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Archive for October, 2009

Oct wrapup!

October 28th, 2009 at 07:01 pm

Here is a reposting of our estimates of what Oct was going to look like with actual expenses in bold.

1st Weekend in October:

1. Fall Festival at the kids school. Will cost around $20 or so to let the kids go and enjoy the activities -- fundraiser for the school so no biggie.

2. A co-worker gave me 2 free tickets to a Halloween event at a local amusement park. We have 4 in our family so we'd have to buy 2 more tickets which would cost $52. The event happens every year but we had never been before so it would be a real treat for the kids. Even at $52, we'd probably never get this great deal again (basically 50% off), so we'll go. We have to go this particular night as the free tickets are only for this night (opening night) so we'll head out there after the Fall Festival.

3. Going to sis's house 3 hours away for a birthday party for both my niece and nephew. Will enjoy the trip to visit with them but will be spending a pretty penny at the same time.
Birthday gifts to buy = $40
Gas for trip = $50
Eating out with extended family = $100 (I'm expected to foot the bill for dinner)

Total estimated for first weekend in Oct = $262 $132

2nd Weekend in October:

1. Some of DH's family from CA will be here. DH hasn't seen them in probably 15 years so that will be a very nice visit.
Cost of entertaining them will probably be just around $100.

2. A different nephew has a birthday so another birthday gift to buy = $20

Total estimated for second weekend in Oct = $120 $15

3rd Weekend in October:

1. NC State Fair - we try to attend each year as our own little family tradition. We used to live right there but after we moved away, we are now 4 hours from the event. So with tickets, hotel, food, gas etc., this weekend might be pricey at around $300.

2. DH's sister has a birthday so another gift probably at around $30 for her.

Total estimated for third weekend in Oct = $330 $300

4th Weekend in October:

1. Our youngest celebrates a birthday so with her gifts and throwing a party with friends, we are estimating a price tag of around $150.

Total estimated for fourth weekend in Oct = $150 $80

5th Weekend in October:

1. Halloween -- won't probably spend too much on costumes this year. Oldest will be wearing something that I made for one of her school plays and we haven't decided on what the youngest wants to do yet. Got to buy candy for the neighborhood kids so all in all, maybe just $30.

Total estimated for fifth weekend in Oct = $30 $320

THAT'S A TOTAL OF $892!! Geez!

Total for the month is actually $847 which is less than expected. We reallocated some but still came under budget for the month. Still a huge month of non-essentials but at least the out was less than expected.

got a lowball offer -- almost

October 21st, 2009 at 07:42 pm

Ok, our house is on the market not out of necessity but just because we'd like to move to a different house/neighborhood.

I just got a call from our realtor that was interesting. She said a buyer's realtor contacted her and before her clients even want to look at our house, they want to know if we'd take a cash offer of $50,000 less than our asking price. We've only been in the house 3 years -- going down $50k would mean we would be selling for about $20k less than what we paid for it. This may be a good deal for someone who needs to sell but we DON'T NEED to sell. I'm a bit dazed at the "offer" even before they see the place.

After the initial shock, I got my brain cells back into alignment and started looking at the situation. The house that we want is still on the market. So, if we go ahead and sell our current home, even at a loss, we could move forward on the "dream" home. That is really all I can figure as the upside to going so low on the sale of our house. With our current home off our backs, we could potentially strike a great deal on the other end in the purchase of the new home -- the owners of that home moved out of state a few years ago and I'm sure they are extremely motivated on selling the house as it is vacant and just sitting there...year after year... so they may take a low offer. Hmmm ... the thinking continues....

iTunes and Paypal are crazy!

October 6th, 2009 at 09:20 pm

DH gets 3 consecutive emails from Paypal late Sunday night around 11pm. They were receipts for payments for purchases made at iTunes... DH hasn't bought anything off of iTunes in over a year or more. We knew immediately that someone must have hacked into his iTunes account, purchased some stuff, and since his iTunes account is linked to Paypal as the source of payment... voila. He changed his passwords and emailed PayPal and iTunes. Paypal responds within an hour stating that after their "investigation", the charges were valid and there wasn't a thing they could do about it. iTunes waited until Monday to write back and say that they wouldn't do anything without a court order!!! We don't even recognize any of the stuff these hackers bought as they weren't songs or anything "normal"!! Geez. I can only imagine how many more charges would've kept coming through if we hadn't been right there at our computer when those emails were coming in and could immediately change our passwords.

Thank goodness for our good ol' credit card company that we have been with for at least the last 15 years. I called them up, they credited us the amounts, and told us not to worry about the charges. They will figure it out with Paypal from here for us.

Sure, there are horror stories about credit cards and such but not once have we had a huge commotion about charges we didn't ever do. About 5 years ago, someone hacked into DH's paypal account directly and bought a laptop or something from Russia. Paypal didn't bluntly come out and say anything was our fault at that time but it sure was our burden of proof to show that we didn't go to Russia and purchase a laptop! Our credit card company immediately issued the refund for us back then even though Paypal was still "investigating" it. I absolutely despise Paypal's fraud department but with DH on ebay all the time, it is an evil necessity.