Yes, I know it has been a long while since I last posted. Overall there have been some minor changes since my last post. My spending has remained to be the same overall. I have not really splurged on anything in particular, except for a few gifts for my parents (since I hardly ever got them anything before). I did receive a minor salary increase, which surely is not bad. My savings is slowly but steadily growing as well, which is what I love to see.
I used to have a Sprint family plan with multiple cell phone lines, but I have finally consolidated to just one line, which is only $30/month before discounts. I analyzed my past cell phone usage and now see that ever since graduating from undergrad I do not use my cell phone as much. At home I have a VoIP line and at work I can casually use the desk phone when needed. From my employer I have a Verizon Blackberry, which gets free Verizon mobile to mobile calling, so I use tjat to call my friends who have Verizon. To help out I also signed up with Grand Central for a free phone number, which can then forward calls and even screen calls. I got Sprint to offer me free "Sprint to Home" service, which allows free calls between my cell phone and a designated "home number". In this case my Grand Central number is my "home" number. Now I can freely distribute a number when needed. If I get any annoying calls I can black the caller or block any callers whose name or number show up as private or unavailable on caller id. These callers can also be screened.
Electricity rates in MD have gone up significantly and I have been trying to adjust with this change. I used to be a huge advocate for using the air conditioning, but now ever since having my own place I watch my a/c usage. So far I have greatly limited my use to mainly having the a/c on only when I have guests over, which is not too often, thus helping ease the transition to the increased electricity rates. Most of the bulbs in my house are already the CFL bulbs. One major saver on electricity was when I switched from having a desktop running 24x7 to having the laptop run instead. I mainly have a computer on for server related functions, plus I am a computer nerd, but by switching my server related functions to a laptop I have noticed nearly a $30 drop in my electricity bill. To fight the heat I have purchased 3 $35 tower fans from Wal-Mart, which actually work great. They even came with their own remotes. The fans have helped keep the temperature near comfortable levels throughout the house.
Recently a lot of my college friends have been getting engaged, so I have been busy attending these events and even buying gifts for such events. I actually need some good ideas on such gifts.
Since March I have been part of a new department within my employer. It is still IT related, but a different side of IT than before. My coworkers love playing golf and most of them play golf every Friday morning. Best part is on Fridays when they do go to play golf they come in around 9:30, which is normally after eating breakfast after the game, but yet they leave around 3:30pm, and my manager is fine with it as long as everyone gets their work completed. Due to this I figured I would learn to play golf and even go golfing with my coworkers. This is in a ways a social event since I can socialize with my coworkers as well as I can improve on my golf skills. I ended up buying a custom built golf set, which cost me $120 just for irons. The website that my coworker recommended I order the golf equipment from totally messed up my order, thus I got nearly a 50% discount. I gotta admit though that even if the price still seems to be high, I really do like these clubs. Granted these are only an iron set as well as a driver, but I can always buy other clubs later. Plus I figured the $120 "investment" is worth the socializing time with my coworkers. Hopefully this will help build a stronger relationship and help me advance in my career path. The driving range I go to costs roughly $10 for a huge bucket of balls. A 9 hole game is around $20. Overall this isn't too bad. I guess it makes up for not eating out for lunch. I played my first 18 hole golf game 2 weeks ago and it was great. I am surely not the next Tiger Woods, but it was amazing to see that so many of my coworkers actually golf. I was even surprised to see a fee of them, but yet was glad to see them there.
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