August 1, 2006
In a very weird way, I like being on a budget because I like to know exactly where every single penny goes. However, my attempt to simplify financial matters so that I can branch out into doing other sorts of research instead of just staring at my online banking pages has spawned an entirely new system that I’ve talked about before. Chunks of my paychecks are allotted to different accounts and theoretically that was to cut down on the detail work. I’m still getting used to it, but since I’m not really at a point where I want to track my net worth, I’m going to try a different kind of tracking, just a very simple overview of what I’m actually saving and spending each month, per check. It’ll look something like this:
Savings (per check)
Budgeted: 200, pre-tax 403 (b)
Actual 1: 200, pre-tax 403 (b)
Actual 2: 200, pre-tax 403 (b)
Budgeted: 540, post-tax E-fund
Actual 1: 365
Actual 2:
Spending (per check)
Budgeted: 75, car insurance
Actual 1: 75
Actual 2:
Budgeted: 360, everything/personal,etc.
Actual 1: 360
Actual 2:
Budgeted: 100, household bill
Actual 1: 0 🙁
Actual 2:
I’m trying to reconcile the fact that my budget actually requires me to make a lot more than I make without overtime. Another factor in the reduced cash flow is my huge increase in 403 (b) contributions but I’ve decided that it’s a necessary evil because I have to reduce my taxable liability somehow and besides that I’ve got a lot of catching up to do! So, weird though it is for a hard-core saver to say: when I come up “short” each month, it’ll be the savings post-tax category that gets shorted because that figure is a high ideal number. I would reduce it to a more reasonable number but … well … I just don’t want to. Ok, I don’t want to because I know I usually work a good chunk of overtime, so there’s no reason not to maintain a high expectation – except for those times I just can’t do the OT. Maybe I’ll have to settle for a range: 450-540.
or I must be highly emotional right now.
Just called BroDucky and explained that because of the recent renewal of the auto insurance and the phone bill fluctuating, and his ticket -still unidentified, but I know that it’ll be a hit on the bill- I wanted him to think about if he might be able to contribute a little more each month and to get back to me.
He gives me 200 per month to hold onto for his portion of the auto insurance (we all take turns every two months). It’s just that the timing on that has not smoothed out enough so that I have the correct amount at the time the bills are due so it’s kind of an overage/underage issue.
Theoretically that would be 1200 every six months, enough for a third of the insurance bill with some extra for his portion of the cell phone bill (approx 30/month, if he doesn’t go over). When I add that up: ~ 900-1000 for the insurance (I’m overestimating but I’m not sure how much the ticket and reducing the deductible will cost us. Unfortunately the car loan that PadresDuckies have requires that the deductible be no more than 500 – yet another reason not to like that loan – and I didn’t know that.) Anyway, approx 1000 for the car insurance and 30 x 6 months = 180. If he goes over, he pays the extra, but generally he’s in the realm of 30ish/month.
I made sure to speak entirely in Vietnamese so that my coworkers couldn’t understand what I was saying but also because there are phrasings that sound “softer” or more polite in Vietnamese than English. Plus it forces me to stay calmer because I do get riled pretty easily when it comes to BroDucky and money.
He was very nice and amenable to the request – he thanked me for calling early enough in the month that he could try to figure out how to accommodate and said that he’d see what he could do.
I found myself almost crying when I hung up. Is it because it’s just difficult to talk money with my possibly-reforming brother? Is it misplaced guilt for asking more of him when I think that if he could give more, he would/should/could offer it? [Which is stupid because he hasn’t had a good few months at work and if he has extra he’s a spender, obviously.] Is it because I almost can’t believe we had a short, almost-adult conversation stating a need and a solution? Is it just actual relief/hope that maybe he’s starting to get his act together and understands that he has to be responsible for his actions? *sigh* Whatever the reason, I feel weird about being upset – in the sense that I’m not perfectly calm – after a conversation that could have gone a lot worse.
July 31, 2006
Kiplinger’s Ordinary Investors, Extraordinary Results article from their August issue has some interesting profiles of investors who have, thus far, had some very impressive results. I have to admit, I haven’t got a quarter of the knowledge or experience these folks have garnered – and it’s a little intimidating. My reaction is mixed: seeing others accomplish tends to inspire and motivate me. Seeing them accomplish so much so that I can’t fathom where to begin is just plain disheartening.
I stick to it for a couple of reasons. One, I know that even though I don’t know a tenth of what “real” investors know, I can make small changes and slowly push my comfort level and knowledge. Two, there’s , rightly or wrongly, a stereotype that women are A, not investors and B, when they are investors, they’re timid, prone to paralysis, investors. I don’t care for that image one bit and you know what? Maybe I’m not in the majors, nor the minors. Maybe I’ll never be. But, at least I’m in the game — and that’s what counts.
I’m sure that we all agree that financial security is freedom – but what does that, specifically, really mean for you? After this exhausting weekend, I have a clearer idea of what that might be for me.
I’d like to have the freedom not to have to work overtime over the weekend (ok, this was a work-related spate of work this time).
I’d like to be able to go home on time to do whatever it is people do when they come home at a reasonable hour instead of two hours late everyday and still not worry that I won’t have extra funds this next paycheck.
I’d like to be able to travel at will on the weekends to see BF without being on a financial schedule.
I’d like to be able to get a manicure and pedicure after repeated ice baths retrieving bottled water from tubs of ice and running around in sandals on hot pavement, sand and rocks without thinking, hm, this means no eating out at all this month.
I’d like to be able to decide to go out and get my Master’s degree when I know what I want it for and not worry about how it’s going to be paid for and how I’m going to survive another grueling spate of school/work fulltime.
I’d like to not to have to work so hard all the time.
I’d like to be able to have my wedding now and not five years from now.
I’d like to be able to take advantage of any downturn in the real estate market to purchase a nice nest to make a home in without overreaching my budget.
I know that I’m already blessed: I have a positive balance emergency fund, no personal debt just my family’s, the discipline to continue both, a job that pays a relatively decent wage. But, the decisions to come (more school, marriage, home) will have enormous influence over those current conditions. And I can only hope, plan and save to make myself free to make the choices that are best for the long-term, and not make reactionary, coping, tide-me-over-til-next-emergency decisions.
In the meantime, I wonder, what sorts of freedoms are you all searching for?
edit: I can’t believe I skipped this part of my wishlist:
I’d like to be able to actually indulge in my comic books (TPBs and otherwise) that I’ve been trying to follow, instead of just drooling over them from afar. I don’t mean buying in rock star style, just buying a few every couple months or so. I must still be in comic-ly fulfilled fugue after Comic Con.
July 26, 2006
You know what’s really great about online banking? It completely eliminates the need for overwithdrawing money from one bank account to deposit into another one! So when I want to deposit exactly $155.70 from my regular checking account to another institution’s savings account I don’t waste a check, I don’t pull out $160, spend $14 of it just because I happen to have cash in my wallet and I don’t lose track of how much one account owes another.
This is especially useful when I’m tracking payments from Sibling for the auto loan, from my little savings scheme and from my random pin monies. Neurotically, I want to see little exact-change shaped footprints from one account to another so I know that my pin money is going to the pins and needles account, that I’m actually saving the savings money and that I’m not shaving little dollars off the sides of Sibling’s car payment. (Yes, I’ve been tempted to. No, I haven’t done it. Yet.)
Oh and I love having multiple accounts.
Apparently I just don’t read before I write, but I discovered that FR over at Fiscal Responsibility expressed exactly what I want to say when people ask, you have to establish yourself first, why are you focusing on their retirement first?
“Because… they have given up everything so that I could have everything.”
Exactly. My parents left everything they knew behind to give me everything I have today. Yes, I worked my way through college and supported the fam for a short time, but that’s exactly it: I got to go to college. In America. Now we can all talk about the shortcomings of America but you know what? In many parts of my country you either scrambled and starved slowly, or you didn’t and you starved faster. So why would I expect to give them a house, a retirement? Because they have earned it a thousand times over.
My new visitor, Moom, suggested that it would be helpful to get more background on My Parents so my response is continued here … (I know, I initially said it was a short story. I’m long-winded, sorry!)
Now since BF and I are from two very different financial backgrounds, what my parents might require is likely to be much more or different than what his financially stable parents would. Again, my parents don’t have expectations but if I truly felt that I could just move on with my life without making sure they were ok, I guess I’d be doing a lot of other things wrong too.
So, no essentially, they don’t have to own a house or retire but my feeling is that if I can set things up in a way that they can, modestly, later in life, then they certainly would not require help to meet basic needs.
Admittedly my pride plays a huge role in this. I love and respect my parents and want them to be respected by his parents too. Certainly they made financial mistakes but none of those mistakes were for their personal gain. They didn’t run up credit card debt because they were buying crap for themselves, they didn’t take loans so they could go on vacations they couldn’t afford. They spent the last 20 years working 15 hour days, 365 days a year running a small business and didn’t ever take a day off, all to provide for us. I’m not exaggerating, we stopped celebrating Christmas about 15 years ago because that was one of the busiest days of the year. They tried their best to provide the best they could, put my brother through private high school because they wanted to make sure he didn’t go the way of many first generation kids and the fact that that decision didn’t work out the way they hoped isn’t their fault. Maybe they could have made better choices or said forget this, we want a better work-life balance, but they wanted to do everything they could for us first.
Yes the suggestion has been made that perhaps I’m enabling them or that I’m allowing myself to be taken advantage of and I can see that there is some merit to that thought. In response I have adjusted my thinking and planning for more long term planning. With Sibling out of the house, they have also been more receptive to the idea that they were enabling him and it’s more than about time for him to grow up and get along on his own. Also, I’ve taken a step back in trying to run their daily financial show (because my instinct is to pay off everything immediately) and simply contributing my fair share. They also do everything else around the house, all the cooking, cleaning, auto maintenance and home maintenance that I can but don’t want to do with arthritis, fibromyalgia and long work hours. I consider it a relatively fair, though odd, tradeoff in money and labor. Also Mom gets depressed when it’s just her and Dad at home for too long, so what does it hurt? I’d need to visit anyway and I still go off and do my own thing on the weekends.
Anyway, going back to the pre-marriage deadline I’d set: I don’t want BF’s parents to resent my parents or look down on them for taking resources from their son (post-marriage). I’m not saying that they will, but I feel that it’s a situation ripe for resentment. So, since I don’t know how they will respond to my parents or their situation two or more years from now, I’d rather plan for the worst and hope for the best.