Normally my Propser account isn’t worth mentioning. I only have four loans at $200. I made a principal investment of $175 and the final $25 is interest that I earned on the initial loans.

Usually I get about $1.50 on the principal paid back on one of my loans, but recently after Christmas, I noticed that he paid me twice, and the second payment was for about $8.00 of principal. I figure that he must have used some gift money to make that additional payment.

I’m happy about this because for another $10, I can make a loan with the cash in my account at Prosper. It’s $50 minimum to bid on a loan and pretty soon I’ll have that cash available. Lately the FOMC has lowered rates (TWICE!) to jumpstart our economy during this recession, but it bums me out. I really want to make a better average return on my investments this year. Last year was terribly disappointing so I’m thinking of putting a little more into Prosper this year. Longer term CD’s have crappy rates at the moment, so I think it’ll be fun to put some more into Prosper.

I’m also looking to buy some dividend stocks as well. Of course, I have this crazy idea that I might buy some BRKB shares too with my 401k rollover money. heh. For those of you who don’t know, these are the cheap shares of Berkshire Hathaway. Full price BRKA shares are crazy expensive.

I will tell you what I bought for new clothes last week.

First the suits: I got two suits from Ann Taylor. They were two different cuts of jacket, but the pants are essentially the same. I wear a 6P in one jacket and a 4 Regular in another. One suit is blue with tiny light blue dots and the other is a plain brown color. Both suits require hemming and heels. Strangely, the pants are an 8P and I’m *still* too short for them in THREE INCH heels. Because I am going to have to walk most days to the bus, the petite length still needs chopping down to a 28 or 29″ inseam. Please, before you go to a tailor, have your inseam number in mind. They will ask you to bring your shoes, but given the wide variety of shoes I keep and the new walking shoes I still need to get, it really doesn’t matter if I bring my shoes or not. I’m going to get the break done at my preferred inseam length no matter what.

Total suiting cost was $747.60 on my credit card, but I just sent a cash payment to pay off the card. I only used it to trigger off a 10% discount coupon I can use later from the rewards on that credit card. I was desperate to fill out my wardrobe because there really wasn’t enough hanging in my closet for a full 5 days of work in the winter. I am scraping by with 2 weeks’ worth of clothes and hanging on till spring. However, I mentally budgeted $1000.00 so I still have money left over for shoes, which I need desperately. I am sheepish now because my favorite Joan and David are beyond rescue, but I still wear them anyway. You can’t wear duct taped loafers to work. But I would if I could.

Second some dresses: I bought a brown and purple knit dress at The Gap. It’s shapeless but ever so slightly clingy that my body gives it some shape. It matches the brown suit jacket I just acquired, and the modest length is work appropriate. I still need shoes to match though. It cost about $55, but I was able to finishing using up an old gift card from Christmas 3+ years ago and got it for half price.

I also got a dress for half price ($25 down form $50) and a crunchy boutique in DC. It’s a jumper style dress, not quite a sheath cut, so I can wear a turtleneck and some tights under it for cold weather wear.

Third the tights: 2 for $20 at The Gap. One pair in textured black and the other in a dark brown, to go with the new dresses and my old skirts, because going without tights in this weather will be the death of me.

Finally, because it’s been so damned cold, I’ve actually been driving to work instead of taking the bus. I know. It’s not frugal, but I don’t care. It gets me out of the office early because I can’t drive at night post-surgery and I don’t have to deal with the cold. It’s kind of expensive, but worth it in terms of quality of life.

If Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow though, I will kill him. My wallet cannot take driving every day till April, nor do I want another 6 weeks of winter.

Hi!

I’m mapgirl! I’m about 10-15 lbs over my ideal weight. I’m too cheap to buy new clothes. I’d rather diet to fit back into what I own.

To help me track my calories and my spending, I found a Calorie-Counter Database at About.com. I use that with the online grocery shopping site for my local grocer and calculate what I ate and what I spent.

I don’t plan on doing this everyday, but I did try it out for Monday’s intake and it was mighty interesting.

For Breakfast I went with a co-worker to Au Bon Pain.
Spinach and Cheese croissant = 250 calories
Coffee with 2 Splenda packets = 10 calories
Spent ~ $5.00

For Lunch I went with co-workers for a sandwich
Turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, mustard and pickles
Used Subway equivalent with honey mustard (*yuck*) = 310 calories
Spent $2.74

Dinner on the way home
Quarter Pounder with Cheese at McDonald’s = 500 calories
Spent $3.26

Snacks after dinner (the oranges were basically dessert with dinner)
Dole Mandarin Oranges in syrup = 80 calories
Special K Vanilla Almond cereal 1.5 cups (2 servings) 220 calories
Generic Vanilla Rice Milk 1 cup = 120 calories
Spent ~$1.62

Total calories 1500
Total spent ~$12.61

Kind of dumb, but every once in a while, I like to keep track of what I ate and what it cost me so I get a grip on the cost of things. I was restrained on Monday.

I was going to eat Thai food for dinner, but I thought better of doing that since I had an appointment later in the evening and I was running some errands. Mickey D’s was fast, cheap, and easy. Yes, it’s terrible for me, but the alternative was to eat nothing since I had no food in the house.

After my appointment, I bought some groceries on the way home. I bought some breakfast food (rice milk, OJ, bread, and bagels and cream cheese) and some dinner foods that can turn into lunch food (Bertolli Frozen dinners for two in a new flavor). Nearly everything was on sale. I spent $33.45, but I could have spent $7.50 more if everything hadn’t been on sale.

I might go back today to buy more Bertolli frozen dinners and some frozen pizzas since the former is still on sale and I like the meatball and sausage varieties best. The latter is on BOGO sale for Super Bowl parties this week.

At any rate, the kids at work like going to get $2.50 6 inch sub sandwiches for lunch. Buy 15 of them and you get one free. I dislike cold sandwiches for lunch and frequently wish to add some soup to my sandwich, but I often dislike the soup selection so I will wait for Campbell’s Soup To Go in Creamy Tomato to go on sale. If I could buy it buy the case, I would, but I also like to buy it on sale for a dollar a can at Target instead of the regular grocery store which never sells it for quite that cheap. (But it does go down to $1.25 a can.)

Like I said, don’t expect me to do this sort of meal breakdown a lot. It just happened to be an easy thing to do on Monday once I decided I was going to do it. (I measured out my cereal and rice milk to exact amounts.) I think it’s worth taking a close look at your diet every once in a while and figuring out what you are eating and why. Honestly, I hadn’t had an ABP croissant in a long time. I knew it was bad and oily for me, but tasty. Now I will assuage my guilt with lower calorie bagels and cream cheese for the rest of the week.

Who knew that coffee was only 10 calories? Sure beats drinking a can of soda for my morning caffeine. (And I drank water all the rest of the day in an insulated mug vs styrofoam cup.)

LOL. You guys are a pip!

#1 - The trick to growing out my nails is that they still look professional even after I bite them. I do not bite my nails down to the quick unless I have broken the nail already. After biting, I run a file over them and they still look like fakes. My nails, when well-groomed, look like the stuff people pay good money for, but are much more sanitary. (Trust me. You never want a nurse that wears fake tips. NEVER. Ask for a new nurse unless you want a staph infection. Acrylic tips harbor germs. EEW.) Hence the desire for a simple polish. I like to get things started right with a real manicure that shapes them nicely and keep it going from there. Home manicures are fabulous stuff. I recommend doing a base and top coat, even at home. It makes a huge difference in how long it lasts. Also, never do dishes without gloves.

#2 - Let me start of by saying that I have a wardrobe of very practical separates. I do. Thanks for all the advice advocating that. That’s great advice for *most* situations. But not this time for what I am going to do. Now that I’ve set foot on site and have encountered a good number of people at my new firm, I can see that they are more sharply dressed than I and it’s time to step it up. My firm claims to be ‘business casual’ but they also tell you to take your direction from the client and the client here is very formal.

To all of you who wear separates, you will eventually observe that this does not cut the mustard in certain lines of work. When I was younger and on a budget, I had a few good suits and a lot of mix and match separates. I could get away with that. But now that I’m over 30, I have noticed very subtley, that women in higher ranks wear very spiffy suits. They really do look a lot sharper than I do. I suppose I’ve got a specific person in mind when I say this, i.e. the female VP at my last job. She wore separates, but the quality on them was extremely high and a lot of times, she had on a suit.

Perhaps this comes from a childhood spent handling other people’s clothes at my mom’s dry cleaning shop, but I can see a difference in quality just by looking. If I can see it, my clients can see it. But if I’m lucky, I’ll be working with hard core geeks again and they won’t really care what I’m wearing. FWIW, I bought two more suits and now it’s time to work off my winter fat and fit back into the old stuff. No need to go crazy just as everyone suggests. I’m not hitting the Chanel boutique inside Nordstrom’s. Nor the Anne Klein purple label stuff. Also, black suiting is not an option as my boyfriend has a white dog that blows her coat three times a year. Plus why do I want to look like goth girl at my new job? I save that stuff to go clubbing. As SingleMa puts it, I need to *POP* with color.

#3 - Pantyhose. *sigh* It literally gives me hives. Many years ago I sat in an epsom salt bath one night after my first day of work. I had welts all over my legs where my skin was under nylon. Not good. This is the main reason why I wear pants instead of skirts to work, not just because I used to crawl on the ground plugging computers back together. I wear pants out of a fear of hose. Honestly, great hose is fab stuff. I love Givenchy. Those were the best pair I ever had. They were $7 and bought them for the prom. Sadly, Givenchy stockings are no longer sold and I hate paying more than $9 a pair. Trouser socks are reasonable since I can wear them under my ice skates too, but I think they also eventually end up with runs. BOYCOTT PANTYHOSE! It’s a stupid waste of money. I go bare legged and am quite happy thank you. (And no, I am genetically lucky enough not to need shaving my legs. There. I’ve said it to stem off the shaving complaints. Moisturize more if you have a razor burn. That’s all I can tell you.)

Truthfully, if you can get away with thicker dernier tights or very opaque hose, they will last longer. It’s the stupidly sexy sheers that always get caught on my bitten and unfiled nails… Mostly, I like thicker tights because let me tell you, it’s a b*tch to wait outside for the bus at 8am.

Greetings Dear Readers!

I am sorry that I have not announced a contest winner for my 2nd Blogoversary Giveaway. I have been SWAMPED with my new job and eye surgery concerns. BUT! I do have a winner!

*drum roll please*

A copy of Debt Is Slavery goes to Ted of Rocket Jones!

********

I used a random number generator to select the winner based on the number of their comment assigned by the computer. Since the first number was a hit, there was no alternative rule setting to take place if the first one wasn’t a hit.

Ted is a local DC blogpal who writes Rocket Jones. People think that Jones is his last name, but think of ‘jones’ as a verb and you’ll start to understand that rocketry is his passion.

Honestly, I was a bit surprised that he reads this blog since he knows me through another blog for which I occasionally write, The Ministry of Minor Perfidy. (Yes, I have been remiss in my submissions over there due to the daily blogging commitment I try to keep over here.) Rarely do the two worlds of Perfidy and PFBlogging collide, short of the Emergency Kit post, which the Ministers will point out is also useful for a Zombie Attack.

Ted reports to me that he has a good use in mind for the book and I am glad that I can spread a little more Personal Finance Love beyond the already interested crowd of checkbook balancers, debt payers, and net worth builders this blog attracts.

If you like model rockets, hockey, bunnies, gardening, sci fi books and movies, please visit Ted.

uh……I don’t know exactly why people are asking me, a very happily single person about childbirthing and laser eye surgery and if I made that consideration at all. I can only guess that it’s because I said you can ask me anything about laser vision correction surgery, and I never anticipated this question at all seeing (pun intended) as that I don’t have any kids.

Nor do I have any plans to have kids any time soon. I’m not sure I’ve ever really expressed wanting them in this blog.

So uh, no. I never asked my doctor about this. Sorry. I can only be an expert on laser eye surgery and dental implants up to a limit.

And the title of this post comes from the corporate trainer I had a few weeks ago. As she walked us through some HR paperwork regarding marital status, that is what she would say while jumping up and down and clapping her hands. I thought it was effing awesome. Of course, she is technically divorced, but clearly happy to be so. (And a mother, so perhaps not quite as happy as me who is gladly without child or a future college fund! ROFL! All my dollars are belong to me! YES! I maketh me the bomb.)

January sucks for retail. Why? Because you want to shop and spend some money, but there is nary a sales person to be found.

Clueless friend and I are shopping and he’s wondering why there isn’t anyone around to ask about opening a display case for us. I then laugh at him and explain that this is the reality of the post-holiday retail season. Everyone has slashed their payroll and cut everyone’s hours.

Why do I know this? Because I learned the hard way. I worked retail in college and January was always the hardest month. I could never get enough retail hours on the clock to make what I needed. I had to keep my library and office work-study jobs to buy my Spring semester books.

*sigh*

Just when I’m ready to spend some money, they won’t let me.

FWIW, I was looking at some allen wrench sets (or ‘hex keys’ but daddy always called them allen wrenches, is that a regional term?) and will now be buying them online through Harbor Freight, piggy backing it off of my friend’s order. Why? Because I had to borrow a set from my lovely neighbors, and I torqued the heck out of the cheap set they loaned me and couldn’t get it back into the case properly, which they couldn’t either when they handed them to me, so it’s ok. But I thought this would be a nice thank you for all the awesome things my friends do for me all year-round.

All was successful with my surgery last week. There were only two problems, but not huge ones. Since I changed jobs, I don’t have an insurance card yet, so I’ve paid for all of meds out-of-pocket. That’s not the problem though, and I’ll explain why.

First of all, I told the nurses, technicians, and doctors that I am allergic to Cipro. Yes, I am going to die in an anthrax attack. But really, it will be quick and painless relative to having hives cover my body, because I found out the hard way about my allergy. This meant that I could not use Zymar, the regular antibiotic they give patients, as it is in the same class. I wish they discovered this error before I spent $75 on the Zymar. However, the replacement, Tobramax was only $18 and I was able to return the Zymar, unopened, for a full refund! YAY!

Advice: If you are doing this on a budget and are not insured, you should ask your doctor if Tobramax is a suitable alternative for you because of its reduced cost. Your doctor may write you a prescription for it instead. Heck, they might even give you free sample sizes. (Which I will explain later.)

Second, everything was going lousy on Thursday for me. I had to rearrange my schedule due to different constraints with work (meeting my new project team at an off-site location far from my doctor’s office) and then the horrible snowy weather we had. I was running late big time, but since the weather was crappy, the laser eye center didn’t think anything of it when I showed up 10 minutes late.

I put the surgery on my credit card as I have not yet received a Medical FSA card yet. (Did you know this has been renamed in 2008? It’s now called Healthcare FSA instead.) It’s going to ding my credit score as I will now have a high utilization, but I don’t care. I had to do it, and reimbursement papers will be submitted soon, as I will have to ask for reimbursement for the surgery (approximately $4800) and for all the medications (approximately $50-60).

One thing I forgot about is a valium pill. They offer it to you. I remember they mentioned it to me a few weeks ago and I thought I didn’t want it. Benzodiazapams suck. I hate how groggy valium makes me feel. But this time, being all tense about driving in bad weather, being late, and a small amount of anxiety about permanently jacking up my vision, I said ok. I advise you to only take half, because I was really woozy for a whole day. I’ll explain more about this too.

Right before going into the laser room, my doctor did a quick check of my eyes. He looked at my right eye and said it was great, but when he looked at my left he was concerned that my eye socket was a bit small. He was thinking that he might have to do PRK instead and explained that with Lasik, they fit a ring on your eye socket and it couples with the laser to create a tight seal and fix the laser’s position. Unfortunately, my eye socket might be too small to fit the ring and it could pop out, which would be very bad. So I signed paperwork for PRK surgery as well as the Lasik and away I went into the laser room.

Lasik takes about 2 minutes. No lie. It’s very quick. They fit the ring on, you stare at an orange blinky light, stuff is very blurry and you can see the doctor manipulate stuff in front of your eyeball. It’s not a big deal. The doctor was able to do my right eye very quickly. However, sure enough, when it came to my left eye, they put the ring on and as the laser lowered to couple to the ring, it popped out. The doctor apologized and went ahead with PRK instead. The difference is basically rather than cut a flap, they scrape away the epithelial cells. It takes a lot longer to heal, bu the results will essentially be the same. Honestly, it only took a few minutes more. I couldn’t have been in the laser room more than 10 minutes total. And that includes another post-op check of my eyes.

With the PRK, they also put a protective bandage contact lens in, which isn’t necessary with Lasik.

Because they want you to sleep for a few hours right away, they give me Tylenol PM after they reviewed my PRK and Lasik healing/medication treatments, because there are different medications for each one. And they wrote me some extra prescriptions for pain medications. Before my friend took me home, we went to the drugstore and I picked up the meds along with some extra eye drops. With eye surgery you have to get single-use preservative-free drops. Total for two prescriptions and eye drops was about $40. Really, it was cheaper than I thought. Also, they give me two small vials of Tobramax for my PRK eye, not knowing that I already have some anyway due to the Cipro allergy. So more free medication for me!

On our way back to my friend’s house, we decide that I am going to sleep over for a few hours and her husband will drive me back later because the weather is going to change to rain and the roads might be better. If not, I’ll just stay over. I crawled into their spare bedroom and conk out. I slept from 4pm till MIDNIGHT! I could hear voices downstairs wondering if they should check on me, but I’m way too tired from the Tylenol PM and valium to even shout out that I’m ok. Basically, I roll over and sleep till midnight. At that point, I wake up and crawl downstairs for a glass of water, slice of pizza and slice of cheesecake. I put in my first round of eye drops and go back to sleep.

In the morning, I do all of my eye drops at 8am and take the oral medication I need as well. I take a nap and get up around 10:30 for the next round of drops. With Lasik, you put in Pred Forte every 2 hours you are awake (a medication my doctor provided). Due to an anti-inflammatory drop for the PRK that’s every 12 hours (also provided), I try to set myself onto an even hour schedule for everything. I line up the drugs in order in front of each eye and treat the right eye first, then the left eye. They recommend doing each eye separately so you don’t get confused. I recommend lining the drops up on the counter in order, so you don’t lose your place.

The funny thing is that the lubricating drop has to be chilled for the PRK eye. I ask my doctor about this later and it’s just for comfort. I think this is crazy to put in an ice-cold eye drop, but it really does help lower the inflammation, so I am going to continue to do it.

Later in the day I go to see my regular eye doctor and I made a stupid mistake of not bringing all the meds and treatment plans with me. Due to the confusion about Tobramax, the doctor calls the laser center and gets it all straightened out. It’s all good and I am cleared to drive. I see 20/20 out of my Lasik eye, and 20/50 out of my PRK eye. This after a mere 24 hours. WOW. That is really cool.

The eye doctor tells me that my Lasik eye will be fully healed in about a week, but cautions me that the PRK eye can take up to 2-3 months to heal and settle into its final prescription. It may or may not reach 20/20. I tell her that’s ok. She says though it’s 20/50 now, when I come back in 3 days, she will remove the bandage contact for me and my vision will improve even further.

I still feel woozy from the valium and Tylenol PM. I continue to drink a lot of water to metabolize the medication. But I’m also having a low grade headache. The doctor asks me if I have any pain and I tell her not really. I only had a regular Tylenol even though I have a prescription for Tylenol 3. I just don’t need it since there is no acute pain.

Now that I’m writing this in my funky, don’t-rub-your-eyes, goggles, I realize that I still have a low grade headache and I’m sure it’s due to a slight amount of squinting from my 20/50 eye and this stupid elastic strap on the goggles.

But all in all, I’m happy I’ve done it. Feel free to comment or email me any questions you might have. I’m not a medical professional by any means, but I did have two types of procedures and they were both successful. Even if my PRK eye stays at 20/50, I have made great improvements already. If you have a desire to get rid of your glasses, I highly recommend laser surgery and I am happy to recommend my surgeon to you. (I get a $25 gas card if you do.) Also, to save money, I recommend asking your friends if they have referral coupons for other doctors. Apparently some of the laser centers around DC give them to patients, I just chose a specific surgeon who had done work on several of my friends and I felt extremely confident about getting good care. More than anything, be confident in your doctor when selecting your surgeon. Though the preliminary checks were done by a doctor that didn’t notice my Cipro allergy, as they reviewed my chart later, they caught the error and called right away. Better late than never.

Also, Lulugal has a write up of her own experiences at How I Save Money. Take a look and compare and contrast. Talk to as many folks as you can about the details since everyone has a different take on things. (And her treatment protocol is very different from mine. The meds aren’t even the same name, which makes me wonder if she’s in a different country and they’re branded differently.)

I think I’m going to be lucky if I reach the peak of my 2007 net worth.

The reason is two-fold.

1. I am taking a bath in the markets lately in my retirement accounts. Coupled with my low contribution rate in 2008, I think I’ll be lucky to be flat and not lose anything in the funds I hold. I have shifted some money around to re-allocate to a heavier international portion, but honestly, I think things aren’t look too good globally either.

2. I just got my 2008 real estate assessment and I’m taking a $4k hit on the value of my condo. No worries though, I’m still up 14% on my original purchase price from 3 years ago. Unlike other people who bought at the top of the market, I bought an undervalued property and am still enjoying a positive increase in valuation. With the way regional planning is being done, I actually am primed for a huge increase in value in my property in the next 5-10 years. (They’re putting a new trolley/lightrail system a few blocks away, which they want ready in less than 10 years.)

Add on all that some changes in cash flow with my job transition and I’m holding onto cash as much as I can right now, but it’s been tough since I know I have to upgrade my wardrobe and I cannot submit my eye surgery to my new Medical FSA account just yet.

Sorry for not posting till very late today, but yesterday I had my vision correction surgery. I’ll write up more about it later since there is a lot to tell about it, from a medical perspective as well as a personal finance one. (No, REALLY!)

I hope all of you have a very nice weekend! Check back with me next week for some thrilling posts on the subject.

Take some time on Monday to reflect on the Civil Rights Movement and how far we’ve come and what still needs doing. Because believe me, there is still stuff that needs fixing.