This is a rant and there will be no pictures, so move along now if you have more prurient interests.

This is the bitter me on trying to find the right pieces of undergarments over the last three years and how much it’s been a trial. I was inspired by Mrs. Micah’s post on the Lingerie ROI.

I worked for Express in college and I’d get a coupon for Victoria’s Secret and Cacique because they were owned at that time by the same parent company. Cacique is long gone now. It never took off like VS did. But they used to make 100% cotton undies and sell them 4 or 5 for $20. I’d use my coupon and get them for $15. I ended up with about 50 pairs after graduation, over 10 years ago. Yes, I can admit to hoarding them but they are great. I used to have a little cache of them with the tags still on but even that final stash is its last legs and I have to find suitable replacements.

I liked these because they were bikini style with encased elastic, 100% cotton in plain colors and cute floral patterns. They were full coverage bottoms, with a leg cut that was neither too high, nor too modest. Heck, I even made a dress out of similarly patterned fabric to match one pair because I liked the blue/white scheme so much.

Unfortunately, it’s really hard to find comparable underpants. I’ve tried Victoria’s Secret signature underpants and they do not cut the mustard. Neither does Hanes (in several types). The primary problem is that no one makes encased elastic waistbands anymore. I admit, I haven’t checked online for any, but I don’t feel like I should have to buy something so mundane as my skivvies online. Why can’t you go and just buy them in a normal store anymore? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

As for upper body undergarments, I curse Target for dropping my favorite lace demi cup design. They never stocked them in quantity so I couldn’t buy 10 of them at once. The last time I checked for them I was very sad. In my desperation though I found something suitable, also from Target. In fact, this new bra was $3 cheaper. It’s the Gilligan and O’Malley house line (same as the old one I liked) but this one is not a demi cup, but at least it fits ok and makes a nice line under your clothes. They are still understocked at the store, but this time, I’m going to buy them online. I have one reservation which is that the top of the cup tends to roll *outward* which is very bad under a t-shirt. I swear, I’d give my kingdom for Target to bring back the old demi cup I liked.

One of my friends asked me about finding a bra with no underwire. She told me it was driving her crazy because she couldn’t find one anywhere. I found one by Hanes (also at Target) and tried it, but it was unflattering and the tag placement is in the worst spot under your armpit. The new bra I like has the tag printed on which is much better, but it wears off quickly so I’ll have to write the size onto the fabric if I want to remember the specs later.

At any rate, the quest for a decent replacement for underpants is going nowhere. *harumph* I may end up going commando because all of my favorite Cacique pairs are dying rapidly. One of my dear hippie friends from California hasn’t worn them in 25 years, but I’m still skeptical. I’m a little too modest to be quite *THAT* frugal.

The main part of the construction is finally done. There’s one minor problem to fix, but it still renders my apartment unusable at the moment. (Sort of.)

I asked my contractor to retain my original tub because of an art deco detailing that matches the building’s exterior. I had him reglaze the surface so I could keep it. Doing that costs about $400 whereas a new tub would have been $200 + installation. To me, that’s about equivalent pricing with the added non-monetary benefit of pleasing my aesthetics.

Unfortunately, my contractor didn’t have a whole lot of experience with glazing. He hired an excellent glazer through his business partner who had used this glazer on other projects. The tub looked great when I first saw the work. It was awesome and I knew I had made the right decision.

However, my contractor told me on Tuesday that it would take 24 hours to set and then about 72 hours to cure, so I wouldn’t be able to shower in it till Friday. There were just a few more things to do like hang a towel bar and clean the work area and everything would be done. That was fine with me.

I get a call on Wednesday evening. The contractor has made a boo boo. He misunderstood the glazer. Nothing should have touched the tub for 72 hours at all. Because the contractor thought 24 hours was enough, he laid a canvas drop cloth in the tub so he could step in it and put in the plumbing fixtures. He had inadvertently marred the surface with the texture of the cloth. OOPS.

The glazer said he can’t fix this for at least a week because you can’t lay another layer of glaze down for 7 days after the first application. While I can use the tub over the weekend, it’s not perfect. So really, I’m not going to be able to move back in till June 21st after the reglazing is fully cured. YIKES. That makes it nearly 2 months since I started the project which should have taken 10-15 days.

At least I am only eating the cost of the extra labor for the surprise concrete under the waist-high tile backsplash on a spot of the walls that didn’t need tile. Yes, I went overbudget, but only by $300, less than 10% of the total estimate. And I saved a little money by buying less tile overall.

I will do an inspection over the weekend and hopefully cut a check for final payment next week. Then I will be able to move back in! YAY!

I love company-sponsored Happy Hours. I drank less than I would have normally, but it was darned hot yesterday.

I came back to my boyfriend’s house to change my shirt. I got salad dressing splatters all over the front of it trying to scarf down a yummy $7 salad from Chicken Out. (Milan Cutlet salad with the tasty tasty balsamic dressing) Not really the way I wanted to meet the rest of the team working the global contract, know what I mean?

Then I walked to the bar the lads had picked out since it was in the neighborhood and proceeded to order a Shandy. I have no idea why bartenders do not know what a Shandy is, but it’s pilsner and lemonade, and the Brickskeller in DC has it printed on the menu. (Therefore nearly everyone in DC should know about it because nearly everyone has been to The Brick at least once. But I digress.) I love them on really hot days. It gives you a good buzz and refreshment without making you stupid too quickly. (Always important at these corporate networking events.)

I paid the for the first one while I waited because I don’t carry my corporate credit card around and I wasn’t expecting to be the senior consultant attending. I had a second Shandy and called it a night, but it was easily 20ozs of beer in the two drinks I had. More than plenty to lubricate a good conversation with my fellow employees.

If you like beer cocktails at all, I HIGHLY recommend a Shandy. I suppose you could do it with a hefeweizen as well. I’m the kind of person who squeezes half a lemon in mine and not just a single wedge so I flip for lemonade.

All hail the summer drink you can drink all night, avoid not look like a teetotalling prude no one wants to know, and still not get *too* drunk. (Opting for a Shandy may reduce Foot-in-Mouth Embarassment, but I don’t guarantee that it will stop it 100% of the time.)

ps- I then did Indian take-out dinner for me and the boyfriend and walked home. It was just over $25. I gave the waiter $30 and instead of $4+change, he just gave me $5! YAY! And because I had that huge salad at lunch, I only ordered lamb samosas for $6 instead of a full $12 entree. Portion control AND money well-spent. Total food budget was $37, adding in $4 for the Shandy and $1 tip, and a merry little walk!

I’m on the mailing list for HooplaDC where I found a cute dress on sale for $25 this winter.

This only for their Adams Morgan location, which is on the west side of the street.

Clothing samples for men & women
Wholesale prices!
One week-end only
DATE: Friday, June 13th to Sunday, June 15th
TIME: Friday 12-8, Saturday 10-8, Sunday 12-6
LOCATION: 2314 18th Street, NW
MORE: Great savings on one-of-a-kind samples: organic cotton, hemp, bamboo
Jeans, t-shirts, skirts, dresses & more
Mostly small sizes
Shop early for best selection

Hoopla DC
2314 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 797-0730

First off, I don’t give out financial advice because I’m not an advisor. If you need that, ask someone who is certified and pledges to do business ethically. I’m not that person. I’m here to *entertain* you.

That being said, someone asked this question:

I did recently check my credit report and found that I have five credit cards open that I have not or never used in several years. Does keeping them open, albeit unused, help or hurt my credit score? Would you suggest that I close the accounts if I never intend to use them?

I think you’re best off reading about FICO or Vantage credit scoring models. There is some benefit to having revolving credit accounts open for a long time. Now the question is do you have too many open that hurts your score in another way? That’s up to you to decide. I mean you could go ahead and close them but that could also lower your score in the short-term, but in the long-term that could be beneficial if someone is looking at your ability to get in revolving debt overnight and evaluating you as a credit risk in 2 years down the road.

Does monitoring these unused accounts put an undue burden on you? Closing them could ease your mind.

A strategy you might want to try is to get a credit score report and then close one account and get your credit score again afterwards. Because so much goes into scoring though, so you’ll have to control the experiment by making sure your payments are on time during that time period and watch to see if your balances cross the 35% of available credit on that account. (Up or down. Either one will trigger a score change.)

The biggest score impacting item is on-time payment. Just make sure that you vigilantly pay on-time for a minimum of 24 months. Small open accounts may represent only annoyance and possible security risk without a lot of other score downsides, so it’s up to you if you want to keep them open.

But you might have guessed that already as a regular reader.

Via Escape Brooklyn, it’s official. I scored a 17 on the Time Out New York quiz.

I took this quiz about being cheap at timeoutnewyork.com/livecheap, and my cheapness quotient rated as 17.

Here’s what they said:
Finally! A sane person. You’re careful with your money, but never cheap. You know that what goes around comes around and that a thank-you goes a long way.

Try the quiz and let me know how you score:
Cheap Quiz

As I expected, I’ve been shopping for lunch at the supermarket near work. I think I’ve figured out a good pattern.

For about $11-13 I can get a bowl of chili, a .6-.75 lb package of chicken salad, 1-3 whole wheat bakery rolls, a 6 pack of 20 oz Diet Cokes. For about $4 more, I can get a big box of roasted nuts. Cashews are my favorite.

I do this all in one single lunch hour trip. That’s important because part of the reason I’ve been doing this is to cut down on car trips during the week.

I eat the chili the first day with a roll. For lunch the next day, I eat half the chicken salad on another roll, or else bring some of that yummy homemade bread I’ve been baking. The third day is the rest of the chicken salad with homebread or a roll.

However, I think I need to add some bag salad to this so that I can get a few more veggies in the mix. And the downside risk is that a bad brownie might eat my lunch, but so far, there are better things to steal like the team statistician’s homemade pork and spinach dumplings. (OMG with handmade skins and homegrown chives. Delicious!)

The only downside to this is that I don’t get away from my desk on Day 2 and Day 3. That’s part of why I buy lunch every day. There’s no place outside to eat in my industrial park, besides, it’s disgusting out there now that summer is here. (It hit 100 on Saturday, therefore it’s summer.) Also, there something pathetic about the brightly painted cafeteria set in the middle of the industrial work area at my work site. It’s windowless and depressing in its false cheeriness. Plus the vending machine tempts me with candy treats and overpriced soda.

At any rate, going to the supermarket for lunch is helping conserve money. I’ve found that out in suburban industrial park hell, lunch usually runs me $8+, even on the Korean-owned lunch buffet. (Where I get my fix of Korean food the other 2 days of the week.) I rarely go to Chicken Out with the guys from the office since it’s really far away and what I want usually runs about $9. That’s been more of a monthly treat instead.

So what about you? Is this a viable strategy to change the ways of a chronic lunch purchaser? I know it’s been working for me for the last two weeks and I hope to keep it going for the rest of the summer. Are you a chronic lunch buyer and willing to try this strategy out?

N.B. I forgot to post this last Friday.

I’ve successfully been able to budget all monthly fixed expenses into one semi-monthly paycheck. That includes more-than-minimum payments on two credit cards.

Because of my stimulus package payment and some squirreled away savings, I’m able to take almost one entire paycheck and put it towards credit card repayment.

I still can’t nudge the Debt-O-Meter, but at least I’m moving forward on the credit card debt after the set back of a $5K BT for the bathroom remodel/ceiling replacement.

The bathroom is looking pretty sharp though. Almost done. Almost.

Last Friday, I pulled HC out of the office to join me at Artomatic for Craigslist: The Musical.

Artomatic is a free art free-for-all in DC. Basically if you’re an artist with a few dollars and some volunteer time, you can get a display space. Admittance is free, but they ask for donations. Plus happy hour is 6-8pm and beers are $3! Even the fancy Flying Dog beer.

Artomatic 2008 ends on June 15th so this is your last week to attend. (It’s closed Monday and Tuesday.)

Special Events:
* PostSecret Book Signing - Friday, 6/13
* Art in Fashion - A closing event that will combine fashion, art, music and fire. The event will take place in both first-floor music venues simultaneously and begins at 8:00 on Saturday 6/14 and continues until closing.

PostSecret is Frank Warren’s original art project which debuted at Artomatic several years ago and has turned into an amazing confessional, revelatory art experience. At times it’s heart-breaking, humorous, or bizarre. I know Dawn at Frugal For Life was arrested by one postcard about personal finances.

I suspect the fire show will include my friends from Flights of Fire. Some pretty amazing pyroarts of all kinds.

Some of my favorite pieces are the Peeps dioramas, the Jesus figurines, mandala photos by Vick Fisher (a former co-worker with a secret hobby!), and the artist next to my friend Christine Otvos (at 9 NW A2). The artist next to her had little skeleton art reminscent of Mexican Day of the Dead artwork. Great stuff.

1. I really want to be home at my condo. I miss it. But walking in there while it’s still under renovation depresses me. It also doesn’t help that I nearly had an asthma attack the other night because of all the dust. The contractor did not tape off the hallway as I requested. He left a 3-inch gap at the top. I’m actually quite angry about that. I told him repeatedly that I could not and would not clean up the cave-in and dry wall myself because I feared an asthma attack.

2. Because I can’t be home, I feel like I’m out of control with my finances. I rely on Quicken to help me plan out my spending. I open it up every few days, if not every day, and update the balances. Access to my desktop is key for good financial management. I am veritably crawling the walls because I am addicted to my finances. It’s partially why I am hoarding cash like crazy. I was a little afraid of sending my federal tax refund to my credit card company but I looked a Quicken on Monday night and see that it’s ok. BOOM! That’s $2500 I can pay off this month. All the rest of the cash I’m hoarding is for my contractor.

3. I feel fat. I may not LOOK fat, but I can’t fit into my Lilly skirt (purchased 2 yrs ago). I was hoping to wear it to a beach-side wedding last month, but I had to settle for an odd fitting dress. Way to go. All my pants are cutting into my stomach at work while I’m sitting. I am constantly uncomfortable. I admit, I haven’t made a lot of effort here since frankly I am lazy and exercise isn’t on the menu. My own vanity is getting the best of me and my wallet.

BLAH. June will be better. I can feel it.