Dimples' Divine Domain
My journey to financial empowerment.

Yesterday was my first day at the new job. First three hours were spent at HR going through a benefits presentations and creating my employee file. Benefits Summary: Great medical, dental, and vision plan. Only $120 a month for me and my daughter. Even though I have been used to paying zilch on the medical coverage front, the $120/month is a lot better than I thought. Hit the nail on the head here or way off? The company is only offering 2% towards my 401K and there is no additional match. I think I am going to elect to have 0% of my salary applied to my 401K. There is 2.5 months left on the contract which equates to about 5 paychecks. The company's retirement plan only allows roll overs if the account is more than $1000. Any account below that will be required to cash out. Even if I do the same percentage of contribution I did with my old employer (4%) and plus the 2% from the current employer, $840 max would be contributed to my 401K by the time the contract ends. So I...

Ok, is it just me or is food not lasting as long as it used to? It is the 14th and I have already gone grocery shopping twice and it looks like I may need to go again. Are you serious!?! Are they altering the food to make it not last longer so that we HAVE to go buy more?!!?? No. Even though I may be spending around the same amount dollar wise each shop, I am not getting the same amount of food. Hence having to go grocery shopping for the third time and I'm half way through the month. Needless my grocery budget looks to be a bust this month. I may need to increase it to $125 in August. I also haven't been using my crockpot like I used to. Closing out on my old job and getting prepared for my new job, swimming lessons, and dealing with the death of my grandmother, I haven't had the time to even prepare a decent homemade meal. My funds are definitely feeling this. I gotta get back on my budget hustle. I start my new job on Monday and will have to adapt to the n...

I gave my two week notice on Monday. Supervisor wasn't to cool with me leaving but he said he was extremely happy for me. I spoke to the folks in accounting at my current employer and I do anything with my 401K until annual distribution packages are sent out and that isn't until February 2009. Needless to say that cashing out my 401K is no longer an option. The only reason I entertained the idea was to ensure I was in a good financial state come October 1. I will either roll the money into my the 401K account I will have with my employer at that time or I will roll it into a traditional IRA. I have some time to think about it. Thanks to all who were concerned about my initial decision to cash out my 401K. Please realize that I would only entertain this thought in the case of an emergency. ' The folks at the new job can't wait until I start. Seems like news of me coming on board has spread like wild fire and I had a director stop me in the hallway on my way to lu...

No words can describe how I felt watching this. I couldn't even think of a title for this post. LOL! But I think I managed to sum it all up. I hope you all enjoy!

Well not 100% financially free but close to it. Read my last post, The Job Offer ??? If you haven't then do so now if you want to understand the following madness that is about to ensue. Here we go: I officially received a job offer on Thursday which I have accepted. My start date is the 21st (I wanted to give my current employer the standard two weeks). Here is the catch: The company whom I will be working for is the same company who's contract ends on Doom's Day. Crazy huh?! Yeah I know but I have my reasons for taking such a risk. My position with my current employer is foggy after Doom's Day . There is a big chance that I would be laid off due to lack of work, especially since I primarily worked the NASA contract. My position with the new company after Doom's Day is also foggy, but not as much. There is a high probability that the department will get picked up onto the new contract. Very high probability. And on top of that, I am making $25K more than I...

Here is a little insight into what has been going on at my job. Hopefully it won't be too hard to follow: I work for a consulting engineering company that relies on contract work. We currently work a number of different contracts. Our biggest client is a major company out at NASA. That company's contract with NASA ends on September 30 (we will call this day Dooms Day) on this year and so does our contract with them. My employer joined some different companies on 3 major contracts that were being bid on. None of the companies we joined with won. So at the present moment we are in shits creek. My employer is trying desperately to pull some work from the winning companies but no bites as of yet. If Dooms Day comes (and even before then) and they haven't managed to secure any additional work, they will not have enough work and money to go around. Layoffs will then be inevitable. In the past two staff meeting the president basically told us to get our resumes ready. F...

A lot of things have been taking place Dimples' world. I am going to try and sum up some of the what's been going on in this post. Finances were looking a little fuzzy for a moment but I do believe that I see a light shining at the end of my debt tunnel. I'll go into a little more detail on the shining light on another post. I was hoping that the summer would be real chill and inexpensive but that turned out to be big fat negative. Here is what I have had to spend in the past month: -$40 for swimming lessons (went through the my city's park and rec department) -$140 for summer camp registration -$77 for before and after care registration for school starting in the fall -$100 and counting for school uniform -$50 for school supplies -$75 for summer clothing (bathing suits, shorts, tanks.....Florida is hot as hell) -$300 for items for brother's dorm TOTAL = $782 and counting And on top of all this, my electric bill is starting to rise. Jumped about $30 in one mon...