Thursday, May 26, 2011

Isn't It Friday Yet?

Today really felt like Friday. I don't know what tomorrow will feel like. Maybe a Friday re-play. It seemed like every time I sent out an email I got a return notification that another person was on vacation. Next year that will be me too! I can hardly wait for 3 weeks vacation to make my holiday weekends even longer. Now there's something to look forward to.

I checked on my bank account and made sure that my checks had cleared and my credit card statement had gone through. It looks like I will be able to safely put $2,000 towards the mortgage this month. I have enough plus extra to cover the $800 automatic mortgage payment on the first of the month. That payment is going to suck out extra money for my escrow fund again but I will get it refunded 30 days after the loan closes so I am not too worried about that. Besides, keeping that money out of my account and out of my hands is a good thing. When I do get that escrow refund I need to put it in a separate account right away so I am not tempted to use it on anything other than property taxes and insurance.

I took all the videos and pictures off of my little netbook and put them on a memory stick. It seems to have helped. The netbook isn't running as good as it did before but it is much better than the snail pace it was struggling to keep up. I priced out some laptops and netbooks today. Looks like I can get one with 4 GB of memory for $370. And then a printer with scanner only costs $40. My netbook only has 1GB. I didn't think I would need much but with all the pictures and videos I take, I definitely need more. For now the memory stick is helping a lot. It is an 8GB stick. I also miss having a DVD player. I keep getting free Redbox rental coupons but my DVD player is in the RV and I don't spend that much time in there to watch a whole movie.

Live and learn. I don't want to be buying a new computer every year. This one still works and the next one will be even better.

4 comments:

Dave said...

Okay, Daizy, let me see if I have the math right on your rapidly dwindling (yay) mortgage.

If you pay $2,000 extra towards the mortgage and the $800 comes out on 6/1/2001 (most of the $800 will be principal, of course), that will bring your outstanding principal balance down to about $1,200, right? So if you pay another ~$500 some time in June, then the last automatic payment of $800 will finish the loan and you can sever the automatic payment in July while you await the paperwork and small refund (i.e. overpayment) on your last payment. Is that how it will play out?

Those memory sticks are very handy, whether it is for storage or for simply backing up your files which is what I use them for. I got my two for free as part of promotions from a local computer store. :)

And to answer your question in the previous entry about the garbage tax refund, I did not get a direct refund but instead it made my co-op's budget better. We have had no maintenance increases for the last 2 years, the first time that has happened since the 1990s when we went 7 years without an increase.

Daizy said...

Close, Dave, but the total on the side bar doesn't include May's mortgage payment so I actually only owe $3,400. Of the $800 payment only $630 goes towards the mortgage and the rest towards escrow, that's why I don't like the automatic payment but I can't do anything about it yet since I am short on both money and month.

KoBold said...

What size is the hard drive in your netbook? How full is it? The Operation System needs space for temporary and page files on the hard drive to run smoothly.
Removing photos and videos to the memory stick has freed up space on the hard drive, making it run smoother. Try freeing up more space, and defragmenting the hard drive. My guess is, it would help a lot.

Daizy said...

KoBold, I tried everything and it didn't help so I searched for slow Facebook loading since it only happened with facebook and they recommended using Google Chrome as my browser and it worked! Good thing because I was pricing new laptops.