robotech_master: (unicorn-dancer)
Well, I had a pretty good Friday. Everything was even quieter than usual at work.

Got a craving for Chinese food, and stopped myself from spending $25 to order some via Grubhub. Really, I gotta cut down on that. Save my money. But I did notice there's a Chinese restaurant within 2 miles of me, and it was 50 degrees, so I called in a carry-out order and bicycled up there after work to grab it more affordably. It was a little tiring—I should probably get out and bicycle more often, as the weather warms up, as long as I can do it without approaching within six feet of someone else. Assuming that they don't tighten up the lockdown to where that sort of thing isn't allowed.

When I got home, Benji made a break for it out the front door, and I wasn't quite able to catch him. So I took my dinner outside and ate it on the front porch until he wandered close enough for me to grab. Finished about half of it, put the rest in the fridge; will warm it up later for lunch. So, good there.

I put in a grocery order at Meijer yesterday, but there were no delivery slots available. Happened to mention this to sister-in-law Karen, and she offered to pick the stuff up for me. So I changed it from a delivery order to a pickup order. (And I was able to ask Karen to pick up some port and beer for me, too, since I can't order those through the Meijer web site.) However, the order didn't properly process. Not sure if that's because I put Karen's name for the pickup but paid with my own credit card—did that cause some kind of issue? Dunno. The $5 authorization went through just fine last night, not sure why they'd have had trouble with it today.

Happily, the Shipt shopper who had collected the groceries was able to hand them off to Karen in the store, and she bought them for me and I paid her back through Facebook Messenger. Then she left them on my doorstep, and I wiped them down with bleach wipes and put them away. So, I've got food and kitty litter and booze…win! And a job that gives me a steady source of income and doesn't require me to go outside…double win.

Really glad that worked out, because I had been completely out of cat litter and was getting pretty worried about my ability to change out the cat litter this weekend. Was pondering bicycling out to Aldi to bring back a tub of litter to tide me over to whenever I could reschedule the grocery delivery, or possibly risking infection on the bus to go pick up some booze personally. But now I can continue to stay safe and sequestered while still living in the lifestyle to which I am accustomed.
robotech_master: (Default)
Well, here I am back at work again, getting ready for the Big Weekend. This weekend was a Big Weekend of another sort, as it was the annual "Tax-Free Weekend" in Missouri and a lot of other states, where states voluntarily forego their chunk of the 6% sales tax in the name of Education, saving a decent chunk of change for back-to-school folks (and people who are not going anywhere near schools but can still use the same stuff). And there were some purchases I'd been needing to make anyway—my numbers of slacks and shorts have been dwindling, and my shoes were just about to fall to pieces around my feet. And there were also some things I needed to buy for trip prep. And Saturday was the only free day when the buses would be running on the schedule that would let me catch a return trip home without having to go 3/4 of the way around town to get there. So Saturday was it.

My Saturday Shopping Experience )

At work this morning, I arranged to get my paycheck this week a day early, so I can deposit it on my way home Thursday and have it officially hit the bank account Friday afternoon. That way I'll have the money in hand in case of emergencies, or in case I see anything I've just Gotta Have at the dealer room.

I've estimated the amount I can afford to spend, and I should be okay as long as I stick with it. It will probably mean passing up a lot of tempting purchases, but on the other hand I'm not really going there to buy stuff anyway. In the worst possible case, I may have to put a couple hundred dollars more on my credit card, but I can pay that off with the next BioKinetic study.

Alas, when I have to worry about conserving my finances, what a time for me to rediscover a company with which I had become acquainted in the past, a company formerly known as JerryCo but now known as SciPlus. A salvage and surplus seller, they had a newsprint catalog full of hundreds of interesting items, each of which was accompanied by a line drawing and a quirky, amusing write-up. I could spend hours reading through the catalog, about electric motors and gears and lenses and things in which I had no interest whatsoever, just to chuckle at the jokes. Their catalog is on the Internet now, but it's still got the line drawings (and color photos for some items) and the quirky write-ups. And there's so much tempting gadgetry and gimmickery there that I could easily have blown $30, $40, $50 or more on the stuff—if I didn't have to worry about the upcoming convention trip. Ah, travel frugality is such sweet sorrow…

August 2020

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