Twelfth Day of Accounting

Total Black: $109.30

Here’s the Breakdown:

Primary Checking: $12.21
Secondary Checking: $80.64
Savings: $5.50
PayPal Account (Personal): $0.00
PayPal Account (Blog): $0.00
Amazon Payments Account: $0.005
Mutual Funds Account: $0.00

FICO Score 513

Total Red: $270,527.19

Here’s the breakdown:

Credit Card Debt:

Master Card: $4,699.50
Visa: $7,651.50
Visa: $4,000.00
American Express: $2,382.10
Raymour & Flanagan Credit Line: $6,340.68
Saks Fifth Avenue Credit Card: -$0.10

Student Loan Debt:

Federal Stafford Loans: $94,504.20
Private Student Loans: $31,610.26

Back Taxes:

IRS (2007): $0.00
IRS (2008): $27,041.05
IRS (2009): $0.00

NY State (2008): $0.00
NY State (2009): $0.00

Other Loans:

My mother: $72,000.00
My sister: $1,800.00
Auto loan: $18,498.00

Well, there it is.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  All laid out.  And that’s about as “bad” and as “ugly” as it’s gonna get.  But certainly not as good. 

The Rat Race

Total Black: $649.59
Total Red: $230,772.32

Something hit me tonight.  I woke late this afternoon.  I went out last night for a few drinks.  I stayed in my neighborhood though and hit up a few neighborhood bars.  I had maybe three beers and two rum & cokes.  Nothing excessive for a Friday night out, but with the drugs from the medical experiment in my system, I think the drinks have a harder impact, especially the next day.  Or perhaps I’m just getting older, eh?  At any rate, I spent much of the day in bed, just being lazy.  The cable guy was supposed to stop by to pick up the box and remote control today.  He never showed.  So by around 5pm I decided I’d get up, head to the gym, and take care of some grooming matters.  It’s been awhile since I got my hair cut.

Make the Man, Make the Money

Total Black: $631.22
Total Red: $230,281.21

At the temp position today, one of the other contract attorneys gave me a fortune cookie.  I think he had received an extra with his order, so he offered it up and I said I’d take it.  I figured, “Why not?  I could use good fortune.”  Unlike fortune cookies from a few years ago, fortune cookies of today seem to have lost their foresight.  My fortune cookie read: “Wealth is not in making money, but in making the man while he is making the money.”  No fortune-telling there, just a bit of wisdom being passed on.  But for me, it is a very apt and timely “fortune.”  And one worth teasing out a bit further.

If You Find Yourself in a Hole

Total Black: $453.01
Total Red: $228,517.33

Just realized that total black never includes any cash in hand.  I suppose that’s ok since I rarely carry cash (even when I have money).  Another update: I interviewed today for an art sales position.  It’s a temporary gig tied to an exhibit here in Manhattan.  The hook: all the sellers have been displaced somehow by the Great Recession.  Check out the website: www.recessionartsale.com Great idea.  You’ll be sure to hear if I get selected.

Positive Thinking

Total Black: $524.93
Total Red: $228,517.33

I spoke with my mother tonight.  She wanted to know whether I’ve decided anything yet regarding the rapidly-approaching October deadline when my lease ends.  I hinted in a prior post, Mothers, that I might have to return home and move back in with my mother if something doesn’t come through soon here in Manhattan.  It would be ruinous to renew my lease at $2,000 / month and invite potential liability particularly without a secured source of income.  But it also seems potentially disastrous to return home to Scranton where there’d clearly be fewer job opportunities.  My mother’s advice was to pray.  As I listened, I started wondering whether prayer and positive thinking were similar.  I mean, isn’t prayer, that surgery goes well, for example, or that a job comes though—isn’t that sort of a way of thinking positively about the situation?  Clearly positive thinking puts you in the driver’s seat while prayer does not, but fundamentally they seem more alike than different.  My mother assured me that plenty of people were praying for me that things would work out soon.  I joked of the old adage that when God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.  “Well,” I said, “if so, He needs to spray some windex on that window because I can’t see out.”  She didn’t laugh.

Day of Accounting

Well . . . breakfast is complete.  The tea steeped and drunk already.  (And I’m about to start the coffee . . . generally don’t like coffee upon waking.)  And yet no blog.  But for good reason.

I began to blog, but then remembered that I needed my credit score and all the financial data first.  That took a bit of time and purchasing (having to pay for credit reports and scores annoys me).  So, now I begin again.  But first . . . an initial digression about the date (as the telephone just interrupted me), then another digression about money.

In Medias Res

While the beginning is a very good place to start, here it doesn’t seem to fit somehow.  My back-story is long and can be told another day.  And besides…no one’s seen this yet.  So really I’m just writing for myself right now.  But yes . . . this is my first ever blog entry.  So, expediting the formalities, here’s the main adjectives that one might employ in describing me: Male / 33 years-old / White / Gay / Adopted / Gemini / Lawyer / raised Byzantine Catholic / Penn State alum / Howard alum . . . and, of course, Laid-Off.  But I suppose the blog title already aptly notes that.

At the outset, I must confess that I just saw Julie & Julia yesterday.  I was probably the only person in the theatre who got stressed out by that movie.  And it stuck with me, so I started examining the origins of that gnawing feeling.  That prompted this.

In a sense, I am Julie: my apartment overflows with piles of partially-read books stacked for later, stacks of newspapers waiting for one of these days, days gone by with bills lying opened but unpaid, opened boxes not yet put away.  Let’s just say I have a bit of trouble finishing what I start.  But cluttered is not dirty.  I am a bit of a clean freak, that much I know, especially upon returning to my apartment after two weeks with a renter staying there.  I’ve heard a stereotype of  New Yorkers that they come across stylish, fashionable, and a cut-above-the-rest, but yet their apartments are nasty, dirty, and gross.  But I digress (and more on the renter later).  At any rate, since I’m great at starting things, I figured I’d start this blog.  And here’s what it’ll take to finish it.