I got home an hour early because of a snafu with the system I use for data entry. I waited around an hour to see if it would come back up and then a co-worker took me home through the wind and the snow (the ground's too warm for it to stick, but it's a little stinging on the face). I didn't manage to pay my rent this morning, so I dropped it off at the office, albeit after they closed. I'll check tomorrow to make sure they got it--there was a bit of a tailwind when I put it through the slot. But it's a cashier's cheque made specifically out to them by the bank, so if it's cashed I should have proof of payment. I got the cashier's cheque free instead of paying the $5 for a money order because the teller was visiting with her co-workers and was so mortified that I'd waited since she had not seen me. I was fine with everything, and didn't feel put out, but I'll gladly take the discount.
The shadow money is on its way out of my account; the reversal is pending. That leaves me enough for the IRS (I'm afraid to make the cheque out for the 25th but send it earlier without the money to cover it; I don't get paid until the 24th, so I'm making sure I have enough in the bank in case it goes through early--they want me to send it by the 15th so it gets there in time), and my phone bills. There's not enough to pay my cable bill until the 24th, and that may be iffy, but they won't cut it off entirely so I may just have restricted services for a few days. I'm on time with everything else.
Now that I know how much I'm making (roughly, as I get a shift differential, too) with the new raise, I'm working out a budget. It's a tight budget, leaving me with, well, about $30 a month discretionary income. I've been spending too much money on food at work and need to start bringing my lunch. The most other obvious cut would be my Vonage phone, but my cell phone can only handle so long of a conversation or so many calls before recharging and I also like having a phone for things like doctors' reminders so I don't get bothered when I'm out and about. Plus I can call anywhere at anytime and it's not extra and uses no minutes. The one drawback is that if my electricity or cable is out, so is my home phone. But Vonage has been very good to me; they once gave me a free month when I couldn't pay them a few years ago, rather than letting repeated attempts to debit from my account cause multiple overdraughts.
Now back to this morning. I checked, and everything's fine rent-wise. It's sunny and supposed to stay so today, although cool. When I went to the Weather Channel's site just now, I saw the story for the massive earthquake in Japan and the accompanying tsunami.
Here's what one seismologist said about the quake:
The magnitude 8.9 earthquake that struck Friday off the coast of Japan "is going to be among the top 10 earthquakes recorded since we have had seismographs," said seismologist Susan Hough of the US Geological Survey in Pasadena. "It's bigger than any known historic earthquake in Japan, and bigger than expectations for that area."At least Japan is one of the most earthquake-prepared countries. I hope that minimises the impact and damage, although it looks like it's still just incredibly big and therefore destructive. Plus there are tsunami warnings all around the Pacific, so this has the potential to be quite deadly, and although the last figure I heard was 60 for deaths in Japan, that number is obviously going to go up as the damage is assessed and more buildings are searched. My thoughts go out to the people of Japan and those in the path of the tsunami.
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