It’s happened. I have too many financial products. Too many lines of credit. Several places where I can track down and keep up with (or not) my spending and, let me tell you, it is a whole mess of confusion.
This week, I received an email from Capital One (a bank, I think?), with whom I have a Walmart credit card, which I applied for because I got a flyer in the post and, as we shop in Walmart, it seemed to make sense to sign up for this get-cash-back-for-shopping-at-Walmart product.
The email was to let me know that my credit line – i.e., the limit of said credit card (do we use the term “credit line” in Ireland? I’d never heard it) – has been increased, from $300 to $1,800.
When, back home in Ireland, I applied to Bank of Ireland to increase my €700 credit card limit to €1,500 I received a firm no – but here? America loves a spendthrift! (No wonder I like it here…)
Monday
Two important things have happened: I have been paid (praise the almighty!) and I have booked a flight home to Ireland, leaving in, er, two weeks (my parents paid for the flight as a gift).
The result of all of this is that I spend the morning panicking about our imminent trip while also paying off credit cards and sorting out bits and bobs like the two weeks’ pay I owe our cleaner. ($200)
I also order a box of N95 masks on Amazon ($12.83) – if I’m going to be spending four and a half hours in the airport in Chicago I want to know that I’m as protected as I can be! I’m really excited to be going home, but nervous about taking the journey alone with Atlas, not to mention the still-present Covid risk (lest we’ve forgotten!).
I chose the flights pretty carefully so that they’d be overnight, in the hopes that this would help with Atlas’ sleep situation, and so that we wouldn’t have an incredibly long layover in Chicago. It’s a little over four hours, which isn’t nothing, but is kind of okay because it means we can have a little wander around, a decent meal and I can change him once or twice while I’m at it.
I’ll probably try to take advantage of the rooms they have in O’Hare for breastfeeding mothers, not because I necessarily want to breastfeed out of sight of other people – I don’t really care either way – but because it’s probably a lot calmer than the main terminal and will give us something to do in the time we have there.
I get into a weird kind of obsessive mode whenever I know something like this is coming up – I find it hard to do anything but plan / worry about / write lists for the upcoming trip, so I’m trying really hard to write the lists and put them to one side so I can focus on the work I also have to do!
When the boys get home we have chicken and potatoes for dinner and watch Turning Red (the new Encanto) for the 100th time.
Daily total: $212.83
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