September 15, 2006
I have a windfall! It only took 3 phone calls and 20ish minutes following up over the last month, but I think Citibank finally came through with my $200 promotional bonus for opening a new checking account and linking my credit cards.
I found this little item this morning:
| FINANCIAL CENTER DEPOSIT/ PAYMENT |
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| AT FC# xxxxx & TELLER# xxx |
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$200
How very nice! That means I get to *artificially* bump up my savings deposit for this month from -60 [under target] to +140! I haven’t resolved my overly high savings goal problem yet because I’m still having to work all the overtime that gets me close to the goal I posted, but that’s an issue that’s in the back of my mind. (sidenote: This also means the goal meter finally moves!)
Eventually, sometime next year maybe, I’m going to have two, maybe three, people working with me who are meant to relieve some portion of the present workload and I’m going to try to work a slightly more reasonable schedule – somewhat less than the standard 60 hours/week would be nice. No, I’m not just being a spoiled brat here, I definitely believe in doing my time and earning my place but I’m just not sure that I can sustain this intense pace with no end in sight. If nothing else, it’s a matter of identifying and warding off incipient burnout.
Moral: Burnout is bad — you get cranky, and unemployed.
September 12, 2006
I was rereading Money Dummy’s I want to quit post.
Oh goodness, I remember reading this the first time around and feeling like “that’s me! But before the grad school thing. And minus the always being the best. I’ve always been hovering around the best people, trying to learn from them, and when I’m not around them, I sink to my usual level of dejected mediocrity.”
Yikes, and I thought I’d beaten that whole mentality. But I guess you can’t really do that, can you? You can’t really get away from your deepest fears of inadequacy.
Yes, I know, there will always be someone smarter, better, quicker, wittier and more eloquent. And I can’t always dismiss them as “Yeah, but they’re annoying.” [ah-HA! I AM still in sixth grade!]
But between training the new hire, knowing that she’s got the paper that I don’t, that I’m afraid to pursue, that I’m afraid to apply for, that I’m afraid to fail at, and not being anywhere near the secure position in life I thought I could create two years out of college, I’ve got my whole inadequacy brigade patrolling in full force.
What if? they say. What if they figure out, what if she figures out that you’re not nearly as smart, as vivacious, as interesting as you have to be to command her respect? What if she realizes that you’ve got nothing but sheer determination – which is running perilously short these days – and she leapfrogs right over your head to your next promotion? Or what if you can’t keep up with her?
Part of me says, well, then, she’s the better candidate.
But, but, no! I can’t just sit back and watch! No, obviously, I’m not sabotaging her learning or her training – that’s not ok. [I know that’s what fearful managers do, though, hurt their employees’s progress as self defense.] But that does mean that’s more pressure on me, by me, to get going, to forge ahead and not allow my personal fears dictate what I won’t do. The problem is, I still don’t know what I want to do.
I can’t be a genius when I grow up. So what can I be?
Yes, I can be remarkably insecure when stressed. But it doesn’t take being stressed for this Blogger to know herself. And I can’t help but think that one day my facade will be ripped off, my dignity left twisting in the wind. *shiver* Repeat to self: I’m not a fraud. I can do this. I’m not a fraud.
Daniel brings up a good question: Can Money Make the Stress Go Away?
And if so, how much would it take?
Of course we believe the money can make the “stress” go away, whatever it is in your life, to some degree. We wouldn’t be here bloggin’ away if we didn’t! The issue is substituting some key words to make it fit our philosophies: Can adequate [excessive] financial assets make financial freedom ours? Why, yes it can.
And? It can only do that if we choose to treat the assets in such a way that grows them, and if we choose to spend them in a way that doesn’t expend them faster than they can grow.
Let’s face it: none of us want to work a job we hate for 50 years, or TEN jobs we hate for 5 years, or any combination thereof. We want to do what we love and be compensated for it. And compensated well enough not to suffer in the doing of the thing we love. We also want to be able to live a little, or a lot, and make this life and work worth doing. And the way to do that is to secure financial freedom.
BUT
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financial assets do not a happy, stressfree life make. We do that. We do that by remembering that our assets are only as valuable as we make them, and that our net worth helps us landmark our journey to finding that freedom that allows us to work the job we want to work, to do the things we love, to take care of loved ones and to do it in relative comfort.
We can’t do that if our job pays us unroasted peanuts AND if we also don’t have any net worth worth speaking of. We have to preserve our financial capital to give ourselves freedom in life, not just to have a bunch of money to count [as it may look to those who think bloggers are just net-worth hounds].
I had a teacher once, in junior high, who taught computer classes. He was in his forties, balding, and one of the happiest men I knew, if he wasn’t yelling at you for your shoddy programming. He was there because he. Wanted. To. Be. He had already retired, in his 30’s, from the Pentagon as wealthy as he needed to be to work the rest of his life doing what he enjoyed doing.
I have NO idea what his net worth was.
No clue what his magic number what.
What I DO know is that he liked teaching junior high kids.
He liked teaching them how to program, even if they hadn’t a clue what and why they were doing what they were doing. And he could do it.
And that’s who I want to be when I grow up.
[No, not a man. Smartace.]
Aside from my personal thoughts on the hedonic cycle, MY question is: Can you make the money make your stress go away? [Because believe you me, if I COULD choose to be as wealthy as Scrooge McDuck, I’m not sure that I CARE about the wealth-related stresses. At least, I am pretty sure I could deal! 😉]
September 11, 2006
Seeing the electric bill drop from the $2**! to $145 was almost anticlimactic. I don’t know why, a hundred dollars is definitely significant, but it’s still over the $100 budgeted so I suppose it’s not as exciting as it should be.
The rather mindboggling co-occupant of the bill’s envelope was this little tiny fine print dealie:
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT PROPOSED CHANGES IN ELECTRIC RATES
[Now, you KNOW my heart dropped into my left pinky toe, not again!! NOW what’s the excuse?!?]
But ……
what’s this?
SCE is seeking a decrease [my bold, not theirs] in rates of $314.7 million, OR 2.7%.
Now, I don’t know what-all the 314.something something something is right now, but I do believe that my eyes read a word they don’t usually see: DECREASE!
Then I think, hm, I bet they’re talking about a decrease in their costs, somehow and are creating yet another fee to be passed on to the consumer. But no, apparently:
SCE is requesting this decrease because:
1. They have made so much money this summer alone, they actually don’t even have anywhere to put anymore money they’d gouge from you anyway,
ok ok ok, fine fine, that’s just me …..
1. Really now. gas prices and the related cost to purchase power for customers are forecast to be lower in 2007 than the costs that are currently included in customers’ rates; [now I’m a little proud of them for accurate use of the apostrophe]
2. higher sales growth is forecast to result in higher revenues in 2007; and
3. SCE proposes to refund over collections recorded in its ERRA balancing account.
The requested 2007 ERRA revenue requirement results in a revenue decrease of $314.7 million, or 2.7%, when compared to total system revenues at present rates (as of August 2006). The following table shows an estimate of proposed revenues and rate changes by customer group.
—- Table I’m not going to transcribe because you’re not going to want to read it anyway —-
If SCE’s proposed ERRA rate change is approved as requested, an average residential customer using 675 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month in the summer would see a decrease of $2.71 per month from $115.73 to $113.02.
Boy, and I thought a decrease of $100 was nothing to get excited about? Phew! Well, my first thoughts are #1: they’re admitting that their costs are going down?? Or that they THINK they’re going down?
#2: and they figure that they’re going to make more sales anyway,
#3: AND they’re going to refund money to people??
Unless this is some hidden code for *everything’s about to ka-blooey and we just don’t want you to think WE’re the bad guys* I think something’s gone terribly terribly right here, and I’m not sure who or what or how. But I’d love to find out so that I can shake that person’s (or people’s) hands and say keep on goin’! You go ahead, keep on goin’ now!! We LIKE this kind of notice!
That song still makes me cry, even if I’m not really listening to the lyrics.
It’s finally struck me that today was the day, years and years, ages ago that an occurrence of tremendous, frightening proportions unfolded before our eyes and iconic images were forever burned into our memories.
I was still in college. In fact, I was sleeping late, enjoying one of my last days of just working before I was to dance that waltz of school-work-work-work-school-work-work-work, when my best friend rang frantically, manically almost. I managed to get the TV on and sat there, crying disbelievingly, as I tried to process the madness projected over and over and over.
I think it took me all day, as long as it did today, to begin to process the horrific ripples this would send across the international community and that was almost paralyzing.
It took me a day to realize that we still have heroes, we still have cynics. Our world had been turned upside down and shaken, and yet, what we were going through, or had to go through, was not too different from the kind of fear many other cultures have had to live through for many years. My heart goes out to all the parents, children, relatives, friends, and acquaintances who have lived in a climate of fear.
September 9, 2006
The ‘ritis is flaring and I’ve got work out the yin-yang, wherever that is.
I’m taking a day off from computering ’cause the pain is shooting from the fingers all the way up to the shoulders unpredictably and none of the pain meds are working now. S’me, some OJ, and some work to do …
Have a good weekend everyone!
September 8, 2006
Firstly, someone I respect and admire very much said some of my blogging was amusing.
Secondly, a round *smack* upside the head for me. This person is someone I would consider
an esteemed mentor, but I was so comfortable in the friendship that had developed that I’d merged the feeling of “what a valuable resource, font of information this person is” into the general respect and admiration of a good good friend.