July 25, 2006
I didn’t think much of it at the time, but when I returned a pair of jeans that were actually too small to Aeropostale, the tag had ripped off and I had to accept store credit instead of a credit on my card. I figured it didn’t much mattter, it was a small amount and I would find something practical like a bag or a wallet or sunglasses as a treat for myself later on. A couple months later I’m starting to realize that I never shopped their store because … well, they really don’t have anything I’m particularly interested in! So I have a gift card with $16.09. Oh well, I’ll try checking their website to see if there’s anything better there, but I definitely don’t want to have to pay for shipping which would probably mean I would pay more money to spend THIS money.
I don’t have many of those, just a coupla gals I used to work with who are in varying degrees of debt and basically need to learn and do as much financial waltzing as I feel I do. But I had a conversation with my close friend from college who has made the statement more than once that he’s not ready to marry his girlfriend until he’s in a more financially stable position. His plan and my plan (hear that? God’s laughing at us right now) are relatively similar: save enough in the emergency fund first and be in a stable sustainable job that doesn’t pay chips and dip like his current teaching position. Mine is a little more complicated with the parental thing (a negative) whilst his is more a positive parental thing: their college graduation gift is locating and paying for a move to new dwellings when they’re ready for it and purchasing the new abode’s furnishings and pretties.
So we recently talked numbers and I realized that our numbers are … vastly different. I mean, VASTLY. My numbers have certainly shifted a bit, but I’m still insisting on something like a 10k personal e-fund with a 5k personal uh-oh/oops fund. And another 5-10k e-fund for my parents, while building some Roth IRAs for both of us. Somewhere in there I’ll also be saving for a wedding and down payment for a house. Er, also maybe I’ll figure out what I want to go to grad school for too. That also costs money.
His is 5k. That’s it. Yes, of course he started laughing at me because … “you’re never getting married!”
*sigh* Yeah, ok, but it could happen!!
So what are your numbers? When will you feel ready to take that next step?
July 24, 2006
DL at My Money Path brought up the topic of long term care which has been on my mind … well, on the periphery anyway, and that reminds me that I should take a long look at the materials I have at home to see if this is something I need to consider setting up for my parents in the near future or if this can wait another year or two. I also wonder if the Cancer Expense Protection is just too paranoid, I just recall overhearing people at the orientation saying they’d used it and were very happy to have it offered again (or was that just a planted conversation to lure in the gullible??):
Long-Term Care Program
Benefits from this program help pay the cost of nursing home care, convalescent care, or home health care for patients requiring special care due to illness, injury, or the natural aging process. This includes expenses not normally covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and most other medical insurance policies. Costs for coverage are based on your age at the time you first enroll and do not increase as you grow older. Parents and grandparents of eligible employees and their spouses or domestic partners also may purchase this insurance.
For more information, contact your benefits office. Brochures and enrollment kits are available. You can enroll in this program at anytime with proof of insurability.
Cancer Expense Protection Insurance
This insurance provides direct cash payments to the insured who is diagnosed with cancer. It also pays for several types oexpenses associated with the treatment of cancer. These benefits are paid regardless of any other insurance you may have.
For more information, contact your benefits office. Brochures and enrollment kits are available. You can enroll in this program at anytime.
I received my first check from Pinecone not long after my first survey: $5! That was very quick, actually.
Another quick-click sort of thing I’ve been doing is just clicking on emails sent from MyPoints. At 5 points per email it does seem to take forever to earn enough points to redeem anything, especially since I’d resolved to earn point solely through the emails and not spending any of my own money to earn points by shopping through their website and merchants. We’ll see how easy it is to redeem for gift cards once I actually get enough points!
I work a TON and make about 30-50% over my normal salary in overtime, which sounds like a whole lotta luxury but in reality is not really much at all. The overtime has been a total lifesaver in allowing me to superfund my financial “holes” like my personal expenses, cover many family expenses, pay down parental debt ($XXXX! *sigh*) and still add the desired amount to the growing emergency fund. I do feel like I’m sitting on a prickly cushion because I know that I depend on a much bigger paycheck than would normally be warranted and if that OT ever went away I’d be in a pretty uncomfortable situation. However, the larger paychecks mean that I also have to be aware of my tax bill.
My primary fixes for this situation are to:
1) Fund a supplemental retirement account: 403(b). As I posted earlier, I increased the contribution rather drastically a few months ago because I realized that by the end of this calendar year I will still only have lowered my tax liability by a couple thousand dollars. Can I afford to increase the contribution? I’m not sure that I can. I know that each additional $100 I contribute pretax works out to something like $60-80 actual dollars out of my regular check and that might just not work for me right now.
2) Transportation Subsidy: I should have done this before/earlier, but I’m going to have the University take out $100 per month before taxes for my train ticket, with the remaining cost of the ticket post-tax. My office reimburses for the train tickets so the entire cost will still be nothing for me but reduce my tax liability $100/month. That’s good but since I waited so long it’ll only be effective for Aug or Sept-Dec of 2006.
The second solution is unique to my office because most other offices do not reimburse for transportation expenses – this office does that because it pays for parking for driving employees so the “equivalent” benefit for the non-drivers would be having their train ticket paid for. Our accountant doesn’t like it but I am NOT against this one bit.
I can’t think of any other solutions that won’t reduce my take-home pay right now – and I really can’t afford to reduce it anyway. How do other people reduce their tax liability – legally, of course?
July 21, 2006
Out for a few days indulging myself at Comic-Con!!!
Day One Total Costs:
45 – gas
15 – print – for me? for BoyDucky?
60 – Xmas gift for friend
17 – pizza for all (4)
———
137
Yikes! Ok, at least food and parking is going to be split 4 ways: I paid for dinner tonight and will pay my share of parking on Saturday. Each of the three siblings each take a day as well for each of the 4 days we go which makes ten dollar parking much more reasonable for all.
July 17, 2006
I’ve never been very good at the Zen mentality. In fact, I’m an obsessive obsessive. So when I’ve seemingly achieved balance or established a system, the very first thing I do is poke holes in the whole thing or find new problems to obsess over. At the very least, when I’m anticipating change, I dream up all sorts of disastrous scenarios. A sort of negativity-warding, you know, like reverse psychology on the universe at large, even though it just sounds like self induced migraines and ulcers. Naturally, when I last talked about my work situation (where’s my raise/promotion?!?), I had imagined all kinds of terrible possibilities that would unfold instead of the best-case scenario. (In case you’re wondering, I try not to have one in mind. Just a rough idea of what would be nice, hypothetically speaking.) Of all the problems I had dreamed up, I hadn’t expected THIS.
Sunday nights we receive an emailed version of our paystub that will be deposited the coming Wednesday. This generally reminds me that we’re getting paid this week and gets me all riled up about which bills should be scheduled and when. This is my need to obsess over minutiae; I can’t just let the Rube Goldbergian construct run itself.
I knew that there was some issue with the processing of timecards because the first two days of the pay period were the last two days of the fiscal year. Our payroll coordinator couldn’t explain what ramifications this would have but I didn’t think anything of it. Last night, I found that this Wednesday’s paycheck shall have in it, two sets of regular time and overtime, at two different rates!
Apart from adding up to an astronomically high number of hours in two weeks (209!), it shows that two days worth were paid at my normal rate and the others were haphazardly paid at [a paltry] 5% more (50 cents anyone?) And none of the hours quite fit the calculated totals I had online — 2.5 hours of overtime and 21.5 hours of regular time in two days? 46.5 hours of overtime? 118 hours of regular time? In eight days??
It just doesn’t really quite make sense. I’m definitely not going to just hold on to it and hope that they never come after me for it; I would not want to take that large a hit further down the road as it’s rather a substantial amount. But who would have thought that I’d get blindsided because of an increase?
By the way, speaking of being blindsided by an increase, if that IS my raise? 5%? They’d better be kidding. After 6 months of newbie service I got a 6% raise, after another 8-10 months of ridiculously dedicated work I’d better be getting a higher raise than that!