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Saturday, May 9th, 2020 05:09 pm
the beauty of consumerism
So, accomplishments in the last month:
1.) Paid off one of three personal loans early. Of the two remaining, one will be paid off in January, and then I'll settle how to get the third one done.
2.) I got my first credit card in five years after some unfortunate...it's unimportant, but this is my fourth attempt to have a credit card and not destroy my credit.
3.) Re-consolidated my student loan so I qualify for the public forgiveness program in ten years and six month covid deferment. Also, my payment went down by four dollars.
4.) Used excess funds from 1 and 3 to pay down some but not all my outstanding debt.
5.) Banked most of my tax refund and all stimulus checks without spending them immediately.
Why not use it for all debt?
Most of my debt left is now interest free (other than the personal loans) and therefore I want to keep them to show regular payments over a two year period. Also--since I bought an eighth of a cow--my food budget changed, and I started budgeting for delivery anything once a week from local restaurants for the foreseeable future, and every two weeks from my local vape store (TWO HOUR LOCAL DELIVERY TO MY DOOR!). But that is not the main reason.
See, I need a couch, and in light of the pandemic, I'm limiting my options to local businesses. So I'm grimly searching through my local furniture stores, which is great, support local businesses, great, high quality products, awesome, but I live in Austin and 'local' is not cheap, even after eliminating those using the words 'artisan' or 'hand crafted' and places with showrooms that are ice white walls hung with tasteful art littered with understated living room sets with neutral patterned earth-toned rugs with names starting with 'urban' , I close the tab: I can't afford the accent pieces, much less anything with an actual function.
So this is going to cost me.
I'm leaning toward Austin's Couch Potatoes, which is not only where my mom got God's Own Amazing Massive Sectional of Eternal Comfort, but in the old days when we shopped in person, the salesperson would direct you to a refrigerator for water, soda, or beer before leaving you alone to shop to your heart's content and play with the remote control mattresses advertising zero gravity.
(Note: they have many and I rode them all with a Coke in my hand and a song in my heart. Some had speed functions!)
And by leaning toward, I mean I'm buying from them: during lockdown, they didn't furlough but employed their staff making PPE gowns and masks for frontline workers and selling bulk masks to the public at 100 for $100. And are still doing it, if you want to check it out; they're running a GoFundMe to help with materials since a lot of suppliers are still closed. They're technically open now but it's very limited and the salesguy I talked to says generally, it's far preferred by appointment.
(He also sent me the full options for a sectional I was interested in--similar to my Mom's--with prices on each individual piece as well as the most common configurations and their price. No, seriously, the actual goddamn full fact sheet. Didn't even argue. Literally no furniture store has ever just handed me an information sheet on their sectionals with a breakdown by piece. It's fully customizable; I pick the pieces, the fabric, and the throw pillows and they build it for me. It's also their own brand and locally-built--yep, 'local', fuck my life--so you can imagine the price. I did not realize I could feel guilty about not buying something, like I'm letting down the local economy. This is so weird. It also looks so incredibly comfortable I'm wondering how much I really need two kidneys or an entire whole liver; livers regenerate, after all.)
To be fair, yes, I do have a couch, but it also is the reason I strained my back so I couldn't move for six hours, couldn't walk for three days, couldn't bend for almost a week, and still have to be careful doing shit like unloading the dishwasher or climbing on a ladder to hang new blinds or slumping or basically anything that requires that part of my back. I haven't needed the muscle relaxants or anti-inflammatories for almost three weeks, but I still carry them.
It is not a bad couch; it is a bad couch for me. I remind myself of that to avoid setting it on fire while performing an exorcism.
On my porch after hanging the second set of blinds up so I have full frontal coverage from the sun; it's glorious.
1.) Paid off one of three personal loans early. Of the two remaining, one will be paid off in January, and then I'll settle how to get the third one done.
2.) I got my first credit card in five years after some unfortunate...it's unimportant, but this is my fourth attempt to have a credit card and not destroy my credit.
3.) Re-consolidated my student loan so I qualify for the public forgiveness program in ten years and six month covid deferment. Also, my payment went down by four dollars.
4.) Used excess funds from 1 and 3 to pay down some but not all my outstanding debt.
5.) Banked most of my tax refund and all stimulus checks without spending them immediately.
Why not use it for all debt?
Most of my debt left is now interest free (other than the personal loans) and therefore I want to keep them to show regular payments over a two year period. Also--since I bought an eighth of a cow--my food budget changed, and I started budgeting for delivery anything once a week from local restaurants for the foreseeable future, and every two weeks from my local vape store (TWO HOUR LOCAL DELIVERY TO MY DOOR!). But that is not the main reason.
See, I need a couch, and in light of the pandemic, I'm limiting my options to local businesses. So I'm grimly searching through my local furniture stores, which is great, support local businesses, great, high quality products, awesome, but I live in Austin and 'local' is not cheap, even after eliminating those using the words 'artisan' or 'hand crafted' and places with showrooms that are ice white walls hung with tasteful art littered with understated living room sets with neutral patterned earth-toned rugs with names starting with 'urban' , I close the tab: I can't afford the accent pieces, much less anything with an actual function.
So this is going to cost me.
I'm leaning toward Austin's Couch Potatoes, which is not only where my mom got God's Own Amazing Massive Sectional of Eternal Comfort, but in the old days when we shopped in person, the salesperson would direct you to a refrigerator for water, soda, or beer before leaving you alone to shop to your heart's content and play with the remote control mattresses advertising zero gravity.
(Note: they have many and I rode them all with a Coke in my hand and a song in my heart. Some had speed functions!)
And by leaning toward, I mean I'm buying from them: during lockdown, they didn't furlough but employed their staff making PPE gowns and masks for frontline workers and selling bulk masks to the public at 100 for $100. And are still doing it, if you want to check it out; they're running a GoFundMe to help with materials since a lot of suppliers are still closed. They're technically open now but it's very limited and the salesguy I talked to says generally, it's far preferred by appointment.
(He also sent me the full options for a sectional I was interested in--similar to my Mom's--with prices on each individual piece as well as the most common configurations and their price. No, seriously, the actual goddamn full fact sheet. Didn't even argue. Literally no furniture store has ever just handed me an information sheet on their sectionals with a breakdown by piece. It's fully customizable; I pick the pieces, the fabric, and the throw pillows and they build it for me. It's also their own brand and locally-built--yep, 'local', fuck my life--so you can imagine the price. I did not realize I could feel guilty about not buying something, like I'm letting down the local economy. This is so weird. It also looks so incredibly comfortable I'm wondering how much I really need two kidneys or an entire whole liver; livers regenerate, after all.)
To be fair, yes, I do have a couch, but it also is the reason I strained my back so I couldn't move for six hours, couldn't walk for three days, couldn't bend for almost a week, and still have to be careful doing shit like unloading the dishwasher or climbing on a ladder to hang new blinds or slumping or basically anything that requires that part of my back. I haven't needed the muscle relaxants or anti-inflammatories for almost three weeks, but I still carry them.
It is not a bad couch; it is a bad couch for me. I remind myself of that to avoid setting it on fire while performing an exorcism.
On my porch after hanging the second set of blinds up so I have full frontal coverage from the sun; it's glorious.
