ok, seriously...

I can't sleep. Tomorrow I work a double-shift, same goes for Saturday and Sunday. That's THREE in a row. THREE!! And I can't sleep. Shit.

wha hoo!!

I made a banner! Ok, so I'm fully aware of how terrible it is. Don't judge. I'm new to the blogging world and so my new-terrible-but-it's-mine-even-with-the-dinosaur-type-font banner will be sticking around till I learn what the hell I'm doing.

Otherwise, I've got nothing. That was pretty much the highlight of my day. Tragic, eh?

travel just ain't what it used to be...

I just got back from visiting my kid brother in Chicago and have come to some very harsh realizations.

1. It NEVER pays to check luggage. I had already hit that conclusion but thought I'd reiterate it. It's just not worth it. Airlines lose luggage all the time and on top of that you have to pay to check it. Carry-on is where it's at.

2. Airline food is crap. Period. And somehow whenever and where ever you're traveling you usually wind up having to pay for that crap. It used to be free crap. No longer. Of course there are exceptions, Air Jamaica still serves hot meals and free champagne on all their flights but the exceptions seem to be few and far in between. My suggestion: down a few sleeping pills so you don't have to worry about getting hungry and having to pay for that crap on your flight.

3. Even though you're just boarding a plane and not going out on a fancy date, wash your hair and put on your makeup. I know it can be a miserable ordeal going through security then waiting at the gate for 4 days before you stand in the narrow aisle of the plane waiting while the dumbass that can't figure out out to open the overhead bins fights with one so he can load his designer bag full of God knows what above him but tough it out. I know a large part of you would prefer to suffer through airports and airplanes in pajama bottoms with the lines from your pillow still imprinted on your face and your hair in a tangled knot. You need to fight these desires. If you don't wash your hair and wear makeup and wear a half way decent shirt the pilot is bound to be SMOKING HOT. He's also bound to greet you as you exit the plane. And he WILL make eye contact. Eye contact with those blood shot puffy un-mascaraed eyes you were too lazy to pretty up before you left. You don't want that to happen to you. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything *cough cough*.

double shifts are miserable...

But not as miserable as being broke. So I'm working a double tonight. Again. I work in a Psych Ward so a double shift can be extremely boring or extremely stressful or extremely funny. Really it can be anything but it is always "extremely" anything. Usually, my double shifts get my paid at time and a half. Unfortunately, this is for straight time. I'm going out of town to visit my brother so Friday is a "Holiday" for me, being as how I was stuck working Labor Day while everyone else was bar-b-queing. Since I'm technically only working 4 shifts this extra brings me up to a regular old 5. My Holiday will get me paid for 6 but all at straight time. Oh well.

so long monthly visa payments.....

Dear Capital One,

I know the holidays are coming soon and this is possibly not the best time to do this but I need to get this off my chest so I'm just going to be straight with you. We're over. I can't do this anymore. It's not you, it's me. I'm sure you could be very happy with someone else but we just aren't a good fit. I'm very sorry if you feel used, I didn't mean to hurt you.

Good Luck With Everything,

Slightly less Broke-Ass Babe

shoe shopping is NOT conducive to getting out of debt...

HA! That's what you think. Well, I'm here to tell you that I commited no foul here! In fact I actually made money on my new purchase...

(aren't the yellow ones beautiful?)

"How did she manage that?" you may be asking yourself, well I'm about to tell you. I purchased the shoes from victoriassecret.com for $138. Shipping ran me $17.99 so I'm up to virtually $156, tax was $12.16 and I had a coupon that saved me $15 off any purchase over $100 so that leaves my grand total at $153.13 but wait, here's where it gets good. I get 2% back of everything I spend at Victoria's Secret. 2% of $153.13 is $3.06 and because I had gift cards left over from last Christmas the purchase costed me nothing and I even made $3.06 off of it.

As a rule of thumb I virtually NEVER make an online purchase unless I'm getting a percentage of that purchase back. The secret to that is to shop through one of my favorite little websites, a certain online shoppers heaven known publicly as ebates. It's a beautiful place with more than 1000 online stores from which to get money back on every dollar spent. Some stores give as much as 25% back sometimes! As a matter of fact last Black Friday I did ALL of my Christmas Shopping through ebates and received a sizable check from them as a thank you. You see, on Black Friday virtually every store offers double cash back on every dollar spent plus they have special holiday prices and free shipping, not to mention the coupons you can get through ebates. I've purchased everything from airline tickets to socks through them and always get money back. What's even better is that you get $5 just for signing up and you also get $5-$10 for getting friends and family to sign up. If you get a chance I HIGHLY recommend that you check them out...go ahead, you can do it now, I'll wait.......

Nice, huh?

Even my technologically incompetent mother (who I love dearly) now does all her shopping through their website. It's very easy to navigate and takes no extra effort on your part.

So there you go, just one more way I'm working to get out of debt. Who thought buying shoes could go so far to help you financially?

the way it is...

Well, I'm not actually sure as to how you start a blog, having never blogged before so I'm just gonna kinda wing it and if I'm doing something wrong feel free to throw a tomato at me. Of course you could throw other food but I have a strong distaste for tomatoes so throwing them might solicit a stronger reaction than say throwing an apple, even if an apple would hurt more.

I fully intend to update this whole getup a little more as I clumsily learn my way around the world of blogging but in the mean time, here's the scoop...

I'm mighty broke. I have a substantial amount of debt (the specifics of which I intend to post once I've learned how to add one of those little debt progress bar thingies to the side). I graduated into an economy with few jobs, in a city with a 25% unemployment rate. Not fun. However, I've gotten it into my head that I can climb out from under this mountain of debt by picking up extra hours at work and making money online so I guess we'll see how it goes!

insolvent, destitute, impoverished

broke

 [brohk]

–verb

1.	a pt. of break

2.	Nonstandard. a pp. of break

3.	Archaic. a pp. of break

–adjective

4.	without money; penniless.

Synonyms:
1, 2. insolvent, destitute, impoverished.