Unfracked.

That thing I linked to the other day, the one I said was resonating with me? About un-effing your environment and habits and life? The next day I started playing along, and I started a Tumblr for it. I'm doing my best to keep it SFW, but occasionally I might re-blog something that's NSFW, so be warned.

At any rate, this project seems to be working. My house is slowly but surely coming together, and I'm starting to feel like I'm more together, and I think maybe that this is what being a grownup feels like. And it's a good feeling.

In other news, I've started jogging again. I can't remember if I mentioned that in my last post, but I have, and I'm still at it. I'm almost up to being able to do two-minute stretches. I don't have a timer, so I'm having to count paces instead of time, but I did time myself enough to know that I go at about two paces per second, so that's 120 paces per minute. And today I got up to 200 paces without feeling like I was going to die. If I kept going, I probably would have felt like dying, though. So I'll hold steady at 200 this week, and next week try for 220, and see how that goes.

I haven't been weighing myself (but I should probably start doing that regularly again), but my size 12 jeans are starting to get baggy, so I must be losing. My diet isn't 100% back to where it was pre-holiday season, but it's probably about 90% Zone/low-glycemic/healthy. I just need to be a little more diligent about eating my veggies and finish weaning myself off of sugar. But I'm hoping to get down to a size 10 by my birthday, so I can get some new jeans as a birthday present. I think it's doable.

I realize I came off as really down in my last post, and I'm not, really. I was hormonal that day, and I was SUPER hormonal the day I was thinking all of those depressing thoughts. I just want everyone to know that, most of the time, especially the times when my hormones aren't making me insane, I'm okay. I'm pretty content and at peace with where we are (in life, that is; not so much with our physical location. I really want to move) and with what we have, which is everything we truly need. And I've only been out of work a little over a week, and I've got a conference call scheduled for Wednesday with a potential new client, so things on the work front aren't all gloom and despair.

And yes, I am frustrated and still get down sometimes about our finances not yet being sufficient to TTC responsibly, but I also still have work I need to do to get my health and body ready first. So, you know. I'm having faith that if it's meant to happen, it will happen when God knows we're good and ready for it to happen. In the mean time, we've got self and home and financial improvements to get done. So I'm mostly in a pretty good place these days.

Christmas Blues

So it's been a while. I haven't blogged here lately because, well, I just haven't felt like talking about my struggles to get through this time of year. But the truth is that it is something of a struggle, for Matt and I both. Today is the anniversary of my mom-in-law's passing (we think, since we're not sure exactly when she passed away; but it's close enough), so there's that. We miss her, and Rob, and our holiday traditions that revolved around them. This month also marked the second anniversary of my first MC, and the fact that we're still childless is weighing on us and making it really difficult to get in to the Christmas spirit. We trimmed our tree over the weekend, and that was mostly an exercise in tears and grief, as every ornament I hung either reminded me of a loss or of what we don't have.

To make matters worse, although my business has thankfully picked up, we racked up so much credit card debt during the lean months that we're still just treading water. So not only is Christmas shopping extremely limited, but we're also asking ourselves hard questions about whether it's smart or responsible to start TTC in January as we'd been planning to. I really don't know what to do. Where we're at right now, we would qualify for state aid for my medical care if I became pregnant, but we're not really comfortable with that. We don't know how we'd afford it out of pocket, though. I know we should take some time and try to pay off some of our debts before trying to have a baby, but my clock is ticking away and I'm feeling desperate to hurry up and get started, as every year older I get the greater the risks to both me and and any babies I manage to conceive, not to mention the more difficult it becomes to conceive in the first place.

So that's where my headspace is at right now -- a big mix of past grief and an uncertain future, facing the prospect of putting our dream on hold even longer. I'm praying my way through it and doing my best to trust God, but even so it's not helping me to feel very merry or Christmasy. I think the past two Christmases have us both too primed for grief and to expect badness to be able to just relax and enjoy this time of year.

Be Still And Know

It happens every Saturday. Toward the end of the week, I build up a big mental list of everything I'm going to get done with all of my copious free time over the weekend. I plan to be a weekend warrior and conquer housework and yard work and craft projects and a massive word count on my novel-in-progress, and all the other stuff I tell myself I don't have time for during the week. I go to bed on Friday night with that To Do list swimming in my head, and I wake up in the morning rarin' to go.

And then I sit down to work on my novel and realize that I'm actually quite exhausted and all I really want to do is sit there and catch up on my shows and my reading. Which I then proceed to do, for the entire day, all the while beating myself up about it.

I've been dealing a lot lately with discouragement and anxiety. Ever since the economy went kerplooey (again... or would that be "kerplooeyer"?) over the summer, my freelance business has slowed way, way down, and since my last regular client was forced to "take a break" from working with me, I've been running around like a frantic chicken, putting irons in the fire and digging ditches to lay the groundwork for income streams, and nothing seems to be panning out. I seem to have it in my head that if I can just stay in motion and prove (to who? I don't even know) what a hard worker I am, eventually it will all pay off and I'll be rewarded for my efforts. But it feels like nothing I do succeeds, and all my hard work is for naught.

I'm also struggling with envy and coveting. I look around and see people with the same talents and skills that I have who are enjoying great success and reaping the fruits of their labor, and I can't help but wonder, what am I missing? What am I doing wrong? What am I not doing enough of?

And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 4:19

I believe that God is my provider. The above promise has been put to the test again and again since I lost my steady job two years ago and embarked on a freelance career. Somehow, some way, we always, always have what we need. Sometimes I have no idea how we're going to make our mortgage or pay all of our bills, but the money has always turned up when we need it, sometimes just in the nick of time. God's provision has never failed, not once.

But if I really believe in God's provision, then why am I constantly busting my rear and wearing myself out trying to do everything by my own might? Why am I always so stressed out about our finances, and anxious about my business? Why am I neglecting my home and my family and time that could be spent in Bible study and prayer and meditation in order to manufacture work for myself under the guise of building my portfolio?

Why am I so worn out at the end of the week when nobody has actually hired me to do anything?

As I've prayed about this recently, I feel like I'm finally starting to get the message that God's been trying to send me for the last couple of years. The Bible is full of promises about God's provision, and of commands to refrain from worry. Seek Him first and all else will be added unto you. Be anxious for nothing. Bring ALL things to Him in prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.

The Sabbath isn't just a day off each week. It's an ongoing state of believing and trusting that God is in control, that He cares for us and wants to take care of us, and He wants us to relax and let Him do so.

Growing up, my dad never let us rest. We were always expected to work to earn our keep, to prove our worth. Now that I'm a married adult, my husband does his best to contribute and provide as much as his disability allows him to do so, but as the only totally able-bodied adult in our household, I feel tremendous pressure, mostly from myself, to be the primary breadwinner, and when my efforts fall short, as they so often do, I feel a deep sense of failure.

But I feel like my Heavenly Father is trying to get me to see that He's there, taking care of me, providing for me and my family, and that I don't have to constantly work to earn His care. He gives it freely, simply because He loves me. And he wants me to learn how to rest in that knowledge.

So this is what I'm working on for the moment. I'm going to slow down and enjoy my free time. I'm going to make time for God each day, and for my husband, and to pay some badly needed attention to my house and my poor, raggedy yard. I'm going to make time to take proper care of myself and prepare my body, as well as my heart and mind, for another pregnancy. And I'm going to allow myself to spend time on things I enjoy instead of making work for myself that nobody's paying me for.

And instead of worrying about what will happen when my husband's financial aid for this semester runs out, I'm going to work on trusting that God will open doors for us and that clients, customers and readers will show up when we need them.

Not by my might, Lord, nor by my power, but by YOUR spirit. Here I am, letting go and depending on You. Amen.

Those 2011 Goals Are Starting To Come Along

Lately I've had my head down, hard at work on Goal #1 - making my business more profitable. I wish I could say it's already done, but all of the marketing stuff I've done so far is just the tip of the ice burg, and so far I don't have any new clients or increased web site traffic to show for it. That's a little discouraging. But it's still early, and there's still a lot to do, and I know it's going to take time. I need to stick with it. I know that if I do, by the grace of God, things will take off eventually.

Last week, I got started on Goal #5 - Run a 5K. That should really be renamed to Get My Body Ready To Make a Baby, because that's the true goal. I've been reading up on PCOS, and apparently that condition can be controlled, possibly even eliminated, with a low-glycemic diet and plenty of exercise.

Of course, I haven't been officially diagnosed with PCOS, thanks to my insurance running out before the OB/GYN at the clinic could test me. But I have several of the symptoms, and I just have a gut feeling that it's what caused my miscarriages.

Reading about women who've dieted their way to controlling it and having successful pregnancies has given me a lot of hope, and it's motivating me to get back on/stay on track. I've found that when I'm faced with temptation, I just need to ask myself, do I want a baby, or do I want fill-in-the-blank-temptation? Be lazy and don't exercize, or be able to have a baby? Cake, or Baby? I guess maybe that's not quite as clear-cut a choice for some as cake or death, but for me, it's working.

So I guess that also ties into Goal #2, although I still need to get health insurance. But that comes back around to Goal #1, upon which most of my other goals also rely. And so: I'm keeping my head down, working on making that one happen. So it goes.

Looking for higher yields?

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It's not quite been three months since I opened what might very well be the first of multiple high yield savings accounts. Since starting mine with a mere $25, I've been amazed at how much it's grown in such a short amount of time. Just getting past that first obstacle of starting a savings account seemed to make it a lot easier to find money to put in it. Now I'm considering switching to an account with an even higher yield, or possibly opening a second account and using separate accounts for separate funds. eMoneyCentral is making it a little easier to decide by allowing me to compare my current bank side by side with pretty much every other high-yield e-savings bank out there. What I really like about this site is that in addition to simply providing facts about each bank, they also allow users to comment and discuss their personal experience. This kind of commentary can be much more informative than bank-provided stats, and goes a long way to clue potential customers into exactly what kind of service they can expect. It's already gotten me to think twice about a certain bank I was considering switching to. That's a pretty handy tool right there.

Do uTango?

Sponsored post alert!

From the "Looks Too Good to Be True" Files: you can earn cash rewards and even eventually fund your retirement simply by doing all of your regular online shopping. Yeahbuhwhat?! It seems the utango rewards program gives online shoppers the opportunity to sign up for free and earn rewards for logging into uTango and shopping their affiliate merchants, which include the likes of Target, Starbucks, and Barnes & Noble, places I shop all the time. Apparently, if I start shopping at them via uTango, I can start earning $200 per year, and if I stick with it over a lifetime, my loyalty could earn me up to a cool million in retirement funds!

This is awesome. Not only can I make free money just by buying books, CDs, ground coffee, clothes, jewelry, adorable inexpesive pre-fab furniture, housewares, home decor, and about anything else I normally shop for online, but I can also research and book my travel through the utango rewards program and earn even more. Pretty much everything I ever do online, commerce-wise, is included in this program, so there's not a single reason I can think of not to sign up. And did I mention the part where it's free? Wow. Double this with your credit card's rewards incentive program and you could really rack up the extra cash. Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

*thud*

That's the sound of me dropping from sheer exhaustion.

Today was supposed to be fairly low-key, with a semi-hectic morning of meeting set-up segueing into a quiet afternoon of most of my project team attending said meeting and me taking it easy and catching up on filing between getting up to go refresh the bottled water supply. But somehow some of the stragglers who aren't in on the big-ass client meeting are managing to keep me running my buns off with FedEx shipments and copies and paperwork prep. Is it any wonder I'm stuffing my piehole full of catered deli goodness at every opportunity?

Speaking of which, dear Lord, this here brownie is delicious.

I'm a wee bit on the irritable side, since I still don't feel that great and I really just want to sit down. Actually, I'd like to go lie down and take a nap, but at this rate I'll take sitting for more than five minutes at a time. Whinging aside, I'm actually feeling a bit better today than yesterday (and definitely better than Monday), but I'm still feeling pretty run down. I'm starting to think that perhaps, in retrospect, taking yesterday off to rest would have been an exercise in wisdom, but it's a bit late to do anything about it now.

In more chipper news, I called Citibank and got them to lower the interest rate on my credit card by 2%. I've put off doing this for years, because I always just assumed they'd say no, and that I'd have to fight with them; but I just asked, and they said "Sure! We can lower it by this much," and I said "Cool!" and it all took about two minutes, and now that's 2% more of my monthly payment that will go toward actually paying down my balance. It also happens to be .5% less than I was trying to get with the Prosper loan, so that works out pretty well, except for the part where I feel like a massive eedjit for not simply asking them to lower it sooner.

But seriously, you guys, I'm so tired. I don't know how I'm going to get through the rest of this day.

Failure to launch

We were all set to call and make an appointment to look at that duplex I linked last week when Matt, being a bit more patient and cautious about these things than I, remembered a couple of things we still need to take care of before we move, and also pointed out that, as much as our current living situation sucks, it's also cheap, and we really should take advantage of it for as long as we can stand and save more money. I pointed out in turn that the rising gas prices and the cost of my daily commute are cutting pretty deeply into our "savings" and that we'd save enough in that and other areas that it will all come out in the wash, but he's right that we need to get some stuff done before we get down to the business of finding a new place. Said "stuff" includes...

Consolidating our debts. After my Prosper request fell through I decided to try for a bank loan instead of re-listing with Prosper, but I haven't gotten around to applying yet. Which is dumb, because a consolidation loan would save us a lot of money. I'm aiming to visit my bank and fill out an application this week.

Selling Matt's truck and buying a second vehicle that runs. Pretty necessary, because Tulsa's public transit system sucks beyond the telling of it, he's not willing to get up early to drive me to work in the mornings so he can have the car all day any more than I'm willing to be stuck here and unable to go anywhere on my lunch hour, and I'm reasonably certain that my mom won't let us bring her minivan with us to Tulsa so he can keep driving it to school. Long story short (too late!), we need two cars.

Applying for disability. This is something Matt should have done years ago, but he was under the impression that since he was still working, albeit part-time, he didn't qualify. But I'm pretty sure that if anybody ought to qualify for disability insurance, it's a one-legged diabetic, and anybody who doubts that should spend a week getting around on crutches and see how physically exhausting it is, and then imagine doing that every day for years with no relief in sight, and THEN factor in a chronic illness and what that does to your energy levels under the best of circumstances. Not to mention that until he finishes school there's not a whole lot he's qualified to do that doesn't require a certain amount of physical dexterity. Heck, even MY job involves almost as much hauling heavy stacks of paper around the building as it does sitting on my butt and typing, and although I'm sure he could do it just fine as long as he had a sturdy cart, it might prove a challenge convincing an HR rep in charge of hiring that it wouldn't be a costly problem. At any rate, I'm sure it goes without saying that if he qualifies, even if it's only for a couple hundred a month, it will be a big, big help.

Summer break is almost here (Matt's final finals are today, as a matter of fact), and Matt's promised to use his down time to take care of his part of the above. So as much as I despair of being stuck in crowded relative boarding house, $50 a week commute Hell for a few more months, at least we've got some forward momentum. That should launch us out of here sooner or later. Right?

Please, oh Lord, let me be right.

Not bad things

Since we're clueless about filing joint taxes, and clueless about taxes in general, we broke down and let a pro do ours this year, which turned out to be surprisingly fast and stress free and totally worth the fee (our preparers were so efficient and on the ball that they even pronounced our last name right on the first try, which never happens). Better yet, we're getting a pretty sizeable (for us) refund; most of it'll go toward credit card debt, but still: nice. (Less nice is that we owe over $100 to state taxes, because our state is run by greedy bastidges, but we're focusing on the positive here). Yay, refund!

***

I've lost two pounds! Only eighteen more to go till I'm back down to my wedding weight. I'm still impressed with SparkPeople, by the way.

I didn't eat so good over the weekend (Saturday I managed to rack up an impressive 5,000 calories over my maximum daily allotment), but Sunday, between walking a mile with Matt and running up and down the stairs at least twenty times in the course of getting laundry and other housework done, I managed to burn enough calories to keep my intake for the day well within my allowable range, despite not being super-strict with myself about my food choices. But now I've got five days of structure and routine to keep me on track, so all should be well.

***

Drive, the new Tim Minear series starring the ever-adorable and always charming Nathan Fillion, and is to The Amazing Race what Lost is to Survivor, premiered last night on Fox. It continues tonight in its regular time slot. So who's watching it? What do you think so far? Does Brian Bloom's receding hairline depress you as much as it does me? Let me know in the comments.

The lowdown on Debt Consolidation Lowdown

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Debt Consolidation Lowdown - Debt consolidation can be a shortcut to financial freedom, but if not handled properly it can easily become just another chain around your neck. There are a lot of so-called "debt counselors" out there who aren't much more than glorified loan sharks who prey upon the desperate. That's why I was a little wary when first checking out this loan consolidation blog. Diving right into the archives only served to deepen my suspicion: there's nothing to identify the blogger (or bloggers), and posts were as narrowly focused as the title of the blog and contained contradictory information. Two identical posts about the perils of debt consolidation were followed up a week later with a post declaring consolidation to be the best way to tackle your debt. I smelled a front, and expected all of the links to take me straight to the web site of one of the aforementioned debt counselor-sharks, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the links led to independent articles containing useful information. Scanning the rest of the blog, it's easy to see that the anonymous blogger(s) just needed a while to gain their stride. Current posts are informative and well-written, and the blog's scope has expanded beyond consolidation topics to include all kinds of financial matters. It's proven to be a good resource that I'll most likely be adding to the blogroll over at my own finance blog.

You have nothing if you don't have your health

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As I go about all of my extra-income endeavors, it's becoming clear to me that, when the time comes, I should have no trouble building myself a nice "mommy career" and being able to work from home to continue to contribute to our household income. It's always been my dream to be my own boss and work from home. That dream was always focused on being a full-time writer, and it still is, but as long as I've been working at that, I'm not holding my breath for that career to soar any time soon. In the meantime, it's nice to know that I have other options.

One of the things keeping me from going for that dream NOW is health insurance. I get excellent benefits through my employer, and that even more than my stable salary is what's keeping me here; but after thirty-three years of taking care of myself, I'm not going to just sit back and hope that after he graduates, my husband will land a great job with equally great benefits... and I'm not sure I'm willing to wait forever for him to obtain great benefits, especially since I keep encouraging him to focus on figuring out a career that he'll love and will make him happy instead of one that will make us rich. This is why I've bookmarked this free Health Insurance Quotes site, because it's very likely that we'll be on our own to obtain insurance one of these days. And in case Matt has his way and we move back to his old stomping grounds in Long Beach some day, I've also bookmarked their California Insurance Broker site.

I spent the last several years without any health coverage, and my health suffered for it. Now that I've got coverage again, I'm no longer willing to do without it.

Pure Evil

Here's a nice (if by "nice" you really mean "irritating and frustrating") reminder of why Giant Credit Card Companies are evil incarnate and why I'm so eager to end my relationship with them.

As you know if you're a regular reader of this blog, I obtained a Discover card that gives a 5% rebate on all gasoline purchases to help offset the rising cost of gasoline. We intended to use this card solely as a gas card, and we have, except that we kind of ended up using it to pay for a significant portion of our honeymoon, which pretty much maxed the card out. I've been keeping the balance down enough each month to give us enough room to keep using it to buy gas, but with all of our commuting, by the end of the month it's usually maxed out again.

Anyway. So I recently received an e-mail alert from Discover warning me that I was nearing my limit, but when I logged into my account it said that I still had enough to cover one more tank of gas, with a little cushion to spare, so I didn't worry about it.

And then my credit report got pinged with an over limit alert from Discover. I logged in to check my statement, and saw that they had charged me for services I'm signed up for with them, including an identity theft protection charge that I didn't even remember signing up for. Their charges put me over my limit. Now, if I was, say, trying to buy gas, and didn't have enough room on the card, the charge would have been rejected, and that would have been that. But the credit card company pushes their charges through regardless of whether there is actually enough room in my account to cover them, and then they report me to the credit bureaus for going over limit. Nice. I'm sure they'll charge me an over limit fee, too. Bastiges.

Of course, as soon as I was aware I'd gone over limit I signed on and made a payment, but that doesn't help my credit report. I also called to cancel the identity theft protection, and did so despite customer service's best attempts to in turns terrify me and then make me feel like a reckless idiot for daring to cancel their protection when there are so many big, bad identity thieves out there, lurking about and digging through my trash and whatnot.

While viewing my statement I also learned that I've been paying for memberships with Freecreditreport.com's credit monitoring service that I didn't realize I'd signed up for months ago, one for me and one for Matt. I cancelled those, too. This is what I get for never looking at my statements. I guess now I should check over the statements for my other credit cards and make sure I'm not paying for any more weird crap I never meant to sign up for, not to mention get into the habit of reading my statements every month instead of just blindly making the payments.

Stupid credit cards. Man, I hope I get that loan.

Prosperized

I created my prosper listing, w00t! Interested parties and nosy parkers can view my listing by clicking on the button below (note: clicking the button does not cause you to place a bid):



Friends O' Mine: It's not too late to provide an endorsement, if you were planning to do so. Just, y'know, faster would be better.

So anyway... hopefully I'll get enough bids to get the loan on those terms. If not, then I guess I'll knock my interest rate up a couple notches, join a group and re-list. For now, I'm just going to pray really hard that there are enough people willing to take a chance on me to fund the loan as is.

Unexpected Diet Tips

One way to avoid caving to vending machine cravings: don't carry any cash or loose change. I'm absolutely jonesing for some Sun Chips right now, but short of begging my cubby neighbors to pitch in and buy me some, there's not a thing I can do about it. I guess that's one side benefit (or curse) to paying for everything with a debit card.

Miser me = misery

Matt and I are going out this weekend, but apart from that, once my bare necessities are bought and paid for, I'm going on a spending fast for at least the next 15 days. This weekend will be hard, because I'm sure that while we're out we'll hit the bookstore, and there are some books I really want to get; but I have plenty to read at home, so I should be able to resist them. Apart from chipping in toward the evening's entertainment, I shouldn't spend that much while we're out. After that, it's no-spend city.

My goal is to have saved a decent chunk with which to start my laptop savings fund by the end of this pay period. At the end of 15 days we'll see if I'm chomping at the bit to buy myself something, and if not I'll try to go another 15. Of course, Tess's birthday falls in there, too, so I'll have to make an exception for that. Otherwise, I should be able to hold out. So here goes.

Update on Prosper

Prosper gave me the go ahead this morning to post my loan listing, but they also said that they mailed me (as in snail mail, on a postcard) a verification code, so I'm not sure whether I still have to wait until I get that and can verify my account before I can really move forward. The way this week's shaping up, though, the postcard might show up before I get time to put the finishing touches on my request and post my listing, anyway.

A kind Prosper member stopped by here a couple of weeks ago and left some advice in the comment trail to the effect that I should use this waiting period to round up references to post some endorsements on the site for me. I tried that, but no luck. I'm certain that everyone I asked must have reasons for not endorsing me OTHER than that they think I'm not good for the loan. Tess, f'rinstance, told me that the link in the invitation I sent her didn't work and then she got busy and forgot all about it. My mom said she'd do it if I could help her, but we haven't been able to find the mutual time to sit down and walk through the process. I know several other people I sent the request to are insanely busy. And, love my sisters, but they're not the most quick-on-the-draw people I know. Matt would totally do it, but I'm assuming spouses don't count. So there you have it: no endorsement soup for me.

Anyway, I'm getting closer. I'm going to try to have my listing posted by the end of the week.

Invest in your employees' future

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As someone with designs on running a small business, I'm always thinking about what I'll do if one of my little enterprises takes off and becomes successful. What if I have to hire employees then? How will I provide benefits? If you're someone whose small business endeavors have grown to that point, one place to start looking for 401k and Retirement Plan Services is VendorSeek.com, where you can get free rate quotes based on the size of your company. Filling out a short form will get you quotes from five different vendors, with no obligation to buy anything. It's a useful tool whether you're looking to provide a retirement plan for actual employees, or just dreaming and building a business plan like me.

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Joke's on you, Job Fates!

My reverse psychology on the Job Fates seems to have worked. I've actually got some down time, and my article is inching along. I'm writing on Eureka Springs, where we got married, which would probably be our more realistic spring break destination if I had any vacation hours to use. We're talking about heading over there in May after Matt's finals are done instead. It's actually a lot like Bath, for as much as I was actually exposed to Bath, wherein it has that same artsy-bohemian creative vibe I mentioned in my last post. Plus, pretty.

Anyway, my article, should it ever see completion, is an info piece on the wedding industry there. I've got plenty of other article ideas lined up behind this one, too. It's just a matter of squeezing in the time to write them.

Somewhat relatedly, I'm starting to consider financing a laptop. Most likely through Dell, since my company has a membership in their employee discount program. I would much prefer to save up the money and pay cash up front, but it's gotten to the point where having my own computer is a necessity, and this would allow me to have it sooner rather than later. Plus the payments would be small enough that I could pay it out of my personal allowance. I think I'll wait and see how the Prosper thing goes first (still waiting on them to verify my identity and approve my registration), because I wouldn't want any credit checks pinging my credit report and causing any problems for me there; plus if I can pay off the credit cards and reduce my debt to income ratio that'll improve my chances for low-interest financing, I think. At any rate, this is definitely one of those "talk it over with my husband first" things, so you can be sure that if I make the decision to buy a computer this way it will have been examined from every possible angle.

Finding a saving account just got WAY easier.

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Compare online banking, find a savings account or checking account and earn more interest today with SavingsAccounts.com, a simple, one page site that lets you make at-a-glance comparisons between all of the major online banking savings programs. I've been meaning to shop around for a good high-yield savings account, and even more I've been looking for a good IRA program to roll over my husband's 401K. This simplifies things for me immensely. Just looking through the site in preparation to write this post, I already think I found the savings account I want to go with. The Internet can come in pretty handy sometimes.

Well, I did it...

Signed up to Prosper, that is. I have a member page (and oh, how it hurt me so to list my age as 34; I'm not for another month (exactly!), but I figure it's close enough, I might as well save myself from having to update later), and I have a Word doc with all of the info that will go in my listing, but I don't yet have a listing because the site didn't like my answers to their identity verification questions, or something, so now I have to fax in proof of ID. This is a bit disheartening, as it will set me back about a week while they process it; but at least it's a start.

I suspect my online ID check failed because Experian has a lot of my personal info bass-ackwards. They have my maiden name listed as my current name and my married name as my "formerly known as," they have the temp agency I worked for a year ago listed as my current employer and my actual current employer as my former, and they have the address for Paymybills.com, which went out of business and shut down YEARS ago, listed as my previous residence. It's... yeah, annoying doesn't quite cover it, especially seeing as their solution for correcting it, according to the instructions on my credit report, is for me to contact all of my creditors and update my info with them, which, hi? Did that! Didn't work!

Grumble.

Anyway, I spent a stupid number of hours compiling, writing and polishing my listing info, so at least that'll be good to go once I convince Prosper I am who I claim to be.

In other news, it's payday, yippee! And I? Am going to do my very, very, very best to put back a third of my personal spending allowance every payday for the next several months and build up a laptop savings fund. I looked at the shiny, shiny laptops at Best Buy the other day, but I'm kind of morally opposed to Windows Vista with all of its DRM and spyware. So I'm either considering finding a second-hand that still has XP, which, cheaper, yay, or taking the plunge and switching to a Mac. Who wants to argue for or against my doing the latter? Shout it out in the comments.