Post Your Wins

[disneysteve]

how many movies can you see for that? What does popcorn run these days? And those boxes of movie theatre candy that you can get for about $1 at WM, what are they running?

Ticket prices vary depending on day of the week, time of day, and format of the theater. AMC has $5 tickets all day Tuesday, so that's the cheapest option. On other days for standard 2D films, prices range from $6-12. I don't know how much 3D and IMAX are as we never do those (my wife can't see 3D and we're not big IMAX fans).

So basically, if we go on Tuesdays, it's $5 for each of us. So for about $29 with the discounts, the 2 of us can see 5 movies. I think that's pretty reasonable.

As for snacks, we bring our own candy but will usually buy a drink and occasionally popcorn. Those prices are nuts but at least one good thing is with the AMC rewards program, you get a free size upgrade on drinks and popcorn. We got the giant bucket yesterday for the price of the regular. We brought most of it home and put it in a ziploc bag. I'll munch on it over the next few days.

[Nutria]

my wife can't see 3D

You married Turanga Leela?

[disneysteve]

You married Turanga Leela?

Pretty much, except her one eye isn't in the center. It's on the right where it belongs. It's the left one that she is missing.

[Gailete]

Thanks for the update, Steve. In my family, if my sister, mom and I get together there are only 4 good eyes. Mom had brothers throwing a bone around when she was about 12 and it got her in the eye and other than some peripheral vision she is blind in that eye, my sister had an eye removed due to cancer in her 30's I think it was. I'm the only one with two working eyes, but I am sure feeling the effects of presbyopia now that I am in my 60's! My husband is practically blind in one eye and is looking towards his 4th cornea transplant, 2 for each eye. But I would have never thought that they couldn't see 3D, not that I have ever been to one of those kinds of movies.

Just got some more baby clothes for free for my little Princess to be and they will make her mom happy as she is overwhelmed with pink already and the baby won't be here until October! I think that is 7 or 8 baby one-piece outfits and 3 pairs of leggings that I have gotten FREE through the Vine program. I wish I could find knit fabric as soft as these come in.

[Nutria]

Pretty much, except her one eye isn't in the center. It's on the right where it belongs. It's the left one that she is missing.

When the kids were being bad, did she pop out her fake eye, sit it on the table and say, "I'm watching you!!!!"

[disneysteve]

When the kids were being bad, did she pop out her fake eye, sit it on the table and say, "I'm watching you!!!!"

If she had a prosthetic she could do that with, she probably would have, but no. She had a prosthetic briefly around the time we got married but it didn't work for her so she is just eye-less ever since.

[bennkar]

Last year picked up guitar case left out for trash at curb to see if my son would want to use it with his guitar. He said no, and it sat around taking up space. Just sold via Craigslist for $20.

Last year we stayed at a time share resort and had vouchers I needed to spend before we left the resort, so as part of my purchases I bought a discounted pill box for $8. It just sold on ebay for $16. Not too bad.

[bennkar]

I made a blog post about this but it fits here too. I found out a couple of months ago that I'd be getting a raise. This was unexpected as I'm only in year 1 of a 3 year contract but management decided to change the pay scale. I gave more details in the blog post.

Anyway, bottom line is my pay is going up about $8,000/year so about $670/month. After taxes and 401k that should be somewhere around $450/month take home I'm estimating. Also, it is retroactive to July 1 so once I sign my new contract, which I'll probably do in the next day or two, I'll get a catch up payment for the month that already passed.

At my work they were analyzing the pay of some other job category and decided to lump in the category I work under. This ended up raising our pay scale about 3%, and then we got a pay bump given to everyone of 1.5%, so a total 4.5% increase that also started in July. And since I also just maxed out my 457 contributions for the year, my paycheck went up dramatically.

[disneysteve]

At my work they were analyzing the pay of some other job category and decided to lump in the category I work under. This ended up raising our pay scale about 3%, and then we got a pay bump given to everyone of 1.5%, so a total 4.5% increase that also started in July.

That's great.

What happened with us is they realized that there was no semblance of order to what each provider was earning. It was variable based on when they were hired and what was being offered at that time. So they came up with a 3-tier pay scale based on experience and adjusted everyone's pay to get them onto that scale. Some got a smaller raise, some got a larger raise, but everyone got a raise and we're all now on equal footing on the scale.

[dizbetam]

Car Paid Off

Earlier this year I posted about my military deployment and how to get out of debt. I am still deployed and paying things off, update since my last post around 4-5 months ago:

1) Sold my car for $12k - per advice
2) Paid of my wifes car - $33k / debt - Paid off as of 3 hours ago
3) Working next my investment property - $70k left
4) I got promoted, WAHOO - extra $$

[riverwed070707]

Had fun catching up on this thread! I’ve been wanting a dog for a long time but kept talking myself out of it because I travel for work a couple times a month. Had a slow travel schedule for summer so I caved and rescued a German shepherd in May. Needed to travel earlier this week so a few weeks ago I started looking for dog sitting options. Wasn’t keen on boarding because he has some anxiety and I didn’t think he’d do well there. Came across an app like I’d like Airbnb for dogs... you can find people to walk your dog during the day as well as overnight board them in their house and naturally it’s cheaper than the alternatives. So I was signing up for the account and it asked if I’d be interested in also watching other people’s dogs. Thought why not and made a profile setting my rate pretty low until I build up some reviews. Already had 4 dogs come stay, 2 for one night each and 2 for 2 nights each so in the last 2 weekends I’ve made $126 + a $20 tip for hanging out with other people’s dogs. Been fun and not a major disruption to our normal schedule

[Thrif-t]

River what's that app called??

[riverwed070707]

River what's that app called??

Rover

[disneysteve]

I had an old dresser in the basement where I store all of my stock for my collectibles business. The past week or so, I've been cleaning out the dresser to ultimately get rid of it. In addition to collectibles, there were a bunch of old work shirts from a job DW left 24 years ago. In one drawer, there was a small change purse that held $11 in coins as well as three 40% silver half dollars which I'm going to list on ebay. It looks like they are selling for 3-4 times face value, so that's another $5-6 before fees.

The dresser is now empty, which is another win, as now we can haul it out to the trash.

[scfr]

The car we've owned for 19 years, 8 months passed the annual safety & emission inspection today. The car looks like crap and has many issues (for example, the cassette tape player stopped working ages ago), but it still runs fine. New car purchase delayed - yay!