Resisting the Urge To Turn On the A/C

The weather where I live has been absolutely weird. Not that its any more weird than, oh, the Torandoes, the Earthquakes, the Typhoons, the Wildfires, you know, all the stuff going on around the world because a little thing called global warming, but for my little corner and mind set, it is weird. Last week I had to get up in the middle of the night one night to turn on the heat because my house had gotten down to 65 degrees (I have an intolerance for it to be that cold, even with a blanket). Now my house is sitting at 82 degrees and I am resisting the urge to turn the air on. I have certainly reaped the benefit of not having the air or heat on this month (save those one or two FREEZING days) and so both my electric and gas bills are below budget for June. Score! But now I'm debating which is better...spending under $50 for utilities or sweating to death at night? It is also problematic that I'm the type of sleeper who cannot sleep without something, preferably something of substance, on top of me. A top sheet doesn't do it...I need at least a blanket, but I prefer my big poofy comforter. I opened the window in my bedroom to see if I can coax some air into there and if I were truly serious I'd go dig out my fan from my dorm-days to stick there. But if I'm going to plug something in, I might as well just turn the air on, right? Yea, I'll keep telling myself that.

So what temperature do I say to heck with it, and turn my a/c on and eat the cost in utilities?

On Time Sheets and Work

Unlike my semester work, I have to log my hours on a time sheet. The whole process makes me wonder, how many people fib on time sheets? I mean here's my thoughts, I'm hired for 20 hours a week. My supervisor gives me work, I do the work, and then I have to wait until she gives me more; this isn't a project where I can make my own work since each step is dependent on the previous steps and structured. This often means that I might not quite make my 20 hour mark simply because I don't have enough work to do and I am a very quick worker. Someone else could have taken 20 hours perhaps but I personally don't...so this leaves me with three options: (1) report my actual hours and not get my full pay (2) fib a bit on how long I worked on things (3) report accurately now and then goof off more while I'm actually working on things so that it takes me longer. Each of these has its downsides. With scenario 1, I won't make the money I'm counting on for my budget. For 2, I will feel morally wrong for lying. For 3, I will feel like I'm wasting time, which is neither good for me or my project. So assuming I cannot get more work to do to fill my hours, which option do I choose? Bah.

The Privacy and Politics of Blogging

I am a Nightline whore. I'm not afraid to admit that most nights I will force myself to stay up and watch Nightline after the Daily Show finishes just so I get a "fresh perspective on the world" as they say. If not, I watch it the next day on DVR. In any case, last night's episode, along with covering the awful awful aftermath of the Earthquake in China (what is with the world? Earthquakes, Cyclones, Torandoes, Wild Fires...all at once?!), they featured Heather Armstrong aka Dooce a "Mommy Blogger" (note, why is it that we get labeled as "mommy blogger" or "PF blogger"?). Amazingly she's turned her blog into an empire bringing in $40,000 a month apparently. Wow. I'm just happy when I get more than 10 hits in a given day on my blog. In any case, she posts most of her life on her blog, including her real name, her daughter's name, her husband's name and more personal details than "you might tell your girlfriends over drinks." It makes me wonder about blogging and personal information.

I try not to give anything too revealing about myself on my blog like my name or my location or even what I study. Yes, you know I'm a grad student who is a liberal minded, Obama-leaning introvert, but really you don't know much more than that. Yea, I've revealed how much I spend on things. Yea, I've revealed that I'm short and about 20 pounds overweight. But really, I have deliberately tried to make this blog untraceable to me. Of course I'm sure that someone could link it to me...my friends know about this blog through my livejournal (which has always been more personal than this) and so they know who I am, but I'd really like to keep it to just them knowing. I mean my parents would frown if they knew what I was posting here in terms of talking money. You don't talk money in my house.

And then I always consider the fact that in four years or so I will be out there in the Academic (or maybe industry) marketplace and this blog, or maybe moreso my livejournal (which is under "friend protection" but everyone knows that's a load of crock), might get me into trouble. I support Obama! Oh no! I have trouble living on a budget! Oops. I'm not sure what particularly in this blog an employer might find offensive, but it makes me nervous that some day I might need to actually explain why the heck I blog...and my only explanation is I really enjoy blogging and it helps me keep track of what I'm doing.

On the same end I sometimes feel I restrict myself too much by not talking about what I study and what I'm most passionate about, since really I could go on pages and pages about that. Perhaps I'll start yet another blog just to post about matters of that sort. But really, that's ridiculous.

In any case, I really wonder about the ramifications of blogging in the long term. Hell, I've had my livejournal for 5 years + now, if damage is to be done, it already has been. So I'll keep on blogging, don't you worry.

One year down, Four more to go.

I'm officially done with my first year of grad school. Well, I will be as soon as I get dressed (had to sleep in today, come on), run over to my grad department and hand in my last paper. It's a little strange and anticlimatic, but then again so was graduating and finishing college for the most part -- you just keep chugging until finally you reach the end and fall of the track...hopefully landing on another one. I will say it is really weird to think that I'm finished with my first year and that by the end of next year I should have my Masters. Wow.

So today in celebration of being done I'm going to skip lab work (I'll do it tomorrow) and go get some Cat Litter, and go browse TJ Maxx and maybe the mall for some summer tops. I don't want to spend too much of the $200 I allotted myself for this purpose, but some of my tops are really worn and one has a small hole in it, oops. So I'd rather not look scruffy all summer.

Then I will come home and give the house a good scrub down. My office right now is littered with library books that need to be taken back (note to self, do tomorrow), books I need to reshelve on my own bookcases, soda cans, hair ties, articles scattered around. Not a pretty picture. Then the usual mopping, vacuuming, dusting that has been neglected in the last 2 weeks. I'm amazed at how dust accumulates. I saw one of my neighbors had a molly maid yesterday and thought that was silly. As much as I put it off, cleaning my whole house, including everything above and scrubbing sinks, toilets, and countertops only takes me 1 or 2 hours max. Why hire a maid?

I will also get to the gym. Today starts my lose 15 pounds by August campaign!

Summer Saving and Stimulus Check

Because my advisor is letting me work an extra 10 hours this summer, and because summer pay is a bit more than semester pay anyway (we work for 2.5 months, but that half month overlaps with our semester stipends anyway, so it's a little messy but it works out to be a bit more...also I don't pay my health insurance costs during the summer, only during the semester, so I save on those), I will (hopefully) be able to save a good deal of my earnings this summer to act as a supplement during the year so I don't need to deplete my emergency fund any more than I've already been doing. But, I do need some things, so this is how it is going to break down.

Assuming I go by my normal budget, including the $200 I give myself for supplement each month (but not since I'll be paid more) I will have about $3500 extra to put into my savings and then additional $600 from the stimulus for a total of $4100. If I keep myself, next year, to $200 extra per month, not including June and July next year either since the same will hopefully be true next summer, cross your fingers, then 10 months x $200 = $2000. So as long as I put $2500 into my savings account from this summer I should be able to fund the next school year no problem without touching any more of my emergency fund. This also means I can safely budget the rest of it on some other things which I am going to do this way, most likely: $1600:

$500 to the Emergency Fund
$250 for New Summer Clothes and Shoes
$250 for New Winter Clothes
$200 for Equestrian Lessons this Summer
$400 for "fun" this summer (including maybe a weekend away with my college friends?)

Of course with rising food and gas costs, and likely rising bus fares, I might need to adjust my budget next year in which case I'll need to save just a bit more. So we'll see how things go.

The Price of Food and Community Supported Agriculture

So everyone in the PF blogland and even on the major network news channels and websites, is talking about the price of food, the fact that india and vietnam are going to stop exporting rice, the fact that costco and Sam's Club have put limits on the number of bags of rice one can buy, and the debate between biofuel and corn and gas prices. All I can say is as I am still trying to keep my grocery/eating out budget to $200/month...something that thus far has eluded me, the rising cost of everything is killing me. One of my friends and fellow graduate students told me about a local Community Supported Agriculture share that I can sign up for. For $350 I get an individual share in the farm from the middle of May through the middle of November, which means I get a bin of fresh, organically grown, veggies and fruits once a week. While they will vary week by week, season by season, I'm really excited about this. Working it out week by week (though I have to pay all at once, but will throw the money back to my savings each week), it's about $12 a week, which is less than I currently spend at the grocery for not-organic veggies. I'll probably keep buying broccoli, because that seems to be my veggie staple, but I think this is a good move for the environment, my health, and my budget.

I pick up my first batch in 2 weeks. I can't wait!

On "estimated" bills

I'm kind of mad right now. I just got my gas bill for the month of April, a month that has, by in large been warm and I have not used my heat...so low and behold I find my bill to be $68.17. Yes, this is still $20 less than my last month, but then I look and see that in fact this is "estimated" based on my use in March (a considerably colder month) and from April last year. GRAH. This makes me angry, because I won't see any savings from not using my heat or air conditioner until the bills due in June. I am also decidedly going to turn down my water heater one notch since I think that's contributing to the high gas bill.

Today is the first really warm day to the point where the temperature in my house is around 81 right now. I've opened my windows to get some breeze. I refuse to turn on the air conditioning until June or it hits 92 degrees outside. That's my tolerance point...