For the last few days, we’ve been driving around in a Cadillac. It’s a nice enough ride, but since the rear passenger-side tire looses air as fast as, I dunno, something fast, and it can only take premium, so-expensive-it’s-almost-amusing-but-not-really-funny-at-all gas, we’d like to find something a little more economical. Or, at the very least, something a little more ours, instead of my parents’. Our budget is very, very small, and so it was a little dishearting to see the prices of cars right now. Even in the crappier parts of town, where you can usually find near-junkers at the scary little auto lots - the sort with names like Bob’s A+ Autos or Mike’s Motors - we couldn’t find anything in our price range.
Sigh.
I’m sure we’ll find something. It may not be nice, and it may not be anything I actually want to drive, but it’ll get us around until we have established ourselves a bit more and can more easily saddle ourselves down with a nice, heavy car loan so I can get a nice, comfy, safe, and boring little car, like my old Corolla.
In the mean time, I guess I can run wherever I need to go. That’d be good exercise. Might be a little difficult, of course. But, hey, I can do it - I did 3 miles today. Now, sure 3 miles isn’t a lot, maybe, but considering it’s only my second run since getting back, I’m feeling pretty good about it. Go me!
Today started of sort of …eh… and just got better from there.
We met up with Evelyn to go to Taipei for a work thing that was pitched to us as an area fun day - we’d be bowling. I was a little thrown by the fact that we were meeting her at 10:00am (seems a little early for bowling, don’t you think?), but sure, whatever. Then, when we get there, she’s looking for some hotel. Turns out the part they didn’t tell us was that the lunch portion was actually a banquet and mini awards ceremony type thing. Banquet isn’t really the right word - it was buffet style and pretty good, actually (somehow, I never associate good food with banquets, ever). I knew they were feeding us, but in my head, it was pizza, not fancy schmancy stuff. Anyhow, most of the talking was in Chinese, which, you know, we don’t really understand (still working on finding time for Chinese lessons and working on not accidentally saying incredibly innappropriate things), so it was pretty boring.
Then, we finally moved onto the bowling alley around 1:00 or so, and it was … different. The bowling alley was well-lit, with bright white walls and no smoke wafting over from the next lane. Also? The pitchers everyone had were filled with tea, not beer. I mean, sure, we can bowl, it’s fun (I played an almost respectable few games), but it was a little surreal without the seedy element that seems to permeate even the safest midwestern bowling alleys.
After that, we went to Carrefour. It’s a French import that feels remarkably like a super Walmart, given that we were able to buy kitchen appliances and bedsheets and foodstuff in one go. Heh. What’d we get? We finally got stuff to make ourselves feel almost truly settled in, now that we’ve been here over 3 months. Sheesh. Anyway, we got:
- Microwave (~$4700NT)
- Toaster oven (~$1500NT)
- Rice cooker (~$1300NT)
- 2 sets of duvet cover + fitted sheet + pillowcases ($1000NT each)
- Messenger bag for Seth (~$1500NT)
- Shaving cartridges (~$250NT) (I’m sure the inclusion of this one in the list is of incredible interest to you, right?)
- Measuing spoons and liquid measuing cup (~$100NT)
- Plastic corner shelf thingie for the shower (~$250NT)
- Noodles (rotini and pipe rigate {scroll down}) (~$200NT)
- Black bean hot cereal (I’ll have to let you know how that one works out) (~$100NT)
I think that was about everything. We spent about the equivalent of one week’s pay for one of us, but I think it was worth it. I can make cookies! And we can now reheat leftovers, if we ever have any (like, say, if I was to cook up a big batch of black beans - yum!) - woo!
So, now that I’ve set up the cooking appliances, and stripped the old dirty sheets and replaced them with some new ones (that are much nicer, incidentally), and graded two days worth of Treehouse homework, and written on of the longer posts I’ve written in a few days (weeks, maybe?), I think it’s time to go to bed!
Woo! Together, we made over $100,000 this month! I mean, it’s in Taiwan dollars, but still - six figures! Woo!
But then, when you figure that we’re planning to buy a dryer (oh sweet heaven, clothes that don’t feel sticky and t-shirts with collars that are’t all stretched out), and maybe a new bed (to replace the futon we’re on - it’s a good futon, but when is a futon ever really good?), and regular expenses like food and rent and a new iPod and trips to scenic mountains and beaches, well, then it doesn’t really seem like so much. It is, though. It’s more than we were making at home. It’s just that we don’t have all the stuff we had before - stuff we never realized we’d miss - like beds and dressers and microwaves and dryers and one of these and one of these and one of these and on and on and on.
I can’t really complain, though. We have enough to get by and still throw a bit in savings. I’d just rather throw a bunch in savings instead of just a bit!
Shoot. It’s 11:56 and I have 4 minutes to post before November 6th is gone. Clearly, this will be short.
I opened a bank account today, which was both unnervingly easy and brain-numbingly foreign. Yay for that, though, I suppose.
Okay, so although this post complies with the letter of the law regarding daily posting, it clearly doesn’t go along with the spirit. Of course, sometimes it’s okay to do something like that, especially when trying to form a habit. I mean, even a quick, insubstantial post is still a post, right?
Edited to add this choice bit of info:
The timestamp listed in my admin area for the publication of this post? 2007-11-06 11:59:57 pm. Oh yeah. Juuuuuust squeezing it in on time.
I just got off skype with my parents. Mom tells me that I’ve got a notice from my od job telling me i need to rollover my 401k out of the company-sponsored plan thingie into my own personally-owned account. After some noodling around on Transamerica’s site, I finally found the right place to log in and discovered that, much to my delight, I actually have some money in there. Just under $1600, actually (not too shabby for just a year, I don’t think). So, I guess I need to find myself a 401k account. It looks like I actually even create a “Transamerica Premier Funds Rollover IRA” that would probably make the rollover pretty easy. The work rollover is in the name of the account, so it must be what I’m looking for, right? Or, perhaps tomorrow, when my eyes aren’t so tired, I’ll do some digging online to decide where to stick it all. Last time I was researching IRAs, I recall there being a bunch of different companies offering them. Truth be told, I’ll probably end up picking the one with the web interface I like the best. After all, that’s what’s important, right?