FINANCIAL WHOAs

It's My Party and I'll Cry...when I see the bill

I have a confession to make. I really don't like writing on this blog nearly as much as I do on my other one. Thus the lack of posts. I doubt anyone even reads this one anyhow. Even though I try to make the topic of saving money funny, it just isn't as enticing to me as the everyday foibles that occur in my life. But, like the economy, I am going to keep trudging on. 

The ironic thing is that I actually have a lot that I could write about here on FINANCIAL WHOAs. We have done several things as a family to save money and stick to our budget. I don't know why I can't just sit down and write about it. Maybe this is what got our country into this mess in the first place. No one wanted to sit and talk about what was really going on. 

Anyhow, today I am going to talk about invitations. Because no matter how much money you are trying to save or how you are trying to scrimp, life goes on. And in our case, we have a first communion party to plan. Oh, how to do a nice, elegant, fun party for 70 people on a budget? What to do, what to do. I've already blown the budget on the dress. Cringing as I paid for it, I reassured myself that if Poonch can manage to keep this dress clean, then perhaps Chuckles can wear it in a couple of years. (Note to self...do NOT serve red punch at the party.)

After blowing the budget on the dress, next on my list was the invitations. I love, love the convenience of those paper web sites, you know, where you insert your info, upload a pic, and then presto, a week later you have beautiful invites at your house. Which is what I did this time, except once I got to the shopping cart page and saw the total, I thought to myself, hmmm, I can make these for much less than that! 

With a template in mind, I headed to the craft stores. I figured this would be easy. Some nice soft pink flat cards, some vellum, a little ribbon, some cross stickers, and finally the envelopes and I would be good to go. 

Oh, if only it were that simple. Dragging an under-the-weather Chuckles around with me, I searched for plain pink non-folding cards. Impossible. Wait, how about these? Perfect! Nope, there are only 20 of them, not enough. Wait, there are enough of this version...buuuuuut, no envelopes to match. 

I'll save you my pain. Let's just say that my original idea has been modified somewhat. And cross stickers? Not to be found. I am sure I will get a call from my mother...

These invites are gorgeous, but Honey, you can't even tell they are for a Communion!

The supplies are sitting by the door, exactly where I dropped the bags upon coming home. Right now I don't have the energy to see if I can make this happen. But if I can, I will have done it for 50% less than if I had just hit the "Submit Order" button on that damn web site. 

For now, channeling my creative juices...

Tweet This, Part 2

I just wanted to give an update on my last post about my experience with cursing on Twitter about our cable company. So, as we last left my digital phone debacle, ComcastBonnie had reached out to my distress tweet and offered to help. I, being the paranoid person that I am, said thanks, but no thanks. 

Days went by, and the customer service people we managed to reach via phone couldn't help at all. They insisted our phone should be up and running. Alas, it wasn't. ComcastBonnie was stuck in my head. I couldn't get her out. I suggested her to Hubby. Desperate (and without me knowing), he tweeted ComcastBonnie. Now, Hubby doesn't tweet. So, I wasn't happy with his Twitter etiquette as he reached out to her (not that my etiquette is all that great, either, but I'm just saying). Amazingly, she tweeted back and I wrestled the laptop out of Hubby's arms and took over the twittersation. In a matter of an hour, ComcastBonnie figured out our problem...our old company was refusing to release our original phone number and give it to Comcast for us to continue using. Hello?? None of the 20 or so customer service reps bothered to even hint at that. 

To make a long (and boring) story short, ComcastBonnie set the correct paperwork in motion and set up to have a tech at our house on Tuesday to make sure the problem is fixed. Just like that. 

My fingers are crossed that this will actually work, but so far, my new Twitter follow has been our best hope. 

To keep myself sane, I just keep muttering under my breath: 50 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month. Except for this month, of course.

This FINANCIAL WHOA will be continued...

Tweet This

The most amazing technological thing happened to me yesterday afternoon. In case you missed my post about our phone a while back, we decided to bundle our phone, cable, and internet with the same company. You've seen the commercials. Anyhow, although the initial installation was pretty painless, it all been all downhill from there. We were supposed to keep our old home phone number, but because of a paperwork snafu, they assigned us a new one. Small disaster. The company assured us that the problem would be fixed in no time. 

Sigh. Two weeks later and we are still in limbo. Now, although it has been nice and quiet around here without a phone ringing, it has been quite an inconvenience. For one, no one knows how to reach me so they have been calling my cell phone. Hello people, you are using up my minutes!!! Two weeks into the month, I am already over my minutes. So much for saving 50 bucks a month with the bundle. 

Unfortunately, Hubby has been out of town, so between the two of us, we have been trying to figure this out via phone. Isn't that ironic? OK, OK, I admit it. He has been the one calling the cable company because I am about as non-confrontational as it is warm and sunny here. 

At one point in the day I was so frustrated with our situation that I twittered about it. Here is my exact twitter:

Our cable company F%^&ing sucks. Their customer service can kiss my ass.

It was just a way to express my anger. I could swear at no one and hundreds of people all at the same time. This sort of confrontation is right up my alley. 

But someone was listening. Or, reading. Because here is what popped up on my screen next:

@gibby33 if you do have comcast, we're here to help. if you don't... we might still be able to point you in the right direction :)

This tweet came from ComcastBonnie. WHAT????? COMCAST TWITTERS?????

Feeling a little sheepish about my outburst, I twitted back:

@ComcastBonnie For real? Sorry for swearing! Yes, I do have comcast and we tried bundling but our home # has been messed up for 2 wks.

And the conversation continued from there. She offered to look up my account, but needed our home number. Of course I checked her profile and it seems that she really is a Comcast employee, as her Twitter account is linked directly to their site. That is her job, to watch Twitter and message people who need help. 

I was floored. Comcast twitters!! In the end, I did not direct message her my number, only because I am possibly the most paranoid person in the world, absolutely convinced that everyone out there is intent on stealing my identity. 

However, if we do not get this debacle fixed soon, I just might log back onto Twitter and send a tweet to my new friend @ComcastBonnie. 

People, it really is 2009. Customer service new millenium-style. (I still don't like our cable company, though...)

Cheap Date

One of our favorite things to do as a family is our Friday Family Movie Night. We order pizza, rent a PG movie, pop some popcorn, and just hang out. All four of us look forward to this night starting on Monday mornings. I have to admit that when we first started doing this, I viewed it as just another way to pass a weekend night with the kids. But now I truly enjoy myself and am reluctant to schedule any other plans on Friday nights. 

Budget-wise, one of the reason Hubby and I liked doing this is because it was a lot cheaper than taking a family of four to the movies. We thought we were entertaining ourselves smartly, until I actually looked at the receipts during our budget talk. Because Hubby and the girls are super picky, they only want a cheese pizza. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it for me. I need pepperoni! green peppers! onions! and maybe if it was a really tough week, some green olives! Hello, party in my mouth! One would think we could just order a half cheese, half everything else pizza, right? Wrong. 

The onion juice gets on the cheese side. I can taste the pepperoni, I know it's there!!! Wah, wah, wah! 

Thus, we always ordered TWO pizzas. A large and a small. These seemingly innocuous pizzas cost us $29 each week. A movie rental is $5.00, totaling $34. Not too bad for a night of great family entertainment, right? Unless you multiply $34 x 4 weeks, subtracting $136 from our checking account per month. All for bread, sauce, cheese and a DVD.  

In the scheme of things, $136 per month isn't so bad. But here is how I made it better. I buy a whole wheat pre-made pizza crust from Trader Joe's. We only need one, because the whole wheat is much more filling than a delivery thin-crust pizza. Hubs and the girls decorate their side with just cheese, while each week I have been switching mine around. Sometimes it's onion. One time it was goat cheese and tomato. Every time it has been delicious. Not only does it taste awesome, it is cheaper (costing us about $5 total) and it is much healthier. We don't even have to tell the girls we switched things up to save money and eat healthy. They don't even notice. A winner all around. 

 

Talk is Not Cheap

Another FINANCIAL WHOA...our home phone number is all F#$%ed up.

After Hubby and I got over our shock at how much we spent per month on lattes, we took a closer look at our monthly expenses. It occurred to me that we must talk an awful lot, seeing as we pay one company for our home phone, another company for our cell phone, and a third company for our internet. That's paying a lot of companies just to blab about our kids. However, even though I can try to cut down on my Starbucks consumption, there is NO way I can cut down on my communications. Not going to happen. 

A few months ago, Hubby had mentioned bundling our phone, internet, and cable with the same company. I am pretty sure he mentioned it while I was knee deep in little girls' laundry, so I admit I most likely only gave it half of my attention. I balked at the idea, because a) I am not a fan of our cable company or their customer service, and b) that means a technician would have to come out to our house, which is not one of my favorite ways to spend a day. 

Back to the budget talk at the kitchen table: we figured out that we could save $50 per month for the first year of the bundling, and $30 per month after that first year. Hhhhmmm. Although $50 doesn't seem like a make-or-break number, it still is an extra $50 a month without giving anything up. Fifty bucks = 10 venti caramel macchiatos. Let's do it, I declared. 

Our local cable company gave us a 3-hour window for the installation. (Can't they just push a button on their computer, for crying out loud?) Wonderful. Who doesn't hate those damn windows? And why do they call them windows, which would indicate a short period of time? They should call them doors. 

In a computer-generated voice:

Our technician will be at your home during the door of 8AM to 8PM. A responsible person over the age of 18 must give up their entire day and be available this entire time. Thank you. 

In those 3 hours, I needed to get my 2nd grader to her school and then my preschooler off to hers. Annoyed, I remembered one of the hundred reasons I hate having technicians come to our house. 

But I digress. Upon arriving, the technician asked if we had an alarm system. 

Uh, why yes we do, I replied. 

Oh, that could be a problem, he sighed. 

I joined him in his sigh. Hubby is famous for setting these appointments up and then declaring, Everything is all set, all you have to do is let the guy in. 

Uh huh. Right.

After a quick, uninformative call to our alarm company (during which their reply to my question of whether or not our alarm system is compatible with digital phone service was...uhhhhh, it should be...), the technician got under way. He was only here for an hour or so when he informed me that everything was all set. 

Great, I replied out loud. See, I told myself, that wasn't so bad. Don't know why you get your panties into a bunch over this kind of stuff. 

With a have a great day and try to stay warm, I closed the door on him and breathed a sigh of relief. 

Later that night...

Using our home phone, Poonch called Hubby who happened to be out of town. He didn't answer, so she left him a voice mail. He called back immediately, cursing. (Luckily it was me who answered the phone and not Poonch.) He hadn't answered our call because it came up as a number he didn't recognize. It didn't even have our same area code. Turns out, we have a new phone number!  Who knew?! We have had our home number for 7 years. Everyone we know has it. Schools, the park district, everyone. When we ordered the bundling service, we made sure to ask whether or not we would have to change our phone number, which would have been a deal breaker. We were assured that we would not need a new number. 

We got back on the phone to the company. Turns out in order to keep the same number, we needed to fill out some paperwork that NO ONE told us about. Remember what I said about this company's customer service?  Not stellar, to say the least. 

To make a long story short, we will have this geeky number for more than a week, until the paperwork goes through. I don't even know what the new number is. If anyone wants to reach us, they can only do it through my cell phone.

Which, when I think about it, isn't such a bad idea after all...

All for $50 a month. 

(If it sounds like I am whining, remember, I am off my lattes. Cut me some slack.)