Week #33 - a day short and a dollar late!

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to week #33 of the world famous OCD Savings Blog! So what should we talk about this week?! I don't really have anything planned so I'm just gonna type about a few things that recently came up and see what happens!

So you all know about the issues I have with customer service right? Well, it happened again! It was with Sirius Satellite Radio who I have had MANY issues with over the last 7 years. This time they did not send me a bill even though I pay extra ($2 per billing cycle) to get a paper statement in the mail. What they did was just use a credit on my account to renew a radio and never notified me. May not sound like a big deal, but they renewed it at the highest possible rate rather than giving me a chance to change to a longer/cheaper per month plan. Well, after about an hour on the phone of yelling at a man with a very thick Indian accent who insisted his name was "Steve" I got the radio they renewed extended for 5 months for no additional cost. I did invest the time, but its actually kind of cathartic to yell at someone that you've never met and will never speak to again and then get something free out of it in the end!

I did spend some money in the last couple of weeks to do some necessary repairs to my car. I can't complain to much because the car has 125,000 miles on it and up until last week I had only changed the tires twice, replaced the windshield once and replaced the front brake pads once. Besides oil changes that was it! So last week I had to get another set of tires and I had to have the brakes done. It ended up that I only did the rear brakes, but he did the pads and the rotors. He also found a broken coil spring that needs to be replaced once I get the part and he suggested that I replace a couple of belts to be proactive. Its a friend that did the work for a very fair price and I trust all his suggestions. That being said, it still sucks to spend money on car repairs! Luckily, I just took the money out of my 'car savings account' to pay for the parts and labor!

I have been trying to track how many miles I drive to get to different places that I need to go. I recently found a new way home from work that cuts out about 10-15 miles, but I need to do it a few times and see how much longer, if any, it adds to the trip and see if saving the miles is worth it. With the price of gas its worth cutting out any miles you can unless its a huge inconvenience!

I think that's about all I got for you guys and no one has really been commenting with suggestions or giving me ideas on what else to talk about... so you should do that and help me out!! Ok... this week I got a paycheck, but it was only for 4 days of work because I had to skip a day last week in order to do something I needed to complete for my current school program. Unfortunately it could only be done during my work hours so I missed the day. It was my choice to take it unpaid because I could have used a personal day, but I like to save those for as late in the year as possible! So my check was for $495.73 ($31.30 to the 401K). I really should put the entire check in the mortgage account, but I'm going to take $100 and put it in my regular checking account so I can keep the balance in the black. I think that even though only $395.73 will go toward the mortgage I should be okay for the month, but worst case I still have last weeks 'extra check' stashed away in my checkbook register! Yes... I know you're waiting to hear it, but I DID do my $20 vacation transfer... I'm OCD do you really think I could ever skip it!? Here's the wrap up...

Here is the week 33 wrap up:
$31.30 to my 401K
$20.00 to my vacation fund


Which makes the 2013 totals:
$1136.47 in my 401K
$660.00 in the vacation fund
$75.80 in the piggy bank
$400.00 in the quarterly loan payment account
$150.00 in my vet bill savings
$1583.00 in my money market
$1032.99 in my car account

For this weeks bonus I will tell you that my wife booked our vacation to Disney World for October of this year. Its kind of a vacation/anniversary trip and almost like a replacement honeymoon since last year when we went on vacation around the time of our wedding Hurricane Sandy kind of killed most of our plans! So maybe for next week I'll try to have some more details on what we booked and how we saved in the process! What are your vacation plans this year and did you cut any costs on it? Coupons? AAA Discount?