Citi Card Makes It Even Easier

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Citi. All opinions are 100% mine.

Credit cards. It can be a touchy subject.

Debt. Interest Rates. All that fun stuff.

For the past few years, we’ve kept a Citi Card. It was always our ‘in case of an emergency’ card. Well, that emergency came and we had to use it. We are now paying it off. I’ve been using the Citi Mobile app on my phone to check and see when our payments go through and make sure of what the due date is. (I am such a stickler for that stuff! It drives me crazy, every month.) It’s so helpful to just be able to log in and see my money situation.

It doesn’t take very long to get the Citi Mobile app set up. If you bank with Citi, then you request your activation key (a one time thing) and your done. Sign into the app and check out everything.

Since I can only access the credit card side of the app, I will tell you from that I throughly enjoy being able to log in anywhere and not have to use the “mobile website”. Apps work better than any mobile website. (And don’t even think of telling me different!)

Main Screen

Requesting your activation key for your bank account

Login in for Citi Card, using your citicards.com login

Once logged in, you will see your account info (brief)

Clicking on that account info button, will take you to a detailed account info screen with what you want to know.
Current balance, when your next payment is due, minimum due, etc.
As you can see, the bottom button is to see all of your account activity.

Here is the account activity screen.
You get your current balance and last statement balance.
My favorite part is seeing the payments that have gone through and on what date!

Find an ATM.

And also look through the FAQs and Contact Citi Mobile about any questions or concerns you may have.

All in all, I really like this app. Between this and my bank app, I will consistently be up-to-date on any of my finances. The only thing I wish you could do is make a payment! Not that going to my computer is difficult, but an all-in-one would be amazing.

If you are already a Citi Bank / Citi Card customer, I would most definitely download this app!
If you have been thinking about getting another card or opening a bank account, I’d go with Citi. They have been the ones that have worked the most with us.

If you are an Existing Citibank members click here to download the FREE app or you can Click here to apply for Citibank.

Any problems I have ever come across with our Citi Card have been fixed within minutes of calling their customer service team. We have lowered our APR and are back on track to getting this paid off!

Week 10

After a very emotional “come back to the real world” week, I gained. It was .2 and honestly, I was THRILLED with that.

The fact that I lost over 4 pounds the week before, I was SURE I had just had an off week and lost a lot of water retention, but it stuck and I am working SO hard to make sure that the .2 pounds that I gained comes off this week, plus!

Last week I re-started the Couch to 5K program. And I rocked the two miles that I did.

I worked in the yard for 7 hours yesterday helping fix our sprinkler system. Then this morning, I got up TOO early and had the front yard weeded before 10AM. 45 minutes of pulling weeds. Who would have thought that I would have been happy to do that?! But I was. It’s been a wonderful weekend (more to come on that later) and I feel that I have accomplished quite a bit.

I must go now and meet my friend Heather to complete our Sunday walk!!

And I Ran.. I Ran So Far Away

Ok, so maybe I didn’t run THAT far, but for me, I’m proud (which is why I sent my friend a text to say how happy I was!)

Earlier I walked 4 miles with my friend and her HUGE dog. Between the dog stopping to see people and using the toilet, it took us a bit over a hour.

Then, apparently, I was feeling crazy when I got home and decided that I would start the Couch To 5K program. What a great start, I think at least. I may have stopped at the house half way through to grab some water, but it seriously helped me with the last part. I completed 2.15 miles in 31 min. It’s wonderful for me, trust me. I can not wait to keep this thing going and do another 5K… RUNNING this time!!

Now… WHO’S WITH ME?!?

Oh and what music do you listen to while you’re working out?

What Does 5% Mean?

When I went to weigh in this past Thursday, I wasn’t nervous. I had a million things going on in my head. And I was not in the right place. Honestly, these past 3 days have been a complete blur and a whirlwind of emotions.. but that doesn’t matter right now..

What matters is that when I stepped on the scale and the lady put my weekly sticker in my book, I was down 4.2 pounds!!!! That means that I’ve lost 11.6 pounds total, in 9 weeks. For me, that’s a HUGE hurdle and it also means that I got a new star on my Weight Watchers chart: 5% star!!

I had gained last week and I KNOW what kept me from my gain and that’s why it was such a bigger number this week. So along with my “yah!! you lost 5%” star there was a message of “we don’t like you losing weight this quickly and it’s not safe for you.” Trust me, it’ll probably never happen again. 4 pounds is a crap ton (haha – Ashley that’s for you) of weight to lose in one week and I do NOT want to lose that quickly. I want to be able to lose it slowly and keep OFF the weight. No more of this stupid “lose 2 pounds and gain it back” and I’m obviously proving to myself that I CAN do it.

Losing 5% means a lot to me. That’s over 10 pounds and supposedly a clothing size. Plus, I’m lowering my cholesterol, which in turn means that I’ll be able to get insurance again SOMETIME. I’m working my way down out of the “obese” phase and into the “overweight” category. Yep, I still have a bit of weight to lose for that, but boy I’m working on it. I am also taking excess weight off of my knees so that I’ll be able to get back into running and training for another 5k, which I can not WAIT for! And most importantly..

I am super proud of myself!

6 Years Ago

What seems to be 6, very long, years ago on January 13, 2004, was the day I laughed in Jeff’s face.

Let’s go back a couple of months before that..

I was at Full Sail. And so was he. Amazingly enough, we met because I needed a flashlight for one of my first classes (because Full Sail apparently can’t afford flashlights) and he had one. I went to his place to get his.. a PURPLE flashlight, none the less. And the flashlight is in our house somewhere to this day.

We began hanging out right before Thanksgiving 2003. I invited him to come to my family Thanksgiving since all of his family was in Kentucky and he said.. no .. he wanted to stay and spend time out of school with his friends. Which is fine. Him and I had no obligations to each other. We were honestly just friends. Before I left to go to Ocala, he told me to come over because he had something for me. That something was a couple of burned CDs. At the time, there was always commercials for the Red Hot Chili Peppers greatest hits CD all over TV and he decided that I needed it since I would mention it.

Then came Christmas and New Year’s. He went home to see his family and I went to see mine. He called me at midnight, Florida time, to wish me a happy new year, but when I called him back at HIS New Year’s an hour later, he was passed out. Surprise surprise!

I found out later that Jeff’s mom was wondering who I was since we were always on the phone. And I can honestly say, we were still JUST friends.

Even though we lived a mile from each other, we were ALWAYS on the phone. He would get home from school and call me, and vice versa. One of my all time favorite memories from back then was when we were on the phone and Family Guy would come on. He’d wait until after the opening came on to get off the phone and he’d always say “I’ll call you back after the show.” And he always did. RIGHT after the show, as soon as the credits started rolling my phone would ring.

I always made jokes with him about him coming over to my apartment and watching ‘Queer Eye For The Straight Guy’ (this is when that show was huge!). No such luck. Ever. Then, he came over for a movie marathon of sorts. He stayed up ALL night and watched movies. It was great. And it was that night that he kissed me. And when he did.. I laughed. (Sorry dearest!)

I was uncomfortable because… dun dun dun.. it was my first kiss. Weird right? I had never had a boyfriend and I had only gone on a couple of “dates” (it’s hard for me to even call them that because they were just very awkward and strange guys.)

So, it happened. We kissed and I guess that made it “official”. We were always together. He didn’t have a car, so I would go get him and we would just hang out.

Then a little more than two weeks later, life changed. We had THE accident. Even though it majorly damaged his face (not that you can tell now), I wouldn’t change it for the world. It made us who we are today as a couple. And it also made us super strong, together.

Then

And now (or a few months ago)

Out For A Walk

Today I did something I haven’t done since, well, a LONG time. I walked 6.62 miles with a friend of mine and her sister.

I am trying my hardest to get in shape. I want to train and work my way up to RUNNING. I want to RUN a 5K. I want to get rid of my asthma. I want my back pain to be obsolete.

Orange is where we started and Blue is the turn around we took

Now, if I just learn to eat healthier after exercising, I’d be doing pretty good! However, after calculating my points, I’m good, just need to chill. Just need a small sensible dinner tonight and get my exercise in tomorrow and hopefully I’ll be good to go for Thursday weigh in.

I am also going to start walking again during my lunch breaks. Walking downtown is quite good, yet I wish the cross walks would work in my favor!

Week 8

Not a wonderful week. Gained 1.4 pounds this past week, but boy am I kicking my own butt this week.

It’s so bizarre because I really didn’t change much last week as the weeks before. Might have needed to step up the exercise, which is what I’m working on this week. Already taken a couple of walks at night and I’m going on a pretty decent walk tomorrow morning with a friend of mine. Aiming to start doing a 3 mile walk at least once a week, hopefully on Sundays with Heather.

I had a bit of crap food last night while out with friends, but I still didn’t do bad on points! And there wasn’t much at ALL to drink, so Friday = success!

Here’s to hoping this next week is better!!

Weigh In Soon

Today is Tuesday and my next weigh in is Thursday. I don’t think I’ve done poorly this week but for some reason I get so nervous. And I’ve been getting like this EVERY week. Come Thursday morning, I start telling Annie how I want to just get it the weigh in over with. Argh!

Tomorrow is my “get home at a decent hour” day, so I’ll go for a walk (or do the gazelle) to get some activity points. Oh goodness. I just want this first “new year” week to be over. I want to get to my 5% and I wanted to do it within the first couple of weeks of the year. So come tomorrow, my activity points are going up!!

Tommy Turned 30!

December took November over so quickly that I never had a chance to post anything about our friend, Tommy, turning 30. He’s old now. Ok, maybe not. But it’s fun to tell people they are old.

Here are some fun pictures of what went down that evening… and no, not much craziness!

Ben Prestage

I may not have done anything too exciting to ring in the 2010, but I did start the first day of 2010 off right.

A friend of mine had just told me about Ben Prestage and sent me a couple of YouTube clips to which I really took a liking to his sound. Thankfully, I found out that he was going to be doing a set at Will’s Pub in Orlando, FL on January 1st and I made sure that I was going to be there.

The place was packed! I hadn’t been to Will’s Pub in a while and I don’t know what that max capacity for the stage room was, but people were having a hard time walking through to get to the bar. That’s when you know you’re at a good show! I put together some clips that Jeff shot with my new camera (Canon 7D).

Ben Prestage – Orlando, FL from Kelly Walker on Vimeo.