Thursday, January 6, 2011

Your version of broke, and my version of broke....totes different!

So I use this awesome online budgeting tool, Mint.com. I love it, it does so much stuff, and it basically makes a budget for you and tells you when you fail/succeed at it. Since I do budget stuff alllllllllllll the livelong day in my prison cell job, the last thing I want to do when I get home is worry about my personal budget. Which is why I love Mint. Cuz I'm a slacker. And I have WAY more important things to do, like paint my nails, and pretend to be a gardener, and daydream about finding my Sugar Daddy.

Anytime you exceed your budget for something like "Mortgage", "Super Cute Ballet Flats", or "Chinese Food"...you know, the basics...it sends you a little alert email to let you know. Which is cool, cuz then I can say to myself, "Oops...spent too much on clothing this month...oh well...now let's go check out that new shoe store on Castle Street!".


Most of the time Mint and I are good friends.

But sometimes, Mint gets all "Whoah whoah friend, you spent way too much on Gasoline this month...stop going places!" And then I'm all "Hey, you can't tell me what to do. Besides, I have absolutely NO control over how expensive gas has gotten. Is it my fault that I now have to pay $3.11 for a gallon of gas?! I mean, no wonder I'm over budget...you would be too, Mint, if you weren't some lame website who doesn't even OWN a car to put gas in! Booyah! That's a burn!". And then Mint just rolls his eyes and goes quietly away into cyber world to laugh at my "Savings Account" balance.




Or sometimes, it sends me a warning that looks like this...



.....and then I just laugh! "Low balance?!? Dude, I don't know where you were born, Mint, but where I live, you know, Planet Earth, having $300 bucks in my account is daggone good! That isn't even NEAR the danger zone yet! Stupid Mint! Keep your bourgeoisie warnings to yourself next time until I hit the $0.75 mark, mkay? Thanks!"

But other times, I totally love Mint. Like the other day, when I got one of those nasty-grams from Mint, saying "You have exceeded you Charity & Donations Budget". I was like, "Huh, what, I did?! Mint, have you been hitting the holiday eggnog?" But then I logged in to further investigate, and lo and behold, I had totally exceeded my budgeted charity givings for the month. And I was so stoked, I printed out the email and pasted it on my corkboard where I put all my other super-important items, like concert stubs, tips on applying eye makup (fail!), and pictures of all my friend's babies they send me to be all "Hey, look at us, we are good breeders and passing on our Hot Lookin' genes to the world. What have you done lately? Oh, exceeded your gas budget...real grown up, Andy. Good job. Now peer into our gorgeous baby's eyes and weep in your self-loathing." (That's totally the desired effect baby pictures are supposed to have on single, childless, perfectly good women who are frittering away their fertile years, rrrright?)

So yeah, turns out I over-gave this holiday season, and my wallet didn't even feel it! How about that! The Big Dude Upstairs is awesome for stretching my money this year. And you know who else is awesome? All the amazing charities out there who deserve a lot more support than my piddly dollars. So if you have a minute, check out some of my faves. And maybe you can show your Mint who is boss this month.

World Vision- Dude, you can buy 10 ducks for a family (that's ten whole stinkin' ducks, who will have more baby ducks, who will have MORE baby ducks), or you can buy one single season of True Blood on DVD. Same price. One is WAY more adorable, and has less stupid looking spring-loaded fangs and less bad acting. Your call.

Compassion International- I sponsor a kid. And it is one of the best things I have ever done. When I get those little Kenyan report-cards in the mail showing me how she is doing in school, you know the waterworks are coming.

Skateistan- I'm not even going to give you a hint about this one...that's how much I think you should check this out on your own. Good things.

Child's Play Charity- Nerd alert. I love nerds. And I love being a nerd.

Wine to Water- This guy took a small idea, and turned it into a big deal. Hero.

Those are a few of my favorites...how about you guys? Any favorite charities you want to plug? List 'em in the comments and I will be sure to check them out. (Also, at least 17 other people who read this blog might check them out too...cuz that's how I roll....high audiences and whatnot) ;)

Cellulite and Tell You Right,
Andy

1 comment:

  1. Haha...if I had known sending you Trace's birth announcement was going to cause that chain reaction of thoughts, I might've just held onto it ;) Love the blog, though...and I will definitely be checking out Mint in the near future. I could sure use some budgeting help from the internet equivalent of a parent/accountant figure.

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