I got my one of my Christmas presents a bit early...like last week. Well I got a snazzy little mp3 player. It was only $30 for 128mb. Not bad, considering it's so easy to change songs. There's only one bad thing so far. I have been listening to a lot of recorded books, due to my travels and I had hoped to download them onto the mp3 player and listen to while running. (Oops not gym tonight. Tomorrow I promise) According to my library I should have been able to transfer no problem. No such luck. I'm going to try ripping the mp3s from a real cd.

My library is awesome. it got rated one of the top in the country. Anyway, they started a new download audio and ebooks from their website. It's not the full library selection, I imagine from copyright laws, but one of my favorite authors has a few books on there. I'll just keep checking into it.

So yesterday was Thursday and that means car auction day in Bolingbrook. Well my boyfriend has been on the hunt for a new car recently. He has his baby and a beater. Well he's getting rid of the beater right now. It needs some work, and he will just have his dad's mechanic fix it and sell it. So he needed a replacement. His dad owns a used car lot and so has dealer admittance to the auction. In the end my bf walked/drove away with a 2002 Infiniti QX for $14,000. Not bad. It looks in impeccable shape. It came from a dealer so it was clean and probably all fixed. He could probably put a for sale sign on it and make a quick $4,000- $5,000 on it. That's the price they were going for on Carmax. Tempting. I'm not sure how much he's paying for it in cash right now. His suzuki will go for about $4000, and then he'll just pay his parents back maybe $100 a month on the balance.

On another note. We're heading to Indiana Saturday. We have to take care of the car business and also do some quick work at the car lot. His dad really doesn't know computers and we create a flyer for him to put up in the restaurant. After that, we'll head to the restaurant. It's a Greek fast food with sandwiches and ribs and everything else. We'll definately take some home with us. Probably a stack of gyro meat, tzatziki, ribs, chicken and whatever else hits his fancy. btw, it's also the family business. Lunch for the next 3 days. yummy.

Oh well, it was good while it lasted. My day trips down south are over. So that means no more car rentals and no more reimbursement checks. I'll live. It was nice to see that extra come in every few weeks.

Hmmm...Otherwise, I'm still saving and trying to. I'm heading to Vegas for vacation the week before Christmas. My spending money will be a present to myself. I don't gamble all that much. I'm looking forward to a vacation.

I have done some splurging lately. I bought a really cute wrap. It was on the expensive side, but I figure I'd be able to wear it to some X-mas parties next month. My mom also bought me two pairs of shoes. They were only $20 at Marshall Fields (soon to be Macy's).

A few months ago, my Roth almost hit $20,000. Almost. It was short by just under $100 of the mark. Then the market took a bit of a dive and back down to low $19k. But with the recent market swing up, and my recent $500 deposit. I'm sitting on $20,300+...oh that's so nice. Now if only it will keep going up. Total gain since being with Fidelity in a year is almost $2,400.

I always have a horrible time buying gifts for my boyfriend. He comes from a very affluent family and tends to buy whatever he wants when he wants. They often give large gifts. Right now his mom is thinking of giving him $500 toward a new TV. His sister will spend $200+ or give cash. Well you get the idea. We typically spend $150-$200 on each other. I'd be comfortable spending less, as it's a sign of love, but I'll be fine for two times a year.

This year he's come up with a few ideas and they're very reasonable. Two ideas he's come up with are a portable harddrive and a humidor, and a dvd burner. I'm not sure on the harddrive price, but the dvd burner is running around $70 and the humidor is about $30. Very reasonable. Of course I'll have to find something he doesn't know about. But it will be so nice to get most of his presents out of the way. I think we're buying the burner tonight.

I haven't decided what I'm getting my parents and grandparents yet. Those should be very reasonable though.