I'm so freaking stupid.

The BBQ Pit
1

Yep, like the title says.

Sorry, I have to self-flagellate. Join in if you feel like it. It’s cool. No, really. Seriously.
This past weekend, I wandered out to buy gifts on Black Friday. I got a few things, but not enough. So when I got home, I jumped online. My parents have a cable modem, so access is quickquickquick.

Soon I was shopping. Oh, I bought lots of stuff. Some for this one, a lot for the baby, and more for that one.

When it was done, I thought, “Hm, hope there’s enough left to pay the rent and buy food!”

:eek:

Yep, stupid me had bought all of this stuff using a debit card, which immediately pulled the amount from my bank account.

I got home Saturday and figured I’d go to the bank on Monday and take out the cash for the rent - assuming there was any to be had. I checked the account on Sunday - low but still enough. Checked again on Monday - lower, since more of those payments were going through. Checked Monday late morning and finally had time to dash to the bank. The account was pretty low, but I was able to withdraw all but $80 of the rent.

(Good thing, too, because I got an email shortly thereafter saying that one of my purchases had been declined. Had I not withdrawn the cash, the transaction would have gone through.)

So through my own stupidity, I’m $80 short for rent and have no food. Oh, I’ll get through it somehow, but I hate it when I do things like that unthinkingly.

Sorry, had to rant against meself. :frowning:

2

You should be like me and have such a horrible credit history that when you open a bank account and askif you can have a debit/ATM card, the bank flunky diddles with the computer for a few minutes and then gives that snorting laugh that they try and unsuccesfully cut off.

Then you wouldn’t have this problem.

And why not sponge off the 'rents for a few meals?

3

Did you at least get all your Christmas shopping done??

4

You wanna know what I did? I had my computer down at my parents’ house for the holiday. When I brought it back home the other day and hooked it up, suddenly my monitor just showed blank grey when I turned on the machine. My video card has a TV out, so I hooked that up and it was working. So I figured there must be something wrong with my video card settings. I spent about an hour squinting at the fuzzy TV display trying to read Windows messages while changing settings around before I gave up and figured I’d take it in to the shop the next day.

When I took it to the shop, they hooked it up and it worked fine. Of course. So we figured there must be something wrong with my monitor - perhaps it broke somehow during the moving around. Well, I decided to hook it back up to the computer and give it one more try before hauling that big-ass thing down to the shop. It still wasn’t working, so I started wiggling wires and trying all the monitor’s built-in options. Then it hit me. I knew what was wrong, but I refused to admit it. There was no way I could have been so stupid. It was impossible. And yet, I knew it was true even before I reached out and discovered that, yes, my contrast knob had been shoved all the way over, giving me an all grey screen. While calling myself all kinds of bad names, I moved it back to normal, and the screen popped right up, happy as can be.

I blame my cold.

5

I would self-flaggelate, Dan, but apparently people around here think I’m stupid enough as it is. Oh, not all the people… just some. Besides, I’m in a good mood today, despite getting called a piece of poo yesterday by one of the kids I know. (not a good thing to say, Carlie…)

I hope that you got all your shopping done, and that you can manage for the rest of the month… hopefully, you do have some food in reserve at home. If not, do what WSLer suggests, and go to your parents’ house for a few meals here and there.

F_X

6

Damn, good one Smeghead. I’ve actually heard of that happening, though. I mean geez! It looks like it should be fine… what the heck could be causing it? :wink:

dreamer, I got a lot of it done. I bought things that are going to be - I hope - pleasant surprises. There are two more people to buy for, but I was going to wait till next pay anyway. :slight_smile: And I’ll be a teeny bit more careful this time.

7

Flami, I should be okay for meals - I just have to conserve. Ran through some leftovers already, and I have all these Raman noodles saved up. So if necessary, they’ll do. Lunches might be a problem for two weeks, but I’ll manage.

I’m trying not to lean on them for money or help because I’ve done it before - and paid them right back, of course. Still, it’s not good to be needy, and if I can do it without the help, I will.

8

Wait… I can flagellate myself over my spelling / typos. :smack:

Ramen noodles should be fine if you really have to conserve and all that kind of thing. (heck, I have a bunch of them myself, and I’m not in the dire situation you find yourself in!) And I agree with you over the “not good to be needy / too dependent on parents (ir friends)” thing. Do I ever.

F_X

9

Darn. Another one slips through. Of course, I meant “or friends” in my last post. That flagellation thing is looking better and better all the time…

F_X

10

Where’s jarbaby? She’s the flagellation expert . . .

11

Want me to mail you some donuts?

12

mmmmmm donuts!!!

Here’s an update. I finally gave in and contacted the homestead. Using Western Union costs a ton o’ cash, so I talked my dad into using PayPal. I have an account, so all he needed to do was sign up and use his cc. Problem is, transfering the money from my PayPal account to my bank account (where it might be just a teeny bit more useful) takes 3-4 days. Means cash is on the way, but I won’t be able to get to it till Friday. But it’s loads better than nuttin. :slight_smile:

13

:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

14

By the way, although I shouldn’t have made these purchases when I made them, I didn’t spend tons and tons of money, either. The poor timing was the problem. See, this is the pay period the rent’s due - next pay I’ll have more to play with.

Among the things I bought were a gift certificate for a day spa; a few LeapFrog toys; a cue stick wall rack; a Precious Moments figurine; and Lord of the Rings.

I love buyin’ shit. :wink:

15

I got Lord of the Rings extended DVD for Giftmas. I say got because, while I was talking to my sister in my brother’s room, I saw it sitting on top of his dresser. I thought my mom bought it for him and was beginning to get mad when I said, “Hey… I wanted this…!” and he said “Yeah, that’s your WAITAMINNITYOU’RENOTSUPPOSEDTOSEETHATNOW!!!” Then he took it away.

The moral of the story is do like I do: Wrap your presents right away, so even if they’re found, they won’t know what it is. If you’re really cruel you can put them all in bigger boxes, with multiple items in one box to make the individual weight, size and shape of each gift unguessable. :slight_smile:

16

Dantheman: I’m glad to hear it worked out for you. One peice of advice: I suggest sticking to credit cards. Not only can you float your payments over monthly periods – if you pay them off regularly, but they don’t have the liability issues that debit cards do. And if you’ve completely bollixed your budget, well, you may have to pay a finance charge, but not unreasonable.

All this presumes you can handle the gobs and gobs of credit that the companies throw at you, or course!

17

Been trying to get away from them for years, Ace. I’m gonna do it, too. Just takes will power, which I often don’t have. :wink:

jin, I don’t have to worry about people finding my gifts early. I live alone.

Oh, and the LoTR I got was the special edition. :slight_smile: Can’t wait.

18

Many parts of the pine cone are edible.

19

Just curious, you live alone. You have a job that provides a regular paycheck. But you ask your parents to bail you out when you can’t limit your discretionary spending sufficiently to pay your rent?

I apologize if I am incorrect, but from your posts I surmise that this is not the first time you have needed to go this route. What is your parents’ reaction when their presumably independent adult child needs help paying his rent check. Would it make any difference to them if you missed it by 80 or 800 dollars? Do they care how frequently you fail to stay within your means?

Don’t know of any polite way to put this, but do you plan on growing up anytime soon?

Hope your parents bought themselves some nice presents.

I look forward to helping my kids out financially when they move out of the house. I just hope it a matter of helping them achieve their dreams, instead of putting bandaids on their irresponsibility.

If you invite the p’s over to enjoy LoTR with you, put on a good spread for them to show your appreciation. Then if you can’t cover the bill, you can just hit them up again for more cash.