Saturday 11 January 2014

I Got the Place!

Okay, I got the call yesterday to inform me that I got the place so I met up with the Landlady yesterday evening to pay the Damage Deposit. Cause . . . money talks and B.S. walks.

This left me with some time to kill as it was an early day. I was off at 1:00pm and didn’t have to meet up with Landlady until 5:30. So I could casually run some errands and do what I please for the afternoon. I decided against holding up at home until driving down to meet Landlady.

I first went to the place where I bought my hat to ask them why I have to keep re-steaming my hat. After a few weeks my hat starts to flop down and it loses its curl, then I start to look like a . . . well, not like I want to look like. Apparently the hat needs to be “Stiffened and Reshaped,” so the hat is in the shop . . . literally.

I then dropped by the house to pick up a gift card for a restaurant. A friend of mine was coming down and I wanted to treat her as well as have an excuse to use said gift card and not dine alone . . . a few times.

After dropping by the house I decided to pick up the deposit from the bank. I was going to pull the cash out of the machine but since my deposit is $250.00 and not $240.00 or $260.00 and I didn’t want to pull the extra ten bucks out and spend it to break the twenty, I decided to line up.

So I lined up . . .  and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited until finally seeing a teller. After getting my cash I had a little chat (yes I was polite) with the teller about why after twenty years of no holds on my account that suddenly my deposits are being held.

She told me that the bank was doing this for everyone and that “all the banks are doing this now” as a way to protect myself (but mainly themselves) against fraud. She assured me that I was at the highest level of holds and that any money deposited one week which was over two thousand dollars was being held for five business days. (I declined to thank her for protecting me) . . . but I at least now knew why the money I deposited was not in my account. 

For me, that meant that combination of Roommate paying me and my paycheque all culminated in a large chunk of that not being available to me. This now throws a wrench into my planning and budgeting, since I have my truck payment coming up and the hold will be released (or should be) a few days before that is to be paid.

I will wait and yes look for another bank (for the first time in thirty years) to see if I can find one which will treat me like I expect. I don’t like holds, no matter how you spin them.

With Damage Deposit in hand I decided to check out a RV Dealership. Now I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. I shouldn’t be there and it was only asking for trouble. This was not the one with the Arctic Fox trailer but some other place. I decided to check out a cheaper line of trailers to see if I could get one just for warmer weather camping. You know fun in the spring, summer and fall.

They had a few and one smaller one which seemed nice and just what I was looking for. I also got a free ticket to the RV Show at the end of this month.

I was and am toying with the idea of buying a trailer if I could keep the payments down to near $100.00 per month. This will put a hole in my budgeting but I do want to go camping this year and I was only window shopping.

In the end I was reminded that this one did not have the same features as the Arctic Fox and explained why it was so much less. But then cheaper was what I was looking for.

This brings up another point and something which you should be aware of. There is the “Shopping Spree” impulse which pokes its head up when you free up cash in your monthly budget for the first time in a while.

There is that little voice which says “why not upgrade your computer, you know it’s slow” and “why not get a simple RV, you know you want to go camping this year.” Of course this will put the plan back and blow a hole in your budget. The whole reason for doing this was to pay down bills and not incur more debt.

At some point before spring I would like to get a hitch for the Truck and perhaps a used and/or cheap RV so I can do some camping but I will do it slowly and sensibly. The impulse to spend and “treat yourself” does come up, so be prepared for it.

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