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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June 18, 2010
Sometimes I see through an opening, but I don’t fit through it. #ow
Sometimes I do math really really wrong and get the right answer. #hm
Sometimes I do math really really right and get the wrong answer. #hmmm
Sometimes I forget what I’m going to say when I find the person I need to say it to. #eh?
Sometimes I would just quit and go home if it weren’t for Ctrl-Z. #sigh
Sometimes I forget to get off the train. (The one that started it all.) #!!!
Happy Friday!
June 15, 2010
If it’s true that my brother may actually leave the house, there are a lot of decisions to be made. So many that my brain resolutely walls off that side of reality because it knows it can’t face up to the facts yet. Blogging it is my way of thwarting my own brain.
I need to find new housing for my parents, and determine if my dog can live with me. Poor pup’s old and her knees are possibly as bad as mine are! Not to mention that the entire weather system is totally different from home – I worry it would affect her as seriously as it’s done me.
My furniture and other belongings left at the house have to be moved with them or to me. Insurances will have to change, movers have to be called, tons of *stuff* has to be recycled or disposed of.
An outline’s all I can handle right now. That and starting to figure out how much to save and how to earn even more income so I can afford to make it happen. Maybe I’ll vision board it like FB’s recommending for travel. Heck, why not?
June 14, 2010
If I could carry a tune, I’d be singing the praises of this, the Corningware Simply Lite 3-quart dish and cover.
I alluded to my medical/physical condition in this post, but didn’t elaborate because I don’t want this to become a whine-fest. It might be helpful to know that fatigue, joint pain, muscle pain are all major players and are all chronic, now they’ve figured into my life for over a dozen years.
It’s become pretty severe. I can’t hold up a pot half filled with water with one hand, lift two five pound roasting birds out of the oven. Heck, some days, opening the beknighted refrigerator doors causes pain to spike into my shoulder. My cake and cupcake bake-a-thons are definitely a thing of the past. And this from the girl who once prided herself on doing anything her big brother could do, physically.
The biggest immediate effect it has on my financial life is aside from popping way more pain meds than I’m happy about, now that I’m cooking and cleaning every day, in other words, really running my own household, I need everything to be as light, durable and low maintenance as possible. It’s amazing how easily I forget my limits and cook too long, wash too many dishes during the course of cooking or clean-up and cause excruciating, emanating pain that doesn’t subside for hours. Days, even.
I refuse to let this prevent me from making my lasagna!
The hunt was on for the durable cookware, piece by piece, without breaking the bank or straining my joints. On that odd shopping trip to Target where I didn’t find much of anything else, we discovered Corningware’s Simply Lite line. Every other dish was already too heavy for me to handle, empty. By darn if the casserole dish in the size I wanted didn’t feel like holding a stack of paper plates. Perfect!
Unfortunately, Target wanted $27.99 for it. I couldn’t bring myself to shell out that much cash, so I thought: Macy’s sales+ coupons + gift card? Except a quick iPhone search listed the sale price as $36.95. Even worse. The lightbulb finally clicked on and I realized that if it was available on Amazon, I might find a better price, use my Swagbucks earned Amazon GCs, AND get the goods delivered within a couple days. Win, win, win, and WIN. The last win being getting what I want.
I’m sharing the link in case anyone might want to experience the wonder for themselves.
June 11, 2010
When do you think about your shiny resume and sparkling accomplishments? About as often as you dust your high school or college diploma, right? Which is to say: never, unless you need it?
If you’re nodding right now, consider yourself my special guest audience: Your resume needs constant weeding and tending, watering and attention just like your savings.
The time to save, and the time to update your resume, is before you need it.
I’m three months into the new job and it’s been a blur of activity, new concepts, crazy challenges, and learning to speak a whole different set of jargon. It’s going to take another three months to start to feel settled in and leave behind the trauma, trials and travails. In that time, however, it’s entirely possible that I will have forgotten important details about my work life because they’ve become old hat or because my memory’s crap and painful memories are best forgotten. Six months after that, my accomplishments become even more hazy and so very “yeah .. I did … something.”
Of course I think that I won’t forget the really significant things but how long do you suppose your memory will hold out? Heck, I kick butt at my job but get so caught up that I forget what day it is all the time.
I’m no fool. I’m writing down my job summary on the resume now, and keeping a spreadsheet of accomplishment by the month to boot. Those will also serve as my talking points when I sit down for a six-month review and present my case for a raise. In twelve months, I’ll have the data ready to rinse and repeat.
In however many months after that, when I’m ready to move on, the routinely updated resume won’t be more than a few months behind my actual work and won’t reek of last job staleness. And if it comes to a downturn or a layoff or any other depressing means of termination? I won’t be writing my resume in the trough of depression – that never makes for a good sell.
Like an emergency fund, a stellar resume cannot be built overnight – you’ve got to put the time and effort in earning the nuggets of glory to populate your list of accomplishments and you’ve also got to record them. Neglect one or the other, and your final withdrawal will seem pretty paltry at the close of any job.
June 8, 2010
…if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything…
The Princess Bride
It’s a sad fact of life that sometimes you make choices and compromises heretofore unthought of in pursuit of better health. Some of them aren’t a big deal: it’s just that you have to exercise in the mornings, instead of evenings lest you lie restless all night, or you have to mind this one stretch or that other warm-up because it makes your elbow go wonky.
Sometimes it’s a very big deal.
Sometimes, you choose between eating dinner or taking a hot bath because you’re in too much pain to eat and properly rest. You forgo a dream career path because it’s too highly physical for 4-6 years of professional schooling before you can choose to specialize in an area that’s less physically demanding. (You wouldn’t last a week.)
You’ll become limited to adopting small dogs because in an emergency, you wouldn’t be able to carry the bigger dog to the vet or away from harm’s way. You probably wouldn’t believe the number of people who call, frantic, about their sick dog they can’t carry to the vet’s and there’s nothing a vet can do over the phone for you. It’s a very real concern.
There are all kinds of compromises that are made when your good health can no longer be taken for granted, when the good days are so rare as to be cherished, defined as “only a few parts of me really hurt right now.”
Danielle knows what I’m talking about. Abby knows what I’m talking about. Nicole talked about the costs of health maintenance. Many others deal with health issues, minor to life-threatening. Many of them have noted that a significant part of the choices you make when a firm, fit and ready-to-go body isn’t what you see in the mirror, involves money.
What you spend your money on is highly influenced by your state of mind which is heavily informed by the state of your body.
These days, I haven’t eked out the time to find a new doctor, so I’m spending time and money (and feeling guilty to boot) in a nearly perpetual-drought state on hot baths in order to keep functioning. Next week, it’ll be therapeutic massages to keep me mobile, and maybe alternative medicine. Who knows what ten years down the road might bring?
All the more reason to become as financially stable as possible while I can make hay. You know, while the sun shines and all that.
I look forward to living pain-free someday but hope for the best and plan for the worst, guys. I’ll keep on saving and investing until I can do no more.
If nothing else, there are days where I can walk a straight line and I stop, breathe and think, I’m so grateful that I am walking without searing pain right this moment. I know it can and will change, but right here, right now, I’m grateful.
Take care of your health, friends, as best you can with what you’ve got.
June 6, 2010
The $5K/5K Challenge was a long sprint that we sprung on you. It was meant as a friendly competition to encourage accountability and share an experience that is inevitably going to have its downturns. Believe you me, I would not have been nearly as enthusiastic about cramming on those projects working late into the nights and sacrificing lovely sunny weekends without my cyber support and fellow “racers.”
Of course, I never did decide exactly where that money was going to go, so let’s do a quick allocation before getting the good stuff.
The total: $4700 (we’re ignoring the change)
Referring back to my Dual Household, Single Income post, and the follow-up with bloated savings goals of April, this should be pretty easy.
Almost too quick and easy, no? I’m finally past the stage where I feel like every budget calculation has to be done a jillion times to be satisfying.
This fast-tracked savings challenge has allowed me to reach my savings goals almost 2 months in advance. If you revisit the original chart, the timeline had these pots filled by the end of July. This is an excellent leg up and head start into the next round of savings.
There’s no guarantee that the next several months will be nearly as fruitful because freelancing puts you (mostly) at the mercy of the clients but that’s part of life.
And, now for the good stuff!
Surprise!
I’m rewarding one of my intrepid challengers with a $50 Smarty Pig gift card! Those who have been posting/updating their goals should leave a comment about their progress and email address to enter the randomized drawing.
The Rules:
I’ll pick a winner on Tuesday 9 pm PDT, all decisions final, winner must respond within 24 hours of contact or I’ll pick a new winner. The reward is the responsibility of the Smarty Pig folks, I don’t have the card myself. Be forthright, be good, and prepare yourselves for the next challenge! In fact, tell me what you’d like the next one to be.
June 5, 2010
*squeal* I staked out the mailbox, trekking out no less than 4 times to see if it’d been delivered, because I was at 60% and that was, y’know, good and all but it’s not nearly an A in the game of Winning. Besides, I’d busted my butt the first two weeks of May to complete an assignment two and a half weeks early to ensure just for this challenge and by golly if the last check didn’t squeak in under the wire!
As of June 5th, I have banked $4742 for the $5K/5K Challenge.
It was no walk in the park. I gave up many weekend hours to work on projects big and small, every penny and minute counting toward this challenge. No small part of that was good timing and luck – though SingleMa took me by surprise with her decision to run a 5K in 5 weeks instead of in October, I’d been “training” in my own way by diligently scouring for opportunities to earn extra income and committing to projects. That’s what made this kinda fun, and not just a horrible horrible idea.
Since I can’t really share what I did for my work, my toil was in silence except for the weekly updates, but I appreciate those of you who stuck through it and achieved your personal goals.
I haven’t yet decided where this money goes, so stay tuned for one last update on this tomorrow!
Meanwhile …..
My Partner in Challenge, Single Ma rocked it out this morning:
Candace fulfilled her challenge:
The Fit Lounge went over and beyond her quota as well:
Congratulations to Single Ma, Candace and The Fit Lounge. My quiet friends of the Challenge, how have you done?
Updates:
@tiredofbeingbro
