Bendeng's Personal Finance Blog

Its been a while on here. I gave up on the daily entry idea :P

So whats new, my brother had his new baby girl on friday afternoon. 7lbs, 3oz little doll. Her name is Marley Faith and she is absolutely adorable. She was quiet coming out and as soon as she saw her mom and dad's faces she started smiling and talking to them. Way too cute.

I've been sick with the flu for the past couple days. I think its starting to wind down now (I can go back to work :P). I do not deal with sickness well, lol.

Just paid off an old bill from a collector today, feels good. $158. Trying to get my car insurance set up still. I paid off my reinstatement fee almost a week and a half ago but for somereason I still can't purchase my insurance online yet.

Dropped $300 into the checking account.

I've been getting a lot of my friends and coworkers set up on Mint.com. If you haven't yet, definitely try it out. Its a pretty awesome free budgeting tool.

So I'm sure I am not the only one who scours the internet and pretend-shops. I sit there and fill up online shopping carts with things I wish I could buy. Then I fill my head with plans and ideas on how I could actually purchase them but in the end I just hunch over and hit the red x and close out the window on my dreams.

I get too antsy sometimes. I wish I was too old for my own good. I forget that I shouldn't be in this situation at a young age. That is how my family sees it anyway. They see that I should be in school about to finish with that amazing degree in engineering so I can get that incredible job making schmillions of dollars and have the amazing credit to buy the things I want and need and take care of my family. Isn't that everyone's dream in some sense?

I think parents don't realize the insane amount of pressure they put on their kids, the extreme worry that they will fail in more ways than they ever did and that they must do everything to prevent it from happening. As if the world will end if their child doesn't complete their education in 4 years and get that amazing job, marry young, have kids, live in a beautiful home, etc.

I tried and greed got the best of me I will admit. Flashy luxury living got me too.

I feel really good about myself tho, I haven't spent a dime on anything other than gas ($19) and a burger($6) at work in the past week. I actually had money to deposit($350) into my checking account and money to put into savings (which is up to $340). I paid for my reinstatement fee today at the DMV($85) and tomorrow I will get signed up for new car insurance ($115pm)

My goal is to get my own place in 6 months (by summertime) with my bf. After that we'd like to get a lil brother for our baby Frankie.

Kind of skipped a couple days. oh well.

TODAY (sunday), I worked from 5pm to 3am and I made $158. I could have made more but I forgot to grat a table that I could have gratted and it was a bunch of cheap college kids so I missed out. Next time I always say. Tomorrow is burger night, I'll have all day to grat tables (and thats 20% grats like they should be).

My brother is expecting a baby girl in about a week. Its pretty exciting. It'll be his first kid. Hopefully everything goes well

My mother loves to contradict herself. She'll call me to tell me I need to lose weight but remind me that she cooked all this amazing korean food (im korean) and that I should take a few days off to come visit and eat it all. I am not a little kid anymore and those foods do not just go through my body like they used to, lol. But it is tempting good food. Maybe later this week.

My grandmother who doesn't speak english (she knows short phrases but doesn't actually know what they mean) spoke to my boyfriend over the phone today. I tried to say hello for him but she insisted that he say it himself.

Grandma: HI. HOW YOU CHRISTMAS?
Chris: Hey.. Hi.. How are you? Good?
Grandma: HI! GOOD! CHRISTMAS. HOW YOU? GOOD!
Chris: Haha.. Great. Good!
Grandma: OK BYE. CHRISTMAS!

She's a hoot.

Cash: $259
Checking: 7.43
Savings: $255.19

I want to try and get to the DMV asap so I can get my car insurance out of the way. I work tonight(monday) at 4pm til prolly 10-11ish. Then tuesday at 10:30am and Wednesday at 11am. Crappy shifts (lunch usually only gets like 10-40$$ depending). I'm going to try and get them covered so maybe I can go visit my family. Then again, I might just wait until next week when the baby is due. Who knows. I'll figure something out. I don't want to go this week AND next week. Thats like 300 miles to and from both times. Not trying to rack up miles on the car

Anyways. Lets see if I can catch some hours of sleep before having to be back at work in 10 hours.

Sigh, work is really exhausting me this week. What can you do?

I made $105 all day. Worked two shifts: 11am to 2:30pm and 5pm to 10:30pm. I ran an errand for my boss in between shifts and dropped a coworker off somewhere in town. I managed to get home in time to sit for 30 minutes while I wrote out a check for my car payment. $400 down~ by the time the next bill rolls around it should be back up to around $450ish so I should be able to pay that off and be back on schedule.

I'd like to make note for people to include a 20% tip in their budget for all the services they purchase throughout the days. This doesn't just include going out to a restaurant (which many people feel the need to hurt the income of their server just because the economy is down or really just because they're cheap). 20% is the current standard for tipping any service individual. That means you tip your hair cutter/stylist, your mechanic, your bartender, your dog groomer, etc. You pay for the product and you tip the people who produced the service.

Just to be clear, I live off of the tips people leave me on their lunch and dinner. This isn't 1920 anymore. You can not lowball your server just because you'd rather spend your money on an extra drink or desert instead of using it to leave a proper tip. We don't ask for outrageously generous tips like 50% but 20% is the current standard. Some people still tip 10% or 15% as if it is normal.

I'm not saying that these folks tipped that much for bad service. No. If the service was bad, these folks would complain and demand they pay nothing. Or at least demand a gift certificate. Some will flat out leave no tip. Thats for bad service.

Altho, anyone in the service industry knows to never stiff a check. I personally always tip at least 20% if not more for good service.

Anyway, I'm rambling. When you go out to eat, REMEMBER TO TIP 20%. Cell phones these days have tip-calculators that are preprogrammed at 18%. NO. WRONG.

Thanks everyone for the hellos and advice. It was really good to get some two-cents from others who know and probably been in my shoes once before.

Well, today I made exactly $80 at work.

Cash: $436
Checking: $62.42
Saving: $175.19

I'm going to go deposit $80 into my savings tomorrow and then the rest into my checking to hopefully mail off a car payment $400. that should leave me with ~$18.

I also work a double tomorrow and the General Assembly just started so hopefully that will bring in more business. I'm banking on making about $80 all day tomorrow.

I just found this site last night called: Mint.com. Its pretty cool, set up an account and got everything straight. I'm sure most of you all have tried it before. Hopefully it will keep me in line and get my debt paid off.

Ok, so I'm starting this a little late.

Last thursday (January 8th, 2009) I deposited $80 to my savings account. The first of a weekly savings drop that I have started. This blog will keep track of that and my daily spendings and earnings.

To bring all my money up to date...

Checking: $139.71
Savings: $175.19
Cash: $358

Lets factor in all my monthly bills...

Car Payment: $278.99 (currently behind-$693.98)
Credit Card: $100 (currently behind- $217)

A few things I have to pay for coming up...

DMV: $85 Reinstatement fee
Car Insurance: ~$135 Nationwide

I work tomorrow (today) so I will begin with the next entry with a more organized finance sheet starting with what I make tomorrow night.