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In my Green Project Writeup recently, I had written about all the measures we have been taking to go green. Changing all our high-wattage bulbs with CFLs was one of them. Here is a comparison of the last few electric bills and the effect that CFLs have had on our energy costs. Feels great to go green and save some green at the same time!

11/07/2008 - $67.36

10/08/2008 - $79.21

09/08/2008 - $85.35

08/07/2008 - $99.51

My money scraping project continues in it’s 4th day. I got a little busy with work yesterday so could not blog. But here is yesterday’s update for you.

That’s right. What you see is a bag full of coins! Yours truly, as you already know, isn’t that great when it comes to managing money. That’s why I seldom carry currency with me. Even if I do, I tend to exchange bills. That way, I dont have to do the math you see! But what do I get in return? Loads of coins. And I dont know what to do with them than to just throw them on the dining table as soon as I come home. Khushbu, on the other side, has been really meticulous in collecting all those coins and keeping them in a safe place. And what you see must be the accumulated product of maybe 6 months of spare change. You must be curious to know how much change was in that bag right? Well, here is the receipt for you that I got from a Coinstar machine.

Yes, that was $51 worth of change. That would be a whopping $100+ in change for the year!

Here is a tip if you plan to use a Coinstar machine. Chose one of the gift certificate options rather than cash. That way, you end up saving on the commission that Coinstar charges on cash exchange. We got an Amazon gift certificate which can be used to buy pretty much anything.

You might already know this by now but if you don’t then this is HUGE! Chandrayaan-I successfully landed on the lunar surface yesterday and planted our Indian national flag on moon! This makes India the first country in the world to successfully carry out a lunar space expedition on the first attempt. This is one of the proudest moments in my life as an Indian citizen. Bravo ISRO and bravo India.

Link

View the Chandrayaan page on this site here

It’s Friday and I finally got my paycheck today. Yay! However, I had to hit the ground running. This afternoon, I started making all my credit card payments first. Utilities are the next in line. I got hit by a massive ATT UVerse bill for $320 yesterday. Since when did cable become so expensive, I have no idea. That is for 2 months though, but still it’s pretty darn high. From what is left after this, I will have to somehow squeeze in my monthly house payment. I don’t think I will be able to make the entire $3500 but let’s see if I can squeeze some moolah in from other corners.

My money scraping saga continued today too. I just opened up one of my old credit card accounts and I realized that there were some points that I had accumulated over the years which were just lying around for a couple of years now! I called up Citi and asked them if I could use them somehow. Guess what? Not only did they convert those points over to Thank You points, they said I could group them together with my other Thank you points! That bumped up my overall Thank You points to over 11000 which would be worth $110. Sweet!

I shall be updating my Debt Meter sometime tomorrow once all the payments are taken care of. Payments I have made so far today -
CC1 - $182.74
CC2 - $25

Money made today $110.

Tamil song topping the charts these days. Quite an addictive number I must say

I’d disclosed my bank balance in my previous post and as you could see, my financial future wasn’t looking too bright! In fact, that was the very reason I started this experiment. Today, like everyday of the past week, I happened to check my bank balance again. What do I see? My bank has charged me a service fee of 3 dollars further reducing my balance down to 95.06. I’m just waiting for that one unknown transaction to happen that will put my balance in the negative. Add to it a $39 over-the-limit fee, twice! Tomorrow is Friday and hopefully my paycheck arrives. I’m a contractor, so I mess up my timesheets and my paycheck doesn’t show! That is what happened the past couple of weeks.

Coming back to bank fees, I still have a hard time comprehending the fact that a bank actually charges you money to keep your money in their bank. Isn’t it supposed to work the other way round? Guess banks have a lot of homework to do, if you think about all the financial diarrhea we’re going through. Anyways, that is an altogether different post right there.

Let’s just hope that my paycheck shows tomorrow.

This is getting really exciting. I had never thought I’d go as far as the second day but hey it’s working and I ain’t complaining as long as I’m saving some moolah.

Thanks to the dropping gas prices recently, we all have been having a sigh of relief at the pump. Remember, just last month we were paying like $4 for a gallon of gas? Our gas bill alone was running up to almost $400 per month. Why not? Some bigshot decided to have 2 SUVs right before the prices went north. Anyways, long story short. Like I’d mentioned in my previous writeup, I logged onto www.gasbuddy.com this morning and started looking for cheap gas in my area. The cheapest that I found was for 2.09. I was pretty surprised since in most parts of South Austin, it has been as low as 1.89 for the past couple of days. With no other choice left, I go to the gas station and I find it’s dropped to 2.01. Sweet deal. After a long long time, I have been able to fill up my tank for less than 30 bucks. What a great feeling!

This morning while driving to work, I saw it was further down to 1.91! With crude hitting almost two year lows, I think we should be seeing 1.50 pretty soon. Let’s just hope it happens and stays that way for some time at least

This is a forthcoming Tamil movie making news in the South. Music by Harris Jayaraj is catchy and cinematography looks really slick. It’s being directed by Gautham Menon of Minnale fame. Check it out if you’re a fan of South Indian cinema. It’s coming out on Nov 14.

Dug up my office clutter and found a few things today.

1. Corsair Rebate Check $15

This rebate check for $15 had expired in September, so called up customer service for a new check.

Rebate Check

2. Circuit City Late Fee Reversal $35

Called Circuit City customer service and got a $35 late fee that was applied 3 months back on my credit card, rolled back.

3. Austin Radiological Association $49

Had an outstanding balance for an X-Ray taken last year, which my insurance did not entertain. Was thinking of paying it off but instead called up insurance and got it taken care of.

4. Amazon Gift Certificates $100!

Amazon Gift Certificate

Total savings for today $15 + $35 + $49 + 100 = $199!