It's rare
I rarely update this thing anymore. I just joined a new gym a week ago today, Snap Fitness. Aww snap! The place is great, it's like 5 minutes from my house and open 24/7. And it's never crowded. Leila and I joined it together, so it's only $25/month per person. Already, I've been there 4 times and she's been there 5. This is the most frequent I've ever frequented a gym before. Back in the days before I transfered to Strayer, I was only going to Bally's Total Fitness 3 times a week max. I quit Bally's in August 2006 after going there for 3 years. Everything about Snap Fitness is better than Bally's.
Ever since I quit Bally's, I've gained a lot of weight. I hadn't even been on a scale in ages and on Saturday they took my weight at 210 lbs. That's the most I've ever weighed in my life. I blame everything, eating at restaurants, candy, Halo 3, working in an office. The most physical thing I had done in the past year was run a 5 mile race with June back in November, which made me sore for 5 days. I hadn't been to a gym in over a year when that happened. I was playing Kickball at the same time, but Kickball is hardly physical and it involves beer, so there's real healthiness deficit, despite the fact that it's a team sport. First and foremost it was a social sport. Mind you, social is code for beer. Social sports are popular with cops and firefighters.
Tomorrow, when I come into work, I will have officially worked an entire year for Key & Associates. I think I'm supposed to be having a performance review coming up too. I think that will also include a salary raise, Insha'Allah. I finally got around to setting up my 401k plan with my firm a few months ago and my boss is putting a share of her profits into the account along with my elected salary defferals.
On top of that, I also set up a Roth IRA account with Scottrade and maxed it out for tax year 2007. And I plan on maxing it out for 2008 also, as soon as I finish paying off my new car, whcih should be some time around September.
I applied for 2 credit cards last month, because I finally accepted the fact that I'm going to need to build my credit score if I ever want to apply for a mortgage or get a nice apartment or something like that. Plus, you get better rates on credit cards as time goes by. Basically, I'm treating my credit cards like debit cards and paying off the entire balance every month so there's no extra cost to buying stuff, just a little extra hassle of logging onto the website and making transfers from my checking account. I had like $1,000 on it in the first month and I saw that the minimum payment was only $20 and I was like WTF? And then I made an Excel spreadsheet to see how long it would take to pay off $1,000 if you only pay the minimum payment. I found that it'll take 8 years and be 81% more expensive than if I pay it all in one lump sum when the first bill is due. That to me, is crazy. And I think it leaves it wide open for abuse.
I was listening to a lecture on C-SPAN about the credit market and they were saying that credit card companies benefit no matter what when consumers are sufferring. That's part of why I've always been afraid to get a credit card, but now I'm like it's just a necessary evil that I have to get, but I don't have to pay interest if I don't want to.
Another thing that both Leila & I have encountered with Bank of America is that if you go into the bank and try and apply for a credit card without any previous credit card history, they'll deny you. Next thing you know, they'll start offering you a secured credit card which basically involves you putting up $300 deposit and that is used as your credit limit and there's a $30 annual fee. That's bullshit. Time value of money. The bank wants your money deposited, so they can loan it out into the money market. So the credit card company is protected and you are screwed, because you could be investing that $300 for yourself. Why should the Bank be getting to make money off of you? While this one is secured, normal credit cards are unsecured. Mortgages are credit that are secured by an asset i.e. a house.
If you apply for a normal credit card on Bank of America's website, you will probably get approved, however. Weird, huh? The other card I got was an Amazon.com Chase Visa and it accrues points when I make purchases. I had no trouble applying for this one online either. I'm thinking that credit companies are more lenient online. Maybe they assume that people with the internet are more capable of making the minimum payments each month. Who knows?
I'm retaking the Auditing & Attestation section of the CPA exam for the third time late next month. I need to really get back into heavy studying mode. March and April were bad for studying because I was running a tax preparation business and that took a lot of my free time away that would've otherwise been spent on studying. I made a nice chunk of cash with the business too.
Me & my brother joined the Bowie-Upper Marlboro Beekeepers Association and took a class that they were giving at Watkins Nature Center. We now have a hive full of thousands of bees in our backyard too that seems to bee doing well. I got stung in the neck. It was cool! But it didn't count because I was back in the house when it happened and I reached for the bee before looking in a mirror. I've had then all over my hands and neck near the hive and haven't been stung at all.
I need to go to bed. Goodnight and good luck.
Ever since I quit Bally's, I've gained a lot of weight. I hadn't even been on a scale in ages and on Saturday they took my weight at 210 lbs. That's the most I've ever weighed in my life. I blame everything, eating at restaurants, candy, Halo 3, working in an office. The most physical thing I had done in the past year was run a 5 mile race with June back in November, which made me sore for 5 days. I hadn't been to a gym in over a year when that happened. I was playing Kickball at the same time, but Kickball is hardly physical and it involves beer, so there's real healthiness deficit, despite the fact that it's a team sport. First and foremost it was a social sport. Mind you, social is code for beer. Social sports are popular with cops and firefighters.
Tomorrow, when I come into work, I will have officially worked an entire year for Key & Associates. I think I'm supposed to be having a performance review coming up too. I think that will also include a salary raise, Insha'Allah. I finally got around to setting up my 401k plan with my firm a few months ago and my boss is putting a share of her profits into the account along with my elected salary defferals.
On top of that, I also set up a Roth IRA account with Scottrade and maxed it out for tax year 2007. And I plan on maxing it out for 2008 also, as soon as I finish paying off my new car, whcih should be some time around September.
I applied for 2 credit cards last month, because I finally accepted the fact that I'm going to need to build my credit score if I ever want to apply for a mortgage or get a nice apartment or something like that. Plus, you get better rates on credit cards as time goes by. Basically, I'm treating my credit cards like debit cards and paying off the entire balance every month so there's no extra cost to buying stuff, just a little extra hassle of logging onto the website and making transfers from my checking account. I had like $1,000 on it in the first month and I saw that the minimum payment was only $20 and I was like WTF? And then I made an Excel spreadsheet to see how long it would take to pay off $1,000 if you only pay the minimum payment. I found that it'll take 8 years and be 81% more expensive than if I pay it all in one lump sum when the first bill is due. That to me, is crazy. And I think it leaves it wide open for abuse.
I was listening to a lecture on C-SPAN about the credit market and they were saying that credit card companies benefit no matter what when consumers are sufferring. That's part of why I've always been afraid to get a credit card, but now I'm like it's just a necessary evil that I have to get, but I don't have to pay interest if I don't want to.
Another thing that both Leila & I have encountered with Bank of America is that if you go into the bank and try and apply for a credit card without any previous credit card history, they'll deny you. Next thing you know, they'll start offering you a secured credit card which basically involves you putting up $300 deposit and that is used as your credit limit and there's a $30 annual fee. That's bullshit. Time value of money. The bank wants your money deposited, so they can loan it out into the money market. So the credit card company is protected and you are screwed, because you could be investing that $300 for yourself. Why should the Bank be getting to make money off of you? While this one is secured, normal credit cards are unsecured. Mortgages are credit that are secured by an asset i.e. a house.
If you apply for a normal credit card on Bank of America's website, you will probably get approved, however. Weird, huh? The other card I got was an Amazon.com Chase Visa and it accrues points when I make purchases. I had no trouble applying for this one online either. I'm thinking that credit companies are more lenient online. Maybe they assume that people with the internet are more capable of making the minimum payments each month. Who knows?
I'm retaking the Auditing & Attestation section of the CPA exam for the third time late next month. I need to really get back into heavy studying mode. March and April were bad for studying because I was running a tax preparation business and that took a lot of my free time away that would've otherwise been spent on studying. I made a nice chunk of cash with the business too.
Me & my brother joined the Bowie-Upper Marlboro Beekeepers Association and took a class that they were giving at Watkins Nature Center. We now have a hive full of thousands of bees in our backyard too that seems to bee doing well. I got stung in the neck. It was cool! But it didn't count because I was back in the house when it happened and I reached for the bee before looking in a mirror. I've had then all over my hands and neck near the hive and haven't been stung at all.
I need to go to bed. Goodnight and good luck.