Short Notes

• Car repairs – I got my car fixed yesterday. With the 5% discount from putting it on the Firestone card and my $25 off coupon it came out to $475. Not too shabby. I tried to put the $475 on the card already, but since the charge hasn’t posted on my account I can’t make the payment yet. Hopefully it will be posted by the end of the day so I can pay it off before I leave for Christmas.

• Extra income – I was right that I would get at least $100 in finals tutoring. I got $110 the last two days. I also got a check for $10 from MySurvey.com and a $3 check from Pinecone Research. My total for the month is $585 – over halfway to my goal of $1,000 in extra income in December!

• Dog Emergency – My dog got bit yesterday at daycare. I was horrified. He has a HUGE gash on his belly. It was just shocking to me because my dog is a very huge sweet heart. He tends to run away from agressive dogs. Apparently it was a very random thing – Jack walked by the dog and the dog flipped and bit him. I had to buy some alcohol pads to keep the area clean and some antibiotic to keep it from getting infected. Since I’m dropping him off for boarding on Wednesday I’ll have to accept that if it gets infected they’ll need to transport him to a vet and back. If that happens it will probably cost $1-200. Not horrific, but not in the budget. Here’s my little boy so you can see how adorable he is:

• Christmas – I need to get my packages sent out to family that I won’t see when I’m away for Christmas. I also need to do laundry and pack and make lists of what I need to take and all that. For some reason it still hasn’t hit home that I’ll be GONE in less than 36 hours for Christmas!

• Emergency Fund - I decided that for 2010 I would decrease my E-fund contribution to $33/month. That will get me approximately $400 more over the course of the year. Thus, I’m increasing my debt repayment to $1,067/month + $2/day for a grand total of $1,127/month. This will be the BASE payment. Any extra that I don’t spend in my bill paying account will be applied to my debt at the end of the month.

Don’t be surprised if my posts get a bit sparse for the next 10 days. I’ll be, as far as I know, without steady internet during that time. I don’t have a backlog of posts, so I’ll just post when I can. I will try to get two or three posts written tomorrow before I leave, but there are other things that are more important to do before then.

So if I don’t “see” you all before then – Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

~SS4BC

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