For My Love of Ice Cream (or, FroYo!)

I love ice cream. I always keep some ice cream in the fridge (generic mint chocolate chip - it's the best!) but sometimes, just sometimes, I get a craving for something else.

Enter an ice cream substitute: frozen yogurt! FroYo places are extremely abundant in my warm city and I've started to really enjoy them. Earlier this week, one of my roommates and his girlfriend took me to a froyo place down the road from our apartment that I had never noticed before. They told me prior to getting there that one of the flavors was pomegranate. (Which is one of my favorite fruits - and it's in season right now!)

When I got there, however, they had my other favorite fruit as a flavor choice: lychee!

My roommate was nice and bought the froyo for me on that first trip. Last night, I had a craving since the flavor was absolutely AMAZING. So, I went back and bought a large lychee froyo. It cost me $5, which was including tip. Mmm... :)

Blog Action Day: Poverty

Today is Blog Action Day and the theme is poverty.

Being well-traveled, I have seen poverty at its worst: in South Africa, Brazil, India and Burma. It is a shock to the system when encountered in real life. To this day I want to help all the children, the men, the women and the elderly that I have seen. Especially when they look at your with their sad eyes, tug at your shirt... It makes you realize how lucky youare to have the basic, essential necessities: clean water, food and shelter. The majority of people in the world do not even have 1 or 2 of those things and it is truly and utterly depressing. An imprint has been left on my heart from my travels and encounters with poverty.

Since I cannot give my time to help those in dire need in other countries, I offer monetary support. I give a (small) monthly donation to Direct Relief International and am in the process of researching other charities which support the international causes I believe in.

Give to those in need. Whether it is $5 or $500, a few hours or a few weeks, or even just your thoughts and prayers.

Another Survey Check

My $10 survey check from Your2Cents arrived today! I am depositing it into my Travel Fund. :)

Vacuum Cleaner

I need to buy a vacuum cleaner.

Our entire apartment (3-story townhouse) is completely carpeted and it is getting rather filthy. I've been putting off buying one since a) I do not know anything about vacuum cleaners except how to use them and b) it is a fairly expensive purchase.

My budget is $150. I would rather buy a reliable brand and get a few more years of use out of it than get a $50 one and have it break/not work after a year or two.

I am looking for something that is bag-less, works extremely well on carpet and has an attachable piece for stairs. (We have a lot of those.)

Do you have any suggestions?

We, The Savers

ING Direct is running a campaign entitled "We, The Savers."

They have a website dedicated to the campaign that lists 10 steps of financial independence. (#1, 7 and 9 mean the most to me.) I signed the declaration and earned myself a free bumper sticker that says "I SAVE" in ING Direct's traditional orange/white colors!

I think the bumper sticker is very cute and once it arrives, I will be placing it in my room to remind myself what I am trying to do: to save money and be in control of my financial life/future! :)

Good Weekend Fun

Another fun weekend! Out to the bars on Friday with my roommates, a visit from an old roommate and great friend on Saturday and some TV catch-up plus cooking on Sunday. :)

Friday at the bars, $4 (I drove, so I only purchased 1 drink.)
Saturday, $26.50 (A pretzel for $1.50 and a not-very-good-food-but-great-company dinner with my friend.)
Sunday, $40.93 (Groceries... I have a small addiction to the grocery store!)

Total: $71.43

Mileage Reimbursement

I received a mileage reimbursement from work. That $71.96 is being rounded to an even $75 and being sent to my Gift Fund, giving me a total of $250. Now it's time to start looking into Christmas gifts!

On another note... my savings rate for ING Direct dropped from 3.00% to 2.75% with the interest rate cute, and my WaMu/Chase Online Savings rate dropped from 4.00% to 3.00%. Makes me want to move all my savings into my WaMu account, but I do love my ING sub-accounts!