Some of the things I'll need...

I was talking aboug saving $1,000 before I left to buy some of the things that I'll need before I go. Well, I've made a list, and added it up for you! (Well, really for me, but that's okay).

Toshiba Spare Battery for my Laptop.................... $189
Toshiba Global Adaptor (This is awesome!).......... $89
Pocket Camera........................................................... $250
Spare Battery for current Camera.......................... $70
Luggage....................................................................... $300
Electrical Converters................................................. $100

And the grand total? $998! Just shy of my $1,000 goal.

This is cutting it close, since it doesn't cover shipping or anything new I find, but the goal is to save $1,000 by June15th. Sounds rough, but I think I'll be okay. I'll be setting up a new progress bar on the side (because I know how much you love them!), but I don't think I'll be setting up a new ING Fund. 3 is confusing enough! I think I'll simply keep the money in my "Savings" goal and keep track of what I've got in there.

****EDIT****

I knew that I was forgetting something! Darn.... I also want to buy an external hard-drive. I have a lot of movies (that I own... no pirating for me!) that I'll be putting on there, as well as photos and music. I'll probably be looking at a 250Gb one, which will run me in the area of $80 to $150.

That'll bring my total up over $1,000, so I'll bump the sidebars up as well. Oh well. This one fund won't be one specific goal, but more of a back-of-the-mind saving fund.

OMG OMG OMG OMG

I just completely my application for a UK VISA, paid the $446.00 in fees and made an appointment with the VISA processing centre in Edmonton.

Is this really happening??


OMG.

A re-cap

Oh my god. What a couple of days! So much drama... So here a recap!

Wednesday night, Addition-Elle (plus-size store in the city) held a fancy gala type event sponsored by the Lou-Lou magazine's new line of clothes. Everything in the store was 20% off, and they served prizes, appetizers and free gift stuff!

I went with the idea of not spending any money, but who am I kidding? I managed to find two nice, turquoise dress shirts that I love! (A rarety), and walked out with a bunch of free swag, including a magazine, a bunch of Clinique make-up, some Fruits&Passions soap, and some other hair products. All in all I think it was a sucess.

Last night my sister's boyfriend slept over in the basement. This happens a lot, and didn't think much of it. However, around 11:30 p.m., I heard the door opening and a car drive away, and then I heard her come upstairs sobbing. And not just regular sobbing, all out bawling. It turned out that he broke up with her last night. This was pretty surprising, since they'd been going out for 4 years and everyone seemed to assume that they would get married. So, she was completely blindsighted and has been in tears ever since. It's hard for her, but I have a hard time understanding as I've never been in a serious relationship. Plus, she's an emotional wreck at the best of times, so the whole house is tense.

So then today, I went to the dentist, hoping that he could find a solution to my toothache. They couldn't really find much wrong with me, which is both frustrating and relieving. My dentist tapped on my teeth, made me squeeze and grind, poked me with pointy things, blew air at my teeth and cold water, too. Nothing was really painful, so he's stumped. He suspects that I'm either grinding my teeth in my sleep or that it's something neurological. Yeesh.

I suspect that it's possible that I have been grinding my teeth. I've never done that before to my knowledge, and while I have been more stressed than usual, it's hard to say. Tomorrow I am going to pick up one of those mouth-braces to wear while I sleep, and I'll see if that helps. The dentist also put a little bit of filling-putty on top of a couple teeth, and grinded down a couple others so that my bite was more even.

So, then, right now, that one tooth doesn't really hurt anymore, but the whole left side of my mouth hurts. I slept for the better part of the afternoon, so I'm hoping that i'll sleep it off soon.

On a side note, it snowed maybe 1.5 feet of wet, heavy snow overnight. I work up this morning and while it was pretty, it took us 2 hours to get to the dentist when it usually takes us 20 mins. That was very dramatic.

But, I'm hoping, overall, that this problem is solved. Today the dentist costs me a bit over $100, which brings my total dentistry cost to $435. Ouch. I'm hoping that my mom's work will 'overlook' the fact that I'm not in classes and cover me, but if not, I'm willing to pay it off myself.

I transferred $1,500 from my Plane and VISA fund back into my chequing account, both to cushion the blow of the dentist, as well as pay for the VISA that I should be ordering within the next 2 weeks. I will return the money that I took out for the dentist back to the account, most likely before the end of the month.

I also took the rest of the day off work today. My teeth just hurt and it was too much of a pain to get there and home. Tomorrow I have a lot to do but I'm all over that. I also have to do some budget updating and tweaking. I'm hoping to avoid spending the rest of the month so save as much as possible for the dentist payments.

Eeek. What a week. I'm going to bed.

Oh the ache....

So, I went to the Dentist last week. I was unsure whether or not I was still under my mom's coverage, so I was completely ready to pay for it. We got the bill today, and we're going to try to submit a form to get it 80% coverage, but if not, the bill is a whopping $335.

Oh, but that's not the worst part. Sunday night one of my teeth was aching, I thought nothing of it, since I've had so much orthodonic work done over the years that I get little toothaches once in a while. However, since then, the pain has got a lot worse and it is now a dull, throbbing ache. So, I've made another appointment on Thursday to go back and see the Dentist. So, I'm hoping that whatever it is gets resolved, but I'm bracing for the worst.

It's a rough life, not having coverage. But, at the same time, I'm glad that shit is going down now, rather than 6 mos from now when I'm dirt-broke and in London.

At the same time, I am considering taking $1,000 out of my VISA fund to cover the dentist (both times), as well as the inevitable trip tp the eye doctor, orthodontist and all those other wonderful "-ist"s I will have to visit. Eeesh.

A budget speedbump

Well, I went shopping today. Just like I said I wouldn't. And I bought lunch today. Just like I said I wouldn't. Whoops!

On the bright side, I found my mom a cute pair of earrings $30 and a little silk fortune cookie $4 to wrap it in, as well as a birthday card $5 for her birthday tomorrow. She didn't want me to get her anything because I did take her to the play with me, but since she was kind of my "my-friend-backed-out-and-no-one-will-do-with-me-will-you-come?" date, I didn't expect her to pay!

I wish I could've had more time and money to spend on her, but I'm trying not to go overboard. She gets embarassed when I spend (what she calls) too much money on her, but I know that she doesn't go out and spend a lot of money on herself, while my dad is always buying movies and dvds and eating out. I only think it's fair, but that's okay. I am still happy with what I've found.

On the darker side, I put the earrings and box on to my VISA. I have a new theory that I thought about while buying the stuff. What I will do is Monday, when I go to take out my $200, I will minus the price of whatever I put on the VISA, and take out the rest of the cash. That way, I'm still ahead of budget, all I did was dip into next week's budget. Yay!

I still did feel a little dirty using my VISA card. That's a new feeling...

Plus, I was going to buy her a lottery ticket, since I like adding that $2 excitement into a gift, but I comepletely forgot my id at home! Sigh! I thought about going to try to buy the ticket and hoping they wouldn't ask (they usually don't, after all I am 23), but I knew that the woman would ask, and I didn't want to go through the embarassment of saying "I forgot it at home", because I knew that crabby old woman would think I was just playing her. Gah. I could wander over to the 7-11 tonight (it's about 2 blocks from my house), but I'm already in my jammies and all I want to do is crawl into bed.

You know what, screw it. I am going to go get her the ticket tonight. I want to give her a complete gift, I might as well just do it. Plus, me (and the dog) could use the excersize.

After that it's bedtime! :)