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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March 13, 2011
From whence the money comes, I have not yet planned but I still have some time yet.
Purely by chance, as if my fingers had life of their own, I accidentally found the perfect sounding dog to rescue.
This is well ahead of schedule. We were not planning on bringing a dog home for a long while since we still wanted to travel a while longer, definitely have travel plans through summer this year, and have this little wedding deal to put together.
But I’ve been stressed. I realize that taking on another responsibility in response to stress doesn’t seem very smart. But dogs are my respite. And I don’t have a dog to even mentally hug anymore. This year without a dog is the longest I’ve been dog-free since the age of seven. None of my de-stressing techniques are taking. It’s basically torturous so I browse PetFinder once in a while and dream. Then I found this guy and just went all REO Speedwagon.
His profile is so perfect! Our potential adoptee is a cross of three large breeds, older, mellow enough to be an indoor dog for the better part of a day (his foster mommy attests to this), energetic enough to romp with other dogs and go for runs, good in cars, good with strange dogs and mellow with strange people and veterinarians and groomers (important since my previous dogs either uniformly failed that test or embarrassed me at least a little.)
PiC was disinclined to say me nay after reading the profile and looking at the picture. (And believe me, he’s exercised veto plenty.) We wrote to his foster mom to inquire about availability that very night.
The rescue agency is quite concerned about the futures of these dogs who are adopted out, rightfully so since some of these poor dogs are thrown back into the system when people who weren’t ready to bring home dogs move on with their lives, or meet with unfortunate circumstances.
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Some of the adoption form questions:
What provisions would be made for the dog if you had to move locally?/ Out of state?/ To a place where no pets are allowed?
Under what circumstances would you not keep the dog? Divorce/ Illness in family/ Moving/ New baby/ New job/ Allergy/ Housetraining problems/ Chewing/ Digging/ Shedding/ Barking/ Howling/ Dog grew too big/ Dog became ill/ Kids ignore/ Pets didn’t get along/ Not obedient enough/Other/Would not give up for any of the above reasons.
What would you do with the dog if you could not keep him or her? Return to rescue/ Take to shelter/ Give away/ Sell the dog/ Other
For the record, none of the options given above are good enough for either PiC or I to give up a pet we chose to bring home. We obviously aren’t allergic and we’d know to expect some shedding. Growth isn’t a problem with an older dog, and any behavioral problems would call for training and treatment, not disposal. Once we become responsible for a pet, unless it’s a situation where either the pet or a family member is endangered, that’s the end of the story.
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We’re not ready to adopt him until after we return from our trip, but even if it turns out he’s not a good fit with us, we need to have money in the bank to take him of him, or her, if this fella doesn’t work out and we’re back on the hunt again.
Ideally, I had intended to have $5,000 in the bank for any medical exams, supplies or emergencies but mostly because that’s a nice big round number. Realistically, none of my dogs have ever needed that much as a starter. Even the one with the crushed leg (we adopted him after the leg crushing and subsequent abandonment) didn’t cost that much. PiC and I need to talk about how to budget, but we’re going to schedule a meet-up with Foster Mom in the meantime and see if he’s really a match for us in the meantime.
Even better, we have a fellow blogger friend willing to swap dog-sitting which was a huge relief as that was one of my concerns about bringing home a dog when I don’t have a strong social network in the area. If I have any other volunteers .. 😉
Cross your fingers!
March 9, 2011
On FB’s post, Can you survive on an extreme budget and make tough choices?, I ran across Insomniac Lab Rat’s comment that rang old bells for me:
“I didn’t find the game to be THAT realistic, because I felt that most of the times I played I had horrible “luck”, and most people won’t experience that many bad things in such a short time span.”
My response was turning into a saga so I took it back home. I understand it seems unrealistic but it is real – I’ll explain below. It is a bit of a personal bugbear, but I really like to point out the difference between luck and life happening and how they look remarkably alike.
This is what happens: When you’re in such a low or tight a situation that you have no cash flow, every single demand on your money is a choice that leaves another demand unanswered. You have all the same basic needs: food, shelter, medical, education, insurance, social obligations as others, but severely limited resources. Your daily question becomes: how do you cover six square feet of area with only three square feet of material? Everything that comes of luck, plus everything that naturally would have happened anyway and over time becomes defined as “bad luck.” That redefines your landscape.
As a player of the game Spent, what you are exposed to is that greater frequency of what appears to be bad luck but it’s really not. You are experiencing all the demands of real life in the way that someone who has zero outside resources would experience: the illness that is inconvenient for most but disastrous for someone without sick leave and can’t afford to lose the pay, the commitment that takes away the cash you needed for that other bill, a $25 late fee because you didn’t have last month’s bill money, the extra rise in Bill C that makes Bill D impossible to meet this month. They’re annoying to the average person with an extra $100 cushion in pay per month. Impossible if you just don’t have cash or credit.
Probably the less realistic bits of the game are that it doesn’t provide any of the truly creative resources you might be able to draw upon if you could figure them in real life. And that’s about right for a majority-case sort of game.
When you have an adequate cash flow, when you have any cash flow, you can absorb some smaller needs, and then only the significantly unexpected, or the “bad luck” stands out. When you have no cash flow, every single thing is bad luck. That’s why, a few years ago, I wrote about why I didn’t attribute our family situation to luck any longer – it was choices, it was circumstances, it was short and long term developments that happens to everyone that comes up.
When we were living that way, scraping penny to penny, life really did seem to kick us, up or down, like that and I watched my mom start calling everything bad luck. In 2008, I first noticed the trend to blaming the circumstances of our lives on luck. A year later, I realized the toll that making choice after debilitating choice took on her, and our relationship. It feels like being stuck in a channeling trap to ultimate failure.
After having been a real life player in a game of Spent, I know that you take those hits, over and over and over. You make those choices and hope, you make those choices and pray that you get from point A to point B, from point B to point C and you try to find ways to do things different every time to make it better but there are constantly setbacks, every week and every month. Right here on this blog, you’ll see my commenters note that it’s like a two-step, one step forward, two steps back.
It really wasn’t luck, though.
Though there was a time it certainly felt that way after I’d finally just sold our third vehicle at a loss, and then my dad totaled the sedan. My commenters made me laugh, though. “Death, Dismemberment, Disembowelment, Dysentery” indeed.
Yes, there are times I shake my fist at luck. But Luck happens, good and bad. Just be prepared for it, no matter what it is.
March 8, 2011
Heave a sigh of relief with me, my friends, SDCC travel planning is complete.
In a remarkably backwards approach, I’ve finalized the last part of our plans for Comic Con by booking the departing flights.
Stage 1: PiC was good enough to oversee the hotel booking after my annual overture produced bad news. We discussed the parameters: the budget, how far I was willing to be located from the Convention Center, shared the news with our lodgings companions and verified that it was in line with their budgets.
Result: We have a place to stay. We’ll be kicking in grocery money to my beloved once and always host family for dinners with them.
Stage 2: PiC arranged the return flights which had to be paid for in cash rather than award flights, unfortunately, since they were hard to come by. Everyone and their cousins and their cousins are flying out on Southwest that same day, it seems. I should have gotten on that sooner. Next year.
Result: We will be able to come home.
Insert some naggery for days to be requested off, drivers designated, and flights to be booked to Travel Companions. Because it’s not Con unless I’m driving someone crazy-bemused with my planning six months out.
Stage 3: I revived those expired Southwest award flight credits for a lovely $50 and paid another $5 to actually book the outbound flights. I’m heading out as early as I can stand to be upright. More calls were made to verify pick ups.
Result: We will be going to Con. CON!!
Now, it’s time to eagerly await programming so I can highlight all the Must See panels, the special eventing and the floor plan. I can’t wait!!
March 5, 2011
PiC and I are going on our first honest to goodness vacation this spring. It may or may not coincide with ye olde Springe Breake. Having never been on one, I wouldn’t know what a real one comprises but this isn’t a plan to cram several years of drunken debauchery into one hoopla filled trip. Though you never know what might happen …. 😉
This whole plan was born of a whim – a friend of mine has embarked on a multi-month, multi-country work and travel adventure and suggested we join her on some part of it. Preferably, hint hint, on the parts where I could be of use by translating, hint hint NUDGE.
I’m still rubbing my side bruise.
Cue a lot of chatter about why we probably shouldn’t go over: Are we serious about this because if we go overseas, that costs money and takes time and I can’t imagine taking a 15+ hour flight each way to stay for only a week…? And then, uh, are we paying for a trip and a wedding-thing-of-some-variety in the same year? How can I take time off from work I have so much to do?? You know, all the sensible stuff.
At the end of all of it: we decided to go.
When are we next going to get the opportunity to meet up with a good friend in a random country just to explore, eat and adventure? How much longer can I work at this pace without an enforced break? PiC likes long flights. We so frequently do things for each other: me for his sports and him for my geekery but never make time for a shared interest. So really, why not? We’ve never gone on a vacation together and this would be fun! (D’ya hear that, cerebral cortex? Can you access what that means?) And the wedding may or may not happen this year.
For all my naysaying above, (you knew that was me, didn’t you?) on the off chance that we might decide to go, I’ve been hoarding any windfall money and all my vacation time so we won’t be running up any debt and the time off will be covered.
From the list of probable stops Friend scribbled on the napkin six months ago, we negotiated Must Sees and Nah, I’m Not That Interesteds against the calendar and ended up with our compromise destination. PiC was strongly in favor, and though Thailand was never on my list of Must See countries (no reason), it’s not on my list of Not in This Life so that’s where we will be headed for nearly two weeks!
What do you think? Have you ever been? Any recommendations or suggestions if you have been?
March 1, 2011
Partially on a whim, I’d embarked on an UnCash spending strategy for 2011.
I’d wanted to stop making unplanned purchases this year, or rather, have a contingency plan for most basic and probable spending needs to redeem points for gift cards and avoid spending real money. I’d harken back to the college days, (ah yes, when I could only shop at Borders funded by Discover rewards money!) redeeming American Express Gold Card Membership Reward points, Thank You points and other reward points for a small stash of gift cards. It’s a small stash, after all, because earning those rewards requires spending cash in the first place.
I’ve always done this to some degree, but have mostly fallen behind the eight ball. It’s time to pull the straps back up on this strategy and see how well I can do with picking up the gift cards first, then spotting the sales!
Besides, with the as-yet unbudgeted wedding, even though PiC and I still haven’t come to any decisions yet, stashing cash just makes sense. Even as low-key as we’re going to go, no photographer’s going to take points for payment. (Are they?)
So far, I’ve collected:
$25 – Victoria’s Secret
$75 – Spa Certificates
$50 – Banana Republic
$50 – Amazon, via Swagbucks and other miscellaneous deals.
$50 – Starbucks for PiC
The key problem with this tactic, of course, is the limited types of gift cards offered by the rewards program. But quite honestly, I’m not going to invest a massive amount of time and energy into this. I already know which cards pay out the highest percentage per dollar spent per spending category, that’s always going to be the first priority to maximize. Redemptions will then follow on as every program has at least one useful option, even if it’s not an immediate need or want. This is a long-term strategy anyway, so it won’t fill in all areas of spending, especially not high-spend areas like gas or groceries, but it can occasionally supplement.
February 21, 2011
The question of motivational staying power was raised on Twitter. @add_vodka asked:
@RevancheGS @GrlRedBalloon @serendipity85 How do you keep motivated to make sure you don’t give up?
My gut response felt too flippant to say aloud. It wasn’t meant to be but I could see how, for people who don’t know me well or haven’t read this blog, could hear it as a dismissal of their very real issue. So I dug deeper. I asked PiC how to explain how I stay motivated because it’s not something I think about. And in the asking, I realized my answer, in large part.
My short answer was: Generational Poverty. I’m never going back and neither are my parents.
My long answer? In my matriarchial line, I need to break the cycle of poorness. You see, as much as I carry my patriarchal grandmother in my spine, I carry my mother in my soul.
Mom grew up, impoverished, in the depths of rural Vietnam. Her father was a schoolteacher who earned just enough to feed his family for a number of years, but not much better than that. I expect they married too young, had her – the first – too young; had too many children, period. Month to month, their family stretched a single small sack of rice bought on credit against the next month’s paycheck. They ate rice porridge, supplemented by some fish if the kids could catch any, flavored with nuoc nam (fish sauce) if they couldn’t. She was cooking, cleaning and raising her three younger siblings by the age of 8, and more kids were always on the way. There was love and support from her grandparents but nothing in the way of money.
As the oldest, she was expected to fend for herself. Needed a new pair of pants? She had to raise a chicken, sell the eggs, and save the money long enough to buy cloth and sew it herself. The same went for school supplies, or any other needs. Not wants, needs. But, if a sibling needed something before she could make her clothes, she had to give it up for him or her. The family was utterly poor, and she was expected to bear the heaviest burden. The burden wasn’t just in taking care of herself far too early, it was to provide for her siblings, and that lasted well into adulthood. While she shouldered it without question, she was bound and determined never to struggle at that level again.
Fast forward about forty years, she’d worked herself to the bone running two small businesses with my dad only to find her health declining, her son a mess, and no trace left of what was meant to be our family fortune. A modest fortune it would have been, but sufficient to buy a home, send two kids to college, and keep my parents through their retirement. Business hadn’t been awful but life happens, as it does, and she found herself both in the same place she’d sworn never to be again, the place she said we would never be exposed to, this time without the ability to bootstrap her way out of it as she had always done. Her parents and siblings were fine, but in the process, she had sacrificed herself.
It tore my heart to see her struggling, helpless, against the twin depredations of disease and remembered and oncoming poverty. The first preceded the other, as is so often the case with many stories of financial ruin, but not by much. It wasn’t just the disease. It was the combination of family illnesses, debts, and lack of informed financial planning that meant she couldn’t simply seek treatment and recuperate. Financial instability added anxiety and depression to the toxic mix of medical conditions complicating her health.
Had they planned for the future better, had they saved more carefully instead of taking care of her myriad family to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, had they been more cognizant of all the emergencies that could and would arise: all the if onlys, we should haves, they could haves intertwined and spiraled into the mom I know now.
Personally, I never want to go back to my college days. Working 80-100 hour weeks, school 40 hours a week, sleeping a few hours a night, and still slaving over a checkbook scraping the pennies together at the end of every pay period, under a tiny lamp light. That was miserable. But memories of personal misery fade.
The memories of my mom and all she’s sacrificed for me. The memories of how hard she worked, how determined she was to lift herself and her family out of their dirt-grubbing poverty. Those ghosts are in my marrow, my tissue, the air I breathe.
So when someone asks me about my motivation, about how I keep going, how do I not give up, the simplest answer is: I don’t know how.
When I took over for her, it began as a fight for survival. Now, it’s fully ingrained. The responsibilities and emergencies will only grow in greater proportion with time. I have my parents to take care of. I have myself to take care of. I may have future generations to educate and support for some time. And the only way to do it is very careful and diligent financial planning. That’s how my motivation is sustained.
It’s a very different answer, I think, than the one that @add_vodka was looking for, which was more practical stuff, so I saved this longer answer for the blog.
The more practical simple answer is, of course, to set goals and align your goals to your values. But there’s value in knowing why you’d want to do any of that in the first place. The Great Big Why of it, if you will.
Thanks to AddVodka, Serendipity and Red for starting the conversation!
{————Carnivals————}
My thanks …..
to Ben at moneysmartlife for hosting this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance and for picking my post Parents: The top bread slice to be an Editor’s Pick! Be sure to submit to next week’s Carnival.
February 17, 2011
Did you know …
that when you’ve been engaged more than a month and still have nothing planned, people start wondering if you’re still engaged? Or if you’re still planning to get married ever? Evidently the time allotted for us to plan or set a date may soon expire. Patience, padawans.
that no matter how simple the dress, you can still zipper party-foul yourself? *ow. that left a mark* J.Crew, as it turns out, is still not as petite friendly as other stores. 0P is still slips-off-the-shoulder too big, and not in that alluring sexy kind of way some luscious bombshell might be able to pull off, either. Not that I’d want that look for my wedding, but I’m sayin’, I looked a little ridiculous. It was the sub-$200 dress I bought just to try on, but it may be going back soon unless I’m willing to put a bit more money into making it work. The borrowable dress is coming over this weekend with its owner for a try-on.
that it’s way more fun fake-wedding planning than actually wedding planning? We had the best conversation about our favorite foods and the schizophrenic menu it’d create. Then we narrowed it down to the top three favorite foods each: still schizo. After we switched over to “ok, for real now ….. ” *crickets*
that there are some people who just get it? There are a couple really good friends are just incredibly calming to talk to about this stuff when I feel like it.
that there are the people who just don’t get it. There are so many of them. Luckily, PiC and I are getting quite practiced at the *smile&move along* thing.
that there’s a lot to be said for taking your time and getting in a relaxed state of mind before making any major decisions? I’m not there yet, but I’m pretty sure that’s the only way anything’s going to get done. At least I hope things will get done. Though, it’s entirely possible that if we want people to show up at any sort of thing, we should really at least pick a date. Or a year.
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I was lucky enough to win a Glo package for email wedding invitations a few weeks ago. It is pretty cool considering we were talking about going Evite-style. 😉 The lovely founder, Taryn, invited me to write a guest post so I shared a tidbit here: Reflecting on the first days of wedding planning
