April 5, 2010
Well, Bekins failed again!
Pretty spectacularly, too. They got so far as to get my shipment to the Bay Area Monday night, and contracted with another company to deliver on Tuesday. Except 3rd party company called me on Tuesday saying they were NOT delivering that day, they were delivering Wednesday. And oh, btw? 700 pounds of stuff was going to be dropped curbside, they would not bring anything inside.
No. No, and no.
Bekins got another call from me with this information, the dispatcher went off to do his thing supposedly, and came back two hours later saying it was resolved. 3rd party would deliver on Wednesday by noon and would bring everything indoors as per our contract.
I asked him to take the shipment back and deliver it with his crews- he absolutely insisted that he had a backup crew to deliver in case the 3rd party failed to come through but he was SURE they would. Does anyone else doubt his word? And his faith?
Wednesday at noon heralded a weak sun and no rain for which I was immensely grateful because I spent the next twenty minutes being told that the driver was going to drop a huge pallet of my stuff on the ground and leave because they were a freight company, not a moving company. My dispatcher put me on hold four times, while the delivery guy was impatiently stomping about telling me, “I can’t do what they promised! I get ten minutes per drop and that’s it!”
His boss contacted him, telling him to drop my goods next to the elevator and leave. Just leave. OR leave with my stuff and let Bekins deal with the delivery.
I was livid.
There was no way that guy was leaving with my stuff, but there was no way I was physically forcing him to stay. I was very very polite to him, explaining that at my size, there wasn’t any chance I’d be able to bring my stuff upstairs alone. I also told him that I didn’t hold him responsible for any of the mess, that I expected Bekins to fix it and pleaded with him to give me a few minutes to make something happen at their end.
The Bekins dispatcher had the nerve to tell me he could have a crew over to move the rest of my stuff inside my home by 3 pm, leaving me with a pile of goods in a public area, unattended!
Finally, I had the delivery guy break down the pallet and bring it the elevator, as far as his boss would allow, and was on the phone the rest of the time trying to get someone to do their jobs.
By the time he got all the stuff carted over to the elevator I still didn’t have a solution.
He looked at me, said, “My day’s shot. Where’s your apartment? Don’t tell anyone, I’m just goin to take this up for you.”
And he did.
At that point, the Bekins guy called me saying that he was “so embarrassed” to ask me to do this, but was there any way I could get someone else to help move my stuff upstairs? He just couldn’t get anyone there right away. Furious, I just told him that I’d figure it out and, for the first time in the entire ordeal, stated that I was completely dissatisfied with everything that had happened since pick-up, and this was the worst service I’d ever experienced.
He sputtered. Considering he caused this entire mess, taking it upon himself to delay the shipment for two days for no good reason (which he’d stated up front on Monday), he entirely deserved that shot. And was nearly apoplectic telling me that he understood I was through with them but they weren’t through with me, that he was seeking a resolution because they were absolutely embarrassed and were going to seek compensation for me.
Uh huh.
I have my letter, edited to add the Wednesday festivities, ready to go out by registered mail with a copy emailed to the Better Business Bureau if I don’t hear that a check is in the mail on Tuesday. More than six hundred dollars and all three days of my time before starting a new job was wasted dealing with Bekins in Southern California. Not one of their shining moments.
March 26, 2010
That’s a little misleading. It’s just that my sense of reality lags behind .. y’know, reality. It hasn’t quite sunk in all the way that I’ve finally left home. Actually that’s not true. It’s there, but I’ve only let myself mourn a little bit at a time. Full scale emotional acceptance will just have to wait – it’s too hard to get everything done while fretting about leaving my family, my home, and my workcave.
I said good-bye (for now) to my dogs who have no inkling at all that this is a huge step. /heart breaks a little/
My hometown friends evidently didn’t take me seriously when I said I was starting a job on April 1st in the northerly part of the state as one of them was surprised I’d left already. “What, no good-bye sendoff??”
*tired, grouchy, overwhelmed me says: If you wanted to see me before I left, you should have said so. The people who cared did say something and we saw each other. And if you thought I was going to organize my own send-off amidst the gazillion things I had to do? Chyeah. No.* So far as most friends and family are concerned, I’ve quietly slipped out of their midst.
I made a decision on the car front. More to come …
I’ve been actively pursuing freelance leads to supplement my income. Examples of my work have earned me a quick pass to the front of the line for one job. I hope we can come to an agreement as it would make at least a couple thousand and make up the difference in my spending of late. Wish me luck!
August 5, 2009
Possibly the most popular question of the year: What would you do if you lost your job?
Well, young grasshopper, I’m totally there.
Most PF savvy folks immediately address cost-cutting measures, identifying and trimming the fat from their budgets. This is always a good idea: you need to batten down the hatches since you don’t know how long you’ll be taking on water before you find another job.
I’d already been on the cost-cutting rampage for months so discovering that a layoff was imminent was even more motivation to bring monthly expenses down to a bare minimum. By the time the layoff and I were staring at each other, inches apart, nose to nose, I’d achieved near parity. My household’s monthly needs, outside of my personal spending, were officially within $200 of my unemployment benefits.
The cash cushion I’d amassed during that time, courtesy of those very same cost-cutting measures (eliminating extra vehicles, reducing auto insurance, reducing gas and electricity usage, etc.,) and working mucho overtime meant that I had the luxury of not panicking once the paychecks stopped. I was sure that I would, but I didn’t have to.
Applying for unemployment. There was a tang of bitterness when I sat down to fill out the claim form. I thought I’d have found another job by this time – didn’t I establish my rep as a resourceful, high-producing, motivated careerist? Yes, but that’s a gripe for another day. Today my job is to make sure that some form of income continues to flow in to cover the bills while I stump for jobs. The one benefit of ending employment mid-week was that even though I was paid for a few days of work the last week of June, the entire week of 6/28-7/4 was designated the mandated waiting week. That only cost half a week of waiting for benefits.
Constantly on the move. Since long before the layoff paperwork was in motion, I’ve been working on my resume, talking to people, networking, applying for jobs, and interviewing. I’ve got at least three active applications in undecided status right now, but I’m not resting on my laurels. The resume is being revamped again post-feedback from another professional and I’m sending the new one out ASAP to my current contacts. In the meantime, though I’m awaiting a decision on the Dream Job, I’m exploring other options in other fields. The second I know that these prospects aren’t panning out? I’m on the next train out to another career.
R&R: The last 5 days were eaten up by friends/family obligations, so I didn’t have time to do more than make sure paperwork was in the mail in time, and gather information for my next moves. Still, I’ve got to build in some time to rest because I can’t be on the run constantly. I’ll physically rest at least one day a week, but my brain will finally begin to process the list of opportunities.
My first unemployment check arrived in the mail. There’s no sense of excitement or satisfaction like that of paydays. Maybe it’s because there aren’t the corresponding retirement contributions, or the transfers to savings that are normal with direct deposited checks. Or maybe it’s because “earning” unemployment is exhausting to the soul. Whatever the case, I’m depositing it know that it’s part of what keeps the wolves at bay and continuing with my job search.
Note to self: the stub attached to the check had the following note: “Your claim balance after this payment is $11,250.” I’m not certain what that means. Must find out.
December 31, 2008
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover IRA: $1,026
Roth IRA: $4,499
401(a): $4,448
403(b): $11,977
Total: $ 20,924 (21,604)
|
| Emergency Savings |
Catastrophe: $ 21,659 (20,000)
Problem Cushion: $ 1,000 (794)
|
| Short Term Goals |
Car Maintenance: $352
Car Insurance: $1,356
Travel/Con: $1163
Taxes: $3,507
Moving: $1015
Total: $ 7,273 (6,554)
|
| Long Term Goals |
House Down Payment: $101
|
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Savings Bond: $357 (current accrued value)
Total: $ 17,998 (17,998)
|
| Total Assets |
Illiquid: $20,924
Semi-Liquid: $17,998
Liquid: $22,659
Expense Acct: $5,461
Goals Savings: $7,273
Total: $ 74,315 (73,110)
|
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $2,353
AX: $196
Citi: $92
Citi 2: $1,090
Chase: $245
Rent: $1,360
Total: $ 5,336 (6,075)
|
| Net Worth |
$ 68,979 (67,035)
|
December: the month of three paychecks, and the final quarterly payment. That balanced out some of my profligate spending (hello pretty laptop, suit, heat for the below 40 degree nights) and fattened up my reserves just a bit. I’m going to need every bit of safety cushion I can get in the coming months and am very happy that even with paying out over $2000 on ridiculous car expenses, I haven’t lost too much momentum. In fact, I’m ever so grateful that I’ve gotten to the point where a blow like that just stings and takes up time and energy without draining me completely. There was a time when something like that would have meant debt.
I do feel a major sense of urgency: need a new job, need to purge more junk from the room, need to complete a million things before the official return to work. Urgency is good, it keeps me going and every little task builds a step for the next. In fact, I got rid of approximately 15 pounds of stuff, organized gift stuff into a single box, starting packing away photo frames, and paved the way to organize stored clothing. Fantastique!
Honestly, I think I’m just repeating myself now. I expect the January snapshot to announce bigger and better things.
Happy New Year everyone!
October 28, 2008
Now this is satisfying! That’s a 1000+ page book placed for scale next to the full-to-bursting bag of paperwork I shredded in my first go-’round.
This is the second stack that I was working on this weekend:
And lest anyone mistakenly believe that I’m totally dedicated to this project, it’s 97% escapism. As long as I’m still being productive, I can justify not working on other, more important but much more depressing projects like thinking about my future. *tsk*
Then again, getting rid of that much junk so far is keeping the spirits up and inspiration on how to creatively re-locate stuff. That’s not bad, either.
May 6, 2008
Each month, I round up all my expenses and work out the total of what I grandly call my net worth. A lot of bloggers do it, in one form or another. Actually, I call mine “snapshots” because they’re just a quick glimpse at my ever-fluctuating expense and income sheets. In a way, I like that the numbers continually change, especially since I get bored so easily. Activity isn’t always a good thing, though, as noted by the massive reductions in net worth during the BroDucky debacle. Let me emphasize how I never want to spend so much for so little again. 😛
Every month, I put together these snapshots, but I don’t actually have a net worth goal. And keeping track of numbers without an actual goal seems rather halfhearted. I do have annual savings goals, as you can see by my sidebars, but I don’t have an overall net worth goal. Part of this is because the savings goals are both saving and spending goals. A good half of my goals pertain to a future purchase or expenditure: car maintenance, home ownership, auto payoff. The other half are for retirement (completely untouchable), emergencies (almost always untouchable), and mistakes (only if it’s serious).
Between the two, it seems like I’m just saving to spend. Oh, that’s not really the case, I’ll still have the savings at the end of a long hard day, but the half and half structure of my goals implies that this isn’t all about holding on to my putative wealth. In that light, “net worth” doesn’t seem applicable unless I have something more concrete than the employer retirement funds and cash in a savings account. Some things more like CDs, and savings bonds, and property. An actual stock portfolio, at some point. You know, grown-up things. So again, what’s the point of tracking my net worth?
After all, it can be very subjective. You can choose to include or exclude any number of possessions or holdings that you deem worthy or not of being considered. I leave out my automobiles entirely because it’s a bit too complicated to include them. I don’t plan to sell my personal vehicle ever, and the family sedan, which is not my financial responsibility, is still being paid off. Still, if something happened to it, you betcha I’ll be the one who has to figure out a replacement. Same goes for personal loans. I only started including those because I’m getting forgetful, and didn’t want to lose track of them entirely. One of the reasons I’m leery of including any possessions is the idea that possessions only have value to me. If I lose or break something, I have to replace it at a cost to myself. It’s highly unlikely, in the general scheme of things, that my possessions will be worth anything to anyone else. Barring selling large ticket items, of course. But my point is, things are primarily a liability. More often, I’ll have to replace things, not make money from them.
So, why track a seemingly artificial net worth? In part, accountability. As long as I see steady progress, or lack thereof, in the form of numbers from one time period to the next, I have to stay on track. Some kind of track. And if I keep the variables constant, then the change in amounts is a valid indicator of circumstances. Just because I don’t include my possessions doesn’t mean my financial holdings aren’t real.
The other part, motivation. Seeing the numbers makes the whole game of finances, bargain shopping, and frugality more real. It’s not just theory, it’s life in action. If I were to be completely objective, I’d be proud of myself for going from working to pay off my family’s debt (credit cards, car payments, personal loans), to actually building a cash cushion, putting a decent amount away for later, and generally making some progress. It’s harder to see that, though, on those bleak days when all I can think of is the $18,000 I foolishly lent and lost, the entire salary of my 4 college years going towards bills bill and more bills, and most of my post-college salary going towards not me. I can only see the other side of the coin if I actually keep track of it.
It’s all too easy to forget that the grind can actually produce results, and to keep going because we’re going to make it. I look at the accomplishments of fellow bloggers, and I’m A-M-A-Z-E-D. And you know what? Seeing my numbers keeps me honest. I can finally be happy for what I’ve done here these past two years, too. Combine that with the realizations that it’s ok to be free, that it’s ok to live, and I’m going to say, not too shabby, really!
So, let’s keep on with the net worth! It doesn’t define me, and it may not truly define my “wealth” but it’s a good way to keep me truckin’ from milestone to milestone.
