So I did end up having a drop in income due to the loss of the retention incentive at work. We continue to lose & gain emplpyees at our lower salary ranges, but have been pretty good about gaining & retaining staff at the higher salary levels. We hired 3 employees for a section, then lost two. Que sera sera... We are at least in a much better place than we were a year ago. We can breathe a bit not feeling like everything could crumble at any minute.

My married girlfriend dropped out of the trip we were thinking of taking this fall to take a trip with her husband. I guess that's to be expected. It's nice to have a spouse as a traveling partner. Another girlfriend & I are trying to decide where we would like to go. My younger sister enjoyed Spain & Portugal.  I keep thinking about Australia or somewhere in Africa. Something outside of Europe.

You may recall at the beginning of the year I posted about how it took weeks to get my Clark's return credited to my account. At the time I was just thankful it was received after I didn't get the tracking info (silly mistake on my part). Well, apparently it was a system wide issue because I got a mass email from the CEO. I copied a brief part of it below. It's so unusual for a large company to issue this sort of apology & I really appreciated it.

"It is unacceptable that you had to wait so long to receive your order from us, or had a delay in receiving a refund, or experienced difficulties getting through to our customer care team."

Often in the evenings I'll watch the Dave Ramsey show on YouTube. On today's show they had a young postal worker from LI, NY named Patrice. She was there in front of the live studio audience in Tennessee to do her debt-free scream. She was absolutely amazing with her go-getter attitude. I loved her mindset that she didn't want to be like everyone else. I always admire people who aspire to be true to who they are & embrace not being ordinary. Patrice from Long Island definitely inspired me today. 

I opened an American Airlines credit card last year. I've done so before, but then ended up closing it once I was charged the annual membership fee after a year. I called this evening with the intention of closing the card again, but then thought about possibly traveling with my parents this summer. The benefits of not being charged for luggage both ways for 3 people outweighs the $99 annual membership fee cost. So I think I'll hold on to the card a little longer. Do any of you take advantage of an airline travel card? 

My net worth was down for February, though not as much as expected. My investments were down & cash savings slightly up.

Net Worth: $1,218,479

Change: $-27,325

I don't include cash in checking which is about $15,000 between the two accounts. Nor do I include depreciating assets like my car.

Capital One paid my promo bonus of $100 for opening my savings account, so I took out another $10k to open a second CD while the rate is at 5.00%. I didn't want to pull anymore until I was sure that I would earn my bonus. 

My paycheck tomorrow will be my last paycheck with the 10% retention bonus. I will be fine financially, but it was a nice boost while it lasted. I'm happy that we're now recruiting & retaining staff, and we now need to focus on recruiting & retaining other positions. On the bright side, if things go as proposed we will get an 8% boost in January. Yes, it's a while away, but it's nice to know it's in the works.