I’ve been working about 60 hours a week for the last year, so that has been tough on me. When I’m not working I try to spend most of my time catching up with my husband, who also has a very busy schedule at work. Sometimes we both work so much it feels like we are just roommates who see each other in passing instead of spouses. Because both of us work so hard, a lot of our home life is disorganized and crazy. We have a hard time fitting in our friends and family, and forget about taking care of bills. Sometimes we discuss making adjustments at home, like changing wireless internet providers, but then we just forget and it never gets done. I’m grateful that we at least have a maid who comes in once every other week to pick up after us, because if it wasn’t for her our house would probably look like a science experiment gone bad. I really don’t think that we can go on like this for much longer. I hope work slows down soon so we can spend some time together and get organized.

It just drives me crazy to have to wait until the last minute to have to find all the presents that are required of me to purchase for our ever growing family. With Christmas less than two months away there really isn’t a whole lot of time left especially since I do most of my shopping online and you have to wait for your purchase to be delivered, which of course takes time.

Today I had go inside because the teller at the drive in window was giving me a hassle about a check that I wanted to cash, which was never an issue before Wells Fargo came into the picture. I was surprised to see that this very small home town branch now had these stanchions with the nice and plush looking velvet rope (which I’m sure customers such as myself helped pay for) placed in front of the tellers for their “crowd control” issues. What crowd is what I want to know? What a joke.

Next thing I expect to see is some of barricades put into place for the employees that are conducting business behind the desks and in their high and mighty offices that now look very uninviting to the eye, sigh . .

His girlfriend sent me an email today informing me that she thinks that he needs to see a Periodontist and is asking me to step into the picture and urge him to find a Periodontist that will take his insurance and is taking new patients. So I have decided to do a bit of the leg work for him and went to smilegeneration.com to see if I could find a Periodontist for him. I love how the Internet makes a task such as this a much easier task to tackle, it sure beats thumbing through the Big Yellow Book trying to find what you want and need. I don’t even have any phone books in my house any more, they were just taking up space and collecting dust so as soon as one arrives at the end of the drive way they go straight into the paper recycling bin and good riddance to them all.

So I did find a couple of Periodontists that fit the bill and I have sent him an email with the information that is needed and I can only hope that he takes it from there, if not I guess I will have go into my “nag” mode and I really don’t like going there any more than I have to.

It’s a pain to have to drive an additional 15 minutes to get the other Subway, but it’s worth the extra time and extra gas that it takes to get over there since the sandwiches even taste batter that are served to me with a smile on their face and a “thank you, please come again” which keeps me coming back just as asked.

The companies kept on calling me, demanding payment. I’d explain again, and again, and prove again and again that I had made the payment. It wasn’t long before I was trying to figure out how to stop collection calls short of paying the company money that I didn’t owe them!

One way that I learned about how to stop collection calls is to send the company a registered letter demanding that they cease and desist calling you about your account.  That worked really well!  Another way that I figured out how to stop collection calls was to use my phone’s custom features to block their number from coming through.  The only problem with that was that the phone still rings once before the call is blocked.  And after a while I think that they figure out what’s happening and then try calling me from another phone line.  Well, then I block that one too!  Collection calls are a real drag, but they are infuriating when you don’t owe them the money they are hounding you to pay!

So now it is time to see what I can do with some of my other monthly expenses. I was told that if I called my current cable TV provider and asked them to see what they could do for me in order to keep me a customer or lose me to Satellite TV, that they would give me some options that might help the situation. I don’t know why I found myself talking with the most uncooperative customer service rep that I’ve dealt with in a long time. She just wouldn’t budge and I ended up telling her what I thought of her and the company that she is working for and told her that I would no longer need their services by the end of next week. That will give me time to research the different Satellite TV companies that are in the area and get myself signed up with a company that will best fit my needs, wants and my shrinking budget.

With the price of gas going up so quickly these past couple of weeks, it is becoming harder and harder to keep the bills paid. And each time I go to the grocery store I’m seeing it harder to pay for all that I’m wanting and needing to buy. I even use coupons and try to only buy things that are on sale, but it’s just getting really depressing.

Next step will be calling my credit card companies to see if I can get them to ease off a bit, maybe reduce the interest rate for me. I’m not getting my hopes up though. I tried that a few years ago and wasn’t a bit successful. I was very disappointed with that whole task. But I’ll try and give it a shot once again, I gotta do something at this point because it isn’t going to get any better any time soon.

Stories like this really get to me.