MY PAID DAYS OFF

I've been on maternity leave for 8 months. It's been great so far although there had been so many times when I get so bored at home, especially when Brice is on duty at the hospital. I started thinking about what I could do to help with my boredom but nothing good enough came to my mind (nothing that doesn't involve spending money, that is).

Then one day, my mother-in-law asked me if I wanted to help out at her store. I was kinda iffy in the beginning but the hubby reminded me about my childhood dream. And he said I was gonna get paid, too! So I went and tried it out... and I loved it! I was living my childhood dream but I can be sitting down doing it and read all the magazines I used to spend lots of money on- FOR FREE! Plus, my boss is not really a boss. I don't really do any heavy work cuz the hubby or the brother-in-law are always there.

How cool is that? I get some time away from the kids (I love them but I need a break once in a while), catch up on my mags, spend time with the hubby all while GETTING PAID!

The only bad thing is, I've been munching on a lot of junk that we sell at the store.

BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Remember my little debit card incident? That day I was supposed to meet up with a friend and pick up a VIP ticket to see the love of my life, Piolo Pascual. I was really iffy about getting it because I felt really bad spending $150- that's about a couple of months worth of groceries! But the hubby knew how much I really wanted to go (again) so he told me to go ahead and buy the ticket. So it was set. I was going to be $150 poorer over some stupid obsession.

But then my little 'incident' happened. I lost $500! I called up my friend and told her I wasn't gonna get the ticket until I got my money back. I was a bit upset but surprisingly relieved.

The following day, I got a call from my FAIRY GODMOTHER saying that she might be able to get FREE VIP TICKETS for the same concert. Well... that 'might' turned into reality and I am now a holder of a VIP TICKET (with a meet and greet) to see My Piolo! And the best part is... I got it for FREE!!! LUCKY ME!!!

*A big THANK YOU goes out to whoever stole my money (I already got it back, BTW). If it weren't for you and what you've done, I would've sooo WASTED my $150.

I WANNA BE RICH!

Do you dream of becoming rich? I know most of us will answer a big "YES" to this question. Some of us work hard to try to become financially well-off, while some of us leave it to Lady Luck.

Winning the lottery is what a lot of us consider a 'fast way' to getting wealthy. The past few days, lottery kiosks here in Ontario have been jam-packed. Everyone is buying their tickets for tonight's big 649 draw- $43,000,000! Wow! What do you do with that much money?!

I, personally, can think of millions of ways to spend that money. HaHaHa. Every time the jackpot is more than a couple of million dollars, I get so excited and start daydreaming about what I would do when I find out I'm the BIG winner- the ONLY winner. But guess what? I never buy lotto tickets! HaHaHa. I hate the line-ups and I sometimes get confused filling out those cards. I leave that job to the hubby. I'm all talk when it comes to lotto- but I know I'm not the only one.

How easy is that though? All the hubby has to do is make sure he gets our numbers in- and gets it right- because WHEN we win, it'll be MY turn to worry about the spending.

SALE

I used to be a shop-a-holic. When I went to school downtown, my friends and I would walk to the nearby mall during our breaks to "see what's new." But there was never anything new because we never gave the stores a chance to get something new. We were there almost every single day- and every single day, I never came out of the mall empty-handed! Be it a new pair of shoes, a pretty top or even underwear, I always came home with something new. I would even buy Kyla random stuff that she probably didn't even need. Don't worry, I never bought anything that wasn't on SALE but it came to a point where I had to stuff my purchase(s) in my schoolbag so no one will bother me about it when I got home. Even though I only had a part-time job then, I didn't find it necessary to quit my not-so-bad habit.

Fast forward to the present.

I can say that I have a pretty good and somewhat secure job but... I DON'T GO SHOPPING ANYMORE. Every time I go to the mall and attempt to buy something, I'm like a new immigrant converting how much it would really cost me- but this time it's "how many hours do I have to work to pay for this?" Most of the time I could never justify working a full 8-hour shift just to pay for a pair of Aldo shoes. So now I've been walkin out of the mall empty-handed.

Now why didn't I have that mentality before?

*I finally bought me a couple of tops last week- only because they were 2 for $10! YAY!

BE CAREFUL

I am a swiper. What does that mean? When I purchase stuff, I like swiping my debit card to pay rather than give cash- my 'spending money' is with President's Choice so I have unlimited transactions. I don't know why but I don't like having too much cash on me. I find I spend less when I use my debit card- I know a lot of you would think the opposite (including my hubby) but that's how my crazy mind works. But for the past several months, it's been more of a hassle to use my debit card than a convenience.

You see, for the past several months, my debit card had been cancelled a few times already. Why? Because of suspicious fraud activity. Meaning... I've been swiping my card somewhere where they think the debit machines have been tampered on or some place that they suspect to have been copying debit cards. It really sucked every time they did this because they never called me to at least let me know that my card had been cancelled. There'd been a few embarrassing moments already where I tried to pay for something and my payment would be declined. Every time I called them, they would give me the same explanation about the suspicious fraud activity. And the most frustrating thing was that they won't even tell you which suspicious place you've used your debit card that caused it to be cancelled due to investigation purposes- so they say. So I've changed my PIN quite a few times, I've even changed my debit card a couple of times. Everything was good until a few days ago when $500 was actually taken out from my account!

For the first time, I appreciated those times when they inconveniently cancelled my card to protect me from these fraud crap. But what happened? Why wasn't my card cancelled this time? Until now, I'm still waiting for my money to be put back in to my account. Waiting. Still waiting.

I've told myself that from now on, I'll do what Dora the Explorer always says: "Swiper, no swiping!

AAAAAHHHHHH!!!

Every other Tuesday is my payday for being on maternity leave. So every other Tuesday, as soon as I wake up, the first thing I do is get the laptop and make sure MY money did come in. Since the beginning of my maternity leave- the money always comes in!

So today is one of those Tuesdays. I woke up, took the laptop and logged in to my bank account and froze... "What!? Why would they only deposit that much- or little (in my case)?" I clicked on account summary and guess what I found?

January 13 ABM WITHDRAWAL $500

WTH?! Somebody took out $500 from my account TODAY! I knew it wasn't my hubby since he only has a couple of hundred withdrawal limit from that account per day. So I called my bank and as expected the wait time was less than a minute. I spoke to a customer service rep and told him and he said that "...it was taken from MY bank card 50 minutes ago! Well, kind of impossible. 50 minutes ago, I was still in la-la land dreaming about my next vacation (with matching sound effects- ZZZZzzzzz) and secondly, my bank card was right infront of me and it's been in my purse ALL NIGHT! So I've filed for a Fraud Report and a supervisor is supposed to call me to confirm that I wasn't the one who withdrew that amount. UGH!

So now, I have a cancelled bank card (again- this is another story) and worst of all- I am $500 poorer. What a way to start the day!

*And to whoever it was who stole money from me, "May karma bite you HARD in the butt."