About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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October 6, 2014
This month was mostly uneventful.
The rent came in late, which racked up a minimal late fee. Since I rely on the rent to cover the mortgage, I wondered if it’d be worth bumping up the late fee a bit to motivate the renters to pay on time more often. Perhaps on the next lease. Nothing punitive but something more annoying than the equivalent of a monetary flea bite.
They also managed to run afoul of the HOA so that was a fun bit of paperwork to get in the mail. It seemed to be a minor thing so as long as they toe the line, we should be fine there. This reminded me, of course, why I prefer to have the management company deal with the day to day: I just had to send off an email and ask for them to deal with it.
***
Just for kicks, I ran a projection of income and expenses for the rest of the year; I was curious to see what result we could expect after a partial year of rent with regard to cash flow.
Barring any interruptions of rent payment, assuming we retain the same renter this year, and any repair costs that might come up (most will be covered by the supplementary insurance): ~$300
Note: This excluded the actual cost of the purchase (the down payment, the fees and the closing costs) since I assume, for the moment, that will be recouped if and when I sell. Otherwise it’ll likely take about thirty years to break even by rent alone.
Whoever said this rental property thing was a sure moneymaker can bite me. 😉 But I wasn’t looking to get rich overnight – if there was a great way to do that I think we’d all be there – so patience is the name of this game.
September 29, 2014
Mint.com: A review
For most of the early money blogging years, right around the time I started using credit cards in earnest for the rewards, Yodlee was my account aggregator of choice.
It was unsophisticated but did the job: kept me apprised of all my banking and credit card transactions in addition to the manual tracking I’d do and keep me honest and firmly atop bill paying. When it started running into all kinds of updating problems because of added security at the banking end, I had to give it up.
There were a few attempts to get into other software since but they were halfhearted at best, and I retreated into the relatively safe haven of spreadsheets. It just doesn’t work for us together, though, we maintain our own legacy spreadsheets and they don’t merge well, they don’t let us do aggregated reporting well, and it’s hugely time consuming. We won’t have the luxury of spending three hours at a time recording transactions soon.. heck, we don’t really have that time now!
Once, long ago, I’d started working with Mint in its early days but since Yodlee was still working for me, I quit. Now it’s time to venture back and see how it might work for us.
Our requirements: It has to be both dead simple and require very little time or brain power to set up and maintain. As much as I love spending time with my money, this has to be the low-maintenance solution.
We both need easy access to it.
It should automatically pull transactions for us.
We should be able to add manual (cash) transactions.
We need to be able to reconcile and categorize spending.
Early observations: the interface
We get weekly updates that might tell us we’re overspending in a particular category, versus how much we normally spend, or that we have upcoming bills.
Good: This is a great way to keep us both on the same page.
Bad: I wish that they’d send up both all the notes. Because we don’t have joint everything accounts, I’d have to sign in to see what’s been charged on his card, whilst he would get the email notifications, and vice versa. We recently had an incident where a merchant charged a purchase as a cash advance and were dinged with a $10 fee. Only he got the notification for that.
We can access the interface as long as we have an internet connection; we don’t have to share files manually.
Good: Being in one system is great, and so is not having manually shift files and cells and whatever else about.
Bad: If you don’t have internet, you’re out of luck.
Early observations: hiccups
I’ve had the worst trouble signing in, sometimes, it wouldn’t even let me past the log on page for a few days, once and their Help folks took about seven emails to understand that. They still didn’t fix anything, it just actually started working again. I do NOT like that.
Accounts are constantly requiring my attention – there’s always one or more banks that require me to re-enter the password or what have you, even though nothing has changed in the last five days. Occasionally, it’s for a legitimate reason like it’d like to confirm that I want to close an account.
I know some of you are Mint.com users: any tips or suggestions for making the most of it?
September 22, 2014
Change from August: 2% increase
Change from January: 272% increase
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
***
Bill creep: Our cell phone discount was eliminated, so that went up $10/month. Our internet promotion (though I was lied to by the CSR who told me it was a bundle price, NOT a promotion) expired so that bill jumped 20%. The sewer/water bill went up another $8 bimonthly.
I’ve made calls to bring down the cost of what I could but in the end, the total is still up from three months ago which is frustrating.
***
Mortgage thoughts: Congratulations to SP on the purchase of their new house!
This made me curious. We’ve been working away at the mortgage, which we couldn’t refinance for reasons that still irritate me, and putting a lump sum toward principal each year. It’s made a difference! In spite of the high interest rate, compared to what we could have gotten in a refi, we’re down to 80% of the original mortgage or 60% of the total cost left.
That’s not huge but it is a significant amount and gives me hope that if we batter away at this a bit more, we’ll free up cash flow sooner than I had hoped. The mortgage payoff calculator suggests that if we paid an additional $500/month, we’d pay this sucker off in 15 years from now, shaving off nearly a third of the full term. Since we do a lump sum towards principal once a year, I wonder how much of a difference that makes.
Anyway, this is mostly idle curiosity since my brain immediately demands to know what I want to do with this place: make it a rental? Stick it out? Sell it? And I don’t have those answers.
***
Mortgage, continued: We had a payment snafu where the mortgage payment didn’t process. PiC was positive he’d paid it and he’s never been late or missed one, but the bank’s immediate reaction was to ding us with a $100 fee and tell us about mortgage modification. He had to call and chat with them, and the fee was removed, but that was PITA.
I’ve since set up an automated payment for that to come out of our joint checking account which tells us when they’re going to send and when they have sent payments.
***
We are so close to getting 2013 taxes done I can nearly taste it! Working with a new CPA, however, does require a bit more due diligence and legwork on my part. I’ve reviewed the draft filing and sent back a long list of corrections and questions. If this goes well, we’ll dive into 2014 preparations because our first quarter of 2015 is going to be pretty hectic between home and work life; I don’t have time for hand-holding.
On Life
Not a heck of a lot to say here: we had a lot of change and it’s been hard.
September 19, 2014
Taking a leaf from eemusings, I thought I’d try focusing on some things to be grateful for to break up the wallowing in this or the coping with all that comes with this.
1. PiC
It almost seems to go without saying but he’s just been unbelievably supportive without getting patronizing or grumpy. You’d be surprised how easy it is for someone in a caretaking role to fall into either of those modes. We’ve been grieving together but he’s picking up the pieces where I just can’t do what’s needed, leaving me to do the things I can handle (bills, work, finances, laundry). Also he brings home fresh fruit and delicious popcorn so I don’t have to leave the house if I don’t want to.
2. Modern medicine
There is a lot left to be desired but once in a while, there’s actually a medication that actually does the job that it’s meant to do. Blessed relief.
3. Friends who really know me
A dear friend insisted on treating me to some nice things “because I wanted you to have them and I knew you wouldn’t buy them for yourself.” Another dear friend sent the loveliest frame for Doggle’s memory and thought of precisely the picture I had in mind for it. This sounds a bit like “I like friends buying me things” but that’s really not what I mean. It’s just that I didn’t have to explain to them how much this has affected us or why I’m being (even more) careful about money with a Little Bean on the way (so obviously I wouldn’t spend on myself).
4. Bonus: Seamus is by no means Doggle… But he’s good company and helpfully distracting. I don’t deal well without a four-legs around and he fits the description. And he’s actually pretty funny even if he’s totally not helpful at all in the opinions about tv shows department.
What are you most grateful for at the moment?
September 10, 2014
I’ve been having what feels like more than my fair share of scary or awful symptoms lately. I won’t get into defining what’s fair, for the purpose of staying on track here, though. There’s been the usual (dizziness, intermittent nausea, pain rotating through the body, cramping of all sorts, weakness) plus a dash of new, weird, annoying stuff (chest pain, difficulty breathing) so basically it’s been like throwing a bright springtime picnic.
At some point there was a definitive moment, while contemplating all of the weird, that it seemed clear that something had to be different, this wasn’t just the usual “I’m broken” kind of wrong. Amid the usual range of random symptoms that cycle through, it’s usually impossible to tell when a new symptom is actually different.
Despite my typical assumption that I’m just broken, I ventured a test anyway. It was a bit on the early side and so to keep us on tenterhooks, the home test strip (1 line for no, 2 lines for yes) came up: one and a half. Seriously.
It took a blood test and an ultrasound, for me to actually believe: I’m expecting. We’re expecting. There’s gestating going on in what I have always referred to as a non-childbearing *waves hand* midsection. Did you know it’s possible to almost immediately start having symptoms in Weeks 5 and 6? As PiC said, “you can have symptoms this early??” Not cool.
It’s been weird. All kinds of weird. Both from the gestating POV and from being among a lot of blog and offline friends who are in baby stages of life, either having had them or struggling with having them, and I find myself torn. I hurt for those friends who are hurting and there’s a small part of me that’s hesitant to be happy about having a thing they want so much.
Because this is, despite all my practical reservations, a thing that I find myself happy about. Over the years, practical reservations have ruled my thinking: family health and financial history, my health issues, who the hell knows how we’re going to raise a child to be a good thinking human being without any help we don’t hire except for the few loved ones who might be able to come over for a week or handful of days, and BTW the Bay Area is frakkin’ expensive.
You might see where I derail into all of the scary life things and start to forget that this is actually a good thing. It is. I’m grateful that it didn’t require serious intervention and ever so grateful that I’m even able to conceive at all. Infertility, multiple miscarriages, difficult pregnancies and all are common in my family and at my age, with my health … I’m grateful.
And because I’m grateful and happy and possibly even a reserved excited about it (because again, early days), I’m trying to concentrate on what’s in front of me.
What IS in front of me?
Food is a problem. I LOVE food but uhm. This microscopic alien has literally run my life from minute to minute. I eat driven purely by instinct. In a single day, I might be repulsed by the very names of my normal foods, only cold veggies and orange juice allowed, then desperately need a steak. Cravings are normal and I typically ignore them but this level of craving is ridiculous.
I alternate between wanting to do ALL the cleaning and wanting to do nothing at all. Energy aside, my brain has become subject to an ON/OFF switch flipped by who knows what.
The seventeen trips to the bathroom a day have commenced and I’m possibly more annoyed about that than anything else but I suspect something else will top it soon enough.
Even after having it officially confirmed, it still doesn’t feel real. After all, fatigue and queasiness is a normal fibro/fatigue symptom for me. But as it turns out, there is a reason for it and it has a heartbeat. A heartbeat. This is weird.
When I’m fatigued, it’s about as bad as any kind of fatigue I’ve had ever, but as I described to a friend, it’s like I walk around w/50 lbs of bricks on my back daily. What’s another 5 or 10 bricks? They suck but I’m already accustomed to slog through a swamp, bearing lead weights.
All the literature keeps warning me and PiC to tolerate my mood swings but so far they’ve been:
1. If I can’t eat food today, again, I’m going to yell at someone.
2. If I can’t sleep tonight, again, I’m going to collapse.
Those probably aren’t considered moods, though.
This doesn’t in any way mitigate the pain of losing Doggle. However well intentioned, please don’t suggest that it does or it will. In some ways, it’s almost worse, Doggle loves – loved – small children (and really loves – loved – the smell of them); there were few things that could get his attention but concern for a crying child has always been at the very top of that short list, easily trumping anything else.
We had very much looked forward to introducing him to his human sibling to love and grow up with.
September 8, 2014
Most of my days are “those days”. Days where I’m happy if I’ve managed to work a full day and get things done, fed myself real food, taken care of the dogs, and possibly even created less mess than I cleaned up.
Most of them are “Igh, feels like crap” days.
But on occasion there are those stellar days when I didn’t just work, I didn’t just eat, I’ve also: cleared the monthly finances, done the housework, made an actual meal, and done some financial research. Even played with the dogs, not just skated by with a walk and some petting.
They’re rare and I love them all the more when they come around. Never mind that there’s a big ole letdown in the aftermath when I can’t do that much in one go again, the actual day is pretty fantastic.
Anyway, I haven’t decided yet which day this is, but PiC’s caved in our ongoing (wimpy) battle over whether to handwash or use the dishwasher because the time and energy we save not handwashing can really be better used on the 30,000 other things that need doing but for which we don’t yet have some sort of automated, robotic way to do them. So that’s kinda nice. It does mean that I more routinely horrify horrified the dog when the dishwasher runs (just Doggle, Seamus is utterly indifferent), but today’s run has had me hopeful he’s going to he would get over it as we‘re not stopped fighting over where he should go in case of Dishwasher Lives! Emergency.
This whole thing’s got me thinking about how else we can save more of our energy.
Also it’s got me thinking about how in the old country, as recently as during my childhood, food was always fresh and we weren’t connected or didn’t rely on electricity around the clock ..
BUT:
dishes and clothes were always washed by hand, using rainwater or water brought up from the river if it’d been a dry winter or especially hot summer;
meals were planned based on what was fresh at market and cooking them always included marketing once or twice a day;
electricity was only possible when you cranked the generator and sometimes not even then so bedtime was sundown;
forget actual running water for showers or toilets;
and good grief, the mosquitoes. I don’t care who you are or how tough you are, if you’re a blood bar for mosquitoes, you would hate them too.
I loved my time growing up in the rural farmstead but never will I ever romanticize that pioneering type life!
Right, so back to the point… !
I’m still mulling over whether it’s worth hiring help to lightly clean the house; we don’t typically care about super cleanliness unless people are coming over to stay.
Perhaps the solution to my inability to keep up with the shedding (by rugs and by dogs) is really just the robot vacuum? Or is cleaning that thing more trouble than it’s worth?
I’m actually back on the fence about the dishwasher – I need a better tutorial on how to load it or something.
We’ve experimented with ordering in a little bit more during the hectic times using coupons and deals. It’s absolutely a load off my brain and energy to not think about what to cook on delivery days but I’m not in love with the offerings all the time and without a deal it’s not quite cost effective enough to win me over. Still, we’re playing with the idea of scheduling delivery twice a month and economizing by buying and cooking more fresh produce regularly.
Is it weird that the only outsource candidates are cooking and cleaning? Everything else seems to require our input/judgement calls: looking for deals, managing the household finances (though I am now outsourcing our taxes because BRAIN), routine shopping and tidying, laundry, dog medical care. Of course I do enjoy doing laundry, and most of those other things, so probably that’s why it doesn’t make the list.
It’s not like we have vast sums of money to spend on this stuff, I’m just pondering aloud while I figure out how to maximize the money we do spend and the time we could use more wisely.
What would make your lives easier?
September 2, 2014
I’m still hardly about to talk about it, still leaning on PiC and some close friends very heavily to explain why I’ve been so quiet except for some heartbroken sobs on Twitter, but it feels wrong to continue on not saying anything at all.
I can’t memorialize him yet, I can barely accept that this is true, much less find the words to properly eulogize him that won’t further destroy me in the doing.
When I lost Mom, I almost viciously forced myself to say she was gone. It was both scourge and self flagellation to force myself to say those words I knew to be true and desperately needed not to be; a soul-scouring attempt to face the truth and absolve myself of my failings in taking care of her. It didn’t work but it kept the guilt and the grief somewhat at bay for months.
This is … in some ways, this is almost worse. In the suddenness, in the senselessness, in the overwhelming rawness of prostrating grief, I can’t bring myself to cope as I once did. Because he was our responsibility and I cannot absolve myself of the failure to protect him.
“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
We didn’t tame him, we just gave him a new life with us, somewhat pampered though he hardly seemed to notice, and he was coming into his own in these few short years as my wonderfully loving, opinionated and constant “coworker”, my therapy dog, we called him.
PiC was his favorite person in the entire world, you couldn’t match his dance of joy upon being reunited with his papa even after just a few minutes’ absence, and together we were a family. There wasn’t a person, dog lover or not, who didn’t fall for his charmingly quiet, happy personality; many became convinced they wanted a dog “just like him”, after a single visit.
He was our cat-dog, we joked, he being thoroughly exasperated by the hugs I always wanted to give him, and mostly keeping his distance lest I pet him too much. But he clearly loved us. He had a funny way of insisting on family time, staying by our side no matter how late it was, no matter how annoyed he was that it was another late work night; he kept us both in view at all times as if simply by being in the middle, he ensured we stayed “together”.
He’s licked me on purpose exactly once, as an apology for terribly scraping up my foot; he’s inspected PiC’s awful injuries and given them a healing lick but no more than necessary.
As clumsy as the classic bull in the china shop, and yet the most gentle, non reactive companion to any infant or toddler whether he knew them or not, we always knew he’d make the best big brother.
And now our beloved Doggle is gone. We have no reasons and we have no explanations. The heart of our little family is gone and we don’t know how to bear it.
