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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July 25, 2010
There was always supposed to be some scheduled posts but that didn’t happen, obviously, so here I am, dashing off a quick note on my last night in San Diego to let you know that my spending proves I’m still alive and kicking.
Sunday Confessional
I’m totally out of shape and am barely making it out this year: my feet are blistering in protest of the miles of con floor walking and dashes to panels, and the astronomically long lines while carrying 20 pounds of comics.
I bought 20 pounds of comics.
Only half of them were gifts.
That and 2 other gifts cost all the cash I brought down with me and then some ($173).
Am packmuling home ten t-shirts (9 freebies, 4 from the Scott Pilgrim Marketing Bonanza, 1 gift for a friend).
I’m still online because I’m watching my inbox for an email from a stranger with an attached photo of me with Adam Baldwin. (!!!)
And now I’m going to pass out and dream-brainstorm good thank-you gifts for the gracious owners of the condo in which I stayed for free. Flowers? Food? (Food’s too hard.)
July 19, 2010
“Can you pay the mortgage for a while?”
If you hear that high-pitched squealing, it’s either my tires peeling out of the garage, or the whistle of my brain on overdrive.
PiC wasn’t totally serious when he asked, it was really just out of frustration. He’s been going through a rough patch at the job and it’s at a point where I think it’s toxic. Having been there, I know from toxic and I know it’s insidious. You develop defense mechanisms that are hard to break and stop trusting people. He needs a major change or at the very least, the comfort of knowing that if he wanted or needed to jump ship, he’s financially able to. You know, the e-fund!
As much as I practice financial responsibility here, I don’t preach it everywhere and especially not to someone who is meant to be a partner. We have our differences and discuss them rationally to find a compromise. That said, of course there’s a corner of my brain that goes “poof” like a small atomic bomb. “Why?!?!” it screeches.
Not “why would you lean on me?” and not “why would you even think about quitting?” I know the answers to those questions and I’m fine with it. It’s a very simple “why did you wait until nooowwww to think about this??”
Ok. That’s my vent. Onward we go.
I did a quick verbal calculation for him: worst case scenario, I could support the both of us, and my family, for about 9 months using the cash I have on hand. That would completely drain my cash holdings without accounting for the incoming paychecks. (That is not, as we all know from the unemployment rolls, a very long time.)
At some point in the near future, very near, we’ll have to discuss a more realistic plan than burning bridges or stewing in a bad work environment for the sake of a paycheck, chained down by a mortgage. It wasn’t a commitment I chose to take on but our relationship is and this is part of the game.
If there’s a bright side to this situation, we’ll be talking much more frankly and proactively about money than ever before. And that’s a good thing in my book.
Click here to see the follow-up post, comments and further explanation.
July 18, 2010
PiC does stand for Partner in Crime, for those of you who were asking. I think it’s fun but he would like it to be known that we are “strictly on the up and up” with every bit of “legit”ness possible. 😀 This is why he cracks me up, he takes the oddest things literally. And it’s true, we’re totally legit around here.
In other news, I’ve been thoroughly irresponsible this weekend thanks to an unexpected houseguest. An old friend gave me a call on Thursday asking if I happened to have bedspace, which we do, and made a serious drive over to visit. He’s been housebound for a while so he was in the mood for a lot of city livin’ – which is so very much not me. As it turns out, we compromised pretty well.
We had a lovely dinner out in the city with his old friend which cost $23 each for the traditional 7 courses of beef. I didn’t know there was a Pagolac in the Bay Area – I used to dine there with my family as the ultimate treat for big big things down south. I know now that it’s not really that costly in comparison to gourmet food but it was pretty serious stuff for my fam. We rarely ever ate out so for that lifestyle, that was a splurge. Honestly, I still appreciate the simplicity and still feel a touch spoiled when we eat that meal.
Saturday dawned late with a little bit of sleeping in which was lovely. We cruised the Farmers Market, picking up salami cones, quarter pounds of cheese, the most excellent bread, and a couple of really expensive peaches. We got lost, taking the wrong freeway, and ended up munching our way through all that food watching the waves crash on the rocks of Treasure Island. Best thing? We avoided having to pay the toll for taking the wrong bridge! Lunch, snacks for later: $24
Later that night, we discovered a fantastic Thai restaurant in Oakland, Sabuy Sabuy, that the nearest multiplex cinema had the worst parking structure set-up ever, paid $2 for the privilege of parking for 3 minutes to not see a sold out movie, and THEN paid $10.50 each for a movie ticket at another theater. *smh* Unfortunately, I completely forgot that I had a Regal Cinemas ticket voucher – could have saved a bit of cash.
Today was going to be errand running but we got a late start and after feasting on the leftover peaches, frozen hash browns and other carbs, I’m settling in to finally get some work done. Ahh….leftovers for dinner tonight!
There’s something incredibly refreshing about hanging out with friends of old. I’m not terribly social, nor that trusting since college, so it always takes more effort to spend time with people who I’ve not been acquainted with all that long. It’s been lovely catching up with these friends more frequently but I definitely need to find a more economical way to do it. “They’re worth it” is the first step on a pretty slippery slope! And on the eve of my trip down south, I should be more conscientious about spending.
July 14, 2010
Continued from the last post …
For the last ten years, I learned painfully, repeatedly, not to trust anyone about money. My family’s track record meant that I had to take control or lose my mind. Or the house. I was darned if I’d let any more bad things happen to me again. *shakes fist a la Scarlett O’Hara (Did she shake her fist? Or is that unladylike?)* Since then, it was always my effort that put food on the table, kept the lights on, the water running. Not for me the bad roommates, dealing with shared rent and bills, cleaning up after people, or any of those popular horror stories.
More importantly, while I don’t judge anyone else for their choices to or not to cohab, I can and do judge myself. For many years, cohabbing was never on the table and it’s been distinctly weird saying that… I … live … with … PiC.
But while this choice, more unguided than misguided, went against my decision never to live with a significant other before marriage, it cut to the bone of my philosophy about trust and people. Namely the part where they don’t go together.
By choosing to cohabitate, I depend on PiC. I rely on him to pay his bills, to provide my home, to support me. (Heartburn.) It’s not that he doesn’t earn a decent income or that he’s a bill-evader, he’s just not deathly allergic to debt like I am. Oh, and he’s a spender. (Aneurysm.) I’ve always known that about him but figured that by the time marriage was on the table, which was the only time I’d allow myself to enter into financial co-dependence, we’d have found a compromise.
So this whole moving in thing? Can we say whole system meltdown?
Funny thing, though. After three weeks of (mostly repressing) angst/anxiety about it, I began to discover that it can work.
I wrung some concessions out of him for my own sanity. We keep spreadsheets on the things that my living here will increase like groceries, eating out, utilities and roughly split those. I pay for groceries because my credit card gets better grocery cashback. He pays for gas because he gets better prices (Costco). I get to manage the monthly spending limits and I cook a LOT to keep bills down. After three months, we’ll sit down and review our spending together and decide how to build a reasonable side by side budget. I’d like to contribute more one way or another. We’re not combining finances, but we’ll make them cohabitable.
We compromise a lot. We’ve had our spats but they were mostly about misunderstanding the other person’s motives. We step on each others’ toes because we try not to. Once we talk it through, it’s fine.
He’s been amazingly supportive about my health issues. (Though, his supportiveness isn’t really amazing for him. If you knew him, you’d know that’s just the way he is.) We giggle a lot. We have the dumbest jokes and snipe at each other until it gets so ridiculous that we crack up. He lets me grouse; I nudge him when he’s winding himself up. I can’t recall why I thought cohabitation was such a horrible idea now that I’ve experienced it.
Not only am I out of a toxically worrying environment, I can just sit in the living room and relax. In my entire adult life, I’ve never done that. Not in a safe, my-home kind of place, and definitely not with any sense that I can trust someone else to take care of me if I need help. How luxurious!
And because of all this weird and good stuff, the thought of marriage no longer causes anxiety. That’s some serious progress. Yes, my family still needs my help and yes, I still feel very responsible for their health and safety. No, I have no idea where I can afford to move them and no, I don’t feel at peace about them. But I can, for the first time, look at the future and think about making plans with a sense of purpose instead of panic.
Perhaps I need to start a courthouse fund. Because I still think eloping’s the way to go. 🙂
July 12, 2010
Within reason, I share quite a lot of my life here on this blog. That’s why I keep it anonymous – between the financial soul-baring and the occasional emoting, it’s somehow less embarrassing if people who know me don’t know me.
Still, there’s this thing I’ve been keeping this under my hat for some time. For lots of reasons.
I wasn’t sure it was the right decision. I hadn’t taken all the prudent, protective steps beforehand. I wasn’t sure that I was even ready to do this so if it blew up in my face, I kind of wanted to go hide in a corner and not talk about it. But most importantly, because my family couldn’t know. In a bigger way than they can’t know that I’ve been saving for their later years, or that it’s been an incredible struggle with my own health and happiness to provide for them. More than all that guilt-related sort of stuff, they couldn’t know this because I can’t trust my sibling with this knowledge.
As you well know, my sibling is my polar opposite: where I’m responsible, he’s footloose and fancy-free. Where I’m cautious, he’s reckless, where I’m a saver, he’s a spender. Most importantly, when I’m on my own, I take care of business. When he doesn’t have someone to answer to, he’s destructive. And my moving out had to be kept a secret for that reason.
But the other thing that I kept even more under my hat was that I moved in with PiC.
It felt like a cheat.
He refused to talk rent, he refused to talk bills, he refused to talk 50/50 anything. As far as he was concerned, it made the most sense for us to be living in the same place (literally, not just in the same city) at the same time, he was already paying a mortgage regardless of where I was or what I was doing, I needed time to get back on my feet and settled, and I already had too many expenses. Never no mind that the responsible thing to do was to talk out our expectations, household duties and I always always pay my way.
It drove me nuts. But I had two weeks to find a place, my family’s expenses eat up at least 70% of my take home salary and that’s before I’d factored in personal living expenses. It was really hard to make any sort of functional budget including rent, food, insurance. So, uncharacteristically, irresponsibly, I took a leap of faith and moved in with him.
Stay tuned….
July 11, 2010
With a few minor deviations, like having paid rent for July already, I’ve pulled together what should pretty accurately reflect my financial month of June. I keep wondering if I should continue to post these reports. They were always meant to keep me accountable and make it really easy to keep track of whether or not I’m making progress, but there’s the niggling thought that perhaps it comes off as bragging after you reach a certain point.
The seemingly “steady” creep up is just the aftereffects of the great push, also known as: $5K/5K challenge. Not a penny was from regular earnings, almost every cent of that is being spent on regular expenses.
There’s something that I’ll soon, in the spirit of full financial disclosure, share with you in a future post that has radically affected my finances recently.
In the meantime, however, there are things that have to change about the picture you see above.
One, there haven’t been any contributions in my retirement accounts since I started this job. That’s because, dear friends, I’ve been a slacker in the last two months and couldn’t decide what to do about that blasted 401(k) issue. I hate passing on free money vs. I’m not convinced the match (total of 4% to my 5%, I misread the literature before) is worth the extra fees.
Two, I’ve been paying all my parents’ expenses since leaving, but I keep wondering if there’s a way I can squeeze out a little more to give them a small cash allowance as well. Although they have my credit cards, I know there’s something disheartening about never having real money on hand. That may not be possible though, because point three is…
I’d like to have at least $1,000 saved just for their dental expenses. The moving fund is in ok shape, not enough for deposits, a move, and all that yet, but I also need another $1,000 for their dental. Their coverage is, frankly, crap.
I was going to keep going but this is going to turn into a wish list if I do. Best to stick with these for now.
July 10, 2010
Despite knowing about our trip down south last weekend for a couple months, I failed to prepare far enough in advance to prevent several wasteful results of being gone and off routine.
Spending, while not wildly out of control, couldn’t be said to be under control either because I’ve honestly not been keeping track of my cash flow spreadsheet. July doesn’t have a single entry listed.
A) While down south, I went to Target fully knowing I needed 4 or 5 items and that they weren’t really budgeted for. Went anyway. Luckily, I found nothing on the list except a handful of really cute and well-priced cards that I needed for weddings, birthdays, and other occasions: $6.
B) We ordered take-out lunch while rushing from lodgings to hospital to see the new baby and parents; we failed to take note of the total price until I asked for it after calling the order in: $70!
C) Vending machines in hospitals take credit cards now. When you’re there all day for multiple days and only brought one bottle of water: $10
D) Groceries that I didn’t have time to prepare beforehand went bad (some salsa, some pasta sauce, some veggies)
E) Grocery shopping only happens on weekends so getting back late on Monday night meant eating leftovers brought back from the weekend OR …. eating out. One night, a high-earning friend was in town and insisted on going to Ruth’s Chris so also insisted on treating so we now owe her the next dinner, instead of just paying our own way each time.
F) It could have been worse, without fresh veggies to fix lunch either, it was a peanut butter sandwich every day this week. I’m glad that I really like PB!
G) Almost forgot, I also spent $40 on groceries for the new parents. A gift, let’s call it.
Bills didn’t go unpaid, thankfully because I tend to pay them every two weeks and the day before any trips, but I did forget to calculate my net worth for the month of June, I forgot to set up some invoices, and barely managed to meet other online commitments.
It’s time to get it together.
1. Invoices – prepare and send
2. Net worth – pull it together! Since I’m still in between paychecks, it should be fairly accurate
3. Grocery shopping – at least decide what recipes are up for the week and make up the list. Perhaps even go today. (I’m still pretty achy, yesterday was a tough day.)
4. Cooking!
Prepare chicken stock for soupbases for the week.
Defrost another chicken and have PiC learn from the fabulous @HeatherSolos from Home Ec 101 how to wield a knife and break down a whole chicken (almost the only kind of chicken I think is cheap enough to buy). I prefer to hog kitchen duty but my bones and muscles can’t handle the heavy duty stuff.
Perhaps defrost all the jambalaya making stuff and make up a whole tureen for the week?
That’s more than enough for today since I also have to get some work-work in before Monday. And PiC promised to sit down with me and crunch numbers for some possible trips we’d like to take.
