Happy Birthday...to myself...and others...

Wow.

My uncle Eddie gave me $20 for my birthday.  The crazy-cool thing is his birthday was a couple weeks before mine and he didn't seem the least bit fazed that I didn't get him anything.

My mother got me some shoes.  It's week #2 and they seem to be doing well.  I'm hard on shoes, so my mother says, and so week 2 is a start...they feel sturdy though, honestly...it's hard to tell though, my $15 WalMart shoes lasted only 6 months and might have felt this same way...

My gramma took me and my two uncles out to eat at a Casino buffet.  The food was Ok in general, I seem to be the only person there who didn't care for the steak.  I pretty much pigged out on egg rolls, which were amazing.

My sister gave me $29 in Amazon funds, which I spent on E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and a movie I had been wanting to see but am too much of a wuss to rent as a new release and am too impatient to wait for it to go into the old release section, neither of which matters b/c it was on super-sale, $8.99 + $2 S&H ($11), and I can probably/maybe get $7 or $8 from it after I'm done w/ it, since the sale won't last forever, you know.  Plus I don't have to worry about late fees 'cause I OWN this thing, beach!  I also used $9 of it to buy an mp3 album that I wasn't able to listen to entirely for free online b/c my internet seems unfit for streaming music as of late.  It can do OK for like a minute or maybe two.  Different websites I visit have different settings and such, so it may be OK if I subscribe to Rdio again...dunno.  Oh, and I also bought two songs by Deftones.

The money Eddie gave me is in my mom's possession until she actually HAS the $...in other words, she owes me about half of it b/c the household funds somehow ran out too quickly for all the RX needed to be had w/o any glitches...the rest of it I spent at Hastings on a CD that I SWEAR (for the 5th? time) that I won't re-sell (for the 15th time) and a movie rental?....or...ugh...what was that?  OH!  Yeah, I bought a movie that was on clearance, it might be an old release by now, bought & paid for price was $2.13 w/ tax ($1.99 w/o).  Still hoping someone buys it from me via Amazon eventually, since I watched all I care to see of it already.  Plus I bought a portable bottle opener, which was intended I guess to act as a keychain.  I had to take the keychain part of it off though so I could affix the bottle opener part to my existing - and absolutely fantastic! - GHOSTBUSTERS: THE VIDEO GAME keychain that I got at Hastings as a freebie/promo...thank goodness my sister noticed it, b/c I just walked right past it...they had a pile of 'em sitting beside the door...it made it so much easier to live down the fact that I paid almost $17 just to have a cool looking thingie to put my money & state issued photo ID in, that cool looking thingie, for those not in the know, being a GHOSTBUSTERS wallet that I had bought at GameStop during the GHOSTBUSTERS: THE VIDEO GAME fever of 2009.  And THANK YOU PROTONCHARGING (R.I.P.) for letting me know it was there(!)

I bought something on eBid so that I could get some feedback added to my profile.  I originally came to eBid  so I could buy A CLOCKWORK ORANGE for the best price I could find at the time.  I now have been trying w/ no success to make some money from selling on eBid.  I think my lack of feedback might look suspicious to a lot of people.  But I'll probably end up selling what I bought, thankfully it was only $3.75.  Could have been bought for $0.76 cheaper on Amazon, but who cares and if so, whatever...i don't...that $0.76 would have just been wasted on another item.  Or it would add a tiny bit to my so-far-nonexistent savings fund for the TV I mentioned in my justnow prior post.

The Joy Of Welfare Christmas

Me and my sister have been talking since yesterday about how I want a TV and she might or might not buy me one.  Somehow the concept of me saving up came to up, I guess I was writing to her down what had already been on my mind for a few weeks...I mean, $178, which is what Amazon charges for a 24" Vizio, is really not hard to save up.  I only have $75 after bills and needs of other sorts are paid, but the fact is I should already own a TV of some kind other than the 14" "standard" definition TV my Gramma has loaned/given me...$178 is actually only $22 less than several other 24" TVs, although Vizio seems to make good quality merch and from what I've read seems to have good warranty service as well.  So for what I'm hoping to get, it's a steal at $178.  And 24" isn't all that big, but my room is tiny.  It probably seems smaller b/c my TV and DVD player etc. are sitting on this humongous table...my mom offered to buy me a double bed and I was like "It wouldn't fit!" and was like "uh...ok".

Anyway; it's frustrating b/c I'll have to wait 'til at least February to start putting this plan in motion.  I figure I can save AT LEAST $25 a month, and maybe even $50.  That leaves me with $25-$50 for spending on whatever.  But, as I was telling my sister, I pretty much wasted $700 through the course of this year.  And that's only if you count the money I initially get on the 1st of the month.  If you count the money I got from the stuff I sold, that's probably closer to $1000.

I need to stop this.

I need to appreciate what I have, and if I can't appreciate what I have I need to turn what I have into something else, either someone else's money or savings.

Man up, I say to myself.

Hopefully I can live it out and keep on doing so until I have a frekin' TV.