Well, it might be time to put the old girl out of her misery. My current car has 120K miles and is 11 years old. I am sure it has a bit more life in it but it is getting to that magic point where without a mechanic on permanent retainer it is just getting too unreliable for my comfort. I do a lot of travelling and I work odd hours at an out of way place.
Anyway, I haven't completely made up my mind but I am leaning in the direction of getting a new car.
One good thing is that I work for a very large corporation which has corporate pricing for autos. SO I am looking at a 2008 Honda Civic EX. The corporate price I qualify for is aobut 3K below retail list. Not bad. Hondas also have a good resale value so when I go to sell or trade it in a few years it will still be worth it. (yes I know I should run it into the ground but this car is not my ideal car and it is for the short term. Yes, I also realize I should buy a used car if I only plan to keep it a short time but I do not want to inherit someone elses problems)

The end of next month I will be taking a mini vacation to Orlando--yes the capital of all things expensive, commercial, and touristy. Actually I used to be part of the touristy part, I worked at SeaWorld. SO I am going to be visting friends and partaking of the most wonderful activity at that other place (you know the one with the mouse--you see at SW Disney was a 6 letter word) The Food and Wind festival--it is so fun to eat and drink your way around the world! I will also be stopping for a day or so on the way up there to stop in and see my dad who is working temp at another plant.
Anyway, I have been putting aside about $20-40 each paycheck from my spending money plus change and what not so my spending money will be taken care of and I also belong to a frequent stay program with Choice hotels and have enough points to have 2 free hotel nights. I was saving all my points for my vacation to Alaska but these points expire the end of this year so I need to use them or lose them.
So basically the only money I will have to take out of my official vacation fund is money for one night hotel, gas to get to Orlando and the disney ticket. I might be able to swing a free ticket but it is a long shot. I will be going with an annual pass holder so I wont have to pay for parking.
I will be able to make up for the money I will be taking out of the vacation fund in February since I will be working about 30-40 hours of overtime for about 6 weeks then.
I have also started volunteering at the Dolphin Research Center. I have only been there once so far but its nice. It is a bit of a drive (75 miles one way) but it is a nice drive and it feels good to be active around animals again.

In the last week and a half I have spent almost $300 for shoes. I know that is a lot of money but it was not without careful consideration. I have really hard feet to fit so shoes are the one thing I willingly spend money on. If the feet ain't happy I ain't happy. I have to have steel toe shoes for work so that was one pair. I also swear by merrells for hiking/trail shoes and I wear them as my everyday shoes. In fact they fit me so well that just wearing those shoes has lessened my plantar faciatis.
Anyway, I found my favorite style of merrells on shoebuy.com so I got them and then this weekend they had a 20% off sale for labor day so I bought another pair for the discount.
I highly recommend Shoebuy.com. The prices are very competitive and they offer no sales tax or shipping and they will even pay for shipping for returns. Not bad.
So yea, I blew the budget for shoes but I feel like it was a good investment.

I am a bit bummed! Today is my university's big game of the year (rivalry wise) and it is not on TV here and the cable network it is showing on is not offered here. I went to Colorado State University and today they are playing University of Colorado. I won;t be able to see the game and since CSU is not a huge football school, none of the games are likely to be played on a channel I get.
Oh well--yet another reason to move back!

Well I bit the bullet and bought a new aquarium for my fish. She(Fluffy the travelling goldfish) is now the proud owner of a new 20 gallon aquarium. So I figure this free, previous feeder, goldfish has cost me about $300 since I have had her. Didn't someone once say a free pet is never free?! I don't mind at all--for a fish she is pretty interactive and at least it is something living.
Now I have an empty 10gal set up. I haven't decided if I will get more fish, or use the old tank as a backup.