I learned recently my safe deposit box contents are not insured by the credit union, so to get insurance I took out my baubles to get them appraised. $210 for seven items. The last time they were appraised, their resale values were enough to cover a year's worth of mortgage payments. Wonder if that's still the case, now that my mortgage is $25 less a month starting in July than it was when I bought the house...

I also couriered my passport application materials to my nation's capital/home town: $61.75. For an envelope weighing 0.15 of an ounce. When my passport is processed the application will cost me $97.

I also, for laughs, deposited $120 in my Roth IRA and, after a pleasant chat with the gemologist, received research stock reports on Newmont Mining, Willamette Valley Vineyard Incorporated, Mesa Trust Realty, and EZCorp. Still not really thinking about investing until after November 26... I'm thinking with the credit crunch the payday lenders will do really well. I'm holding off on EZPW, although it has appreciated by a factor of 10 in five years, because it's too easy for me to revisit in my head the misery of poverty, and the shame of being gouged because there's no other place to go. Newmont and Mesa Trust were suggestions by the gemologist, Willamette I read about in Equities magazine.

So there's a nice vertical path: from having to wear thrift store clothes and moving every year as rents rose, to wearing thrift store clothes to make a reduce-reuse-recycle fashion statement, discussing stocks with the gemologist. Let's hope the trajectory remains upward, or if it must return course, that it plummets with all the speed of a tiny feather dropped from the Empire State Building.

I also called to reinstate my contributions to my 401(k) plan, having freshly returned to my job site I vacated in midFebruary.

So the above, plus some chocolate chip cookies and San Pellegrino, plus bus fare, plus a New York Egg Cream and some fixings for lunches, set me over $500 in expenditures in one day.