(no subject)
Well once again it's been months since my last update.
Things with me are good, though we have our first real challenge ahead of us. Michelle got laid off on Dec 29. the first Monday after we came home from spending Xmas with her family. She was of course very upset. Her company decided to move her job to the home office in Scottsdale to re-structure and keep costs down in this economy. She got some severance which was nice, but we are now in February and she has applied to a million jobs, and so far there has been very little response.
Luckily I'm quite secure in my job, and the raise I got over the holidays was nice. We have had to cut back on a few things, but thankfully I make enough to cover absolutely everything, though it may get a bit tight at times. We have no credit card debt at all, but Michelle still has a car payment and student loan payments, so having to pay for everything on a single salary can be taxing, we don't have a hell of a lot left over at the end of the month. Because of that though, we saved quite a bit each month, so we are good to go for a long time.
The only thing that bugs me is that Michelle's work used to pay for her cell phone, instead of giving her a work phone, so she went out and got a nice blackberry with a data plan and her work used to pay all $100 of her bill every month. Now she's locked in a contract of course, and she reduced her plan as much as she is allowed to but her bill is still $62 a month when it used to be $45. I was against her getting that phone in the first place. When her work used to pay for her $45 bill that was great, but then my office gave me a blackberry (so now I have 2 phones which I hate) so she felt she had to have one since work would pay. I fought her on it, and lost, and now when her bill comes in I see the look on her face that basically says (damn I hate when I'm wrong) lol. But no matter, she'll find something eventually. Until then she has picked up some extra classes, she teaches spin 3-4 times a week now. At $25 a pop it at least covers gas or whatever.
Other than all of that, life is good. We are cooking a lot more at home and I've been BBQ'in a lot. Specially this past weekend when the temps hit the high 60's. I'm looking forward to getting back on the bikes and doing some rides. I have a 62 mile ride coming up in April that has a 3.5 mile killer climb at the end. So just when you are already tired you have 3.5 miles of hell. At least it's all down hill to the finish. I'll go from 5mph up the hill to about 55mph down the hill. woooooosh!
Things with me are good, though we have our first real challenge ahead of us. Michelle got laid off on Dec 29. the first Monday after we came home from spending Xmas with her family. She was of course very upset. Her company decided to move her job to the home office in Scottsdale to re-structure and keep costs down in this economy. She got some severance which was nice, but we are now in February and she has applied to a million jobs, and so far there has been very little response.
Luckily I'm quite secure in my job, and the raise I got over the holidays was nice. We have had to cut back on a few things, but thankfully I make enough to cover absolutely everything, though it may get a bit tight at times. We have no credit card debt at all, but Michelle still has a car payment and student loan payments, so having to pay for everything on a single salary can be taxing, we don't have a hell of a lot left over at the end of the month. Because of that though, we saved quite a bit each month, so we are good to go for a long time.
The only thing that bugs me is that Michelle's work used to pay for her cell phone, instead of giving her a work phone, so she went out and got a nice blackberry with a data plan and her work used to pay all $100 of her bill every month. Now she's locked in a contract of course, and she reduced her plan as much as she is allowed to but her bill is still $62 a month when it used to be $45. I was against her getting that phone in the first place. When her work used to pay for her $45 bill that was great, but then my office gave me a blackberry (so now I have 2 phones which I hate) so she felt she had to have one since work would pay. I fought her on it, and lost, and now when her bill comes in I see the look on her face that basically says (damn I hate when I'm wrong) lol. But no matter, she'll find something eventually. Until then she has picked up some extra classes, she teaches spin 3-4 times a week now. At $25 a pop it at least covers gas or whatever.
Other than all of that, life is good. We are cooking a lot more at home and I've been BBQ'in a lot. Specially this past weekend when the temps hit the high 60's. I'm looking forward to getting back on the bikes and doing some rides. I have a 62 mile ride coming up in April that has a 3.5 mile killer climb at the end. So just when you are already tired you have 3.5 miles of hell. At least it's all down hill to the finish. I'll go from 5mph up the hill to about 55mph down the hill. woooooosh!