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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February 7, 2014
There’s nothing that chaps my ass as much as stupid mistakes, unless it’s stupid decisions that cost me money. Unless it’s stupid, aka shortsighted, decisions that costs me a lot of money.
Part of our auto insurance just spiked by more than 50% because my dad got two tickets in the last two years, and made the foolish decision to pay the fine in court ($100) instead of going to traffic school ($250). Not only did he make this decision on his own without discussing it with me, he never mentioned the tickets at all.
He meant well but clearly he wasn’t thinking of the long term effects. I had to explain to him that his $150 savings will now actually cost me over $1000 in the next two and three years in raised insurance premiums.
He’s now paying for his daily expenses (food, gas, utilities) and stupid crap like tickets, but not for housing or insurance yet. I’m not pushing the issue because I’m keeping an eye on the regularity of the utility payments and have had to make a couple supplemental payments in December as he’s not keeping up with them regularly, he’s still learning how to budget on an irregular budget.
As I suspected when we agreed that he was going to start taking on the regular monthly stuff like utilities, there’s not been a word from him about getting behind in payments. It seems he’ll simply won’t learn or change on that front, so my instinct not to trust him to talk to me instead of finding himself slowly being boiled in (debt) water that’s been heating up over time was right.
It’s not going to break us but our carefully constructed budget is going to take a hit unless I can find a way to cut back somewhere else to compensate. Which, again, chaps my ass.
*deep yoga breathing*
I managed to talk to him about the consequences of his short term decisions, without losing my temper, but it was tough keeping a lid on it. The damage is done, so there’s no use hollering about it.
This is NOT what I meant when I said I wanted Stupid Money.
I’m not alone, am I? (Misery does love company, sometimes.)
January 27, 2014
It’s possible that we might travel to Italy this year. It’s up in the air, so while I’m feverishly researching how to redeem miles and points to cover most of the major costs, I’m pretending that this is just an academic exercise. Why? Well, because … ITALY. If I let myself start believing that it’s gonna happen right now you’d hear an explosion ’round the world from the epic excitement.
Update: It’s too late. I’m excited. AND disappointed at the same time. You’ll see why below.
We did just blow a ton of cash recently. That’s why, until I nail down some serious money-savers, I just don’t want to commit to a big trip (aka: travel expense). Not seriously, and not emotionally.
That said …. planning IS right up my alley! Perhaps neurotically so.
Things to do
ITINERARY
This didn’t occur to me til after I started researching flights. Clearly, too excited. We won’t have that much time (in my world, enough time in Italy is months) so I figure we’ll stay in one major region despite my yearnings to go to Silicy! Naples! Italian Riviera! Anywhere and everywhere!
Realistically, we probably can’t be gone for more than 2 weeks, so scheduling no more than 4 cities is a better idea. I’m not a power vacationer, I don’t like rushing from one site to another playing Tag! with the cities and checking off a list.
FLIGHTS
We have miles and rewards points for a number of airlines and programs none of which work out as well for us as I thought it would. It turns out with all their fuel surcharges, my many British Airways Avios points are basically worthless for this. For a ticket that would normally cost about $1000, the redemption quoted was 50K points PLUS cash surcharge between $800-$1000. Seriously? Pay up all the points you can scrounge and then pay nearly the ticket cost over again? Forget it. Might as well buy the ticket and upgrade. If we can even afford the upgrade! Humph.
On further research, we can’t even fly BA anyway, they only have 3 reward flights in the prospective travel months. Really? REALLY? Sigh.
Now I’m exploring all the other major airlines that fly a few possible flight itineraries to see if I can convert SPG points into miles on a relevant airline. Otherwise, at best, we’re paying $1400 per person to fly. Coach. Ugh. (Right, like I’ve ever traveled not coach.) This might be a dealbreaker, honestly.
HOTELS
I did a broke-college-student sort of trip to Italy years ago but now that we’re quite a bit older (ahem, and in a lot more pain), the creature comforts are more important than even I want to admit. Also, PiC keeps saying he’s just too old to go hosteling. The belligerently PFy bit of my brain wants to force the issue and pretend we’re tougher than that but a good night’s sleep and traveling lightly is critical to my survival and there’s no use pretending otherwise. So, no dorms for us, no backpacking-style travel.
The Avios points may well work for us here, we’re able to book hotels using those points and the research is turning up mostly decent options. Location is critical in some parts of the trip, and WiFi is critical for the whole trip since I have to continue working if we do go.
IN-COUNTRY TRAVEL
Access to public transit and walking distances will guide my hotel choices. Neither of us are jonesing to drive over there and there’s little better than getting to know a country on foot, working up an appetite for the amazing cuisine.
PASSPORT
Time to renew! It’s a little embarrassing that it expired last year .. no, wait, in 2012 and I’ve been too lazy to get photo done for the renewal. The packet is ready to go: paperwork, passport, check written. No picture. Time to get off my butt and get that done.
PACKING
I know these 10-year old hand me down sweatpants shouldn’t go to Italy. So a wardrobe review to find Normal People Clothes wouldn’t be a bad idea. New clothes shouldn’t be necessary, but I do have to unearth the untouched nicer clothes.
BIGGEST WORRIES
Leaving Doggle (because I’ll MISS HIM); bending the travel universe to my frugal ways while still enjoying all the tastes that Italy has to offer (except tripe. thanks but no thanks.); and surviving the combination of international travel + working for however long we’re gone.
January 22, 2014
Disclaimer: This is free money but it costs seed money to make money, and it can cost you big-time if you overspend what you can afford. One should never get into this intending to carry a balance. Seriously. Don’t do that.
This is a thing I’ve done a few times in the past (name courtesy of Fatwallet Forums) and had been considering another one, but what with all the traveling and planning, hadn’t quite the brain power to kickstart the process.
Then, last fall, PiC voiced the niggling little thought at the back of my mind: We should get new credit cards and juice the bonuses, right? With all these wedding expenses coming up …
Man after my heart. OF COURSE WE SHOULD.
I did some research and picked the following cards, getting overly ambitious along the way. My main requirement was that the annual fee had to be waived for the first year and after that it was just a matter of how high the bonuses could be:
1. American Express Business Gold
50,000 Membership Rewards points after you spend $5,000 in purchases in the first 3 months of Card membership.
2. Chase Sapphire Preferred
Earn 40,000 Bonus Points after you spend $3,000 in the first 3 months from account opening
3. Chase Ink Bold
50K Ultimate Rewards bonus points for $5,000 spend (3 months)
4. Citi Hilton Visa
40,000 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points after making $1,000 in eligible purchases within the first 4 months of opening your account.
5. Marriott Rewards Visa
60,000 bonus points* after you spend $1,000 in the first 3 months from account opening + 1 FREE night stay* (Category 1-4) after account approval
At this point, we have ‘managed to spend’ enough to hit all the Bonus limits on all the cards.
I probably should have been more discriminating in selecting cards for more specific bonuses. At the time, it didn’t matter so much because I didn’t have any plans for them, but now that I’m starting to plot and plan, well, it would have been nice 🙂
As we’re still working on cleaning up our combined finances and accounts, we’ve decided to cancel a few of our existing cards and are considering keeping one of the above as a replacement. They generally have decent rewards, I don’t like their annual fees, but I’m needing one card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees. Or at least the “emotional” side of me does. Before I make the call, I’ll have to do the math and see how much I have to save on transaction fees and other benefits – it might not actually be worth it!
My AmEx Starwood is the strong favorite card that I’m keeping as the hotel and hotel–> airfare transfers are great. Typically my rule of thumb is no annual fees, period, but since we redeem for at least a few hundred or more dollars’ worth of hotel stays every year, that offsets the $65 fee pretty handily.
:: What’s your favorite credit card? Why?
January 20, 2014
Possibly there should be some shame in the fact that I didn’t do ANY net worth roundups in 2013 (or 2012), but honestly, I hadn’t made my peace with the reality of combining finances with PiC. Nothing against him, I’m just a control freak when it comes to money and having to put our money together on paper like that went against the grain. Aside from that, it felt weird putting up our net worth on the internet because this isn’t his or our blog, it’s mine – how would he feel about revealing that information?
However, I don’t really believe in money-shaming or forcing the issue when it doesn’t feel right. While I operate like a sledgehammer in most other aspects of life, forcing things when it comes to money and marriage is NOT a good idea. Not for us, anyway. Slow and steady does the trick. Or will.
This year, I’m in the mood to do Net Worth roundups again. I need to have them for my own peace of mind and to know we’re making progress. However, since I’m not sure how PiC would feel about airing actual numbers (he tends to shrug when I ask), I’m going to err on the side of caution.
After a good amount of debate on Twitter, Evan suggested his method of only sharing percentages. The question came up a few times about whether there was any point to doing this, but conversely, is there a safe way to share actual hard numbers? Particularly if there’s any chance at all of our identities being revealed or our sites being discovered? (Your opinions are welcome, of course).
For the moment, I’ll always have the hard numbers behind the scenes, and I can resurrect them if this method just doesn’t sit well.
1. The net worth will be calculated midmonth, after the first paychecks are in. Just because.
2. Our Assets column will include:
Checking and savings accounts
CDs
Money Market Accounts
Stock Portfolio value
Retirement accounts
3. Our Liabilities column will include:
Mortgage
1 month of budgeted spending
We never carry credit card balances so it makes sense to me to account for the money that will come out of the checking accounts by offsetting it with a monthly spending estimate. We don’t have car notes, or any other kinds of debt, so that sums up the story!
What this means, though, is that while I’ve compiled our total Net Worth, for the intents of these updates, we are saying that as of today our
Net Worth is: 0.
Next month, theoretically, we’ll see a …0.5% increase maybe? OH GAWD. This is going to fuel my desperate need to show progress and save more, I just know it!
~ ~ ~
As for our 2014 Budget, after last year’s disappointing performance, we have negotiated an amortization scheme. Rather than forcing ourselves to make up the difference between last year’s overspending out of this year’s budget, which would suit me very well indeed, we’ll make up half the difference this year, and roll over the remaining deficit to 2015. That makes me a little antsy (job security concerns), but it’s a reasonable compromise given our natural dispositions. I don’t want our budget to turn into a bone of contention between Stingy Tightwad and LaissezFaire Spender.
January 17, 2014
Yep, I said it. I’m still Happy New Year-ing y’all. It’s been busy!
This is how I know recovery is nearly complete from the Devil Flu + infectious friends: my brain starts insisting on money talk. This is the first chance I’ve had to really look over last year’s money and do a quick review. We combined our finances last year and started to work from a combined budget spending plan. That was rocky, we have totally different perspectives and styles when it comes to money. Still, we had to start somewhere! So we did.
2013 highlights
SPENDING
We went over (between 2-100%) the budgeted amounts in half our specified categories, and under (between 2-50%) in the other half. This was, of course, a disappointment. Overall, we overspent 20% over and above the budget. Most of that, as it shakes out, was the wedding but that was paid for in cash so that’s some solace. I’m NOT thinking about the travel we could have paid for instead. 😉
I do have to keep reminding myself that we pay about $17,000 annually for my dad’s upkeep and that makes a big dent in the disposable income.
SAVING
We maxed out PiC’s 401(k) contributions which has never been done before. WOOT! We also saved 25% off the top of our paychecks through the whole year. Two thumbs up!
Disappointments: I don’t have a retirement plan through the new company so I intended to set up my own. Researched, yes. Decisioned, no. So that’s a fail.
BEST OF
The renewed relationships that came out of planning the wedding. I mended fences with a few relatives that I haven’t spoken to in years. And even more surprisingly, for whatever reason, MIL suddenly thawed towards me a month before and spoke to me like she hasn’t since before PiC and I started dating. Whatever the reason, however long it lasts, I’m grateful that even if I’m not “part of the family,” we can actually behave like non-antagonistic humans. That’s all I ever wanted.
Also: savings. We actually did a good job of saving cash despite all the spending 🙂
Also: Year of the least number of bad surprises (like the car was towed because they didn’t tell me that they were behind on payments! or like, Mom fell and hurt herself! or, Mom was in the hospital with pneumonia for a few days!)
WORST OF
The pained and strained relationships. It’s like I’m just now living the teenage angst years that I never had with my parents, with my dad. Nothing he said when it came to the wedding planning was ok, it was always inflammatory to my overly-sensitive, culture-betraying mind and we argued A LOT. Unnecessarily, I think but it was hard to rein in those feelings. 2 days before the wedding that I had a long painful talk with him over how his reactions made me acutely aware of how I’d failed the family: how I’d failed to straighten out my brother, how I’d failed to provide for my mother, and how I was now failing to properly represent the family as a “dutiful bride”. In turn, he reminded me that I’d done the best I could and more than was expected, and a big portion of these ‘failures’ were his; that the fact that he couldn’t “give” me a wedding was a huge failure as a parent. That he was making his peace with my decisions and in the end, he only truly cares about whether PiC and I are happy. I really needed to hear that. I just wish it hadn’t taken several months of fighting to get there.
Also: no retirement plan for me. This is the first time since age 21 that I haven’t been investing in retirement. No bueno!
:: What were your bests/worsts? How’d you do with saving/spending?
January 6, 2014
Well, it’s over, and thank god for that. 😉
I’d say I was kidding but then I’d be lying – it is a huge relief not to be planning, worrying, checking up on or otherwise managing some step of the wedding process. And in a more positive light, there’s an unexpected sense of fulfillment after going through a small part of the familial traditions. We’ve been legally married more than two years, it’s a surprise to realize that the ceremony truly had deep and significant meaning and I’m now glad that I insisted on retaining that much of it.
The Funny:
1. The morning of, my hairdresser/make-up/friend got so fed up with my damnable eyes refusing to STOP BLINKING while she applied make-up that she slapped fake lashes on me and said: Deal with it. Never having worn fake lashes before I scrubbed them off that night thinking that was it, and went around with a leftover clump obscuring my vision the whole next day. What IS that?
2. There was a costume change and before I could get into the big puffy dress, 7 girlfriends hollered at me: GO PEE!! Talk about peer pressure.
3. Both PiC and my dad forgot what to do during the ceremony. We got to the top of the aisle and they just looked at each other. Bossy Mcbossypants (hi) had to coach them: SHAKE HANDS. Now HUG ME. Now you go there, you come with me this way.
4. Rehearsal. I’ve seen the tea ceremonies conducted in many variations, and figured we’d do whatever worked for us. Um, no. How could I forget that Dad would have OPINIONS THAT ARE FACT? At that point I just didn’t care how it was done, but I’d like to say for the record, I have video evidence that my perfect perfect cousins did it the way I was going to. So there.
5. We bought PiC a bowtie. Neither of us knew how to tie it. Ooops.
The Favorites:
1. Our ceremony music. I hated hated hated the idea of walking down the aisle. But there was no way around it with our venue, I had to come out SOMEHOW. So I insisted playing awesome music that I loved and that would MAKE me smile. No sappy classical for me. And sure enough, it made me grin. If you were there, I was absolutely grinning at you guys. If not, I was just tickled to death by my music.
2. Not having a bridal party. I had reasons. Asking a group of people to dress up in color coordinated clothes they’d never wear again (alert: I own 7 bridesmaid dresses. No, you can never wear them again) seemed like the opposite of keeping a low profile. Instead, I thought I’d just let it go and anyone who loved us enough to help on the day of, would. And it’s true. We were absolutely blown away by the level of help on the day before. My cousin commented somewhat enviously, with a touch of puzzlement, that I had really good friends. I do. For all of my antisocialness, I am Very Lucky in my friends.
3. Our photographers. We paid a LOT for them, and while we haven’t seen their finished product yet, they themselves were fun and easy and not weird at all to work with.
4. Doggle wore a bowtie and laid on my dress every chance he got. And he was such a good boy, just hanging out, even when being swarmed by a horde of cousin children.
5. Things we got done. We were working literally up til 1 am the morning of, and I was fine with tossing everything if it didn’t get done. But I was really happy that we found gluten free cupcakes for celiac friends, that the cake buffet was gorgeous and I have a whole cake left over for myself. That we made little gift bags for visitors. That we did hire a photobooth and I made up a lot of a scrapbook ahead of time.
The Suck:
1. Some of my obnoxious family kept monopolizing my time and getting into photos they weren’t asked to be in. Very very annoying.
2. Thanks to the above, we ended up wasting double the amount of time outside taking pictures, missing a huge part of our reception.
3. If I weren’t so damn sick, I could have asserted myself more. But my brain was stuffed up and on drugs, I was just faking my way through it. Well enough that people didn’t know I was sick, so huzzah for that, I guess.
4. The food. No wait, the food was good. Or at least I think so. I was surrounded by all that lovely food and literally did not eat more than 7 bites all day. Stupid stupid sickness taking away my appetite.
5. I pretty much collapsed after we saw off the out of town guests. Turns out I was fighting a losing battle against both the flu and an infection curiously like pneumonia since Christmas. No wonder I was just holding it together the whole day.
The Money:
We spent a fairly significant amount of money on the event – another thing that baffled my family. Normally, you do the ceremony at a house and a cheap (comparatively) banquet dinner, and the monetary gifts are enough to pay for the whole wedding and a vacation on top of it. My aunt advised we get it over with and have a vacation – her daughter had enough left over after her wedding to go to Hawaii fully paid for.
I was paying for convenience (full service location), entertainment, and getting my own way. It was enough worth it that I’m not upset about spending a bit more than twice the usual: I was pandered to just enough to keep me from starving or coughing up a lung, the entertainment kept people busy so that I didn’t have to be on my feet and talking to them the whole time.
We cashflowed the whole thing, out of the incidental money I’d set aside in the last couple of years and stretching our paychecks a little more; it might be a family thing to pay for the wedding out of gifts but I’d been determined to foot the bill myself rather than hoping the gifts would pay for it. Our friends and family were terribly generous but it wouldn’t have covered the bill so I’m glad we did it my way.
We haven’t totaled up all the costs but we probably spent $21K for the whole thing and will come out of it with: 2 suits that Dad and PiC can wear for years, enough candy to last til next Halloween, a fun scrapbook and set of photos we’d never have gotten in a normal setting, a set of professional photos, and most importantly: a strengthened relationship with each other and the family and friends who showed up for us. I wouldn’t recommend it as a means to reconciliation specifically, but for me, it became a means of rebuilding a once-treasured relationship thought to be lost years ago.
The Summary:
As PiC retells it, I “kept him honest” with the division of duties. We split a long list of things to do, but after a spat over when to get things done, I backed off. Instead of giving him grief over the things he committed to, or his version of time management, which were both giving me anxiety, I cleared the critical items and let him get on with it at his leisure. Of course, his frustrated late nights and slow progress were then entirely his burden to carry. Fair’s fair. 🙂
The wedding was just one day, but it was the culmination of a lot of days where we learned, even after ten years together, how to work as a better team even when sometimes that means not working together at all; how to accept help from loved ones; how to be reasonable; and how to take care of each other when we’re both stressed out by circumstances and each other.
December 19, 2013
I’d always figured I would be, like eemusings, a bullshit free bride, but even more so because I don’t consider myself a “bride” even if we’re doing this wedding thing, more like the Female half of the couple. It turns out my insistence on doing things my way, the clearly LESS stressful way, is still stress-inducing. Y’know, the world would run a lot more smoothly if people would just Do As I Say.
Honestly, I just wanted to plan a fun party with good food, the people I love, some fun music and kick back with everyone and the Dog. And I hope that’ll still happen, but in the meantime, my current status is: I can’t wait to get the damn thing over with. Planning has been a prickly, multi-thorn in my side and the sooner this is over, the better.
1. The most surprising people are unreliable and/or frustrating.
A. Family members who offered to not just help, but to plan the whole damn thing, were incapable of doing ONE task I’d asked them to take care of. I asked them to order 1 food item because it’s easier to order on site in SoCal, and eleven thousand texts and three months later, they still hadn’t done it. Two weeks before, I get a message asking if I want to go with them to the store to order it when I get into town for the wedding. Which is, of course, entirely beside the point of delegating.
B. Friends who said they’d do ANYTHING to help? Total radio silence after I sent them an email asking for their input. I finished that item a month later and still hadn’t heard back from them.
C. Friends who couldn’t manage to RSVP. Now, I know you people can read, I’ve seen it happen. We went to school together and I know you were booksmart enough to read printed text AND you’ve planned weddings. So what possessed you to not read the invitation and actually think: She must not want us to RSVP, anyway I don’t know how? Have. Mercy.
D. Family who are completely preoccupied with how things will affect them: my dad saying that doing one thing my way would kill a lesser man with the shame of it but hey! it’s my wedding and my way so whatever! He’ll suck it up! I didn’t know what truth I spoke as a frustrated kid when I said he was the king of passive-aggressive; my relatives being stupidly clannish and refusing to sit where I planned to seat them because they assumed they’d be uncomfortable and refuse to integrate even one little bit with anyone else because you know, this is really just an event where they should hang out with each other and no one else. Honestly, people. There was no greater justification of that sinking feeling I had when I didn’t want to plan this: no one really cares about this, it’s either all about them or just an inconvenience.
2. The good people will make your heart sing.
A. I asked a very uncrafty friend to come scrapbook with me because I was feeling unloved and lonely. Months of late nights, attempts at crafting and planning alone made me crave company, but she HATES crafting. Without demur, she showed up for dinner and made several scrapbook pages late into the night even after I’d said it wasn’t that important. Just to humor me.
B. Katie (and Ruth and Twitter, I tried to spare the rest of the world a bit) listened to ALL my whining, every time something went wrong. Every. Day. Of. It. And she stayed up in the wee hours of the morning to go through old country music with me, rocking out. It’s probably one of my best memories of planning.
C. SingleMa was frakkin amazing. I pled mercy on the hunt for shoes: I needed a pair that were fancy enough for an event but not so fancy I couldn’t wear it everyday later. It felt impossible & I just could NOT take it anymore. She so graciously let me email her what I liked (but couldn’t have), loved (but couldn’t find), and hated (so many ugly shoes!) and worked her shoe fairy magic, coming back with an extensive list of great options for me to pick from. She nailed it.
D. One set of relatives I haven’t seen in years took my one request and completely ran with it. I have photographic evidence that we’ll be fine with their end of things.
E. The long distance friends who, without a moment’s hesitation, RSVPed an enthusiastic yes even though it involved a long flight, a lot of travel, or otherwise what I’d consider an inconvenience. There is no greater gift than these friends who show so clearly with their actions and their words that they want to share a special day with us. That’s all I was hoping for.
3. Guest lists are the devil’s playground.
Wrassle with the number of people you can invite, cut it down, get into fights over the family lists, chase down people who (see above) apparently don’t think it’s important to respond to that nicely printed piece of paper that asks them to come to a party so BTW TELL US if you’re going to come, and then discover that a whole lot of people who were planning to come aren’t, anymore. *deep breath* It’s enough to make you say: just forget it. Don’t even care anymore.
And rude relatives who invite themselves or their kid’s boyfriends or girlfriends are ridiculous.
4. Service fees and taxes
Did you know that venues will charge you at least 20% service (21% in our case) first, and THEN tax you on the total of all the services, food cost and the service fee? So that’s another 8% on top of 121% of the expected cost. YAY! I expected to pay those fees, but they weren’t clear about how it was applied. Also! We got a whole bunch of things free and they charged us a service fee on the value of those things (a coordinator, for example) so instead of free, it was 21% on the cost. Free: I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
At the end of this road, this day isn’t just MY day, or even just our day. Yes, all the decisions are made by us because we’re paying for and planning the whole thing. But it’s about having a nice time with loved ones and making a special memory to shine against the other darker days that we have had so many of. I’ll be grateful for everyone who shows up to have fun.
