Happy Monday! Today I’ll be slaving away at my second job, hoping lots of clients show up so I can earn some money. Now that I’ve changed my schedule so I work the second job all day Monday instead of two afternoons a week, I don’t dread the beginning of the week nearly as much as I used to.

Random things on my mind today:

- Today makes 50 days since I opened my Electric Orange checking account with ING Direct. I should see my $50 bonus anytime now! I’m still impressed that I got fifty bucks for doing basically nothing. It’s no PNC Virtual Wallet, but I like ING. Mostly I like free money!

- The people have spoken: I will not be ordering an iPad this weekend. When I get paid, every dime over my normal $1075 will be scheduled out to pay down my Dell card. This is also the pay period I make my usual $130 snowball payment, so Dell should be a mere memory by the middle of next month. Then I can move that $130 to my car payment (paying an extra $200 a month total) and continue saving for the iPad!

- I watched some Suze Orman podcasts last night. I have to admit, Suze gets on my last nerve. That said, I’m always amazed by the people who call in to the show asking Suze’s permission to buy stuff. There was a 24 year old with $14k in savings and over $100k saved for retirement! How does someone that young have so much money put back? Seriously amazing.

-  My son’s 13th birthday is in less than 3 months and I still haven’t found a checking account for him. I need to get moving on this - all he says he wants for his birthday is $50 in an account with a debit card “since you’re too mean to let me use the money in my savings account.” Darn right, kid.

- You guys are killing me with the Friend Fund! I’m up to $243 already. At this rate I’m not going to make it to payday if I don’t hold off on the contributions til the weekend.

Your reward for suffering through my randomness today - a random picture of an old Coca-Cola bottle! Last summer we had to dig up my septic field and put in a new one. While the guys were busy destroying my beautiful backyard, they found this bottle near a tree. It was bottled in a nearby town in 1954, right around the time my house was built. Awesome!