I think I'm gonna save some dough!

Hi all,

So I took the commuter rail today for the first time. Wow! What a difference! Since we bought our new place, I had been driving to work and burning through gas like crazy, not to mention the $325 a month I pay for my parking spot at work. I decided that with $4/gallon gas prices looming, I needed to find an alternative. So I joined my fellow commuters on the train today. 23 minutes from the burbs to Boston. Woo hoo! My drive had been taking me 65-70 minutes each morning and about the same on the ride home. It was so nice to be able to sleep until 7, get ready and drive the 4 minutes to the station (it's just a little too far to walk it). I stepped off the train and had a nice walk to my office - it took about 8 minutes. It's a beautiful day so it was a pleasure to walk to work, until, like the klutz I am, I wiped out on some spilled coffee on the sidewalk. Luckily, I'm no worse for the wear and didn't get any of the coffee on me. So all and all, I'm very happy with my new alternative.

I figure I'll save $308.40/month. As I mentioned, my parking is $325, gas is $46.60/week (for now), so that's $511.40 a month. My train pass will be $163/month + parking at the station will be $40/month = $203/month. (I'm not going to count the gas to get to the station since it is so minimal.) That's a nice chunk of change I'll be saving. Yay me! And I know Michael will be happy about it too.

On another note, the side of the house project is finished on the outside so now we have a pile of construction debris to dispose of. We were thinking of getting a dumpster, but that just seemed to be a little bit of overkill since we don't have enough to fill it. Luckily, we got a postcard in our mail from a junk removal service. I called them last night and their prices are based on how much you fill up the truck, so if we fill 1/4 or 1/2 a truck that's all we pay for and they'll take anything as long as it's not a flammable liquid. So, we scheduled them to come out on Saturday for a quote and if it's agreeable, then they'll take the stuff right then. It's great because we can also have them take the old washer, AC and swing set that the sellers left. I hope it all works out.

Well, that's all for now. I promise I'll get cracking on the pictures for you all and post them this week. TTYL!