September 12, 2013
Taking a deep breath here: I’m actually making progress with the wedding planning!
This is NOT a thing I expected to be excited about, but since we committed verbally to a date, the weight of planning has felt like an opppressive weight around my neck, haranguing me to get things done. So, to work I go!
The problem with the oft-proffered PF blogger advice on cutting costs for weddings “do it in the backyard!”? We need to HAVE a yard!
So we don’t have one and while I think my aunt is funny-haha for suggesting it, I’m not trying to buy a house in SoCal so that we have a shiny new place in which to be wed. Ahem, “wed”. Knowing that while we wanted something as casual as that, we would have to pay for an actual place, we made some high-level decisions early on in this round of wedding planning.
In the spirit of priorities and keeping a reasonable budget: No save the dates, no favors, no fancy decor, no fancy invitations that’ll just get tossed out, no DJ, no big ceremony requiring an officiant, no 16 hour stress-filled day. Yes to good food, drinks, fun stuff, DIY invitations, dogs, and relaxing.
Only one of them was reversed, through very little fault of our own: it turns out that our final pick venues require the use of a professional DJ which I think sucks. I don’t want some stranger directing the activities, nor do I want “wedding activities” where I have to be the center of attention any more than absolutely necessary. But that’s my inherent distrust of strangers speaking.
We’ve been reassured that the DJ will do as we direct and I’m going to play whack a mole if he doesn’t.
So, things are getting done!
Venue, check.
Our first “final” choice that we actually visited and liked turned out to be at least $7k more than we wanted, before we hired a photographer and DJ. They didn’t tell us that an actual DJ was required until we were at the commitment stage … at which point I started backing away slowly and researching alternates. Hidden fees/poor communication? Not a vendor I want to give my money too. Good thing I did – both our brains did micro explosions when we saw the ridiculous total. Nope. Nope, that’s not happening.
I had to have logged more than 30 hours researching and comparing possible venues and their associated costs and discussing them with PiC.
Guest List, check.
(Sort of.) We came up with our own lists, divided into categories: his friends, her friends, his family, her family, mutual people.
Then I had to consult with my dad about the family guest list because I’m terrible with names and I don’t keep in touch with the elders and cousins that I grew up with and there are COMPLICATIONS shall we say.
Several hours of arguments and post-call fuming eventually culminated in his caving and agreeing to invite SOME family. *eyeroll* For the record: if you concede that we can’t possibly invite 400 people on just our side of the family, I think you have to concede that some smaller headcount of that 400 is a more reasonable way to approach the problem, not: don’t invite any of them.
Invitations, che….
PiC and I bought cardstock and envelopes on clearance, thinking we were so clever to save money that way, and it turns out that was the opposite of clever. I couldn’t print them using our home printer so now I have to go to Staples or Kinko’s, neither of whom are able to print on cardstock that’s not at least 8.5 by 11. What.
I’ve designed the invitations about 20 times. And for something that I feel like shouldn’t take more than an hour because it’s not a high priority: so many hours have been spent on this!! It’s because I’m using free photo editing software (picmonkey) which, I’m sure, is REALLY not meant for this, but it’s what I know and I just wanted to get it DONE. And now it basically is, I just have to commit to printing them.
Centerpieces, halfway there
I found really affordable vases ($1/each) that were moderately sized and will decide later whether to fill them with: candy, flowers, potted plants. Whatever works when we’re closer to the time. (Clearance Halloween candy, anyone? Is that wrong?)
Still to do
Top up the wedding site with information.
Actually print the invitations, labels, mail them.
Clothes for PiC and my dad.
Hire a photographer.
Finalize the food selections.
Make a bow tie for Doggle.
Make some arrangements for my head (hair, face).
Crafting day to create some quick and easy decor for the place.
Buy the contents for the centerpieces.
It’s very possible that I’m forgetting something but I’m operating on the assumption that if it hasn’t occurred to me now, it wasn’t that important. Let’s hope I’m right.
September 4, 2013
Well well, look at it being September already!
SingleMa had a great topic and discussion thread so I’m borrowing it for both my answers and to ask you what you thought:
1. What’s the most money you’ve ever loaned someone?
B. Did you get it back?
C. How did it turn out?
2. What’s the most money you’ve ever borrowed from someone?
B. Did you pay it back?
C. How did it turn out?
3. Based on the above experiences, what is your current philosophy on personal loans (giving or receiving)?
My Answers
1. [Stupid Alert] As an indirect loan, I’ve purchased a new vehicle for my family and my sibling was supposed to pay me back in the monthly payments. That turned out terribly and cost about $20,000. He probably managed to pay back as much as $7000? I had the paperwork for a long time but decided to get rid of it after it had long been clear I wasn’t going to get another penny out of him.
2. About $50, at most, when I didn’t have cash on hand and paid it back within days. With a couple friends, we’ll foot the bill for each other for one thing or another knowing they’ll either pay you back or get the bill for us the next time. This mostly applies to meals, though occasionally, to things like ordering from a store together to save on shipping.
3. Mostly based on getting burned time and again by my family and their bad (though mostly well intentioned) decisions, I won’t lend to anyone ever again. I’ve been asked to, and demurred, and asked to consider financial commitments that hadn’t previously been part of my plans but so far I’ve steered clear.
An additional question: Do you think your philosophy is subject to change? What would that depend on?
August 31, 2013
I did say that we’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately, didn’t I? A big part of that has been food, food and food. YUM.
On review, it does seem like the options weren’t always super healthy… Whoops.
Upper left corner On a day when the pain was overwhelming and sleep was elusive, food was so unappealing that nothing on the menu looked good. PiC ordered a funny-sounding dish and it turned out to be perfect: a hearty vegetable soup, sliced bread, generous chunks of cheese, a handful of blueberries and a wafer thin slices of peach. I’m not normally vegetarianly inclined but I didn’t miss the meat in this at all. Never knew how delicious such a simple combination could be. Also never I liked Brie.
Marché Provisions: Eugene, OR
Upper right corner This waffle has basically ruined waffles for me, forever. A sweetly crispy, bacon and syrup infused waffle, topped with perfect bacon pieces – not bits, not slices – and topped with a runny egg. Hea-ven on a PLATE. Pretty reasonable at around $8-10 per waffle that’s basically a meal.
Off the Waffle: Eugene, OR
Lower left corner Wandering the city, headed for Laughing Planet Cafe, we got distracted by a furniture clearance shop and then too starved to go any further, ran across the street to Oven & Shaker for their happy hour instead. The prices weren’t nearly as good as we had expected for a happy hour but the Wild Fennel Sausage pizza with tomato, smoked mozzarella and potatoes was perfect for two.
Oven and Shaker: Portland, OR
Lower right corner For all my love of cheese, I hadn’t tried any of the grilled cheese trucks or shops hereabouts, until now. The Mousetrap sandwich (Tillamook sharp cheddar, creamy havarti, Monterey jack, on artisan sourdough) and added grilled onions and tomatoes. With an ice cold drink, what more could you ask for? Fresh strawberries on the side of course. Summer at its best.
The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen: San Francisco, CA
We had a few other amazing meals, both homecooked and out and about, but I’ll spare you the extra drool 🙂
August 27, 2013
In our almost-whirlwind search for a reception venue, we found that doing this thing in Southern California, and from afar, most definitely has its costs.
The Bay Area is suffocatingly expensive in some respects but one of the family truisms is that it’s twice as expensive and half as good as Southern California as far as Asian cuisine goes. For the most part, I have found that that is true.
We pieced together the costs of doing a separate ceremony and reception, having realized that we do need to do a small/quick ceremony lest we utterly confuse the close (but not close enough) relatives who don’t know about the courthouse deal, and found that renting any kind of venue for about 200 guests in the general area that we’re considering is a pricey matter.
We were finding that before food, venues wanted thousands of dollars just to reserve the damn place. Then we’d have to pay for food, and drinks, and whatever foo-for-rah we decided that we wanted. I never thought of ourselves as having champagne taste on a beer budget, I figured that we really had tap water and pretzels taste on an equivalent budget, especially considering the cost of Fancy Craft Beer.
That didn’t really help us much. 🙂
So far, we’ve been getting prices between $75-120 per guest and that’s a bit appalling considering the alternative. (The culturally traditional alternative would cost more along the lines of $40/guest. And mercenary as this is going to sound, I’m not going to be inviting many of the relatives who are obligated to give a fair amount of money to “repay” the gifts my parents gave, so we’re going to take a loss on the wedding. That’s just how the cultural version works, the couple is not expected to have to go into their marriage in debt from the wedding because the community gifts them with a solid start.)
Given my usual frugal (ahem even cheapskatey) ways, I would have preferred to paying that much lower cost but I think we’re going with a higher price tag for a greater degree of convenience: an “almost all-inclusive” that rolls in all the costs of your decor (which I don’t care much about), food, alcohol, a coffee station, cake, venue, set up and teardown, parking and transportation for the guests, and a ceremony place. It doesn’t include music or photography but those weren’t huge priority items in our minds.
I did cost out a few restaurants where we could do the ceremony and reception together, and the total cost after food, drink, venue, sales tax and service fees? Was about a $1000-2000 difference. And we’d have had to do between a little to a lot more legwork. At this point (and I can’t believe I’m saying this when I go back for refunds on an incorrect receipt for as little as $1) that’s just not worth the work and coordination efforts.
As an example, I checked for other possible venues just now, and Middle Ranch seemed appealing. For 200 guests, we’d be paying: $5000 venue fee, $11000 for food and moderate alcohol, and tack on sales tax and service fees for a total of: $20,800. Still to be added: whatever cake, decor if any, photographer, DJ if they require one rather than letting you set up an iPod. Cons: this is a long drive away from most people we know so it’s not convenient.
Every time I revisit the cost, I wonder if I’m making the right choice, but I suppose it’s not a lie to say that I’d rather pinch those pennies where I like doing so, building up that cash reserve against these times that we need to spend it on convenience. That still feels specious and at least a little bit like a waste of money.
At this point, I’m still looking at back-up options because our first choice vendor/venue’s hasn’t responded in a few days and I get fidgety. We’ll see if I come up with something better!
___
State of mind: Mostly calm, mildly anxious, wanting to get it over with, but wanting to have a party that’s fun if we’re going to do this because I did kind of hate our first wedding. Because I didn’t get to feel anything but fear and anxiety over my mom, and then guilt because she wanted to come to lunch but I couldn’t let her. It would have pushed my dad over the edge with taking care of her, and I couldn’t risk their safety and health. Because there were half a dozen weird things that were just Not Nice. Because it was followed up by Mom’s death and a horrible year. I have no good feelings about the wedding even though there were really nice spots in it like my best friend flying to be there at the last minute, another really close friend making a Literal Drop Everything Dash to make it. This is my do-over.
___
It’d be nice to have an outdoorsy thing that is bright and cheerful and fun like this, but with more of my idea of fun.
August 26, 2013
A friend’s spouse and I bonded over a plate of overcooked eggs.
“I was really looking forward to my runny egg!”
“I was too!”
“Let’s go get runny eggs.”
And like new playground besties, we ambled off to register our complaint with the server, leaving our spouses to look at us fondly and remark: It’s nice that they have someone to do that with. I would just gripe about it endlessly and do nothing about it.
We all laughed about how much Z and I are alike in refusing to take guff from anyone or be cheated of what we paid for, whereas friend Y and PiC are alike in preferring to let things go, even if they were unhappy.
Since we had, just the day before, gone back to a store for a $4 refund on a candy bar that should have been discounted, I think Y knew I was that type already but it was nice to discover my fellow introvert was also a fellow finance manager.
This led me to wonder, knowing that there are certainly extroverts among us, whether there’s any kind of predisposition for introverts or extroverts to enjoy managing their money more.
*Without assuming that introverts and extroverts are incapable of acting differently from the standard definition of their “type”.
**Borrowing from Wikipedia, working from these definitions and not the assumption that the extraverts are socially competent while the introverts are socially incompetent:
An extroverted person is likely to enjoy time spent with people and find less reward in time spent alone. They tend to be energized when around other people, and they are more prone to boredom when they are by themselves.
Introverts are easily overwhelmed by too much stimulation from social gatherings and engagement, introversion having even been defined by some in terms of a preference for a quiet, more minimally stimulating environment.
August 23, 2013
I have survived!
We have had weeks, literally consecutive weeks, of travel and visiting friends lined up for this summer and we’re finally home with no plans for a good while ahead of us. As an introvert, I’m not 100% sure that it didn’t break something in my brain. But we have returned, and I am alive. And not gibbering. This is good.
Rituals, settling in and shaking down
There have been dozens of trips where I’ve felt completely unready to take the final step out the door and lock it behind me. Either it was unfinished work holding me back mentally or the certainty that I’ve forgotten something. (It’s usually a hairbrush or pants. Or shirts. Sometimes I really shouldn’t leave the house.)
These last few trips have been harder because I’m working my way through juuuust keeping it together, there’s all kinds of family stuff I’m feeling like I’m being dipped upside down in, and we’ve been on the go constantly. The motivation to keep going, it was missing.
As it turns out, the best Getting Ready to Leave routine, aside from actually packing with a whole brain instead of half and getting a sensible majority of work wrapped up, is doing all the laundry and cleaning the house. Coming home to a clean and nearly fresh smelling house is balm for the soul, no matter why the travel and how it went. Even better when the trip was awful and I just want to disappear into Home for about a month.
This does mean that whenever I get home toting bags and bags and bags, I go into a flurry of unpacking, putting-away, and starting the laundry because I came home to a nice clean house, I can’t sully that!
Coming back this time was no different. I wanted to do ALL THE THINGS upon return. All in one night.
Open the mail, pay the bills, sort out a To-Do list for the weekend, finish all my work that I’d fallen behind on, write up some blog posts with recent thoughts, edit photos, finish designing simple wedding things, read one of the new books I bought from the Amazing Bookstore, watch all the Castle episodes that might be new (none, as it turns out).
Apparently I can’t do anything in moderation, not even recovery! I honestly don’t know how @mochimac and @eemusings hold up after months of travel. My travel meter seems to run out after about 2.5 weeks away from home.
September 24, 2012
still in recovery mode, so some links!
Scalzi dissects the less than scintillating 47% statement from a fundraiser.
I don’t usually get into politics here because it’s polarizing and I don’t appreciate the lack of civil discourse around the very real issues our country needs to resolve. Yeah, I’m not naive, that’s always how it’s been to some degree. But it infuriates me that we generally seem so incapable of getting past our posturing, politicking, and mudslinging to get at the core of the problems to try to solve them that I look around and this is the state of the union. Bit frustrating. And I could try to do more, but what, in such a broken system? And yet, choose what else? Certainly not not-democracy. /sigh
In any case, I do appreciate the puncturing of any statements that I find insultingly obtuse by any individual, on any side, of any party, regardless of any belief. I’m equal opportunity for improvement, honesty and transparency. Especially when it makes me laugh.
I could swear another blogger recently covered paid maternity in a post that I would have liked to link to but I’m having fatigue brain and simply can’t pull anything out of my mental files. But I did have this Think Progress graphic link saved to share.
Single Ma’s Wealthy Wednesday: Wealth Nurturing Mode with her thoughts in response to my Shifts in money attitudes and life priorities post.
And she shared a To the Point FB message on achieving goals.
Also via Single Ma, Meg’s post on Giving solicited financial advice that is ignored. Personally I love helping people but that is still work. Why on earth would one continue, even with a nearly-pathological love for helping people (me editorializing now, not speaking for or judging Meg) to offer time and energy when you know you’re being ignored?
I now have a cut off: If you repeatedly ignore me, after asking for my help but then return to the well for the same thing because you create the same messes, I will not help anymore. That’s too much of the same crap I already went through with my family and my feelings don’t need to get involved anymore, that’s just common sense! Why repeat myself if you don’t actually want to hear what I have to say if I know it’ll fix the problem while you only want to hear that you can have your cake and eat it too?
It’s not like I’m being paid to be ignored so I couldn’t make any reasonable argument for being involved at that point. (Actually, I don’t know that I’d take that person on as a client either.) Call me crazy, I guess.
Donna really is moving to Alaska. I know it’s ridiculous, we’re online and “location-independent” in our sphere and yet there’s still this sense of, oh but, I might have met up with you, maybe! Best of luck in getting everything wrapped up, Donna, and maybe we still will run into each other one of these days!
The Oatmeal’s My Dog: The Paradox.
