Miscellany

Well, we got Maryanne off to Europe last night. So now I can get back to focusing on my DEBT.

I checked my on-line Explanation of Benefits from the insurance company—and apparently Janet actually processed the claims on Monday!! (It is Saturday as I type.) So it looks like I'll be getting over $600 back!!

I want to emphasize that this is money I absolutely positively would not have been getting back if I hadn't spent months working on it... Still I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch.

On other fronts, that woman came over to look at homeschool books. She bought two books for $13. WASTE MY TIME!! On the other hand, even $13 six or seven times will lead to $100. On the third hand, it forced me to dig through my homeschool inventory and I popped a number of those items right onto Amazon. I already sold one! Two of the books are selling for over $40... Well, as always they're only actually selling for that if anyone buys them. But that's what they're priced at.

On still other fronts, I WILL sell the silver. I talked to my uncle a couple of days ago. He was very blunt. “It would have been different if this had been your grandmother's silver and she'd used it for years and it had sentimental value. But it doesn't. If you're not using it, sell it. It's more important to be out of debt.” So that made me feel better.

It's been a bit difficult to decide exactly how to go about selling it, though. I need to get an exact price from the coin store. Then I need to continue my research on eBay and Amazon and decide the best way to proceed. It's more complicated than you might think. Do I sell one fork at a time or all six in a set? Do I sell the entire set whole or do it piecemeal? Now that Maryanne is off and that work is done, I'll be able to focus a bit more on selling off the silver.

It looks like it still might turn into a darn fine month.

My Boyfriend the Bunny

Yes, MY BUNNY.

It all started when Cathy was obsessively playing Animal Crossing. I saw her virtual room and realized she had lined it with animal cages. I thought (probably rightly so) that this was how she envisioned her perfect world.

So we started adding pets.

We already had a dog.

Then we got a bird. Cathy tamed it. A month later, we got a companion bird for our bird.

Then we got a bunny and a ferret.

And tadpoles. That didn't work out so well. But we still have all the others.

The bunny in particular is a family favorite. He's hilarious. It's like having a toddler hopping around your house all day. And he does hop around the house all day. The bunny and the dog get along.

Once when the bunny was cold, he crawled into the dog's crate (with the dog) to warm up.

The great thing about having a bunny is that they're snuggly. You can just hold them and pet them while watching TV or whenever. It's hard to hold a dog. And cats eventually get fed up with you and sometimes just don't deign to hang out with you at all. But bunnies are sociable, and ours is generally quite amenable to being petted.

And bunnies potty train! We haven't had any incidents. So it's all good.

He just came up to lick my feet. He loves licking feet. We conjecture that it's all about the salt. The surest way to piss the bunny off is to wear socks. Then he'll try to claw them off and get nowhere and it's really kind of funny.

The bunny is my boyfriend. Cute. Cuddly. Reliable. Never says the wrong thing. Always there when I need him. And I never find myself sitting around waiting for him to call. He's perfect!!

Now Cathy wants a pot-bellied pig. But I'm trying to avoid it...

Again with the Black Lab!!

I sold the Webkinz black lab! Again.

I sold it the first time for $19.96 (with shipping) and the second time for $22.39 (with shipping), and the original bogus shipping cost me $2.58, so once all is said and done, I come out 25 cents behind what my original profit should have been. Hopefully this buyer actually knows what his address is!!

My bunny just thumped on the floor a number of times as I sat typing. Bunnies thump when they're pissed off. Finally, I figured out that he wanted his grass supply replenished. I grabbed some grass from the fridge (which Maryanne had dutifully swiped from an unsprayed horse pasture) and poured it into his box. Then he was happy.

Poor bunny. In four days, Maryanne leaves for a month in Europe. Once the grass runs out, he can thump all he wants. There will be no more. He will have to content himself with his usual supply of hay. And lettuce. And carrots. And apple cores. And Mesa Sunrise cereal. And millet sticks that he steals when I try to feed the birds... Poor, poor bunny!

In addition to packing up the black lab, I've packed up another set of CDs from The Teaching Company for a refund.

And last night I laid out all of the silver silverware from my grandma. I tried to start making intelligent decisions about it. I checked eBay. I checked Amazon. I debated finishing the set. I weighed individual pieces—only to discover that they weighed about TWICE what Tiffany had told me that they weighed!!! Now I know I was using a food scale, not a special jewelers' scale. But knowing what constitutes “one ounce” has kept my diabetic child alive thus far. And I'm pretty sure my food scale isn't so bad that it reads one ounce as two ounces!

The realization that I will receive at least between $500 and $600 for the set (such as it is) makes me lean more heavily towards selling it. BUT I have been agonizing over whether or not to keep it for one of my kids. Is this hoarding again? I've had this silver for over 30 years. I've never used it. I've never tried to complete the set. I've never turned into the kind of person who pulls out the formal china. (I don't own formal china.) I don't really see my anti-materialistic animal-rights-activist kids going that way, either.

I'm leaning towards sticking with my original goal. $100 200 times. It's not like I didn't spend this money on my kids in the first place. So the silver can pay for horseback riding lessons they've already taken.

Miscellany

Janet didn't call me back. I received no check. And then her voicemail said she would be “out of the office” from the 9th to the 19th. I meant to try to locate a supervisor, but I'm pretty certain that time got away from me and it's almost the 19th, so I'll just try Janet again...

Maryanne is leaving on Friday to visit relatives in Europe for a month. Then on Saturday, a bunch of the Survivors come to town!! I'm looking forward to that. And on Sunday, Mad Men starts again. It's all good...

A couple of days ago, a woman posted on the forums requesting Fourth Grade homeschooling supplies. So I contacted her, then sifted through my library for books to sell her or just give her outright. Sort of a combination make some money/stop hoarding kind of thing. As my girls get older and older, it becomes increasingly obvious what I no longer need.

I took the time to check Amazon and eBay prices for the various items. As always, I was surprised. Science textbooks that were going for $100 new were selling for $3 used. And one spiralbound Calvert School book I would have just given away is going for $60!

Well, it's late July. This really would be a good time to sift through and post my various homeschooling supplies, as other moms gear up for the upcoming schoolyear. Not me, of course. I'm a slave driver. We homeschool yearround, especially during the summer months when it's too hot and crowded to do much of anything outside here in Central Florida. Even the swimming pool water is uncomfortably warm.

It's so hot that the cold tap water comes out warm, a peculiar Floridian phenomenon I've never encountered elsewhere. In summer, the cold water comes out warm, but in winter it comes out freezing. You know, when you'd prefer it to come out a little warmer!

Finally, yesterday I got a refund check for $129 from The Teaching Company. Now that I know it's a painless process, I'm going to send some more of their stuff back. I feel a little guilty, but they do have a lifetime money-back guarantee and I'm just not watching those disks, years after having bought them!

The Continuing Saga of the Black Lab

Janet didn't call that day. Or the next. And my attempts to reach her were unsuccessful...

On other fronts, the black lab came back in the mail today. “Insufficient address”. It turns out that in the buyer's particular locale, there is no street address delivery, and I had sent it to a street address—which the buyer knew! The post office only delivers to P.O. boxes. Must be rural. And knowing that, this woman let this drag on and on, acting like it was MY fault!

I wrote her a terse message informing her of what had happened, being careful to contain my emotions. She wrote back:

I think that is true. I had requested expedited shipping, which should be fedex or UPS which would have worked. I am glad the package was returned and thank you for giving me the credit back. I have bought another from someone else as my son was so impatient. Thanks for all of your help, I am sure someone else will pick it up soon as it is discontinued.
Thanks again.
Lindy

“I think that is true.”?!?!!??! Do ya live there or don'tcha? Do you KNOW WHERE YOU GET YOUR MAIL???

“Expedited shipping” on Amazon means the package must be received within “two to six days after it's mailed”. It does NOT mean UPS or FEDEX. Yeah, right. Just how much money did she expect me to spend on shipping???

As was, I shipped it regular mail for $2.58 because that guaranteed timely delivery right there. You know, if she were actually receiving mail at the address I was given. Stupid cow. No, wait. My kids would say, “That's an insult to cows.” Too true, too true.

So I'm out $2.58 and a trip to the post office over this woman.

Oh, well. I guess if you do more selling, you run into more problems. So that's TWO. This woman and (have you forgotten??) Kenneth L. Myers.

The good news is that I was able to turn right back around and relist my Webkinz black lab for $5 more. The price has gone up. (Okay, what's really gone up is the minimum price anyone was charging. Whether or not a buyer will actually pay it remains to be seen. Note that the Fourth of July has come and gone and no one bought my Lego Statute of Liberty!)

Pursuing My Insurance Cash, Part 1

I called my contact at the insurance company yesterday. Yes, I have my own person. Her name is Janet. Apparently, my case is just that complicated.

Janet lives in upstate New York. She works from home. Her family all live on the same street. For lunch every day, she goes over to her father's house. She also helps out her daughter, who lives just up the street with her own little girl; her daughter's husband died after they'd been married only two or three years. It was either a car accident or cancer, I forget.

You would think that the fact that I know all of this means that Janet and I have developed something of a relationship. Nope. It's just that Janet has that TMI thing going. Notice that I didn't tell you about her various medical ailments, but I've been privy to those, too.

Anyway, I called Janet. Uncharacteristically, she answered, which was great, because she almost never returns her calls. We talked. She said she'd send a check out that very day and would call me by 4pm to let me know it was done. I thanked her, knowing that she would probably do neither.

I don't know if she sent out the check, but she never did call.

Sometimes Janet gets right on something and does what she says she'll do. Other times, nothing. Actually, most times, nothing. Then I keep calling and calling. By the time I finally reach her weeks later, of course she no longer remembers what I'm calling about. And since I have my own insurance person, who is somehow detached from the rest of the system, I wouldn't even know where to go to contact her supervisor. And that might even prove counterproductive. After all, sometimes Janet follows through!

Dealing with Janet is like dealing with a slot machine. Just keep pulling the handle. One of these times, money will come pouring out of the machine! I feel like one of those pigeons in a Skinner Box, who will peck at the little button until their beaks literally start to smoke, because sometimes, every now and then, they will be rewarded by a food pellet.

Card #4

My fourth card is my Disney Visa card. I got this card when they first came out. It is my primary use card. It is the one I whip out to make purchases (although, really, a rarely do that except when paying at the pump). It is the one I use when shopping on-line. It is the one I have all my regular monthly charges on (like my alarm system). I only do that last one if they make me; I prefer to pay bills that are on paper in front of me, so I can see my money slipping through my fingers...

This credit card has a 13.24% interest rate.

It was always my plan to keep the balance low and pay it off monthly. But that has never worked out.

It is also always the card at which I throw extra cash first, because the interest rate is higher than on the other cards. And because of my ongoing fantasy that someday I'll be able to pay it off monthly.

Well, that day appears to be almost here! On June 4th, my balance was $4,437.04, but by July 4th, it was down to $1,795.77. That's probably the lowest balance I've ever had on that account, not counting the time or two I paid off credit card balances using my second mortgage. (STUPID STUPID STUPID)

Two more good months of managing my spending and attempting to acquire $100 200 times, and my Disney Visa card may actually be under control!! That will be an exciting day.

I'm not really doing much to try to control my spending. It's just that I feel really stupid spending money with one hand these days while trying to rake it in with the other. It's sort of a self-motivator to spend less.

I do love my Disney Visa. I get points which we are able to spend as cash on stuff at Disney World, and since we live right here, that works great. Every year, I use points to pay for our annual visit to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. That way, I don't feel like such an idiot for “paying” over $150 for a parade and a bunch of candy. (We already have annual passes, so the rest of the benefits don't really count for us.)