This morning I returned the bamboo shade for my sun room door, which I inadvertently ordered in a different pattern from my sun room windows. Both patterns had the word "Dali" in them.

You would think the company would recognize this could cause confusion or ordering problems when they only have about a dozen different patterns. It would be easy enough to change one of them.

But anyway, they did agree to refund me 70% of the cost for that reason, or about $61 of an $87 order. When I reordered the correct pattern shade today, I was able to make use of a $15 e-gift card they sent me in exchange for me posting a photo on their website of the shade installed in the sun room. So I saved some money there, although postage to return the shade was $16. So I guess I'll have spent $22 more than I needed to, but considering these are custom blinds that they don't usually give refunds for, I'm happy. At least now all the shades in the room will match. I wish I hadn't been so careless when ordering but I do think they share some of the blame for that.

This morning I did my grocery shopping at Shop Rite. Instead of using a gift card I got from a previous credit card bonus, I charged the purchase to my latest credit card with BOA where I'm working on charging $500 to earn a $200 statement credit. Easy peasy.

I don't remember how, but somehow I got out of the habit of shopping at Shop Rite. I think becus Stop & Shop was on my way home from work and other grocery stores were just more conveniently located as well. Anyway, now that I'm unemployed, I have the time and motivation to shop more carefully.

Shop Rite does have the best prices, if not selection. I bought two albeit small cantaloupes for .99 each, broccoli crowns were .99/lb and a large whole watermelon was $3.88 (I think I paid $over $5 at BJs)

When I go to Trader Joe's, I will DEFINITELY stock up on Amy's vegan pizzas, which i have grown fond of. (DO you know how hard it is to find a vegan pizza that tastes decent?) TJs sells Amy's vegan pizza for $4.29 vs $7.80 and $8 at Stop & Shop and Big Y, respectively. I had never noticed this when I was making the big bucks at the bank, but this is a BIG difference on just one item! I will buy 4 or 5 at TJs since it's furthest from home.

I spent all day yesterday working on building my Coroflot portfolio pages. I found another site, this one 100% free, where you can convert an unlimited number of PDFs into jpgs. It was still a time-consuming, multi-step process to be sure, but I loaded a bunch more writing samples onto my page broken down by format categories (PR, sales brochures, customer communications, magazine articles, web content, bios and anything else I've written).

It looks much more professional now. I still need to spend time writing descriptions to go with each category and possibly improve on what I've already written.

I've applied for 8 jobs to date. A few I wouldn't take unless i could telecommute part of the week. It could be a waste of time, but you never know until you talk to them, and at least they'd get to see how much experience I have.

Tomorrow I also want to call the voter registrar to sign up to work the polls on Election Day in November. It's a very long day, starting at about 5 a.m. and ending around 7 pm, but they pay you, not a lot, but it's cash. (Many of my extreme money-earning techniques from the 2008 recession are coming back to me now. ) I'd like to also work the Republican primary this month, which would be great, as there are only so many times a year when there's an election. This one's for probate court Republican primary. But I'm not sure they'd allow me to work if I'm not Republican.

The probate court called me today. I shuddered mentally because there have been so many issues with them. Forms must be filled out perfectly, even though there are no real instructions for doing so. The clerk questioned me about the inventory of assets and apparently I filled it in incorrectly again, but this time, she asked if she could just cross something out and I said YES. Instead of making me resubmit the whole thing. She said she would now "put this on the calendar," which I think means the calendar for the judge to look at it before they give me the okay to disburse funds. I should have asked how long that would take, but i was just to relieved I wouldn't have to refile the form that I let it go.

Hallelujah I think we're near the end of this thing. I only have one blank check left for the checking account and so when the time comes when I cam disburse funds (to me and my sister), I'll have to go to bank and ask for one more check. This was a special estate account I had to set up, and it was only used to pay bills incurred after my mother's death. I don't think they'll make me pay for a box of checks.

I can't wait to cross this off my list of things to do. I am also waiting for my ex-employer to inform 401k company of my termination so I can do a rollover of about $56K into a Roth IRA. And am also waiting for my $12K severance check. So I will have a LOT of money coming into my accounts in the next few weeks.

With the 401k money, I just decided to more or less evenly divide the money into 2 of my existing 3 roth IRA accounts. I really didn't want to have to open yet another mutual fund account. I have so many as it is. The severance check, since I intend to use it to live on, combined with my unemployment checks, for the next year or more, I think I will just put in my Barclay "Dream" money market, which right now gets only 1.05%. However, you can get a little more by doing this, which I do religiously:

1. Deposit up to $1,000 a month in your Dream Account
2. Every time you make consecutive deposits for six months, we’ll give you a 2.5% bonus on the past six months of interest earned
3. Make no withdrawals for six consecutive months and earn another 2.5% bonus on the past six months of interest earned

To make sure I still get the #3 bonus, I could make one withdrawal that I think will last me for 6 months. That could be tricky, but i will have ongoing income from unemployment checks too.

Yesterday I wound up not walking. Lazy. Since I am letting myself have ONE non-exercise day each week, the pressure's now on for the rest of this week. Oh boy.