Yes, you can read that anyway you want to. But the point is that I got my (wait for it) . . . letter telling how much my stimulus check will be and where on line I can go to find out where the hell it is. That sure sort of stimulated me.
Especially since I am sort of floating between the save it all in the Emergency Fund and the spend part of it to buy something I have been putting off getting for about a year.
Like most music-heads of my generation, making tapes was what you did. But as technology evolved, and like, has gotten, well, different, I have moved away from making my own. I used to listen to music all the time back when FM meant free from commercials music. But these days of promos instead of honest reviews and downloads and Ipods and MP3s just feel fake to me. Plastic in the old sense of the word.
When I saw the Crosely CD Recorder though, my mind went immediately to the treasured 300 albums I still have stored safely in my workroom. I could splice some great stuff was my first thought. But my second thought was to impose the 10 second rule while pondering what else I could do with the $300 out of pocket. At that time my ING savings were earning 3.4% so adding $300 to the 5k already there would bring in about $15 a month compounded. Not bad. Plus, well that was it for the pluses.
So I went ahead and hesitated. Seven months went by and every time I was in Target or Linens & Things I somehow found an excuse to check to see if it was still there and maybe on sale. Target dropped its price twice, once by $10 and once by $25. Still . . .
Then came the news of the Stimulus Checks. Whoa! Since the money was extra I could just treat it like found money, right? Plus, ING was now down to 3% and falling. So now I was looking at $9 a month compounded that I wouldn’t earn. Okay then, this was my emergency/special occasion fund wasn’t it? All systems were go but somehow I found reasons for not. Damn, how did I turn so frugal?
Fate, meanwhile seemed to be working the situation too. My check is being sent in the July cycle. Gas prices show no sign of falling, the economy be heading deeper into a recession followed by a spectacular inflationary period and now is not the time to slip down the slope.
And then I saw it. Posted in the window for all, and especially me, to see. 20% off on your first purchase when you sign up for our Linens & Things store credit card. Uh oh! that is $60. My dream for just $240 of found money, I’ll pay the credit card off right in the store.
I’ll only lose out on $240 worth of interest earning but I will gain that in pleasure just in compiling my first CD. I think I am going for it. Come July or high water, that is.
Finance is Fun 
goesdownbitter said
Thanks for link to our blog. 🙂
rhbee said
Yes, I just realized that the sunami called inflation my be another reason I better hurry down and buy my Crosley.