I'm still trying to come up with car money

I just don't have the amount of money that I had to spend to get my car worked on. I was very surprised at how much it ended up costing. I was not expecting to have to get major work done so I had very little saved up.

I ended up taking a credit union loan against a certificate of deposit that I have. I would love to pay as much down as possible before the loan comes due so I don't have to use the certificate. It doesn't look good though so I will have to use the certificate money. I don't want to use more than 1/2 even though I think I will.

So far I'm on track to have $200 paid off but to use half I would need another $450 by April 1st. That doesn't include the fact that I'm trying to pay off credit card debt too.

Sigh debt sucks!

My car is a mess

I finally got around to getting my car inspected and the bill was out of this world. It was over $1,600 but since I paid in cash, it was $1,560 which is ridiculous. I needed a lot of motor work done and the parts were almost as expensive as the labor. Usually the parts are dirt cheap but labor is a lot so I was surprised.

The worse part is that it was almost 3 times what I had actually put away for a car expense so I had to dip way into savings to pay the bill. I think I'm most frustrated because it's a small economy car and I only drove 6K miles last year. Yes, 6 thousand! The only reason I needed an emissions test was because I was exempt the year before and you can't go two years in a row without the test.

I love having my car but some days I really wonder if it's all worth it.

Please don't let my car cost too much

My car is way past due for inspection. It was supposed to get done in July and here we are in October and it's still not done. I was trying to push it back so it would coincide with my registration but I thought it would take me another year or two to get them synced.

I was going to go this week but then I decided that I didn't know how much it would cost so I decided to push it back until next week. That way I can take it just before I get paid and I know that I'll have enough to cover the cost.

I guess I procrastinate so much because I barely drive the car. Oh well, it needs to be done so I'll get on it.

Ugh Fall

So it's Fall already. You can tell by the fact that there is fall foliage on the trees, and the ground, in addition to the chill in the air. Sports enthusiasts love this type of weather but I hate it. I hate it every year when the seasons change and it seems to get worse.

I could move to somewhere warm, which is my dream by the way, but I have family obligations that are keeping me in the area. So for now it's just hoping and wishing and saving for a tropical vacation to take my mind off of the fact that it's cold outside.

Maybe if I keep envisioning Summer I won't notice the cold. Think that will work?

My car still isn't inspected

After I decided that I wasn't going anywhere for my vacation, I decided not to get my car inspected. I decided not to take the car in during my vacation so I would have it in case I decided to do any running around. Turns out that really wasn't necessary as I only ventured out a few times. I could have had the car done and back and still had several days to do running around.

I do have to still get it done but I'm going to put it off for another week or so. The inspection expired in July so it's not like I have to rush because I'm already late. I've thought about putting it off until October so the inspection matches the registration but I thought that would be pushing it.

To be perfectly honest, I'm just not ready to part with the several hundred dollars that I know it's going to cost me. Cars can be expensive!

I won't be going to a baseball game next week

Man things just keep getting worse and worse for me. First there was no real vacation planned which totally bites! I had gotten over that and I decided that I would do a mini-trip or two. Then last week I was out and I noticed that my car is not driving right at all. Did I mention that the inspection is expired so I would have to get that taken care of before I go anywhere? I also won't be able to get my car into a garage until Monday or Tuesday and I wanted to leave Monday?

That's not even the biggest reason that I'm not going though. I wanted to go to Toronto and watch a Yankees game. I was gonna shlep all the way up there Sunday, stay the night and go to the game on Monday, then shlep back Tuesday morning. It would have cost a few hundred bucks but it beats sitting at home doing nothing for a week.

Alas, it looks like I'm stuck in couchville for the week.

I got my spam problem taken care of

It was an easier fix than I thought it would be. Instead of logging in to my database and uploading all kinds of filters and comment boxes, I just increased the number of comments that I could see on my dashboard. Now instead of 20 comments, I see 250 at a time. Even though I had over 10k comments, 4 deletions is 1k comments so it really took no time at all to get them all deleted. I think it took me a little over a half an hour and that's while I was surfing and doing other stuff  in multiple windows.

It is so much easier to delete 2k spam comments every couple of days when you can load more at one time. Now if I could only figure out how to stop the comments and I would be very happy. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Spam sucks!

One of my other blogs gets a lot of spam comments, I mean a lot. I made a post Friday and cleaned out my spam filter. Today I go in to make a new post and I have over 6K comments. Yes 6 Thousand, and they're all junk!

I don't know what spam list I got made a part of but this stinks. Especially since it takes so long to load all of those comments. Then I usually delete some and the page errors out and I have to start over. Usually only about 1-2 thousand get deleted each go-round. As I type, I've been waiting almost 10 minutes for the comments to load. It doesn't help that I'm using a busy network today so it's going extra slow.

I just wish I could figure out how to make this stop.

Blogging Part 3

This is my last post on this subject. But I just keep thinking of things to make everyone better bloggers.

Write quality content. It's easy to write a post just to get something out there. But when people read it, they think what the heck is that. Believe me, they won't be back. Take time to write quality posts. Use spell-check, it's your friend. If you have to, write posts in advance and save them as drafts. Then publish as necessary.

Post often. Again, don't just post junk but you need to have regular posts. Make a schedule, or decide to post 3 times a week and try to stick to it. People understand that life happens and sometimes you won't be able to make your schedule. But don't make a post one day, the next post a week later, then skip a week or two. If your visitors don't see fresh material at least once or twice a week, they probably won't come back.

Put you email address out there for people to email you with questions. The reason? Some people just don't feel comfortable leaving comments but may have something they want to say. Maybe they feel what they have to say is personal and feel more at ease with email. Help them out. Either put your email address in your sidebar or on your about me page. To help catch spam, get a separate Yahoo or G-Mail account just for blogging.

If anyone has any ideas, leave a comment and help everybody become better bloggers.

Some things I've learned about blogging Part 2

This is a continuation of things I've learned about blogging. The more I think about it, the more things that come to me.

Building readership takes time. Some bloggers become really popular overnight. That's the exception not the norm. Most bloggers that have a following have been blogging for over 2 years. They've grown and their audience has grown with them. That also goes back to keeping true to the theme of your blog. If I have a following on my blog, and then I go way off track, I'll lose some of my readers. Once you lose a reader, you don't always get the chance to get them back.

You have to promote your blog. Make it easy for people to find you. Join communities, forums and exchange links and posts. Put your link in your email as your signature. Don't spam people however. If you go to a forum or community that you've never been to and just start putting your url everywhere, it will turn people off.

Some blogs are just no good. We've all seen them. Posts that make absolutely no sense, misspellings and poor grammar. Yet, they seem to be popular. Do not follow their lead. They may be popular because people are making fun of them. As tempting as it sounds it's not quality traffic and it's not likely to last. Keep doing what you're doing and your readership will increase.

Encourage your friends and family to read your blog. None of my friends read my blog. It's like pulling teeth to get them to visit occasionally. Fahgetabout them reading it regularly. They don't know what their missing. Only about 5% of my family is on the internet. Sad but true. I keep trying to get them on the internet, but they just won't budge. If you can get your family to read your blog, that can give you a boost in traffic. An added bonus is that they will send your site to their friends and their friends' friends.

I'll probably think of more things to write. I'm always learning something new about my blog and blogging in general. What things have your learned during your blogging career?

Some things I've learned about blogging

This is another post that I wrote eons ago. I actually wrote it back in 2007 or 2008 when I first started my blog. Anyway, better late than never.

Nothing earth shattering, just some observations that I've made.

One of the biggest things I've learned is that you should stay true to your blog. My other blogger blog is supposed to be a personal finance blog. That blog has lost its focus big time. I have a blog on my own domain which will be strictly personal finance. My personal finance categories include school, because it's personal growth and directly impacts my finances. I may change the title of that blog to reflect the fact that it's not just personal finance related anymore.

I've also learned that I am at the mercy of Google for getting my blog indexed. This blog has no rank since it's brand new. Hopefully when Google does their next update I'll go up to a 1, or better yet a 2. The higher your page rank, the more visitors you have. People are also more likely to link to you and help promote your blog.

While SEO (search engine optimization) is important, it's not the deciding factor on what you should blog about. You want to make your blog easy to find. SEO helps with that. Imagine your blog being #1 on Google search for whatever term people are looking for.

I've learned lots of other things that I will take into consideration, and attempt to put into action. I'm trying to put all of these things together to make me a better blogger. That benefits everyone. I become a better writer and my blog becomes more interesting to read.

I need a realistic furniture budget

My bedroom set is done, toast, finito -or however you spell it, and you get my drift. I need a new bedroom set. I got it when I moved into my current place. I thought I was moving out of town so I didn't want to spend a lot of money because I didn't plan on taking the furniture with me.

Then a lot of things happened and I decided to stay put. But I still have this cheap awful furniture. The mattress is worn and it needs to be replaced. I am not buying another piece of furniture as long as I'm in my current place. However I need a realistic budget as to how much new furniture will set me back.

I'm thinking of going piece mill and buying one thing at a time and doing a build-a-bedroom if you will. That way I can totally control the costs and I don't have to buy anything unless I have the cash. Before I make any final decisions however, I need to know what it's really going to cost me. I saw a bed for less than $600 but I still need mattress. No box spring because of the design of the frame. I also saw an entire set that would set me back over $2k which I absolutely do not have.

Maybe I'll go out in the next couple of weeks to see what I'm up against.

Allergy smallergy...apparently

Well I went to the allergist and got blood-work done. It took a week for the results to come in but I'm not allergic to anything that they tested me for. I made sure the pistachios, cola (or caffeine) and chocolate were all on the list but it came back negative.

I may have to go back and pay out of pocket to get another test done. It's the "prick" test where they put a bunch of dots on your arm and prick each one with an known allergen to see if it causes a reaction. It's not covered though since I already had a test done.

At this point I'm willing to go out of pocket and figure this out once and for all.

Great I have a new allergy

I've known that I was allergic to chocolate for a while now. I'm also allergic to regular brown cola. I can drink diet cola but not regular. I guess it's the amount of sugar vs artificial sweetener that gets me. I can also drink any other kind of soda out there, from Mountain Dew to any flavored soda (pineapple, grape). It's weird but I adapt.

Well yesterday I broke out something terrible and got blisters out the wazoo. I had a small amount of soda and chocolate and it should have happened on Sunday. Well it seems I am allergic to nuts. I ate a half of a bag on Sunday evening and Monday I paid for it.

As long as I have each thing in moderation I'm good. But it's annoying as hell to be allergic to so many things that I enjoy eating.

I need to stay away from chocolate

I'm allergic to chocolate in an annoying way. It gives me hives, makes me itch and occasionally gives me cold sores. But who can really give up chocolate? Especially when you've been eating it all of your life?

I usually keep Benadryl in my desk but I didn't have any yesterday. So after lunch I was itching and scratching like crazy. I took a pill as soon as I got home. I also added a couple to my purse to bring them to work for the next time this happens.

Unfortunately I know this will happen again. I just can't quit chocolate!

My 2013 resolutions

First let me say that this is posted across all of my blogs so if you're following my blogs (especially my blogger blogs), you'll see the same exact posting.
My goals are :

• Increase my liquid savings by $2,500-3,000.
• Add 1 $250 CD bringing me to 6 CD's. After I get my liquid account to $3,000 all additional savings will go into the cd's.
• Add $300 to my stock account.
• Save up at least half of the amount for my bedroom suite. With 24 months same as cash I'll be able to pay it over time.
• Close on my house no later than July. It should be sooner but I could push it back a few months.
• Lose 1 pants size. Sure why not! It never happens but whatever. 
• Save $1,000 for moving expenses and trips home. I have to go home at least 3 times this year including getting my stuff out of storage.

Nice and short. Hopefully I'll meet most of them.