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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December 8, 2011
(This post is going up a little late.)
This is a first.
I received an email, as you might have if you were part of the Borders Rewards program, from Barnes and Noble informing me of the acquisition of Borders property in the liquidation which included “Borders brand trademarks and their customer list.”
I have no idea what they intend to do with the trademarks but they wanted that customer list for obvious reasons.
Our intent in buying the Borders customer list is simply to try and earn your business. The majority of our stores are within close proximity to former Borders store locations, and for those that aren’t, we offer our award- winning NOOK™ digital reading devices that provide a bookstore in your pocket. We are readers like you, and hope that through our stores, NOOK devices, and our bn.com online bookstore we can win your trust and provide you with a place to read and shop.
I don’t know about you but my first skim/misreading of that paragraph completely had me thinking they were offering Nooks as bribes for us to not opt out. Wishful thinking.
How do you feel about being passed over, with your full knowledge, as a customer from one store to another? Do you expect Barnes to earn your business all over again or are you already a customer? Would you expect them to start from ground zero if not?
December 5, 2011
With just about all savings interest rates in the tank, PiC and I have agreed that without waiting for me to further flesh out our annual budget for 2012, his next expired CD will go into a large prepayment toward the mortgage.
It isn’t the amount we need to get us at the right loan to value ratio for a refinance but it will be a substantial step in the right direction, and there’s no reason not to start this process. This is our primary residence, and the interest rate is nearly 5% while savings rates are barely hovering around 1%.
Even if we wanted to move out and turn this place into a rental, the current total mortgage and HOA costs are too high in comparison to market rental rates for the same sort of housing for us to break even in this economic environment. Between bringing down the total loan cost a significant amount and locking in a much lower interest rate, I think we could ultimately save approximately 40% of the current mortgage. That’s no small beans in cash flow and would make it easier for us to take any kind of rental situation risk.
I plan to sock that saved cash away again because I’m pathological like that. 😉
Actually, there’s a good reason – we would just have put something like $65,000 cash into the process. That’s my current estimate of the cash cost. We should be able to swing it if we put together our savings, prioritized carefully and set aside a new emergency fund. The huge cash defusion will still give me indigestion, committing that much cash when I’m still worrying about my next job-related moves is worrisome, but I do think it makes sense overall.
As for allocations: while that increased cash flow needs to replenish our savings because it will have been much decreased and that makes me nervy, we still have to set aside money for mid-sized savings goals for 2013 as well. That’s yet another reason it would make sense to let loose the cash bomb, we’d only be limited to looking for ways to increase income to fund any expenses for the upcoming year that can’t be carved out of this year’s budget. I’m a fan of planning a year in advance to break down the savings necessary for really big bills like property taxes, travel, and that sort of thing.
I feel like I’d better hurry up and make all the changes we need to, I’m running out of steam already!
:: Is this normal to feel so responsible for stuff this early on? Was the first of married life this hectic for anyone else?
December 2, 2011
With everything going on, it took two and a half weeks into married life to even look at the benefits. Ree-diculous. I’m normally obsessive about benefits but even I am now thinking 30 days post wedding is simply not enough time to deal with those changes. Still, we managed to wade through the majority of the issues.
I’ve been added to his full benefits package – Medical, Dental, Vision – and am retaining my own FSA. I was rather on the fence about that one – does it make more financial sense in terms of tax breaks for me to have the tax benefit, him, or does it come out in the wash since we should probably file together? I hadn’t a minute to do any tax estimates for the purpose of estimating how we should file so I just had to let that go for now.
A few things are still left to be done.
Because my additions to his benefits were made during his open enrollment period, his company won’t activate my benefits until the new year. Lovely.
Meanwhile, it turns out that I cannot, because of the way my benefits are structured, retain just my Dental and Vision with him as a dependent so that we have secondary coverary while dropping the Medical that I’m paying for. So I will have to drop all my benefits.
{Break for a moment of spazzing: Even though I’ll still be fully covered, that makes me feel naked. I haven’t not had my own full coverage since I was 17. Seriously. This is insecurity “I’m a dependent-what??” territory.}
I will now focus on the fact that I am exceedingly grateful to have the choice between two decent insurance plans that we can afford, even though his is more expensive, because there are too many people who can’t afford insurance at all including my own family. {That’s why the reaction, actually – I’ve always worked past the point of breaking to make sure I’d have coverage. Now we’re dependent solely on his job to provide. Dependent. *breathe*}
You will note that while I may fully intend to make rational decisions, I still have emotions about my money.
Estimated cost: Increases in monthly premiums of approximately 20% overall, but coverage will be more extensive for routine procedures.
One example: I’m expecting a slew of dental work to the tune of $1000+, and after the deductible, my cost was going estimated to be $388 on my own plan with a $100 deductible and an 80% basics coverage.
PiC’s has a lower deductible ($50) and covers 90% of basic treatment. While we’re paying $8 more/month for that premium dental plan, I’m clearly going to be saving at least that $100 difference right off the bat with this single treatment between the deductible and the extra 10% coverage.
Next up: When my coverage starts with PiC, I have to cancel my own benefits using the Life Status Change for Reason of “Insurance Coverage Changes”. I didn’t even remember that was one of the options under qualifying life event/doesn’t have to wait for open enrollment to change your plan! Learn something new.
We also increased our life insurance to more adequate amounts based on our new financial obligations and added each other as beneficiaries. That was weird. But necessary. I wouldn’t be able to carry this mortgage plus all the other finances without extra help and both PiC and my dad would need some financial assistance if I were bumped off.
That means filling out more paperwork this weekend and once again at the start of the year. After that, we should be in good shape until the next open enrollment period! *whew*
So much for simple, huh?
November 24, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating, everyone who would be celebrating, and those who would have liked to or have opted to celebrate in their own way.
We’re having a very quiet Thanksgiving this year – no long distance travel, no incredibly ambitious menu with seven gourmet-style items in a ten hour cooking marathon, no splitting our time across multiple families. I’m incredibly grateful for that. I’m grateful that we’re just doing our own little silly dinner with whatever we want, with very little pressure except for my own expectations of really really wanting yummy turkey, stuffing and gravy.
In the grander scheme of things, I’m ever so grateful for PiC’s love and support. I’m grateful for this time and space in our lives in which, despite and because of all the challenges, we’re still able to cope and overcome. I’m glad that, despite my minor reservations, we dove into the faux-lopement last month together. It’ll be a month in four days and we have had a hell of a married life so far. And yet, it’s been somehow completely non-turbulent in terms of our relationship. We do manage this kind of chaos well enough, as weird as it is to say. None of it’s actually been easy, it’s just that we’ve done this before.
I’m hugely grateful for all of the virtual support writ live from the Twitter and blogging community during these weeks and months. It’s been a pocket haven of sanity and levity.
There’s more, but I managed to cook a full Thanksgiving meal largely by myself and it was actually pretty good and I’ve eaten enough for my belly to want an extra compartment so I’m going to carry on in another post. But that I was physically able to do that? That my hands, arms, legs, and brain held out? That it actually feels like I’m sleeping when I sleep a full night, finally? That’s pretty good too.
Signing off for the night.
November 22, 2011
I keep thinking about Mom. But it’s taking days and weeks to form words, words into a sentence, then into coherence. I’m working. Eating. Sleeping. Taking care of business. But at odd moments of the day, I keep thinking about Mom. But for now, that’s not where my words want to flow. Because they’re still swirling in my heart and my gut. And that makes this other thing that I couldn’t write before emerge from the darkness.
It was so much easier when I could just write him off as an egomaniacal selfish jerk. Not easy, mind. Just easier.
I’ve long missed having a big brother, I missed having a full family (a real family), I missed having someone who remembered all the family secrets, to share the jokes, mimicry and stories. Just like I’ve missed having a mom. But this was easier. Easier because it was his choice. It was his loss. It was his fault. I had tried, you see. I had done the best I could with kind words, wheedling words, empathetic words, angry words, harsher actions, drawn lines in the sand, feet planted and stone in my heart.
I had failed, which wasn’t something I could really forgive myself for, but perhaps someday I could absolve myself of the responsibility of his life having gone the way of so many other wasted lives. Trying to accept the reality, trying to swallow my crackling bitter pride, I rehearsed the explanation to my future children, that they once had an uncle, I once had a brother, we were once great enemies and great pals, fanciful adventurers and creative plotters, but alas. It was complicated. The explanation tilted and twirled, the questions bobbed to the surface, but why….? But how….? When did it go wrong? Couldn’t you…?
But still. I could walk away into that future where I had no good explanation. I had to – if I wanted a future. For my health, my sanity. I had my parents to think of. My future family to tend to. It rent my heart but I had to leave a piece of my family and move forward.
And so my resolution was made to move my parents into a safer place as soon as I possibly could, leaving him to fend for himself.
***
Labor Day weekend, I visited my parents and my soul was pummeled with all the fury of great titans, passion worthy of Ali v Frazier. My brother, the jerk, my brother, the eldest son, my brother.
He was speaking gibberish, not just his usual castle in the sky and whistling in the wind, but true, delusional gibberish. And I knew that my secret fears that I’d never uttered aloud but once had begun to come true. He’d begun to spiral into some new world of his invention, one where he could teach animals speech and they’d speak back, and so he’d converse with them, and the furniture, and the buildings, at length.
And his dog watched him, with sad, sunken eyes. He knew. Loyal with every sinew, bone, and breath. But still even he knew, there was something terribly wrong. And he looked at me with those sad eyes.
***
It’s been a terrible, horrible year for my Dad. But he’s borne it well, as well as he can. He carries the guilt of my mother’s illness and now, in part, her passing; the guilt of my brother’s failed life and the revelation of his instability and probable illness; my struggles of the past years and the extra burdens created by the concessions I made due to my brother and their inability to love him any less. All these, he carries as a shroud and as a shield.
He managed to start a small business several months ago, while juggling the care of my mother, driven by the need to alleviate my financial burden any small degree, and while he’s ready to take on the care and keeping of my brother as his next responsibility, I can’t allow that.
It’s not sensible, he doesn’t have the tools to deal with this, his role as a father isn’t the right or effective one to rein in or treat the madness. But neither do I have the tools. We need professional help and we need to learn from the past mistakes and not let him sink the rest of the family under the weight of this.
Most importantly, most selfishly, I need my Dad to stay well; he’s the last of my family. In a mass of hundreds of relatives – cousins and aunts and uncles – I only have one parent left. He has to stay healthy and because of that, I have to become, once again, my brother’s keeper.
***
It’s certain as the full moon will wane that until he has some evaluation and/or treatment, my brother will not change for the better. So the first course of action will be to find out what options are for medical treatment out there that don’t involve beggaring ourselves. I’m not putting him above my new family, or my Dad, in this situation.
Next, he needs to be in a safe place to live NOT with Dad, and certainly not with us, but again, it cannot be by sacrificing anyone else.
Because he’s sick, I will undertake the search for what options there are but this won’t be a quick process. He’s an adult, so that complicates things. And money isn’t freely flowing around here, and he doesn’t get any special treatment. Unlike Mom, he didn’t earn the Anything Goes package even if I were made of money. He’s my brother but he was abominable when he had a choice. He’s my brother so I will look out for him if I can but there are absolutely limits.
November 20, 2011
I’m back. Thank you for all the thoughts and condolences, everyone.
It’s a -something- getting my head and feet back where they need to be so, as usual, I turn to working with finances for comfort.
We’re nearly through November, so at this point, I don’t know what to call this.
Retirement Accounts
Just as I predicted, my new retirement account through my “new” job (I guess I should call it the Now Job) is fairly mediocre to poor.
Overall Rate of return on the new 403(b): -4.94%
Balance over 1 year timeline: 747.01 to 6661.87
All the increase is in contributions with losses, not gains.
Vanguard rallied this month, though.
Brokerage account
This account sees steady (tiny) increases every quarter generally. $700 of that 1,915.05 is just cash I’m holding for a future purchase that I may or may not make. Still, neither of my stocks have lost money over the time that I’ve held them (though it only matters at the time I sell) and one pays dividends so it’s throwing off income in the meantime. A whole $4 every quarter!
Cash
There was a modest false bump in the cash calculations because I locked myself out of my Ally Bank account at the end of September and never bothered to get back in again. That’s where my CDs are and so I haven’t been getting accurate data on the interest earnings for the CDs.
It turns out that my cash holdings passed the $50K mark this month after recouping the cost of the funeral from funeral gift monies and adding the remainder (a very modest amount) as a separate category to take care of remaining costs as they come.
Spending has been OUT OF CONTROL though. In the week we were down south, we spent more on gas, food, and incidentals than we’d normally spend in a month, I think. I haven’t had time to comb through everything yet.
New
Family Budget:
I’m creating a combined budget for our money going forward. It’s sort of good timing in that we’re at the end of 2011 anyway, so I’m taking all our liquid cash and pooling it to create a fresh set of household funds similar to my current set-up.
I’ve never had this much to work with but there are two of us in our little family and Doggle now, and two extended families to plan ahead for. Now I need to figure out which banks to use.
Mortgage:
We’ve explored some refi options and I am now pondering on the wisdom of the financial risk we’d be taking in committing to one or another of these options. More research to come!
Benefits:
Now that we’re married, we can combine our benefits. Costs will go up on PiC’s side, and go down on mine. I don’t think we actually come out ahead, though, as I do the math.
Insurance:
It’s time to reevaluate the cost of our auto, home and other insurance. We currently carry our insurances separately, of course, so it’s time to see about combining them for cost-effectiveness and discounts.
Upcoming Spending:
* We need a new mattress for the bedframe that PiC Craiglisted earlier this month. I really hate mattress shopping. All those options and I can’t tell the difference in how one mattress feels from the next, but there’s this imperative to pick the right one because you’re going to have it for a trillion years. And you know the bargain hunter in me would absolutely have to know we’re getting the best deal possible. It’s possible I’m a little more gripey than usual about it because I’m tired but … I’m probably exactly as gripey as I normally would be.
* I need to plan our Christmas shopping – I already have some small gifts for other people earlier this year but there are primary gifts for family that haven’t been bought yet.
In sum: Tons to do and I feel like I need to do it all right now. Surprisingly.
November 5, 2011
My mom passed away suddenly. I’m shuttering the doors for a little while to deal.
PiC’s a rock and Doggle’s a spaz and we’re going to take care of my dad and vice versa.