growing up sucks :(
Grrr….I miss the days when I was a kid and my parents took care of everything. Sure, I knew we weren’t rich. I don’t think we were poor either. My parents scrimped and saved like crazy though. But they never allowed us to starve. Or allowed us to feel inferior to our peers (which, in my school was really easy). In fact, I think we enjoyed quite a number of luxuries (owing to the perks of my dad’s job) that our peers did not get to enjoy.
Right now, I’m an adult. Or at least I’m supposed to be an adult. Unfortunately, I’m also an adult in school. With my parents still paying the bills. At 27 1/2 yrs of age. That’s kind of pathetic, don’t you think? So while my mom is frantically thinking of ways to stretch her dollar and ways to invest so that I will still be able to pay my tuition, I’m here, moaning about the loss of a boyfriend, and my aimless wanderings through life. sigh.
Anyway, for some reason, all of a sudden, I started getting really interested in reading these financial blogs (take a look at my link list…its kinda crazy). I think it all came from this article in the washington post. Not that I wasn’t already trying to save money (seriously…I’m a shopaholic and a starbucks addict, add in an impulsive personality…and well, its messy), but I just wasn’t very successful at it. Anyway, after reading some posts (esp those by women! and students!), my brain has been stuck on how to increase my current savings so that when I have to pay tuition next year or buy air tickets for interviews (if I get interviews), it won’t hit me as badly.
One of the things that caught my eye was the zero balance transfer game. Apparently, if you look out for those balance transfer offers from credit cards that offer an introductory APR, it is possible to transfer the max, use the cash and put it into a high yield interest accruing account and when its up, pay it off. After a lot of mulling, I finally decided to do it and maxed out one of my credit cards (its kind of scary how much credit I have despite not being really worth much). I’m still waiting for the cash to be transfered to my checking account. But once that comes in, I’m going to use that money, combine it with some of my savings so that I can open a CD from a federal credit union (that I intend to join on MON!) which has one of the highest interest rates around so far and when it matures, use the money to pay off the credit card and keep the interest earned. I have a feeling that’s going to hit my credit score really really bad since the money owed to credit available will now go sky-high but it seems like its too good to be true. I guess that’s why I didn’t really sleep very well last night 
Also, I called two of my credit card companies asking for a credit line increase. I know that there have been a lot of inquiries into my credit recently (opened like 4 new credit cards!), but I figure that with a greater credit line, it will decrease my debt to credit line ratio and hopefully when I move back to Chicago and have to apply for a new apartment, I won’t be rejected. I don’t like getting rejected. Its very … demoralizing to your ego. But since I have never ever been in so much debt before, I’m really really going to have to learn to be very very careful about my money. Just in case.
