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 27, 2010
So “all that cash” I’ve been sitting on? It’s time for what I imagine as a huge origami ship of money to set sail.
Between both my parents and a denture-happy dentist, I’m warming up the credit card for a massive spend in the next few weeks. It’s sooner than I expected, but the fact is, holding off on treatment just to save up isn’t a good enough reason. I can afford to pay off any charges accrued now, and they will benefit by having earlier care.
I’ve asked my dad to schedule my mom’s evaluations and get her treatment started. He nervously asked, “What’s your limit?” As though it might melt the card.
“Trust me, it’ll be fine.” That’s all I’ll say.
It’s weird that I didn’t really want to say “nearly $20 grand” as if that was the equivalent of saying I have that much money. He won’t abuse it. He hates that he has to use my money for basic necessities like food and gas, but oddly enough, even though I know all the money I’ve saved is for their care, for emergencies, and for the family, I’m still loathe to share any details whatsoever.
Call it force of habit.
Anyhow, I got the call that a few of Dad’s bridges are in now and rang up at a total cost of $1200. He’s got more coming, but he actually tried to decline treatment on the basis of cost! You know I shut that down immediately. Feels vaguely awkward, but I instructed him, no questions asked, to make his next appointment before he left that office. One would think I’d be used to playing parent by now, but it never really fits properly.
As for Mom, the news is … bad. She’s been hiding her problems so long that it’s now going to cost her 6-8 months of painful treatment, possibly more, to start repairing the worst of the damage. Talking to the dentist about the recommendations was hearing like a dental student’s boot camp final exam:
Multiple extractions with a 2 month healing period after each one,
Bridges to replace each extracted tooth,
Root canals for severe dental decay,
Fillings for all other teeth with moderate or mild dental decay.
At this point, leaving aside our ridiculously good fortune that this dentist is giving us most everything at cost because it turns out that his mom is a very old family friend, I’m just really worried about how rough this will be for her. For them both, really.
Friends, please take good care of your teeth. The pain and discomfort of this whole ordeal, never mind all the time she kept hiding it from us, is almost entirely preventable. In her case, maybe less so because much of it was a side effect of the many medications she’s been on for years, but for the rest of us it’s critical to brush and floss twice a day to ward off this kind of problem.
On the money side, I did look into whether my FSA would accommodate these costs but the Dependent Care Assistance portion of the FSA is only limited to day care and educational costs. Back to out of pocket for me.
August 23, 2010
I wrote about my Blahs recently, and I’m glad to say I’m on my way out. I hate being disorganized and muddled, and even more than feeling behind, I hate the feeling that I’m not doing something. Stagnation bites.
After some reflection, it occurred to me whence this bout of stagnation hailed.
A big part of my sense of home stems from dedicated personal space. Don’t get me wrong, PiC and I have plenty of room, and share well for the most part, but I still need a corner with all the accoutrements of office space: desk space, a printer/scanner, a home for the laptop, somewhere I can put my feet up when I’m writing. I’m a nester, I don’t need a lot of stuff, but I do need a comfortable cubbyhole. Like a pup and its kennel, I’m happiest when I have a writing (bill-paying/internetting) cave.
When I first moved in, I spent several hours fussing with the dang Epson trying to get it to work but failed miserably. Then I was caught up in the whirlwind of a new job.
Days, weeks and months passed. New investments, new mail, new accounts spawned paperwork which just piled up. And piled higher. And higher.
*shudder*
I can’t believe it took me this long but I got back on the horse and did the one thing ostensibly under my control: I wrassled with the printer/scanner for hours until it’s pretty much installed on both laptops wirelessly. “Pretty much” because the scanner’s still not working on my computer but still, it’s two steps ahead of where I was before. With any luck, at least I’ll be able to scan to PiC’s laptop.
Step two will be scanning and shredding or recycling all the documents that are just collecting dust. I have a feeling that I’ll breathe much more easily once that’s been accomplished.
August 22, 2010
There will be no more waste.
Life’s been rather chaotic with the odd unexpected meal out, travel that comes up faster than expected, and a few weeks of poor meal timing led to a day when fridge clear-up was more than throwing out scraps gone off before we could eat them. We’re blessed with good food and the good fortune of never wondering where our next meal is coming from, I can’t stomach the thought of taking that for granted and wasting any more food through carelessness.
We’re now being much more careful about eating up leftovers within a day or two and stretching the ends of each batch of food creatively, not just by starting up a whole new meal.
There’s a chicken roasting in the oven now only because it was defrosted before weekend and before we brought home unexpected bounty from a BBQ on Saturday. The rest of this week, we’ll polish off the fresh roast bird and broccoli slaw mix, a variant on Smitten Kitchen’s recipe.
I’m planning more creative meals as well, to stoke appetites and make eating as fun as it used to be when we experimented more.
On the grocery front, I spent $50 today, stocking up on sale fish, which PiC is this very moment dealing out into smaller portions and freezing for later. I’m dating everything that goes into the freezer so we can easily rotate protein into the meal plans regularly. We also now have what would be a year’s supply of cereal, if he weren’t such a cereal glutton, for PiC, plenty of frozen veggies for the end of the week when we tend to run out of fresh, and a back-up chicken for roasting. We’re set for the next few weeks in a way that won’t have us throwing out heaps of wilted or food gone off.
Well-Heeled asked me a while back how I managed home-cooking so often but it was down to better planning and dedicating most of at least one weekend day to cooking more than any special Suzy Homemaker ability.
I’m also very lucky to have PiC who is generally fully capable and willing to do the Costco and other grocery runs with or without me, sous chefs happily, and puts up with any number of odd kitchen stocking requests. A full partner is invaluable in managing a kitchen and household!
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.
