Irony and Rambles
When the universe conspires to give me a kick in the head, I listen.
So last night I realised I'm up to max on both credit cards. This is not such a good thing and I resolved to talk to parents about it. This morning when I woke up, as previously chronicled, I had my weekly horoscope email in my inbox, which said "Mars moves into the sign of Aries, and this may encourage you to take action to resolve any issues associated with loans or a credit card debt. You will want to sort this matter out once and for all, and this is the time to get down to action. Don't leave it any longer." So I figured I was on the right track.
Then, when I sat down to watch football with my dad, he handed me an article from The Washington Post on how the new generation views and handles debt, talking about how kids today run up credit card debt and such. I finished reading it and Dad said "Does that sound like any of your friends?" laughingly.
So I bit the bullet and admitted that I had gotten myself into trouble, and asked him for a loan of $500 to help me out, to be repaid when I get my income tax returns (those should come out to roughly $1000). He said "Is that the whole amount or only part of the story?" and I said "That is the amount I am willing to ask for and I will fix the rest myself." He kinda nodded and when I said I was really aggravated that I had fucked up so badly, he shrugged and said "Not the first time it's happened. Hell, not the first time it's happened in this house" which really made me gape, because I'd always had this image of my parents as incredibly prudent managers. He told me that this was not true, and that some lessons are best learned by doing. Then he said that at least it was a problem that can be fixed with the application of a few dollars, and there are worse things I could have done, such as getting pregnant. Put that way, it made a lot of sense.
So I've buried my pride and asked for some help. $500 isn't much against $2850 in debts, but I can do this. I can. I know where I fucked up and as far as I'm concerned, apart from books and Dana's Christmas present, the cards stay in the wallet and do not get used. Period. End of bloody story. If I can't pay for it with cash and still meet my credit card payments, then I don't get it. This is how I used to use my credit cards, and it's something I would do well to remember. I think I'm going to look into an interest-free balance transfer which would save me about $30/month if I transfer off my Visa.
So. That's taken care of and I owe the Goddess a big prayer of thank-you and Spirit an "Ack! I'm in goop up to my eyeballs! HELP ME!" prayer.
In other news, some stuff I haven't written about the past few days because I've been stressing over money so much:
So my flight was Friday night. I get to the airport around 4:45, get boarding pass, check baggage, and so on. Stop by the food court to grab some Panda Express (about the only thing that didn't look vomit-worthy, although PE is still pretty bad), then go to my gate. The plane departing before mine is delayed because the arrival of the previous flight was delayed, so I get shunted off to another gate. Arrive there (with a brief stop by Starbucks for some iced tea, as I was dying for one--and they fucked up my order. When will they learn that "sweetened" means "sweetened"? Cause when they get it right it's awesome, but they only do that about %33 of the time!). Once there, we find that the plane assigned to us is experiencing maintenance problems, something to do with the lights in the cockpit. (Scheduled departure was 7:41 pm). Come to about 7:55 pm, and they decide to just put us on a different plane altogether, so I get sent along to yet another gate. Plane finally takes off around 8:30. I fell asleep before we even started taxiing down the runway, and didn't really wake up till we were descending toward BWI.
Yesterday I slept in an awful lot, and then we went to dinner at my mom's friend Joanne's house. Their house is fucking beautiful, I want a house of that size and to be able to decorate it that prettily :) They have an 18 year old son, Ryan, another teenage son named Cory, and a 3 year old daughter named Danielle. Dani is just the cutest thing ever. She was really shy the first couple hours we were there, and then by the end of the night she climbed up in my lap in her PJ's, cuddled up on my shoulder and stayed there. It was sooooo cute and I so want to have kids when I'm a bit older and married :) As much of a headache as they must undoubtedly be!
Today we were supposed to go get a Christmas tree, but Dad had work to do this morning so he didn't wake me up, and it started raining so we didn't do much in the way of tree-shopping. Now, I'm off to watch the Skins/Cowboys game :)
Oh, and knux, sorry about the Bills....but given the way the first 5 minutes went, you'll undoubtedly get to mock me and my team later, so don't feel too bad, luv. :)
So last night I realised I'm up to max on both credit cards. This is not such a good thing and I resolved to talk to parents about it. This morning when I woke up, as previously chronicled, I had my weekly horoscope email in my inbox, which said "Mars moves into the sign of Aries, and this may encourage you to take action to resolve any issues associated with loans or a credit card debt. You will want to sort this matter out once and for all, and this is the time to get down to action. Don't leave it any longer." So I figured I was on the right track.
Then, when I sat down to watch football with my dad, he handed me an article from The Washington Post on how the new generation views and handles debt, talking about how kids today run up credit card debt and such. I finished reading it and Dad said "Does that sound like any of your friends?" laughingly.
So I bit the bullet and admitted that I had gotten myself into trouble, and asked him for a loan of $500 to help me out, to be repaid when I get my income tax returns (those should come out to roughly $1000). He said "Is that the whole amount or only part of the story?" and I said "That is the amount I am willing to ask for and I will fix the rest myself." He kinda nodded and when I said I was really aggravated that I had fucked up so badly, he shrugged and said "Not the first time it's happened. Hell, not the first time it's happened in this house" which really made me gape, because I'd always had this image of my parents as incredibly prudent managers. He told me that this was not true, and that some lessons are best learned by doing. Then he said that at least it was a problem that can be fixed with the application of a few dollars, and there are worse things I could have done, such as getting pregnant. Put that way, it made a lot of sense.
So I've buried my pride and asked for some help. $500 isn't much against $2850 in debts, but I can do this. I can. I know where I fucked up and as far as I'm concerned, apart from books and Dana's Christmas present, the cards stay in the wallet and do not get used. Period. End of bloody story. If I can't pay for it with cash and still meet my credit card payments, then I don't get it. This is how I used to use my credit cards, and it's something I would do well to remember. I think I'm going to look into an interest-free balance transfer which would save me about $30/month if I transfer off my Visa.
So. That's taken care of and I owe the Goddess a big prayer of thank-you and Spirit an "Ack! I'm in goop up to my eyeballs! HELP ME!" prayer.
In other news, some stuff I haven't written about the past few days because I've been stressing over money so much:
So my flight was Friday night. I get to the airport around 4:45, get boarding pass, check baggage, and so on. Stop by the food court to grab some Panda Express (about the only thing that didn't look vomit-worthy, although PE is still pretty bad), then go to my gate. The plane departing before mine is delayed because the arrival of the previous flight was delayed, so I get shunted off to another gate. Arrive there (with a brief stop by Starbucks for some iced tea, as I was dying for one--and they fucked up my order. When will they learn that "sweetened" means "sweetened"? Cause when they get it right it's awesome, but they only do that about %33 of the time!). Once there, we find that the plane assigned to us is experiencing maintenance problems, something to do with the lights in the cockpit. (Scheduled departure was 7:41 pm). Come to about 7:55 pm, and they decide to just put us on a different plane altogether, so I get sent along to yet another gate. Plane finally takes off around 8:30. I fell asleep before we even started taxiing down the runway, and didn't really wake up till we were descending toward BWI.
Yesterday I slept in an awful lot, and then we went to dinner at my mom's friend Joanne's house. Their house is fucking beautiful, I want a house of that size and to be able to decorate it that prettily :) They have an 18 year old son, Ryan, another teenage son named Cory, and a 3 year old daughter named Danielle. Dani is just the cutest thing ever. She was really shy the first couple hours we were there, and then by the end of the night she climbed up in my lap in her PJ's, cuddled up on my shoulder and stayed there. It was sooooo cute and I so want to have kids when I'm a bit older and married :) As much of a headache as they must undoubtedly be!
Today we were supposed to go get a Christmas tree, but Dad had work to do this morning so he didn't wake me up, and it started raining so we didn't do much in the way of tree-shopping. Now, I'm off to watch the Skins/Cowboys game :)
Oh, and knux, sorry about the Bills....but given the way the first 5 minutes went, you'll undoubtedly get to mock me and my team later, so don't feel too bad, luv. :)