The seven month contract (part 6)

After eating fondue, we went back to the skatepark.

By the time we got to the skatepark, I was limping a little bit. I had hurt my foot before meeting Julia at the mall. As sweet of a girl she was, she started to massage my foot when we were sitting next to the bowl. Hours had passed and I still hadn’t kissed her yet. I was starting to get a little bit nervous. The skatepark was empty and we continued to talk. As day turned to night, we saw one skateboarder arrive at the park and we sat there watching him while he did a kickflip over a hip. The night was drawing to a close and I decided to call it, I was going to fail my objective and I was just going to abort things. I was still limping and Julia wanted to see that I got home safely, so I invited her over to my house to have some coffee. I must have made a saving throw.

She drove more than 12 miles just to make sure I got home safely. Inside we both had a cup of coffee and I figured that it was as good of a chance I’d get. To look for an opening, I told her that she had a strawberry seed stuck in her teeth. I’d try to sneak a kiss that way. However, when I told her that, she panicked and ran straight to the mirror to find it and get it out. Well that idea flopped. I told her to relax and nothing was stuck in her teeth. Without any sort of transition, I just decided to go for it. She was sitting still and just looking forward. I moved in and kissed her cheek very lightly. Objective complete. My job was done. It only took me half the day to do it too.

She asked me why I kissed her and I told her that I thought she could use a little tender loving care. Confused at this statement, I told her that it was because her boyfriend broke up with her a few months prior. It was at that moment when the mood took a very sour turn. Her face turned full of sorrow and her body went limp into the sofa. A few awkward silent moments passed and eventually she said I was a real jerk for bringing it up. Not knowing how to deal with this situation, I just sat back a little bit and waited to hear what she had to say. She said it had a been a few months and it still hurts. As I was sitting there next to her, I felt like I was just absorbing her sadness. After another awkward silence, she asked if she could hold me. I told her yes. How could I say no to her? Her body was warm.

Holding her close like that made me feel so good. However, I felt kind of guilty because she felt so miserable just a moment earlier. After a few minutes, she said that stunt I tried with the strawberry seed was pretty lame. The mood seemed to lighten so I thought it was as good a time as any to kiss her on the lips and inside the mouth. And she was very receptive. Her eyes closed as we got near, I could feel the taste of her lips, and our tongues swirled around each other. She caught my tounge in her teeth and softly bit my lips. We did this repeatedly, I felt like I couldn’t get enough each time. Afterwards, Julia took some of her medication and swallowed it with water. Still feeling somewhat sad, she took out a small bottle of soapy fluid and blew some bubbles into the air. She handed me the wand and I blew a few with her. Blowing bubbles helped cheer her up when she was sad. She told me she even blew bubbles at work occasionally. We talked for a little while longer and when she was ready to go, I kissed her one last time.

The seven month contract (part 5)

As easy as my job was, I came to understand that my labor was demanded much more than my skill set. I talked to a few of my colleagues and was surprised to find out that some of them majored in non business related fields. Henry mentioned that he was a criminal justice major. Later, as the project continued, a big part of our task was to check the work that our colleagues did. One case that was stacked and reviewed would be checked by two or three other people to see if documents were missing or the wrong value was used.

There were a few potholes that we ran into along the way. Around June or July of the project, the auditing company created a program that would store all the files. This tool had a few bugs that had to be resolved during the first week. The program would time out frequently and sometimes, it would take up to a full minute or two just to upload one document. Considering that each mortgage had at least 20 documents to review, this made the job incredibly cumbersome. During implementation, our internet would go out every so often. The worst part about having the internet going out was that we had no idea how long it would go out for. It could be as short as 5 minutes or as long as 45 minutes. I even recall work being canceled one day because of technical difficulties. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it until I showed up to the office and no one arrived for half an hour.

Sometime during June, I set up a date with Julia again. I had one very clear and simple objective. Kiss Julia. How to set that up, I didn’t know. I just knew it had to be done. We met each other at the same mall and then went to a local park just to stall for some time. There was a restaurant I was going to take her to. The biggest appeal of it was that it served hot pots and chocolate fondue. At this point in time, we had been to a number of restaurants before. I just wanted to get chocolate fondue because I hardly ever have it. However, there was something else to it. Fondue requires skewers to dip food into the chocolate. I wanted to do the gesture of feeding chocolate covered strawberries to Julia and vice versa.

The pot was in front of us and the waiter set down a plate of fruits, marshmallows, candies, and  pretzels. We each ate a few pieces then I took one of the strawberries, dipped it in the chocolate, and fed it to her. She was apprehensive at first to bite it but then did the same with a banana slice and fed it to me. It was a little awkward at first because we had to make sure not to miss each other’s mouth or hurt each other with the skewer. To play with her a little bit, I made sure to dip my pieces of fruit in the white chocolate before feeding them to her. Eventually, we were able to feed each other pieces of fruit at the same time. She bit a dipped strawberry on my end while I bit a dipped pineapple on her end. I picked up the bill and the total cost came out to be less than $17. I didn’t mind paying. After all, it was less than one hour of work for me.

The seven month contract (part 4)

Since it wasn’t directed at her, she responded by talking about the story when her friend Beth had sex for the first time. Beth was so nervous about getting pregnant that she used a pregnancy test and asked Julia to use the same test just to make sure it was accurate. I had to ask how Beth’s first time was. And Julia said that the first time always hurts but the second time was really good. It felt very easy to talk to Julia about this. She even felt comfortable enough to tell me some of her embarrassing stories.

Towards the entrance of the park, there were a few benches next to the bathrooms. As she was sitting down, I told her one story about a time when I was in high school and sort of flirting with this one girl I liked. The girl’s name was Cindy and she asked me to sit next to her during class. Instead of doing that, I walked over to where she was sitting, put my hands behind her back and under her thighs, and just lifted her out of her seat. While the teacher wasn’t looking, I carried her back over to where my friend and I was sitting and placed her in the seat next to me. I told Julia this story because she was sitting in a position where it was easy to grab her and carry her. She expected nothing as I placed my right hand behind her back and my left hand under her legs and was holding her in my arms.

“Please don’t drop me.” She yelped in my arms.

“Funny. That girl from high school said the exact same thing.” I held her tight.

I touched her and I got her to talk about sex. Things looked like they were going well.

Days at work had gotten better. With flexible hours, I could leave my house at 6:45 AM and arrive at the office to clock in at 7:30 AM. Around 12 PM or 12:30 PM, I would clock out for lunch and drive over to a fast food restaurant. I usually spend about $7 to $8 on a spicy chicken sandwich with fries and a soda. I’d only take 30 minutes for lunch and clock back into work at 12:30 PM to 1 PM. I’d then work until 4 PM and start driving home. At 4 PM, I could make it back home in about 45 minutes and I’d be at home at 5 PM and have 7 hours to enjoy myself before going to sleep at midnight.

For the first few weeks, I was just moving files and organizing them for other staff members to analyze loan amounts. I was getting more money than I ever had made before and I was content. I was almost happy even. Throughout my entire time there, I only used the phone maybe five times to contact the help desk to get my passwords reset. Gone were the days of angry customers complaining about late payments or missing forms. About once a week, we had a team meeting that was announced through email.

March 2012

For the month of March, I spent a total of $825.03. I was over budget by a few hundred dollars but I felt okay to spend again because I would be working again. My insurance premium was $203.40. I spent $213 on gas by filling up my tank 6 times. My new commute was miserable. Mornings were okay but coming home in the evening would take me 2 hours. It got to the point where I had to fill up my tank twice a week because I was spending so much time in traffic. I spent $165.05 on fast food by eating out 18 times. I spent $65 on business related expenses. The cost was to file an application to be approved to sell insurance. I spent $21.94 on new clothes. I also spent extra money going to some restaurants with friends before my employment started.  

April 2012

For the month of April, I spent a total of $1443.61. I experienced more car problems. While driving a friend home, all the electricals on my car started going crazy. My power locks went on and off. My lights flashed on and off. My power steering started to go out as well. I took my car into the shop to get it serviced at the cost of $620. This was the point when my parents started to try to convince me to buy a new car. My insurance premium was $203.40. I spent $225 on gas by filling up my tank 7 times. Gas at this point in time was more expensive. It was more than $3 a gallon and I was always buying premium which was about $.40 to $.60 per gallon more expensive. I spent $202.57 on fast food by eating out 23 times. At this point in time, my mom took a vacation to visit Taiwan so I was eating more fast food as I didn’t want to cook or wash dishes. There was also a place that sold chicken biscuits for breakfast and chicken sandwiches for lunch right next to my office. I really liked the place and ate there a lot.

May 2012

For the month of May, I finally got my expenses down to a reasonable level. I spent a total of $649.24. My insurance premium was $203.40. I spent $251 on gas by filling up my tank 7 times. I spent $98.26 on fast food by eating out 15 times. I spent $5.50 on a coloring book and some crayons for a date that I went on with Julia.

The seven month contract (part 3)

But then in April 2012, things started to change. On a social media site, she mentioned that she was sad. That was the description, nothing else was said. We met for coffee one night in April and out of the blue, she told me that she broke up with her boyfriend. My suspicions were true. The signs had sort of been there. Ting told me Julia was having problems with her boyfriend. Julia told me that her boyfriend was planning to move to Japan in a few years so she knew her relationship wouldn’t last.

With her old boyfriend out of the picture, I saw an opportunity to make something happen. First off, I had to give her some time to get over her breakup. Since they had been together for almost three years, I figured that one week would be good enough. In reality, it is a really jerk move to try to pick up a girl right after a broken relationship however I had to move in quickly. If I didn’t move in, someone else might.

I remembered being nervous when I called her one week later. It had to be a phone call, I didn’t want to send text messages. And calling girls was always the worst. Throughout high school and college, I remember I had trouble finding out what to say so I would have to carefully think about it before hand. I absolutely dreaded letting the conversation go limp and having dead space over the phone. Even worse was calling a girl and getting the voicemail because I could never leave a voicemail without sounding retarded.

I called Julia and got her voicemail. I left her a message where I stammered out a few points and probably repeated myself once or twice. Luckily, she called back and I could feel much more relaxed to ask her to go to the park on Friday. Thankfully, she said yes.

On my way to the park, I was thinking about how to move forward. Julia and I were friends at this point, but without doing anything different, we would just stay friends. I remembered being told that if you want to make her a girlfriend, I would have to start treating her as more than just a friend. I’d also have to risk losing her as a friend as well. It was a risk worth taking. So the mentality changed. I knew I would have to touch her more and flirt with her. I’d have to make her feel attraction. I would have to do these things but I didn’t know how to frame everything. I was kind of at a loss for fun and interesting things to do.

The first thing we did was we went to the dollar store at the mall and buy some coloring books and crayons. After 15 or 20 minutes, we were at the park under a pavilion coloring pictures of superheroes and cartoon characters. It may have not been sexy or exciting, but she definitely wasn’t expecting it. Really, all I cared about was engaging her in conversation.

While we were walking around the park, we talked about work, families, video games, and our friends. As a way of touching her, I made sure to walk very close to her and our arms or shoulders would occasionally bump into her. I didn’t want to push her away after all. I told her several anecdotes just to make her laugh and steer the conversation and eventually I got to one that was somewhat risque. I don’t remember how the conversation led to it, but I told her about the time my friend called me at 8 am in the morning just to tell me he got laid for the first time. It was an anecdote to bring up the topic of sex without directing it at Julia.

The seven month contract (part 2)

When I arrived on the first day, I walked into the bank up to the fourth floor and saw that 8 to 10 people that started a few days before I had. I sat down at my computer and logged in. Management gave me a list of files and credentials to log into a few different databases. For the first day, I was downloading files from three or four different bank databases, saving them into a folder, and emailing them to a different location. I did this for more than 25 different mortgages on the first day. I was amazed how I was getting paid $17 an hour for this. Due to the sheer volume of documents to examine, a good part of my job was just to download files from one location and send them to another.

After management told us we could go home, I packed up my things and started driving home. However, the drive was absolutely miserable. My new job location was located 26 miles from my house and the most direct route there was the bypass around the major city. In the morning, the commute was fine, but at 5:30 PM, it would take me two hours to get home. During my first few weeks on the job, I was using so much gas that I had to fill up my tank twice a week instead of just once. Eventually, they gave us flexible hours so I immediately scheduled my 8 hours to avoid traffic as much as possible. By the time I started my first job, I had about $24000 saved up.

My spending habits also started to change. During my first job, I was spending only about $550 per month however I was spending much more with my second job. I had months where I spent $700, $800, and $900 regularly. Part of this increased spending was due to the fact that I was making more money but the other reason was because I knew my job was only temporary. It felt kind of nice to spend a little money. During March and April, I also had a few car related expenses. I spent some money on repairs and a few hundred dollars on new tires.

By the time I started my new job, I had begun talking to Julia again and I saw her a few times. I remember why I wanted to see her again. When I was employed again, I didn’t feel like a loser anymore. She was just a friend that I like to be with. Nothing would ever come of it and I was sure of it when I saw her in February of 2012. She was talking about how her boyfriend was so cute about messing up her birthday and then making it up to her for Valentine’s Day. In her words, he was so cute even when he screws things up. I knew it would go nowhere. What I had with Julia was as good as it was ever going to get.

But then in April 2012, things started to change. On a social media site, she mentioned that she was sad. That was the description, nothing else was said. We met for coffee one night in April and out of the blue, she told me that she broke up with her boyfriend. My suspicions were true. The signs had sort of been there. Ting told me Julia was having problems with her boyfriend. Julia told me that her boyfriend was planning to move to Japan in a few years so she knew her relationship wouldn’t last.

March 2012

For the month of March, I spent a total of $825.03. I was over budget by a few hundred dollars but I felt okay to spend again because I would be working again. My insurance premium was $203.40. I spent $213 on gas by filling up my tank 6 times. My new commute was miserable. Mornings were okay but coming home in the evening would take me 2 hours. It got to the point where I had to fill up my tank twice a week because I was spending so much time in traffic. I spent $165.05 on fast food by eating out 18 times. I spent $65 on business related expenses. The cost was to file an application to be approved to sell insurance. I spent $21.94 on new clothes. I also spent extra money going to some restaurants with friends before my employment started.  

The seven month contract (part 1)

I sent an application out to an IT staffing agency. The agency had a contract with a large bank and a large audit firm to perform an audit on the bank. The job paid $17 an hour and I was excited about the prospect. So, I answered a few questions the recruiter asked me over the phone and he asked me to drive over to the corporate office to fill out some paperwork.

The following week, I dressed up in a suit expecting to be interviewed in person. I also brought along all the documents they requested from me if I got hired. After filling out paperwork and getting scanned copies of my documents, they told me that the job would be starting in the middle of March 2015. There was no real interview, I was going to be working again. I would be working at a higher wage as well.

After getting the news of employment, I dropped my plans of continuing in the insurance field and I stopped going to the meetings at the financial firm. My second job was only going to be a temporary position. They told me ahead of time that the contract was only going to last five months. By August, I’d be looking for work again.

The audit was a compliance audit. During the years of 2009 to 2011, the bank issued several mortgages to people that lived in areas at risk of floods. The auditing company had to make sure that for everyone of the mortgages issued, the mortgage holder needed to have adequate flood insurance. The nature of the audit required a person to look at the structure value of the property and check to see if the property was insured to the correct amount. It was simple work but the challenge was the sheer amount of mortgages that had to be checked. Since the auditing company didn’t want to hire employees just to do grunt work, they contracted the grunt work out to a third party. That’s where I came in.

Inbetween jobs the first time (part 4)

The other big takeaway from the class was that insurance policies can be customized with all different types of options. They really are just like cars or houses in that every policy can be tailored to suit every individuals needs. However, nothing ever comes for free. Extra benefits and perks will come at the cost of higher premiums. After one week, I started studying all the materials and notes and made sure to set a testing date at a testing facility. When that was completed, I got my results as soon as the test was over and I passed.

When February arrived, I repeated the same process again. I went to a one week class to learn about property and casualty insurance. After the week was done, I studied the materials and then took a test at a testing facility. By the end of February, I had my license to sell life insurance and I was about to get my license to sell property and casualty. I was about to start gaining experience in the field until I got a phone call one day.

January 2012

For the month of January, I spent a total of $583.45. After gainful employment ended, my monthly expenses should have dropped from $550 to about $400 because I wouldn’t have to spend money on gas. This wasn’t quite the case as I started new endeavors. I decided to sign up for the insurance classes to become qualified to sell life insurance. The class costed $140 to attend. My insurance premium was $146.80. I spent $153 on gas by filling up my tank 4 times. Even though I didn’t drive to work anymore, I still drove to the sales company to get training and I visited friends with my free time. I spent a lot less money on fast food as I only spent $39.54 by eating out 5 times.  

February 2012

For the month of February, I spent a total of $793.35. While I was hundreds of dollars over budget, I didn’t feel so bad as I started to receive unemployment benefits. I spent $239.20 on business expenses. Of the $239.20, $180 was the fee to take the exam for the life insurance and property/casualty exam. Before I could get my life insurance license, I had to get myself fingerprinted which cost $59.20. Unfortunately, my premium for car insurance increased to $204. I called my insurance agent just to confirm that rates all around my state increased due to an increase of claims in 2011. I spent $105 on gas by filling up my tank 3 times. I spent $92.82 on fast food by eating out 7 times. One of these times was with Julia. I spent $43 on tax preparation. The tax company I went to had a special where they would file federal for free so I only had to pay for the state filing. While I could have filed by myself easily, I wanted to get it done fast and efficiently. I spent $17.82 buying motor oil.

Inbetween jobs the first time (part 3)

During late January or early February, I started to take the life insurance classes. It lasted one week and during the sessions, we learned about how different types of life insurance work. Term life insurance was recommended for young starting families that didn’t have a lot of money to start out with while permanent policies were recommended for more established families. Over the course of several decades, different types of policies were created for different needs. The most basic of permanent life policies is whole life which typically insures the policyholder until the age of 100. However, a unique situation occurs when the policyholder hits the age of 100. Upon reaching age 100, the policy ends and the life insurance company will send a check in the amount of the death benefit to either the policyholder or the beneficiary of the policy. Whole Life is a good product however the flaw is that the cash value of the policy will disappear upon the death of the policyholder. When the policyholder dies, the beneficiary only gets the death benefit. This problem led to the creation of the Universal Life product which would let the cash value of the policy also pass on to the beneficiary upon the death of the policyholder.

Along with learning about different products, we learned about when policies take effect, lapse, and what duties and responsibilities come along with being an insurance agent. We spent a good amount of time learning about ethics and how to avoid fraud. One necessary thing that insurance agents had to do was purchase errors and omissions insurance. This is an insurance policy that protects business professionals from being liable for losses due to filling out paperwork incorrectly or missing some forms. In other words, it is protection from being sued by your customers.

A major point of life insurance is determining the risk class of the policyholder before issuing a policy. The longer the life expectancy of the policyholder and the healthier the policyholder is, the cheaper the premiums will be. With a longer life expectancy, the insurance companies can collect more money in premiums from the policyholder before paying out a death benefit upon his or her expiration. In order to get assessed for a policy, the man or woman must first be examined by a nurse. This assessment has to be done before any policy. So if a man took term life for one year periods for 10 consecutive years, he would have to get a health assessment before each policy. The biggest strategy for getting a permanent life insurance policy is to make sure to get the policy at a young age. The younger a man is, the more healthier he is and the more likely he is to be placed in the lowest risk category (preferred elite). The lowest risk category entitles the man to the cheapest premiums. Since the life insurance policy is a PERMANENT policy, the man only has to get assessed at the beginning. After the man gets a policy in place, he can smoke like a chimney, collect venereal diseases, becoming a raging alcoholic, and become morbidly obese if he wanted to. He will not be reassessed for his life insurance policy and still retain the lowest risk category of preferred elite. The only thing he could do at that point to mess up everything is let his policy lapse and have to sign up for a new policy. He would then have to be reassessed and most likely fall into the higher risk category.

In between jobs the first time (part 2)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t feel any more out of place. Each meeting I went to started with building up momentum. Everyone was talking and networking with each other to loud techno music before we would break out into smaller groups.

When we broke into small groups, we were actually taking classes on how to do our jobs. They had a program in place for getting new recruits off the ground. You had to recruit three new people and drum up three sales within one month before ranking up to the next level. After getting the life insurance license, completing the training would get you a higher commission on sales. During our classes, they explained to us the products we were selling along with how to recruit more people. To get new recruits, we were encouraged to keep a notebook and write down anyone we could think of who would be interested in hearing about the business and might be a potential recruit. They encouraged us to list down family, friends, relatives, coworkers, friends, and neighbors. Ideally, our first list should have 50 people on it. We would then go to our marketing directors and try to narrow down who to target first. Our notebook was our book of leads. When they encouraged us to go out into the field, they told us that we would get shot down over and over again however it was important to be persistent. Two common techniques they taught us was to approach a friend and tell them that you were practicing giving a presentation. After finishing the presentation, make sure to ask them if they knew were interested in learning more about the company and joining. If they said no, the second technique was to ask for referrals. Ask them for family members, friends, coworkers, or anyone they might know that was ambitious and wanted to make more money.

During January, I had a very “one foot in and one foot out of the door” approach. Actually, It was more like one toe in the door and everything else out. I really wasn’t a people person and I said I would take it more seriously after getting my insurance license. Still, I did attend biweekly meetings, attend the courses, make a prospect list, and tried to recruit some people.

When you go into sales, becoming successful means committing your whole life to the business. After courses were complete, we gathered in the large room for the ceremonial passing out of the checks and applauding those who got their insurance license. During two months exploring the organization, I was only able to get one person to check out the business. I tried setting up a meeting with a different friend but he ducked out and told me he thought I was trying to sell him something. I do recall talking with more than 10 people about the organization. Getting a plane off the ground is the hardest part of life. I do recall how excited one of my team members was when she got her first sale. She had to work as hard as she could for a whole month to get it. While I was exploring the organization, I was also looking for work elsewhere.

The second time around, the job market was exactly how I remembered it. It was miserable. Accounting jobs were scarce and no companies called me back for an interview. There were not a lot of good positions available. Once again, I sent applications out to anything that looked remotely close to accounting.

In between jobs the first time (part 1)

With January 2012 starting, I was able to enjoy a few days off of work. One of the first things on my to do list was to file a claim at the unemployment office. Since I was laid off due to a lack of work, I was eligible for the benefit. The hardest part of the process was just waiting for the claim to be processed and getting the money in my account. It must have taken over five weeks but the workers at the office said that was normal to expect. They told us to keep doing job searches and keep submitting for the benefit. I was quite surprised at what I could qualify for. Even after electing to have taxes withheld from the benefit, I remember collecting over $200 a week. Since my monthly expenses were only $550, I was still able to save a few hundred dollars at the end of the month. It really took a lot of pressure off. The benefit would last for 12 weeks and I would have a good amount of time to find work.

It was a better situation for me. I had $22000 saved up, more work experience, and a better plan. While looking for work, I had the idea of getting my life insurance licenses in order to start selling policies. My previous boss had an insurance company and he would pay for his employees to take the exam for property and casualty and start working under him. Faye encouraged me to join her financial organization to sell life insurance and told me that the cost of the exam was only $150. Both classes could be completed in a very quick amount of time. Classes for life insurance lasted one week and classes for property and casualty lasted one week as well. More importantly, if neither of these job opportunities worked out, I would still have the licenses and could probably find work at a different insurance company or related business.

Initially, I reached out to Faye to cancel my life insurance policy. Without a steady job, I didn’t feel like I could afford the benefits later on in life. Eventually, she convinced me to join her organization. I wasn’t thrilled about it but I saw it as an easy way to get the insurance license. I had the classes scheduled for February, but I started attending the meetings to see if it was possible to make any money sooner.

First Job out of College (part 15)

It wasn’t over yet. She was okay with driving, so we proceeded to the park. There were a few moments that we shared together. While we were walking through the woods of the park, the sun was starting to set and we saw a family of deer in the distance. The night ended after we got some Mexican food at a nearby restaurant. I was kind of bummed out about having to pay hundreds of dollars for repairs but she made me feel better.

October 2011

For October 2011, I spent a total of $561.16. My insurance premium was $146.80. I spent $163 on gas by filling up my tank 6 times. I spent $72.94 by eating fast food 9 times. During this month, I started spending a little more money eating out with some friends. Even on the weekends, I would go to a local bagel shop for breakfast. I even spent a little money to go bowling with Julia. I spent over $40 on beer. I even spent over $30 on dvds. This may have been a result of getting the update that my job would be ending in a few months.

November 2011

For November 2011, I spent a total of $669.80. This month, I had some unique expenses that pushed me past my target of $550. My insurance premium was $146.80. I spent $140 on gas by filling up my tank 4 times. I spent $72.91 on fast food by eating out 10 times. In November, I always need to get emissions done and pay for my car’s tags. The emissions cost $17 and the tags for my car cost $72. In November, I decided to go into sales and try my hand at selling financial products. As an independent contractor, I had to spend $125 on a background check on myself before I could work for the company. I spent some time with Julia by spending $30 on movie tickets. Since I bought the tickets, she bought the meal we shared together afterwards. Unexpectedly, I saw Julia again this month and I tried to teach her how to ride a skateboard. After she got battered a bruised at the skatepark, I paid for the meal of pancakes of $23.63 that we shared together. When the weather gets cold, I found myself buying coffee more and more. There were several times this month where I paid about $2 for a cup of coffee.

December 2011

For December 2011, I spent a total of $1119.31. This month, I went far past my target because of car problems. In early December, I tried to turn on my car in a grocery store parking lot and my car just wouldn’t turn on. Luckily for me, I got a jump start from some friendly passerbys. A few weeks later, I decided to buy a new battery, which cost $87.72, to fix the problem. That same day, my car crapped out and wouldn’t start. I sat there in my car next to Julia with utter despair in my kidneys. Thankfully, we were able to go about my day and I called my dad to get my car towed and delivered to a shop. Later that evening, I got a call from my father stating that the total cost of towing and repairs would be $300. My alternator died and had to be replaced. My insurance premium was $146.80. I spent $143 on gas by filling up my tank 4 times. I spent $84.99 on fast food by eating out 13 times. Since this was the last month of my employment, I wanted to spend a little extra money as I might have to make somethings last. I spent $150.33 on buying a new complete skateboard. I spent $79.99 on prepaid minutes for my phone.

First job out of college (part 14)

It was going to be the last time that I would see her… again. I was out of work and I knew that I would feel like kind of a loser after being unemployed for a certain amount of time. After graduating college, it took me four months to get legitimate work and I didn’t believe the job market got any better. I had no idea how long it would take to find work again but at least this time I had over $20000 in my bank on hold out with. Still, despite the cash, I felt like Julia wouldn’t respect me as much being unemployed. For that reason, I thought that this last outing would be a good stopping place.

The time that I spent with Julia was some of the happiest that I could remember being in the last several years. She had a somewhat abrasive personality and she did swear frequently but she was a girly girl underneath that. It wasn’t difficult to make her laugh and she was very compassionate. She even offered to get me a job at her worksite when I told her the great news that I was going to lose my job. I refused her offer only for the reason that I did not want to do more customer service for the life of me. She even kept talking to me after I tried to teach her how to ride a skateboard. She was doing pretty well until the point where she fell over and smacked her head on the ground… twice.

It was a very simple outing. There was a public park that has a giant granite hill. We would climb to the top, look at some other attractions in the park, and get some food afterwards. When I saw her, she was kind of angry at me though. She told me I was a real jerk for not telling her that my birthday passed a few weeks earlier. To celebrate my 24th birthday, she gave me a present box that had a few gifts in it. She also handed me a cupcake with a candle on it and lit the candle. Lastly she blew up a balloon and made a balloon animal for me. I never had any girl do this sort of thing for me before. To make her laugh, I started to take bites out of the cupcake without blowing the candle out first.

I was ready to take her out to the park. We were both sitting in my car so I put the key in the ignition, turned it to the left, and the car turned on. And then the car turned itself right off. This was bad. After fidgeting with the key for a few moments and almost getting the key stuck, my car was immobilized. Even after trying to jump start the vehicle, it was going nowhere. In November, my car died in a parking lot and required a jump start to get moving again. I figured the problem was the old battery so I made sure to replace the battery right before meeting up with Julia. As it turned out, my alternator was dead. December 2011 was when I started regularly experiencing car issues and maintenance fees. The cost to tow the car and repair it would eventually run past $400 or $500 that month. Well, at least I didn’t have to worry about showing up to work on Monday.

First job out of college (part 13)

So that was it then, I had dinner with Julia and I never saw her again... Until one month later when I asked her to go bowling with me. Admittedly, my curiosity got the better of me. I did enjoy her company. Sure, I knew that nothing would come out of seeing her. She did have a boyfriend afterall. But as long as I enjoyed my time with her, I was using her to have fun. I made it a point to see her once a month and over five months, we went bowling, saw a movie, went skateboarding, and visited a local park. By the third time or so that I saw her, I was starting to get emotionally attached. It was a terrible mistake on my part. I already had more than I asked for. I needed to stop seeing her and by the time October rolled around, I had a good reason to.

Back at work, our boss gave us an update that the government agency was reevaluating our contract. The agency was choosing between three or four companies to administer the program. Eventually, it was narrowed down to just our company and one other. Over the summer, we got this update but it would take several weeks before we got any final decision. During October, we had a staff meeting and Rob told us that the agency selected another company to administer the program. I knew what this meant. I would be out of a job soon. When I heard the news, I was absolutely elated. I was sitting in my chair and I was just trying to hold back a smile really badly. I didn’t really enjoy my job. It had been frustrating, boring, and painful throughout the year. The only problem was that I couldn’t let myself quit while there was still money to be made. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t turn down the chance to make money. Now, the decision was made for me. I would be free again. I did feel a little sorry for my coworkers. Sally had a husband and a child and Cliff was recently expecting a baby. I was in a great financial position for a 24 year old guy. By October 2011, I had saved up almost $20,000. I could be unemployed for a few years and still be okay.

Upon hearing the news, the next question we had was how much time did we have left? Our boss was able to negotiate an eight week extension after October 31st to provide us with work almost until the end of 2011. After October, we would be processing no more invoices, applications, or following up with volunteers. At that point, all we could do was redirect volunteers over to the new company. Over the course of eight weeks, we had one objective. We had to pack up all the physical files and paperworks and mail it over to the new agency. It only took us about a week to finish the job. Afterwards, we filled up our days with a whole lot of nothing.

Those eight weeks were some of the easiest paychecks I ever collected. I would arrive at 8:30 am and surf the internet for hours before going home at 5:30 pm. During that time, I decided to check out the competitors website. Although, when I saw it, I saw a statement that was somewhat disturbing. According to the competitor’s website, there was a news update in August stating that they had been awarded the government contract. Upon reading the statement, I had to wonder if my boss knew about it ahead of time? Was he kept in the dark or was he keeping us in the dark as a form of damage control? It really made no difference at this point in time. The end of December arrived and we all parted our separate ways. At the end of December, I had saved up a total of $22000. After work was done, I wanted to see Julia one last time.

July 2011

For July 2011, I spent a total of $641.38. I was disappointed I exceeded $600 again for this month. My insurance premium was $166.40. I spent a total of $183 on gas by filling up 6 times. I only filled my tank up 5 times. I filled up my friend’s tank once. One of my friend’s wanted to go to the beach before the summer ended however he didn’t want to spend a lot of money by paying for lodging. I decided to tag along and we spent 6 hours driving one way. We enjoyed the beach for the day and then we spent 6 hours driving home all in one day. Since we took his car, I offered to pay for his gas on the way back. I spent $100.77 on 14 visits to fast food restaurants. I spent $42.45 on groceries. I spent $38.42 eating meals with my friends on two different occasions. Lastly, I spent $38.42 on a pair of skate shoes.

August 2011

For August 2011, I spent a total of $580.20. I was happy again to not break $600 for the month. My auto insurance renewed every August and February and thankfully my premium went down to $147 monthly. I spent a total of $158 on gas by filling up 5 times. I spent $78.22 by eating fast food 7 times. I paid $23.76 on 4 quarts of oil. I bought two six packs of beer for $14.50 for a party that I was invited to. Another $21.39 was spent on a pair of jeans. I spent money twice this month having meals with friends. I spent $32.58 getting pizza and beer with my two best friends. I also spent $13.86 on Mexican food when I first had dinner with Julia.

September 2011

For September 2011, I spent a total of $556.95. I did very well for this month. My insurance premium was $146.80. I only spent $129 on gas by filling my tank up 4 times. I spent $89.80 by eating fast food 10 times. I spent $52.76 on a 20 pound weighted vest so I could make pull ups even more challenging. I spent $39.94 on groceries. I also spent $37.94 on clothes. Skateboarding really tears up my pants so I did my best to buy jeans every so often. I spent $19.99 on a prepaid phone card that gave me 120 minutes.

October 2011

For October 2011, I spent a total of $561.16. My insurance premium was $146.80. I spent $163 on gas by filling up my tank 6 times. I spent $72.94 by eating fast food 9 times. During this month, I started spending a little more money eating out with some friends. Even on the weekends, I would go to a local bagel shop for breakfast. I even spent a little money to go bowling with Julia. I spent over $40 on beer. I even spent over $30 on dvds. This may have been a result of getting the update that my job would be ending in a few months.

November 2011

For November 2011, I spent a total of $669.80. This month, I had some unique expenses that pushed me past my target of $550. My insurance premium was $146.80. I spent $140 on gas by filling up my tank 4 times. I spent $72.91 on fast food by eating out 10 times. In November, I always need to get emissions done and pay for my car’s tags. The emissions cost $17 and the tags for my car cost $72. In November, I decided to go into sales and try my hand at selling financial products. As an independent contractor, I had to spend $125 on a background check on myself before I could work for the company. I spent some time with Julia by spending $30 on movie tickets. Since I bought the tickets, she bought the meal we shared together afterwards. Unexpectedly, I saw Julia again this month and I tried to teach her how to ride a skateboard. After she got battered a bruised at the skatepark, I paid for the meal of pancakes of $23.63 that we shared together. When the weather gets cold, I found myself buying coffee more and more. There were several times this month where I paid about $2 for a cup of coffee.

First job out of college (part 12)

It started when I asked her about her major in college. She told me that she majored in English but after four years she only earned her associate's degree. During that time period, she accumulated over $10000 in student debt that her parents would eventually have to pay off for her. When I asked her about how that happened, she told me that she suffered from depression and had to take medication along with visit a therapist on a monthly basis. Apparently, depression ran in her family as her mother suffered from it as well and Julia described her mom as being crazy. As a child through adulthood, Julia’s mom was verbally and physically abusive. She also told me that she had a weight problem until after high school. These were all things I never would have guessed just by looking at her. When I first met her, I just assumed all of the Asian stereotypes applied to her.

During bites of my quesadilla, she was complaining about her boyfriend a little bit. She didn’t think very highly of him and even called him a loser at one point. I couldn’t help to think that maybe she was so receptive to me because she was looking at me like a backup or replacement in the event that things with sour with George. However, I knew that it would be silly and a waste of time to wait around for that to happen. After finishing our food and talking for an hour, we both went our separate ways. It was the first time I ever took a woman out to dinner and it went pretty well. I didn’t expect to see her or talk to her again.

From when I started my first job, I made the decision that I never wanted to get married or have children. While my main reason is that I don’t want to work any harder to provide for a wife and children, the reality is that marriage and children open up a whole mess of exposure to a man. Growing up through high school and college, I’ve heard the horror stories of how men lost half of their stuff through divorces. My dad told me about a mortgage broker who lost more than $5 million over the course of two divorces. As bad as that sounded, marriage/divorce laws were even worse. If a child is involved, the woman usually gets custody and the man is usually required to pay child support. Child support is actually something that men can go to jail for if they don’t pay. Depending on the state, a man could be stuck with alimony that lasts a lifetime and several states could stack on multiple penalties such as lifetime alimony, child support, and losing half of your stuff during a divorce. I knew all of this growing up.

When I told my parents I had put down my life on spreadsheets and had a plan of how much money I was going to save by a certain age, they poked fun at me. They told me that I didn’t account for when I got married and had children. To which, I gave them both a good reason for why those factors were not accounted for in my calculations. I would forgo them. This is a cruel fact of reality that hurt them both early on. It hurt my mom much more so because she eventually wanted to have grandchildren. For years, they would try to convince me of why I should settle down with a woman but every time I would dump a whole load of logic of why marriage was a bad idea on them. The risk just wasn’t worth the rewards. I intended to live life alone and die alone. It was the only way I knew how to live.

First job out of college (part 11)

For the first time I could remember, I saw a lot of Asian girls there. I showed up right after work so I was dressed in my office clothing along with a tie so I was feeling quite confident about myself. After a few beers, I was talking to all the girls there and introducing myself to everyone at the party. About 90 percent of the people there were complete strangers to me but I didn’t care. All I had to do was ask them how they knew my friend Ting. I enjoyed myself, I was cracking jokes with strangers, talking about work and life. I got to talk with three or four pretty girls there and I didn’t care about any sort of impression I left because I would never see these people again. That night, I went home and forgot all about the party. I didn’t regret going.

The next day, I was checking my emails and noticed I received a friend request from a girl at the homecoming party. Her name was Julia. I accepted her invite but didn’t think anything of it. Up to that point, when I used social networking websites, I would get friend requests from people who would never want to have a conversation. Most likely, she just added me because she recognized my face. Still, I was curious about her. When we were talking she was very receptive towards me. If she sent me a friend request, what else would she do?

So I sent her a message and asked her what the name of that taco place she was talking about at the party. She gave me the name of the restaurant and said that we should go sometime. Well that was unexpectedly easy. I told her that we would go sometime but never set a date. After a few days, I got a text from her. She went out of her way to ask Ting for my phone number. If she was that receptive, the least I could do was have dinner with her.

I had never taken a girl out to dinner before. Going along for the experience in of itself was worth it. I had one simple objective. Pick up Julia and have a meal with her. Unfortunately, she said she would meet me there so it wouldn’t go exactly how I wanted it. I really didn’t know what her motive was. I knew she already had a boyfriend. I wasn’t expecting to date her or sleep with her. The dinner itself was the end all be all. After it was done, I didn’t have any intention of seeing her or talking to her again. She ordered the fish tacos and I think I got the chicken quesadillas. We started asking each other questions about ourselves and then I learned a few unexpected things about her.

First job out of college (part 10)

This is what recruiters do. They try to pump up and excite the target and downplay all the hard work that is required. You can be your own boss, set your own hours, go travel and meet interesting people. They don’t tell you that you will have to work more than 40 hours a week to be successful and you might not make any money for the first few weeks or months. They don’t tell you that 90% of recruited people can’t make sales and quit within a few weeks or months. What they do is they try to sell you dreams of taking vacations in Hawaii or Europe and they talk about how the most successful agents make six figure salaries. They do this, not out of devious intent, but because there is no better way.

From what I learned during job hunting, there is only one type of job that a person with a high school degree can make a six figure salary right out of high school. That job is sales. The sort of sales position that turns a man into an independent business owner is the only way to make a six figure salary with a mere high school diploma. In fact, the high school diploma isn’t even required. When a man goes into business for himself, his salary is not fixed. It is purely dependent on how much stuff he can sell. When a man goes into business for himself, his hours aren’t limited to merely 40 hours a week. If he really wants to become a success, he is going to have to work, struggle, and obsess over making sales and earning money. His drive and ambition are the biggest factors that contribute towards his success.

Companies that recruit salesmen know this. Companies that operate this way want to get the highest driven and highest motivated salesmen to drive up the most amount of sales and profit. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no real test that can measure a man’s ambition and drive. No high school diploma, undergraduate degree, graduate degree, MBA, PHD, or assessment can measure a man’s ambition and drive. So in order to find the star employees, the company has to try to recruit as many people as possible and find out in the field who is the star performer. This is their assessment. Unfortunately, this leaves a majority of people that sign up incredibly angry, dissatisfied, and cheated once they realize they cannot achieve the dreams they were sold. However, Faye was persistent and I said that I might consider joining the company if I ever found myself out of work.

By the Summer of 2011, I had saved up about $15000. One contributing factor that helped me save $1000 each month was that I had no girlfriend, did not date, and spent no time looking for women. I knew all of the efforts and maintenance of relationships costed money. There was an instance at church when I asked a friend questions about how often she and her boyfriend went out to dinner, watched movies together, and drove to see each other. I calculated that she costed her boyfriend roughly $120 to $150 each month. I also didn’t have a lot of options. I didn’t keep in touch with many people from high school or college and my social life was incredibly limited due to the fact that I didn’t get a car until after college. After college, there were only three places I would interact with people regularly. I went to work, church, and the skatepark. None of those places had a lot of women to interact with. Also, the place where I live doesn’t have a large Asian population so I wasn’t motivated to go out looking. On top of that, I still lived with my parents so taking a girl home would have been more challenging than if I had my own place. Looking for a woman just didn’t seem worth it. By pure coincidence a girl I knew was having a homecoming party for college and asked me to come along.

July 2011

For July 2011, I spent a total of $641.38. I was disappointed I exceeded $600 again for this month. My insurance premium was $166.40. I spent a total of $183 on gas by filling up 6 times. I only filled my tank up 5 times. I filled up my friend’s tank once. One of my friend’s wanted to go to the beach before the summer ended however he didn’t want to spend a lot of money by paying for lodging. I decided to tag along and we spent 6 hours driving one way. We enjoyed the beach for the day and then we spent 6 hours driving home all in one day. Since we took his car, I offered to pay for his gas on the way back. I spent $100.77 on 14 visits to fast food restaurants. I spent $42.45 on groceries. I spent $38.42 eating meals with my friends on two different occasions. Lastly, I spent $38.42 on a pair of skate shoes.

First job out of college (part 9)

A safe investment that paid 8% per year was something that I could only dream about. Sometime during the beginning of 2011, I started to put my life down on spreadsheets. I was on track of saving $1000 each month. At the rate I was going, I could save up $12000 each year. I had a lot of money that I could invest but I lived through the financial meltdown of 2009. The stock market was the last place where I wanted to put any money. I wasn’t going to risk high losses for high gains. I’d rather just save up my money and know what I would have. I only knew of one place to invest though. In the past, I had put money away in certificates of deposit just to make some interest. The first time I opened up a certificate of deposit was in 2006 and I got an APY of three percent per year. The highest rate I ever received was five percent in 2008. In 2011, I put $10000 into a CD that earned 2.40% APY. Interest rates for CDs were pretty low but I was hoping they would increase again in the future. As long as the rate on a CD was two percent or greater, I would invest in a CD. Unfortunately, after five years of waiting, I’ve never seen CD rates exceed 2.40%.

Faye printed off a projection of what my policy would look like if the markets stayed consistent with growing more than 8% per year. By the time I was 40, the cash value of my policy would be over $30,000. By the time I was 50, the value would be $90,000. By time I was 60, the value would be $220,000. Since I was 22 at the time, in shape, and a nonsmoker, Faye told me that I would be in the preferred elite risk category. I would have the cheapest premiums for the policy. For a policy with a death benefit of $300,000, she quoted me a monthly premium of $120. Could all of this be a scam? Sure it could be a rip off. Historical rates are never a guarantee of future performance. It would also take a few years for me to realize any benefit from the policy. During the first five years, the surrender value was $0. The surrender value would not match the cash value of the policy until I was 33. Also, the break even point where the cash value meets the total premiums paid would not happen until I was at least 36. Lastly, I had to keep life insurance. I couldn’t just have a financial product where I could have an account indexed to the markets and not have to pay for the life insurance which I did not need. Or if such a product existed, they didn’t tell me about it at the time. I also had the concern that I could lose the entire policy if the insurance company tanked however the told me that reinsurance would take care of me in that situation.

Was it a risk? Of course it was a risk. However the potential for gains was large and the cost was only $120 a month. I could afford the premiums and still save $1000 each month. At that point, I was more worried about passing up a great opportunity than wasting $120 each month. I decided to commit myself to the investment in July of 2011. Unfortunately, it wasn’t over yet. After I purchased the product, they immediately wanted to recruit me to the company. The insurance policy I bought was their flagship product and they wanted me to join to sell products for them. I was incredibly resistant to the idea and drew my line in the ground. I’d only join if I could work part time on the weekends and see if I could make money that way. I already had a full time job and didn’t have a lot of time to spare. This wasn’t really an option so I rejected the offer, however they did everything they could to try to motivate me to join.

First job out of college (part 8)

During July of 2011, I was eating some food at a picnic. I was approached by a man named Jim and we were just talking about financial planning. He was a complete stranger but I wasn’t about to just blow him off. Later, I would find out that he was part of a multi level marketing company and it was his intention to sell financial products to me and recruit me into the organization.

These sort of things happen gradually and these situations only happen when you are too afraid or resistant to say the word no. If found myself having a meeting with Jim and his superior Faye. At the time, I liked to brag about how I was doing financially and since they were stroking my ego, I decided to go along to the meeting. They started giving me financial advice and got a good picture of how I was doing financially. The first step of their plan was to sell me a financial service. All the way through, I was resistant to the idea. And then they told me what the rate of return was and I got interested.

The product they were trying to sell me was life insurance. Upon first reaction, I thought that life insurance was a complete waste of money for me because I intend to never get married or have children and life insurance only provides benefits to beneficiaries, not you. However, they went into more detail about how the life insurance holder could benefit from having a permanent life insurance policy. Unlike term life insurance, permanent life insurance is intended to insure an entire lifetime, not just a few years. For this reason, the premium for a permanent policy is typically far more expensive than term life when you are younger and far cheaper than term life when you are older. The most important thing is that some permanent life insurance policies will accrue a cash balance which can be borrowed against in the future. This idea was not foreign to me. When I was younger, I used to see several commercials on TV that advertised this feature. These commercials were aimed towards parents that either had new born babies or very young children. The commercials advertised whole life policies which are a type of permanent life insurance. Back then, these companies advertised a growth rate of five percent per year.

Faye told me that I could borrow against the cash balance (not death benefit) and I would not necessarily be required to pay back the loan. If I didn’t repay the loan, the amount would just get deducted from the cash balance. Faye told me that the money contributed to the cash balance would be indexed to stock exchanges located in America, Europe, and Japan. She told me that the money was not actually invested in the stock markets however the money was invested in various bonds. A selling feature of the product was that if the markets tanked, the money in the cash value would not be affected because there was a market bottom in the indexes. If the markets tanked, the cash balance would be guaranteed to grow by one percent. The flip side to the feature was that the cash balance had a growth ceiling of 12%. Over the last 20 years, the financial product reported an average growth of over 8% per year.

First job out of college (part 7)

In early 2011, we were pretty overburdened and my boss decided it was a good idea to hire some temporary help. My boss hired three temporary employees from the Department of Labor. Two of the employees were on the job for only six weeks but the third employee was brought on full time for the rest of the contract.

Around March of 2011, I started become proficient at my job and things started to settle into a routine. I’d make sure to print out all the invoices and documents at the beginning of each month when the volunteers sent them in. It was my goal to get as many of those invoices into a check batch as soon as possible. We started to create larger batches to make the process more efficient. At one point, I created a spreadsheet that had all my active members and I would check off which members sent me an invoice and received a payment for the month. Towards the end of the month, I’d call or send an email to volunteers who hadn’t sent me an invoice for the month. If something was incorrect about the invoice, I made sure to promptly call the volunteer back to inform them of the mistake. Probably the most useful thing I did was save the spreadsheets that recorded each of the checks that went out in a check run. Calls regarding if payments were sent were incredibly common so if I kept the spreadsheets, I wouldn’t have to go pull the physical file and check to see the records. On the spreadsheet, I also included the service term expiration date. If the volunteer was getting close to the expiration date, I could check if they were going to enroll in the program again and remind them to send me a new application so their payments wouldn’t get delayed. I do remember a few months where the process was so efficient and things ran so smoothly that we actually finished most of our work by the 15th of the month and we had some time to relax.

That being said, I did work with a good bunch of people. Upper management would occasionally bring us breakfast sandwiches and they took us out to dinner a few times. During March of 2011, one of the co workers encouraged everyone to fill out a bracket for March Madness and we had a few tvs set up around the office to watch basketball while we worked.

By the end of June 2011, I had saved up about $15,000 total. I was still keeping to spending $550 per month but I had a few months where I went as high as $650. My insurance dropped down from $220 monthly to $170 monthly. I spend more than $130 to $150 a month on gas because I was convinced that always buying premium gas was better for my car. I still spent more than $100 on fast food because I enjoyed those sliders too much. Every so often, I’d go out to dinner with some friends and spend $20. I had a prepaid phone and rarely called anyone. The phone only cost about $100 a year for service. For entertainment, I spent some money on DVDs and video games. Life was very routine and  I was content. I didn’t feel an urge to find a different job. I was still saving more than $1000 a month. I was just coasting. I would have stayed with the job for another 40 years if it had lasted that long. However, sometimes opportunities just kind of look for you and they might not always be welcome.

January 2011

I took the average of November and December 2010 and used $550 as the target amount for my average month. I spent a total of $550.86. $222.75 was spent on auto insurance which was debited around the 18th of each month. This ACH debit was necessary to get a small discount on insurance. I spent $101 on gas by filling up four times. I always used cash for buying gas because I didn’t feel comfortable using my debit card. I started buying more fast food as I spent $81.20 on five or six visits. Coffee, hashbrowns, and biscuits are a special reward for myself on weekend mornings. I started buying some groceries as I spent $31.49 on various food. I also spent $47.38 on dumbbell weights so I could start working out again. After leaving college in May 2010, I was lifting weights at a local church which had a small weight room open to the public. That room was shut off to the public in late 2010. I spent $33 at a burger joint after meeting some friends at church there. While it is no major item, I started buying flavored mints and I’d consume them when I was driving. A pack of several mints cost $1.04.

February 2011

For February 2011, I spent a total of $559.22.

I finally got a reduction in my insurance rates so I only spent $167 on my auto insurance. I spent $154.79 on workout equipment. I purchased an olympic bar and weights so I could start doing real bench presses again. I spent $85 on gas by filling up a total of three times. I spent $68.32 on 8 visits to fast food joints. A few times during the month, I would buy a 22 ounce beer from the gas station for about $2.50 each. I wanted to try various brands at least once.

March 2011

For March 2011, I spent a total of $540.12. My auto insurance premium was $166.40. During this month, I started spending money on premium gas because I thought I could get better gas mileage. I spent $176 after filling up my tank 6 times. I spent $55.65 on 7 visits to fast food joints. I spent $23.92 on various groceries throughout the month. During this month, I also spent $23.35 on products related to oil changes (quarts of oil and oil filters). I believed I could save money on oil changes if I did them myself so I asked my dad to show me how to change my own oil. I bought beer a total of five times this month.

April 2011

For April 2011, I spent a total of $636.96. I was close to going over $100 over my target spending amount and I was feeling uncomfortable towards the last week of the month. My auto insurance premium was $166.40. I spent $141 on gas by filling up 6 times. For this month, I didn’t bother packing my lunch as often so I started spending a lot more money on fast food. I spent a total of $134.19 on 17 visits to fast food places. A good reason that I went was so that I could take a full hour off of work. Typically, if I ate in the office, I would finish my lunch within 8 minutes and then go right back to working. To make the day go by faster, I would drive over to the local restaurant. I usually ordered 5 sliders, chili cheese fries, and a medium soda. I spent $42.52 on various groceries for this month. I went to eat with my friends twice this month. The first place was a pizza joint with my two best friends. I spent $28 dollars. The second time, I went to a cheeseburger joint close to the city and spent $29. My bills were only slightly over $20 but I usually threw in an extra $5 for a tip. The last major item I bought was 240 minutes for my prepaid phone. I spent $39.99 for those minutes.

May 2011

For May 2011, I spent a total of $636.76. Again, I went almost $100 over my target spending amount and I felt uncomfortable the last week of the month. My insurance premium was $166.40. I spent $182 on gas by filling up 6 times. I filled up more than once a week because I always paid by cash when purchasing gas. Because of this, I had to estimate how much money it would take to fill up my tank and I only filled up my tank when I got close to ¼ of a tank. I spent $77 on 10 visits to fast food restaurants. I spent $41.90 on some free weights so I could do arm curls. I also spent $45.10 on going to two different restaurants.

June 2011

For June 2011, I spent a total of $584.25. I was glad that my expenses did not exceed $600 for another month. I spent $166.40 on my auto insurance. I spent $135 on gas by filling up 5 times. I spent $90.74 on fast food on 9 different visits. During one of these visits, I actually bought lunch for four people in my office. We spent at least an hour trying to resolve a difference of $.32 before we could print checks. The error was on my side so I bought my colleagues lunch to dispel any ill will. I spent $54.86 on eating meals with some friends. I got some pizza and beer with my two best friends as we did for the last few months. We called this man night. I also took a girl out for a semi blind date. Since it was the first time I ever took a girl out, I took her to a unique restaurant where you could watch planes take off and land while you eat. The bill came out to be more than $60 or so but she actually offered to pay for part of the bill. I spent $40.95 on some more work out equipment. I bought ankle weights so that I could make pullups tougher. I also bought some free weights.