's wedding. So many people came up after the ceremony, at the reception, and said this was one of the best weddings they had been to. It was done on a very small budget, and this is how:

One mother of one of the groom's worked in flower shop. She bought these very lifelike flowers and made all of the corsages and boutonnieres, as well as a few small table arrangements. There were a few other candles bought and some table covers...and a few tiny adornments, but that was all as far as decorating.
The father on this side is a chef and he made the rehearsal dinner meal.

The mother of the other groom is a cake decorator on the side and she made the wedding cake.

The ceremony was held at an old train depot and was free - just a 100 dollar deposit that was returned. The chairs were provided by the depot. Three big candle holder things were rented and the depot provided the rest of the charm.

The reception was held at the place of one of the groom's work-so, free reception rental. It is in a pretty, old building - it is a tap room and the place where they met. We got the whole upstairs. There were finger foods ordered from the pub for the guests. They met there doing karaoke, so they borrowed a mixer and mics from friends. One of the grooms used to do the karaoke at another bar, so he had all of the songs. They only needed to rent the speakers.

For gifts for the guests, they made CDs with their favorite songs, and using a special burner (not expensive at all) they were able to burn a picture of themselves on the top of the CD. Great idea!

Everyone had a blast!

And, of course, the officiator was free. :)

Getting Extra Disability Insurance - Do It!

We had a meeting with our financial advisors last night. This was our second meeting and we got this huge folder of our "plan". We started in three areas: my insurance, getting private insurance for my partner, and budget.

My Insurance-
Health-
I have insurance through work for free. Work offers dental and vision for a small
monthly amount- I already took them up on those.

Life- free 10,000 basic from work - will add more next year before we get a house

Long Term Care- None

Long Term Disability- I already had this through work - starts 90 days after you stop work- standard 60% of pay, but WAIT. 60% of pay? I had never really thought about this. I figured since this was standard then we would be ok...right? right? no. This is 60% of pay that can be taxed. NOT ENOUGH. The advisors pointed this out and steered us to get more long term disability coverage for myself. I am the only one with a steady income at this point and we would be screwed without it. They said that pretty much everyone needs to supplement the long term disability plan included with work insurance. Additional cost- around 50-55 bucks a month. This gets an extra 1,000 a month in case I need LTD. This is also free from taxes.

Short Term Disability- None. We can handle a sucky 90 days.


Next, private health insurance for my partner. She is currently attending culinary school and will have no insurance at the end of August. She can't get any from school. Our advisors showed us a well established company. We can get insurance for her for $100 a month. She will most likely get 25 dollar co-pays. We are waiting to get back all the info from the company. This was good news.

Finally, the budget-
We gave them our numbers from what we have spent what on for the past 4 or so months. I told them that they weren't 100% on the money. More needs to be allocated for clothing, gifts, household, etc. Pretty much what we came out of this meeting with was this:

We need to save around 800-850 a month. This will allow us a $10,000 emergency fund in the next year (we already have around $5,000) and $10,000 to put down on a house.

This will be a bit of a stretch. It is going to hurt, but we will figure it out. They showed us having $1600 free at the end of each month, but we have only been saving, at max, $700 a month. Some of that extra that they show is from our numbers being off for different budgeting categories. My goal is to get that 800-850 dollars into savings each month. I might do it a little differently and keep putting some of that "savings" money onto my car note to pay it off faster. I did the numbers and we should come out at the same point. I will take the car payment amount, after it is paid off, and just drop that into savings.


Plans! Ouch!

Check engine light? Get it checked / reset for free!

My check engine light recently came on (ok, a month ago). I put it off and put if off. Then someone told me that AutoZone would check it for free and tell you what your error code stands for. I went by my local AutoZone and was in and out in 5 minutes. Mine was a small emissions leak (which is usually a loose gas cap). They reset the light and if it comes on again, then I will try a new gas cap before going to an auto shop. How much do places charge to check your codes?? Usually between 45-75 bucks! All they had to do was just hook up a little hand held machine!

Cheap as free! :)

Saving money with a personal challenge!

I hope to save myself from spending 150-200ish dollars this week. I am in my best friend's wedding (officiating it - eeeek!) He wants me to wear a suit. Great, no problem. Well, there is one problem. The only suit I have was from when I first graduated college and went on the job hunt spree. That was about 5 years ago. It is a classic suit, so it is still in style, but I didn't quite fit in it anymore. I was stupid and didn't go buy a bigger pair of pants before the store shut down for good (Casual Corner). I would have had a complete, fitting suit. So, I gave myself a challenge. I wanted to fit into that damn suit for the wedding. It has been 8 weeks and I have lost 14 pounds. I have been stuck at the same weight for about 2-3 weeks now. That is frustrating...especially since I haven't gone off the diet. I am increasing my exercise even more and decreasing what I eat a bit more and will see if that will budge me. I may still have to suck in a bit, but I should be able to get into that suit! I will make my final decision on Saturday. That way I will have a few days to find something else if need be.

Also, in my quest to lose weight, I have been biking to work more and more. I only live 5 miles away, so the savings my not be THAT great, but I can tell it in my Quicken reports! :)