Archive for the 'Spend!' Category

A purchase I didn’t want to make, but nonetheless turned out well

Published at April 26, 2009 in I am a Luddite, Spend! and work work work. 3 Comments

So I just bought myself a netbook.  And I reaaaaallly didn’t want to, but it worked out.

I kinda like the thing.

I bought it because I’m now working on a project at work that’s online, so I can do weekend work from home rather than having to schlep in to Manhattan and waste a lot of my weekend in transit.  But the problem is, the project requires Internet Explorer, which Microsoft no longer supports for the Mac.  And then, I need to be able to open links to native documents, which are all in Windows format.  While I have Open Office,  I can’t even see the links because the program I have to use won’t work on anything but a Microsoft platform.

I thought I’d maybe use the computer lab at school, since I did pay an access fee and all, but the site doesn’t work there, either, possibly because it’s disabled on shared computers.  So off I went to J&R and got myself a cheap little netbook.  It’s really not bad; I don’t have any trouble seeing the screen, it’s got a trial version of Office so I can access everything but PowerPoints (which just won’t load for some reason, but I just skip those for the time being), it’s plenty fast, the keyboard is reasonably comfortable, it’s very light and fits in my purse.  The only drawback is the 3-hour battery (the version that’s $80 more has a 6-hour battery) but since I will primarily be using this at home or at a coffee shop with outlets, it doesn’t really matter.  Oh, and the fact that you can’t view the entire window in your browser, but I’ve already gotten the scroll-click-scroll thing down.

I may use this for my travel computer, since it weighs nothing and it’s cheap enough that I can easily replace it if it gets lost, stolen or dropped.  It’s also cheap enough that it’ll pay for itself in no time since it will allow me to bill a little extra time evenings and weekends.

Eep!

Published at March 22, 2009 in Spend!, Clotheshorsery and Vanity. 10 Comments

I just spent an ungodly sum of money on a dress. A fancy dress. A dress I may never wear but once.

But, damn, it’s a nice dress. And it makes me look fantastic. And it’s fancy enough for a fancypants black-tie-optional event, which is something I’m going to next week.

I’d spent the whole afternoon Saturday looking for something, anything, that I could wear and look good in and feel good in and maybe not have to fork over almost as much as I would like to spend on a flight to Iceland for. Lane Bryant had some cute dresses, but they all had Empire waists — which make me look simultaneously hunchbacked and pregnant — and also had major static issues. Most of the stuff at Macy’s either had Empire waists, needed special underwear, or was matronly.

So I went to Leelee’s Valise, a store I try to avoid because it makes me want to spend money. But damn, they have some gorgeous stuff.

And let me tell you, after an afternoon spent trying on stuff that looked cute on the hanger but made me look horrible, it was nice to be handed a pretty broad selection of beautiful, well-made dresses that made me look great. And the killer one was this knee-length Tadashi dress with a black ruched-chiffon bodice and skirt and lace-over-nude sleeves with a little bit of sparkle (something like this one, but with a portrait neckline). I walked out and looked at myself in the mirror and was almost speechless. I looked really damned good.

I actually bought a different dress at first. Not that I didn’t love the Tadashi, but that price tag was giving me fits. And I don’t go to many fancypants black-tie-optional events, so I figured that I’d be better off buying a cheaper dress I could dress up with accessories and probably get more use out of. I will most definitely be going to cocktail parties and dinners at library conferences. Librarians, I am learning, network like nobody’s business. Nobody likes a good conference, complete with opening receptions and closing dinners, like a librarian. But the Tadashi might be a bit much for that kind of event — though it might not, but I won’t know until I actually go to one.

So I got the cheaper dress. But that lovely, gorgeous Tadashi dress was still calling to me.

I started looking for shoes. I wanted gold, but so many gold shoes look tacky. But I found these, and fell in love.

I spoke to my sister, who’s also coming up for the event (our aunt is being honored for her work with a Catholic foundation). She was going to wear a black wrap dress that she’d worn to her company Christmas party. I was again hearing the call of the Tadashi, so I offered to let her wear the lace boudoir dress, which would give me an excuse to go get the Tadashi. Which is what I did.

And you know? Now I have something to wear to fancypants events. It won’t go out of style, since it’s classic, I know it looks good on me, if I lose weight I can have it taken in and if I gain weight I can sell it on eBay.

I’ll just have to start going to more fancypants events, that’s all.

How to get lucky in the stock market

Published at March 16, 2009 in Money and Spend!. 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking about that line from Wargames in regard to the stock market:  The only way to win is not to play.

For years, I’ve been kicking myself about not having a job that affords me 401(k), and not having an IRA, and in general being in a very precarious situation financially — that was, of course, my own doing, intermittent periods of unemployment notwithstanding.

And when I sold my apartment last year and wound up with a big chunk of money in my hand, I thought I should invest it, or put it somewhere it could make some money for me.  It’s not that I trusted the stock market, exactly, but it seemed like a reasonable thing to do, and interest rates on Treasury securities were so lousy.  Instead, because I couldn’t get past the inertia, I just parked it in an online savings account and some CDs.

Probably a good decision, I’m thinking, even if my savings account’s interest rate has been slashed to 1.65% recently due to the financial crisis.  Not that I really “decided” so much as defaulted into this position.

Freeing myself from the shackles

Published at January 4, 2009 in Commerce, Spend!, Advertisers want to suck your brains and The Teevee. 5 Comments

I’m considering taking my cable box in to Time Warner tomorrow and canceling my cable (but not my internet).  I watch TV too mindlessly, and I pay a lot for really only a handful of shows that I watch with any regularity.  And those I can actually watch on the internet; anything else, I can get through Netflix.

I figure I can save myself $60 a month doing this, and if I switch to a prepaid cell phone, I can save another $25 and be free of Verizon’s yoke (they keep calling me to get me into another 2-year contract.  Um, no).

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll start knitting again for real.

The cult, I have joined it

Published at May 2, 2008 in Spend! and Vanity. 16 Comments

Purchased a new MacBook last night. Along with an Airport and a wee green iPod Shuffle, which is the tiniest piece of electronica I’ve ever seen. I had earrings bigger than that in the ’80s.

There were a few moments of frustration last night while attempting to get online wirelessly (and Apple could be a little more clear which device they’re telling you to restart when you’re trying to do setup). But once I got signed in and set up, it was a breeze.

I’m still getting used to the change in user interface from PCs, and especially from Firefox (can a Mac run Firefox? Because I’m not digging Safari so far). But ancient synapses are coming back to life — after all, I learned how to use computers on the teeny-tiny first-generation Macs at my campus newspaper, and I used them (with the exception of a few years of using mainframe-based pieces of crap at the professional newspaper I worked for between college and law school) all the way up through law school, until I arrived in a law firm that was still using MS-DOS and WordPerfect. So I had to retrain myself in WordPerfect and then, eventually, Word (when law firms finally decided to use the same programs their clients did).

My first computer,* purchased third-hand in law school, was one of the ’80s-era Macs. 1 MB of RAM. One.  (My new iPod has 2GB.)  4-inch black and white screen. It was slow, and because it had no memory I couldn’t load any software onto it or use it to get online, but I was able to do my outlines and my exams on it, and print them at the law school’s computer center.

But now I have a sleek, fast, compact little MacBook. With a working disk drive! I’ll finally be able to upload my CDs.

_______

*Of my own — my family had a Commodore 64, not that we did much of anything with it but play games.

Techno bleg

Published at April 30, 2008 in Spend!. 16 Comments

Last night, I hosed my laptop (laptop + juice =  so not a good idea).  I don’t think it’s going to recover.

So.  I’m in the market for a new laptop, and I happen to have enough money saved for one, since I’d been planning to replace the one I have in a few months anyhow.

Suggestions?  I’ve been considering something from Apple, but I’d need to know if I can just plug in my cable modem, camera, etc., and whether the Word available for Macs is compatible with law firm usage.

Happy consumermas!

Published at December 12, 2007 in Spend!, Advertisers want to suck your brains and The Teevee. 13 Comments

Is anyone else quite as intensely irritated by all those Christmas luxury car and jewelry ads?  And do people actually *give* luxury vehicles and significant pieces of jewelry for Christmas?