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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August 20, 2010
Intellectual boredom and a steady trickle of cash
Unlike Q2, which was characterized by steady spending, punctuated with a steady stream of irregularly sized freelance income, Q3 remains unpunctuated by any additional income. It’s just all outflow and that makes me antsy. Point of fact, this close to the fall and winter spending seasons, it makes me downright itchy.
Then too, everything is moving pretty normally in my finances and there’s nothing much for me to be done there, so that’s just boring.
Work is not so Zen because my six month review is pending and I intend to ask for a raise so I’m examining my list of accomplishments and performance.
The combination is doing nothing good for my state of mind.
The usual pastimes, reading, writing, cooking, plotting new menus, planning travel, chattering with online buds, browsing deals or tinkering with my finances are seriously lacking in color and verve, I’m lacking spice and verve. Even hosting giveaways isn’t entertaining me much.
Has the higher frequency of visits, company, friends in town, and going out inured me to the usual humdrum homebody life that I normally love? Do you s’pose I’m singing the flu blues? Or is it time for a really big shake-up?
And what kind of shake up should that be so as not to waste/spend money?
August 17, 2010
is Red!
August 16, 2010
The Season? No, probably not. In Calvin And Hobbesesque logic, I haven’t had a summer yet so it’s not allowed to become fall or winter. Nevertheless, Christmas and the associated gift-giving season (it’s preceded by a number of birthdays, mine included) is nearly upon us.
It’s already mid-August and I’m trying to decide if I’ve adequately covered Christmas gifts for the year. A couple weeks ago, the outlook seemed good because I was at Con and Con is where all Christmas shopping happens!
But now that I take a second look at the gifts I bought, that’s actually not the case.
I’ve got a good start on Comic BFF’s Christmas and birthday gifts, but still need about 4-6 more comics.
PiC’s birthday gift is set, but I still don’t have a fab Christmas gift yet. (Perhaps it’ll be a Making Greece Happen next spring by not taking any more days off between now and then?)
That’s pretty much it. Amazing how shopping over 4.5 days made me feel like I’d accomplished a ton – I’ve still got at least 4-5 more people to buy for, probably.
And, taking a lesson from last year, I’m going to insist PiC hand over his Christmas list by the end of the month because I’m not having a repeat of the post-Christmas shop fiasco wherein we were shopping the night of his gift exchange.
Is anyone else thinking about this yet?
August 14, 2010
I’m now the proud owner of the Vanguard Star Fund.
The first two years of investing 2% of my paltry entry level salary on my behalf by my previous employer was, as expected, not highly lucrative. The grand total didn’t even reach Vanguard’s $3000 minimum on the majority of their Rollover IRA options so I had to go with the Star Fund for the immediate rollover.
Now I’m thinking of rolling the money from the 401(a) and 403(b) into the same IRA and reallocating. The allocation’s gotten a bit messy over the years:
Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund
Mid-Cap Growth Fund
Small-Cap Index Fund
Total Stock Market Index Fund
Vanguard International Value Fund
Target Retirement 2045 Fund
STAR Fund
And in the ROTH: Long-Term Treasury Fund
Overall, it’s crept over to 82% stocks and 18% bonds.
This brings me within squeaking distance of hitting the $40K mark in the retirement funds. Despite my previous resolution not to, I’ve started making contributions to the employer-sponsored retirement plan in order to get the maximum match. It’s not a lot, but I couldn’t stand going any longer without some savings dedicated to retirement. Once I streamline the three accounts above, and pick a new allocation, I should only have 3 accounts, instead of 5.
August 13, 2010
That is an absolutely normal size, average, run of the mill pen. That is a zucchini. Surprisingly, not on ‘roids. Grown in someone’s backyard, visiting friends brought three of those monstrosities to me and insisted I take them. 1/4 of the fat end made 4 servings of this:
I’m gonna be eating free zucchini for a week. Quick zucchini saute recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen.
August 10, 2010
While washing dishes, or really just scrubbing at the balsamic vinegar charcoal that PiC managed to burn into my new Corningware Simply Lite, I ruminated on the differences in our buying habits. This was prompted by the new tiny bottle of dishwashing liquid he set out last week to replace the last bottle of three he’d purchased while moving into his last abode more than 4 years ago.
I remember, faintly, taking him to the store and teaching him about doubling and stacking coupons, those many years ago. We bought those three small bottles for pennies on the dollar and I proudly sent him on his way with newfound knowledge of coupon clipping. I had no clue that, as a basically single person (we were LD at the time), he would not finish the stash until I moved up years later.
In total contrast, I’ve always shopped in bulk for household goods. Toilet tissue, any kind of cleaning supplies, detergents, Q-tips: anything that could be used up had to be bought in bulk because 4 people would go through the stash like nobody’s business. I reflexively calculate how many coupons I can gather before a grocery or household run, and figure out how to store it later.
The mentality was that if I was out of something, I had to buy enough for the whole household – never just that I had to replace my own. Besides, anyone with siblings knows that once the irresponsible sibling runs out of stuff, your stuff is toast. It was some form of self-preservation. (So was my well developed habit of hoarding and hiding the stashes so that said sibling couldn’t use it up when I wasn’t looking. MY root beer, dammit!)
It’s a bit disconcerting now when I shop with PiC. In a full-size household, I thought, you buy whenever the prices are excellent because you will need and use it. In a this-size household, I’m having to hold back a bit** and realize that we actually might not use three tubs of detergent before Christmas and that it’s not actually necessary to stock up quite as much as I used to.
**Except when it comes to canned tomatos and cereal. The man consumes as much cereal in a week as I do regular food. If he keeps eating at a 1 (my) bowl to 1 (his) box ratio, I’m going to have to start hiding a stash!
Just another oddity of this stage of my life! Watch, when I finally adjust, we’ll add more mouths to feed. Furry, slobbery, doggery mouths.
August 9, 2010
My high school service award was a $500 savings bond for college.
Our lovely Kiwanians, however, hadn’t really looked carefully at the terms of the bond, or the kind of bond they were buying, and 10 years later, the Series EE bond has only appreciated to a grand total of $374. It’s the sort of bond that takes thirty years to accrue to full value, you see, and so was probably the worst choice for a college fund.
I can’t really decide if it’s worth waiting another 20 years for that bond to mature. Why not cash it out at $374 now and invest it or just put it toward one of my mid-term savings goals?
