WOOT!

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Had to face some harsh financial facts. My fiscal condition is such that each time I purchase so much as a Starbucks latte, I hear a creeeak like the roof is going to come crashing down any second. Today, I took a look at my budget, and the sickening amount of credit card debt I've managed to run up. Gaaah! What a waste of cash! It would be different if I could look around and say "I got me this bling-bling on the Platinum card". But I can't. I just crapped it away...

So... Time to really knuckle down. Say I'm not going to overspend this month - and actually NOT OVERSPEND. Tighten the old belt. Get rid of cable and go with a satellite ($24.99/month and free HBO for 3 months! - as opposed to the $80/month I'm flushing with Time-Warner). Deciding to eat-in for a month - and not take grandma and daughter out for lunch at TGIFriday's and spend $45... Stuff like that.

The Kid and I had a sort of screamin, 'come to Jesus' meeting in the car. We were driving up to Palos Verdes, so she could gather some items in nature, to view through her new microscope (which she purchased using her own baby-sitting money). On the way, she began nagging me about her learning how to drive the Geo in the parking lot next to our apartment. She brought this up, not ten minutes after my financial issues had come to the surface, and the only thing I could think of was my clutch, which I have been babying for over a year, and the replacement of which will cost me about $600... I could just hear the grinding gears - the clutch cable snapping - the outlaying of cold, hard cash - the CREEEAAAKING. I got a little tense. Upon my clutch explaination - she came back with a teenagerish "Who cares!!??!! My retort was a long, screeching lecture on supply-side economics - and finished up with us living in a cardboard box... She told me I was psychotic.

Well, she got one right anyway...

January 18, 2004