July 16, 2012
Glory be – the water company has finally launched a (gasp) website!!
We can view or pay our bills online by check or credit card, in real-time (!) though they may charge a fee for the privilege of paying the bill. They’re seriously considering charging for the privilege of AutoPay!
They’ve taken so long to implement these electronic services that they have managed to get on the carousel right when the rest of the world is starting to take a step backward to a time where using credit cards may cost money.
I was most displeased to read this article in the Wall Street Journal where, as a result of this settlement, merchants are now allowed to charge customers who use credit cards more as an offset to the interchange fees imposed by Visa and Mastercard. (Discover and American Express charge as well but weren’t part of the suit.)
Whether they will actually charge more remains to be seen – smaller merchants represented say they won’t lead the price increases, likely because they don’t want to anger their customers but I know some merchants already do offer tiered pricing with discounts for their cash customers and that’s probably the model that will continue.
That’s a huge pain, I hate carrying cash but if cards will cost more than I’m simply going to change how I pay for things.
In other news, we’ve closed one of PiC’s accounts with a credit union where they were charging him $8 a month for paperless statements. Unbelievable temerity. It saves paper, time and cost, and yet they’re charging serious money per month. Thank you and we’ll be taking our business elsewhere.
July 9, 2012
I’ve been, in the back of my mind, in this weird mental contortionist sort of way, staring at certain big areas of our required expenses to cut down drastically.
The cable, phone and internet package was finally pruned back. We’ve chucked Comcast’s outrageous packaging of 151 channels of which 115 are crap or can’t be understood linguistically, anthropologically or by any stretch of the rational mind, just so that we can watch a few of the shows we enjoy having on in the background.
Thanks again to patient stalking of Fatwallet, I’d found an AT&T dryloop deal for $20/month for high speed internet alone. A neighbor was kind enough to confirm that the service was decent and didn’t need a single frill or frippery like phone or anything else to work properly.
So that was progress.
The next best thing was to tackle the mortgage because rates are really low and if I wanted the biggest bang for our time, that right there would do it.
Not so much.
Of course I did some basic research into rates on offer. I was astounded at the lack of attractive refinance options.
I know it’s not 2004 anymore, but I expected to put down a 20% down payment which would bring the loan down a substantial amount and figured we could get:
1. A reputable lender
2. A rate under 3%
3. Zero points
4. A lower monthly payment
I may have been delusional. Bankrate’s possible offers were pretty bad. Mostly the loans were:
1. With odd lenders
2. Between high 2% to mid 3%
3. Either zero points up through 3.5 points
4. Up to $400 more per month
5. Up to $15,000 in closing costs
Then I ran the numbers on INGDirect. And Lo! The sun had come through the clouds.
1. Easy Orange – 5 Year Fixed
2. Rate: 2.625%
3. Zero points
4. $600 less monthly
5. Approximately $2,000 in closing costs
6. Option to renew in 5 years with same closing costs and same rate
I had all the initial information up front and it sounded good. It warned me about a Final Payment “larger than the rest”, amount unspecified, but that didn’t seem unusual. Like most loans, I expected that a last payment would be at least a few times larger than the rest.
Bear in mind that I was cramming this into one of our endless days and nights. Goes something like “drag out of bed, work a really long day, try to eat at least one meal, rely on PiC to take care of Doggle morning and night because I will pass out if I do one more thing that’s not strictly necessary to sustain life, fall into a coma.”
I completed the mortgage application over dinner one night.
The detail I missed, the big glaring flaw I overlooked, was that it was a 5 or 10 year fixed rate mortgage based on paying over 30 years principle and interest. Says right there on the page.
So as it turns out, the “Final Payment” was a Balloon Payment. They just chose to use different language and I didn’t twig to the obvious.
With the payments artificially strung out across the supposed 30 years, by the time we reached the end of five years, we’d effectively have made zero progress. It was completely counterproductive.
Yes, I absolutely assumed it was down to the lowered interest rate that we were getting everything we wanted: lower rate, lower payments, and paying off the whole kit and caboodle in a shorter time frame. Yes, I was insane with fatigue to have failed to see how the real math was going to play out.
Lament: Could they not have just used the phrase Balloon Payment like normal people?
What this all means now
Option 1: Take the loan but pay up to the same monthly amt we’ve been paying. Doesn’t reduce our monthly costs which was my real goal but gets us the lower rate. Very little progress and eats up a good portion of our cash but we’re doing something. And at the end of the five years, I’ll still need to refinance because who’s going to have another some hundreds of thousands to pay that off? I’m good but I’m not that good.
Option 2: Don’t take the loan and start brainstorming again. (No action)
Option 3: Don’t take the loan and just use my Auto-Payoff tactic of throwing large chunks of money at the debt, but that also doesn’t really get at my real goal either.
My short term goal is to reduce our total monthly cash flow; the long term goal is to pay off the mortgage. Going the Auto-Payoff route only deals with the long term and doesn’t do anything for the short-term. And may actually destabilize our short and medium term positions.
Honestly I’m rather undecided what to do just yet – other than to call and clarify a point or two about the loan.
April 4, 2012
Our dear old Doggle, our canine companion of nearly a year, is now officially spoiled within a inch of his life. Nearly by us, mostly by our friends. Our friends lost their own beloved pet not too long ago and asked for the loan of Doggle when we traveled to fill their empty home for a little while, which we were glad to do as he looooves them.
We’ve now figured out why: the kids not only feed him treats hand over fist, he doesn’t just get a yard to romp in, he gets to sleep on the furniture! *cue heart attack*
We were texted a photo of him stretched out on the sofa, bookended by two excessively happy kidlings. Honestly. New meaning to Barcalounger.
Of course now that we’re home, he’s bored and aloof and his old bed is too small. And smooshed. And boring. And Pic, feeling the sting of mopey dejected dog, is ready to bribe Doggle with Yet Another Bed. That’s right, his third bed in less than a year.
Shall we recap?
He’s gotten in the last 11 months:
A new home.
Two beds.
Leashes and collars.
A car.
Two toys he really loves.
All the health care he can stand (and then some).
Oh, and endless food, love and affection, road trips to see extended family and friends who dote on him. And far too many treats from zany neighbor and kooky older people who can’t help themselves.
Next year, he’ll probably get a house with a yard full of grass we’ll have to water and mow for him.
Does anyone want to say it? No? Lucky dog!
Obviously, pretty tongue in cheek “resentment” here, he’s a lot of work wrapped up in an adorable fur coat and it’s equal parts love and sigh.
Oil and Garlic has run into a much more sobering difficulty with her dogs that I’ve known very well back home in Southern California.
March 9, 2012
Balancing acts in adulthood
I’ve been enjoying the conversations over at Wandering Scientist on work life balance. As I teeter into my thirties, I’ve been examining some of the financial and professional choices I’ve made during this decade and reflecting on how effective those philosophies have been and whether they will continue to hold true for the upcoming decade. I suspect that life and money and career in my thirties will be just as interesting a trip, but beyond that? Well, so far I’ve been terrible at prognosticating so I’ll just leave it at that.
As for my twenties ….
These were absolutely the foundation years: completing the final years of undergrad, deciding to hold off on graduate school until I knew better what I wanted out of it, throwing myself into my career at full tilt while digging out of debt and then building up a nest egg. My approach to my career and my money was the same: more is better.
Philosophically, the natural, deeply ingrained, unthinking element was an intrinsic need to achieve something, a drive to have a discernable growth pattern, to do something that seemed tangible. I wanted to build a career, I wanted to have achieved something substantive.
The logical, considered, and reasoned plan was to aim for a position where my work-life balance wouldn’t be dictated by the company because I was highly placed enough where they didn’t care about niceties like when I showed up or how many hours I worked as long as the job was done well. Essentially, I wanted to achieve the ability to talk terms with the company I worked for as long as I was an employee.
***
In Oil and Garlic’s post, A Precarious Balance, she discusses the ignored constraints in finding work-life balance when your income doesn’t stretch to buying flexibility and help. She lists a number of things that one can do to earn or achieve more flexibility from her perspective as a non-manager with a mid-level salary in a HCOLA. That combination probably describes a fair number of us who simply don’t have the ability to buy out of the choices that we have to manage to run households and feed mouths, day to day.
Meanwhile, she notes: At my company, those in manager positions and above enjoy a higher autonomy. They don’t have to ask permission to work from home. They also have the money for nanny and cleaning help, something that my household has paid for but at a great sacrifice (and only temporarily). They can still enjoy many luxuries like massages, travel and dining out. True, they have greater responsibilities, too, and they’ve earned it. But their solutions often aren’t applicable to those those in lower income brackets. In other words, they can buy some balance while many people don’t have that same privilege.
I very much agreed. Having worked many years in retail and other similarly low-wage environments while going to school, I’d observed very early on the vulnerabilities of being in the middle and lower tiers of any organization. One typically has less negotiating power in terms of responsibilities, is considered more expendable or is less valued as an asset to the company, and blends in with the rest of the equivalent employees holding the same role.
In that position, an individual’s power, and the choices one would like to make for oneself tend to lie in the advocacy and kindness of an immediate superior and his or her ability to persuade at least one or more rungs above if flexibility isn’t part of the company policy.
***
In the long-term, that was far too slim a reed for me to rest my life and my family’s lives on, particularly when I had the additional concern of a chronic illness for which there were no immediate prospects for improvement.
Superficially, need and circumstance dictated that I simply earn a living but I was compelled to steer my career trajectory as steeply as I could, as early as I could, while building a strong reputation in my chosen field. My theory was that should I be derailed for any length of time, for any reason, that reputation would serve to smooth my way.
Cloud, of Wandering Scientist confirms, whatever choice you make to take a break for family reasons after you’ve established yourself, you’re usually starting from a better place:
Once you have kids, you can decide whether or not you want or need to ease up on your career, but whatever you decide, it will be easier to keep your career viable if you have a strong reputation built in your earlier years. Whether you keep working or take a break, that reputation will serve you well. I think that one reason I haven’t suffered from much “working moms are slackers” bias in my own career is that I have a sterling reputation for productivity- and have maintained it. But we are also actively recruiting someone right now who is coming back after about 5 years off with young kids. We actually sought her out and asked her if she was ready to come back, on the basis of having been impressed with her work before she took the break.
Details will differ a bit across industries but the basis makes sense to me – someone who had a solid reputation before taking a break would have a leg up on someone who hadn’t established one.
***
My personal net worth has gone from -$50,000 in family debt to around $100,000 in assets over the course of nine years in addition to paying for all living expenses for a family of four. While it’s no great shakes, it’s certainly a fair start at a real financial basis with which to start a family.
I haven’t taken a break yet, and I don’t know if and when I (or we) will decide that it’s time to, but right now, I’m in a strong building phase of my career and striving for higher earning power. It’s only partly a joke that I’m trying to outearn PiC before the end of this year. That’s partly ego, and partly practicality. If I’m the higher earner, and we start a family, there’s a stronger case for him to stay home with the kids! 😉
In the end, my choices throughout my twenties were tailored to setting the scene and creating opportunities for freedom and better choices in the future.
October 25, 2011
As much work and as costly as Doggle has been in the totting up of his bills over the months, there are some pretty amazing things about this dog that makes me say it’s totally worth it. Also, I like to point out that if you really want to think about the costs, you have to think about the FULL picture, and that includes considering what kind of dog we could have gotten since we did get really lucky with the pup we brought home.
Remember, this big man was abandoned for at least a year before we brought him home, and we have no clue what his history was before that. He could have been a shivering wreck inside his head and ready to burst out with all kinds of crazy after we took him home, just hiding it behind a stoic face when we first met him. It’s not that dogs are duplicitous, it’s just that when they first meet you, all the nuances of their personality aren’t going to be evident. That was certainly true of Doggle. It took him about three months to come out from his shell entirely and show that he actually had a personality lurking underneath.
Happily, most of that livelier personality is more pleasant than not. There’re also some rather … limpet-like parts to his personality. It’s usually cute but … sometimes it’s not.
How Doggle Costs Money:
Oh Vet Bills (Medication/Supplements): Doggle has been to the vet every other month since he’s been with us. We’ve spent over a thousand dollars on his medical bills so far. *_*
Carpeting: His poor staggering legs don’t deal very well with the slippery floors so we’ve laid down new (to us) rugs. Thank you, Craigslist and Costco for relatively cost effective rugs and padded squishy mats.
Food: He just keeps on eating. And I’ve turned into a bit of a sucker about buying him a stock of treats. Yeah. I’m that dog mom. I never was before.
Car upgrade: But let’s be honest. It wasn’t like PiC hadn’t been looking for his car upgrade for several years.
How He Doesn’t Cost:
Furniture: He doesn’t mark on anything at home, thank goodness. He’s embarrassed us in places where other dogs have previously marked their territory as that lights up that little area in his brain that says “oh! I should pee here too!” But as our home has been unmarked, so it stays. Whew.
He also doesn’t chew, scratch or (mostly) climb. Occasionally he takes a freak into his head that maybe he should try to get on the sofa. Then he gets put in timeout.
Shoes/Bags/Socks/Clothes/Books/Small Items: He also doesn’t steal, chew or destroy any of these things.
People Food: He’s not allowed to have any. Not that that has diminished his interest in our cooking activities or eating at the table or anywhere else one whit. But he also doesn’t beg. He’s allowed to hang around and sniff within a certain limit.
Toys: He’s still not interested. He’s just starting to get the barest inkling of how to socially interact in play with other dogs or people. I’m trying to teach him and expose him to other big dogs because small dogs around here are frankly, brats, who mostly don’t want anything to do with him if they’re not being snappy, snippy, yappy and their owners just don’t socialize or train them out of those nasty behaviors. Bigger or younger dogs really like him, though, and that’s really nice.
Energy: 95% of the time, he has amazing indoor manners. Which is to say, he is incredibly quiet and mellow inside. If you’re hanging out, he’s hanging out. If you’re sleeping, he’s sleeping. If you’re cooking, he’s in the way. But he doesn’t bark, he doesn’t scratch, dig, growl, or generally freak out in any way.
2% of the time he has little freakouts where he goes into corners and huddles or has to be on the sofa which is a no-no. 3% of the time he is really really really happy you just got home or we’re going for a walk. That is a really manageable percentage, in my mind.
Extra Baths and Carpet Cleaning: He only gets baths on our schedule which varies between every 3-6 weeks. We can do this because he doesn’t roll in the dirt, he doesn’t rub himself in gross stuff he finds on his walks, and while he might get himself a little in his poorly-aimed, old man spatter, he lets us wipe him down after every walk and wipe his paws as well. Docile as anything.
At the end of the day ….
I’m so glad we’ve got him. We have made a lot of adjustments. We factor him into the morning and evening routines to take the time to take him out twice a day, (but that’s all we have to do – we have neighbors who walk their yappers FIVE times a day!) We either travel with him by car, one of us stays home with him, or have to make arrangements for him. We mostly do the first two, though. I’m hopelessly attached. 😉
July 19, 2011
Poor Doggle.
He’s going to have to live past 22 at this rate to amortize the amount we’ve put into him this early on. We had to take him to the vet again because he’s exhibited some joint pain and I wanted to be sure there wasn’t an injury that was readily apparent to the vet that I was missing.
It turned out that while the pain was quite real, the vet couldn’t be sure whether it was a joint or soft tissue injury without manipulation under sedation and x-rays. He was in far too much pain to relax for that exam, but given his slow improvement throughout the week, I decided we would opt to treat with pain meds, ice and R&R for a few weeks first before committing to $500 worth of diagnostics.
Either way, we needed a good pain medication while he recovered even if it was just a minor injury because his discomfort hadn’t faded after a couple of days, even if the symptoms had improved a little.
If he noticeably declines in the next few days, or at any point during his prescribed bed rest, then we’ll just take him in immediately.
Happily, he loves his meds and doesn’t mind the icing at all. Strange pup.
Tallying up his tab:
This visit: $106
Doggle Chariot, split w/PiC because honestly, PiC’s been considering a new-to-us car for years: $5000
Month One: Coming Home: $835
July 14, 2011
Well. Now we’ve dunnit.
The situation: After setting the date for a car purchase in 2012, and swearing up and down that nothing was going to happen on that front until we had that settled, what happens? PiC finds a potential Doggle Chariot.
I was pretty frustrated with the thwarting of my financial plans. But then I decided that was a knee-jerk reason not to buy and self-centered to boot (my finances, my decisions) so I sat down with spreadsheets and crunched the numbers until I had a clearer view of where we both stand.
Financing was never an option, period. That’s not something I’m willing to compromise on – paying interest (unnecessarily) in order to defer payments means you can’t afford that purchase.
The Analysis: Considering our cash position, I didn’t really want to spend the money. [I know, when do I ever?] But the unwillingness was based on the fact that, if our finances were merged, our net worth would not be at a place that I would feel comfortable making a major purchase. But as we’re not married yet, the monies are not merged. And even if they were, discomfort or not, this purchase would not significantly hurt our big picture goals. True, it wouldn’t do us any favors for the year, and it will be a pain to juggle around cash for property taxes but, it wouldn’t actively put us in a bad position and I’ve also always been cash heavy so we wouldn’t be breaking CDs or other funds to pull this cash out.
From that perspective, if this was the right car, and if the seller accepted our offer, the amount could be under ten thousand dollars, paid in full, in cash, therefore not a financially disastrous decision.
We also don’t intend to carry three cars on the insurance so his car would have to be sold, and that would make up some of the purchase price.
Considering the wedding plans that aren’t coming along but would still need to be paid for at some point when it does come together, I was still on the fence, but agreed that we were in a position to at least look at the car in case it happened to be a well-maintained vehicle that was worth spending on earlier than originally planned.
Of course, the car was not only in great shape with low mileage, and much of the major maintenance had already been done on it early and the work checked out.
The Outcome: I should stop poopooing PiC’s Craigslist stalking, he managed to find the nicest people to buy a new car from. Not only did they accept a really good (for us) offer, they accommodated our needs for the various bits leading up to sale since we weren’t terribly close to each other and even had purchased road trip supplies for Doggle as gifts when the sale was finalized, knowing we were buying it for Doggle.
Now we’re able to have more than two people plus 1 dog per car ride, which is helpful. Most importantly, Doggle’s much more comfortable getting in and out of the Chariot now, and has more room to move around, although now you mostly only see his big head if you look in the rearview because he likes to be Right In The Middle. This is much better for his joints. He was always a bit scrabbly trying to get into my car and you could see him visibly heaving himself up into the backseat. Now he’s still leaping but it’s much more graceful and puts far less stress on his body.
My Realization: It’s still really hard for me to talk through major or minor financial decisions with adults and trust that they are open and willing and committed and going to make the right decisions. I can talk, but I can’t trust. It’s still an emotional imperative that I must be the one to make the decisions at the end of the day or suffer the consequences. Thanks, family. And I’ve always been hands-off with PiC’s finances, outside of sharing general (or specific if asked) information. This transition is a bit tough. But it’s something I’m working on.