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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January 26, 2010
I’m blushing right now. I’ve talked about dipping my toe into building a modest portfolio before. Bought my first set of shares, decided on a Watch List of about ten stocks with decent dividends and sat back to wait. I was waiting for: more money to spend, and lower prices all around. After all, I’d learned from my 10 share experience, right?
Nope.
I knew that Berkshire Hathaway was going to split the B-shares 50-1 on Thursday and that put individual shares within reach starting in the $60s per share. A little knowledge, my friends, is indeed a dangerous thing.
Kinda like Mapgirl, except I had the warning in her comment specifically about BRKB: I jumped too soon.
With just over $500 sitting in the account, it’s not like I was flush with cash but … *ducking head* I was bedazzled by the brand name of BRK.B and bought 7 shares. I know! I know! Of all the things to impulse buy! I’ve been seduced by a name and a deal. And 7?? What is that number about?
Feels like this is the beginning of a slippery slope, innit? The buying strategy for this investment account was to buy more than 10 shares at a time of a good company at a low price that paid decent dividends. Watch List, remember?
Ah well, not really. There’s a simple solution to that mistake. I have no more ready money.
Thus ends my foray into investing through the Trade King account until I scare up an income and have the cash flow to divert.
Ed Note: Yes, BRK.B is under $70 and has been since I bought the stock. Le sigh. I have no one but myself to blame. Myself and this horrendous cold that won’t go away.
By request:
January 25, 2010
Right on schedule, meaning a month into the year, I’ve put together my new handy-dandy budget tracking template for 2010. It sounds super fancy, doesn’t it?
Not at all. It gets simpler every year.
I have so many minor objections to the existing templates out there, and I’m almost positive that it’s because once you start tweaking a template, the temptation to customize the life out of it is irresistable. That way lies madness, you can’t ever stop thinking: this would be perfect if you just changed [insert one more thing you dreamed up overnight].
I used to love Pearbudget BUT….
The categories were too limiting.
I couldn’t make a note by every transaction so I’d be able to identify it easily.
I couldn’t add categories.
I could only add one item per day, per category.
I used to love MSN Money BUT…
They discontinued it as soon as I started using it.
It’s like account aggregators … everything is just almost good enough. So this year, I’m just opening up a new Excel Spreadsheet. The first page is the Monthly Summary.
And the following sheets will be 1 sheet per month with all transactions listed. Because I pay for any and all expenses with a credit card for easier tracking, I can easily access 99% of my transactions online. Much quicker than inputting from receipts, even though it’s really the same thing. Doing it this way also means I can ignore all credit card payments and bank transfers.
Most templates keep the summary at the end but I prefer to have the big picture numbers front and center and the drill-downs to follow. If I get really fancy, I might even figure out how to do more than just use the Sum function to total up the expenses.
I dropped off the tracking wagon mid-year in 2009, partially because of my travel, but the information that I do have is incredibly helpful in compiling my tax data. This year, I’ll keep records both on and offline so that I always have access to it and will always keep it updated. Pinky swear!
A few allowances were made in the creation of this new template:
- I agreed (with myself) to be more “big picture” about this version. Meaning, I’m not going to go back and reconcile six months of expenses and income just to get completely up to speed before starting this sheet. If I had to do that, I wouldn’t even get started! Barrier removed.
- I’m ignoring all the seasonal purchases (Christmas and birthday gifts, eating out), and lump sum expenditures (school related) of last month,
- But I’m not ignoring the irregular income earned last year and paid this year. It’ll even out within a few months. Again, big picture focus.
Suggestions for prettifying and formulizing are always welcome, Excel gurus!
January 22, 2010
A friend and I were catching up the other day, when the subject of work came up. She works in an animal clinic, and she told me about this sad case they recently saw where a woman brought in her new puppy for an exam.
This wasn’t a typical puppy wellness exam that comes with adopting an animal from the local shelter, or just because the pup was new. The poor puppy had contracted canine parvovirus, commonly referred to as Parvo or abbreviated as CPV. Parvo’s a pretty miserable disease, and left untreated, especially in young dogs, can be fatal. It basically causes the gastroinstestinal problems (sorry to the squeamish!) of vomiting and diarrhea which leads to dehydration and of course, it doesn’t take long for that to take out a young’un. So it’s a serious matter when you bring a Parvo pup in for treatment, they have to be on fluids and medications, sometimes for weeks, until the virus clears out. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. The only guarantee is that it’s a lengthy and usually expensive process unless someone foots the bill for you.
Your choices are limited: treat at the hospital and hope for the best, treat at home and hope for the best (while bleaching everything that comes into contact with the puppy), or decide to euthanize.
Confronted with this diagnosis, the woman didn’t know what to do. This is a common response.
“I don’t have a job, my husband just lost his job, and I don’t know how I’m going to feed my (2) kids,” she wailed. This is, unfortunately, a far more common response than it should be.
I have the biggest soft spot in the world for animals and have worked to pay the vet bills since I was 17, paying hand over fist for medical treatments for my dogs on occasion, but I have never put them before my family’s wellbeing, either.
On the one hand, I wanted to shake the woman, reach right through my friend’s narrative and give her a good shake: what were you doing bringing home another mouth to feed when neither breadwinner has income and you can’t feed your own children?!??
On the other hand, the damage is done and I fully believe “You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) That part of me wants to say: you find a way. You will buckle down and you find a way. I know that unemployment, especially now, is really not a choice, but picking up the responsibility of a domesticated animal that now relies on you, literally for its life, is your choice. And once you’ve made it, you’d better find a way to fulfill your responsibilities.
A lot of people choose to go into debt using Care Credit which Miss M has written about before, a lot of people use regular credit cards, and a few of them will give the pet a fighting chance at home. On occasion, some will opt to euthanize the pet.
What would you do?
January 21, 2010
I’m taking one today, sort of, because I’ve got the worst sore throat and set of aches and I still can’t help but feel like I’ve got to get some work done today. Even in the freelancing life, I feel guilty not working.
This suck-it-up attitude isn’t rare, unfortunately, and rarely serves us well except in an environment where taking sick days is institutionally frowned upon. No joke, I’ve worked in offices where the rule was: “You can go home if you feel sick, but I don’t and the big boss doesn’t, we’re always here no matter what, so I don’t know why you’d feel the need to.” Even then, it’s not good to bow to that unreasonable culture.
I’ll tell you why you should use those sick days!
Full time employees with benefits have sick and vacation days, and a defined set of ways they can use them. ie: You should take a sick day when you feel ill, or have a doctor’s appointment. Part-timers and freelancers do have to worry about not getting paid for taking a day or three off, but that’s another argument for saving your pennies against a rainy day.
1. INFECTION Caring is not sharing. When you’re feeling sick, especially when you’re at the beginning of the illness, you’re likely to be contagious. This means you’re very likely to pass along the germs to your colleagues and keep the sick cycle going. Even if you’re conscientious about washing your hands, there are usually communal eating/gathering areas and you’ll leave them teeming with germs. Gross. It’s even worse if you don’t have a desk job and have contact with lots of moving parts that are subsequently handled by others.
2. PERFORMANCE (short term) Who does their best work when coughing, sneezing, sniffling, and feeling run down? Show of hands, anyone? Don’t kid yourself, people, if you can’t even sleep in that state, you can’t do your work effectively.
3. PERFORMANCE (long term) It’s a set-up. What’s worse than sucking it up and trudging to your desk through your day of misery? Having it come back to bite you. You may make mistakes, poor judgment calls or just plain forget to follow through on the commitments you made. And two weeks later, what people remember isn’t that you were sicker’n’ a dog and showed up anyway, they’ll just see the aftermath of your Sickie performance. And be ticked off because they’re sick now too.
4. HEALTH “If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.” The Princess Bride was right about many things, and this is no exception. Even if you don’t have a compromised immune system, routinely neglecting your health repeatedly takes a toll on your body and triggers untold stress long-term. If nothing else, the habit of ignoring your minor health issues can lead to missing important changes that may indicate greater problem than chronic colds or flus. My junior high math teacher ignored a persistent cough for months, and it was months before she went to the doctor and was diagnosed with end stage lung cancer. They might have been able to treat if she’d come in for the cough almost a year earlier.
If you have sick days, use them. If you’re saving them for a payout (Funny about Money did), use other days if you have to, but don’t save your days and sacrifice your well-being.
So how many sick days do you get? And how many have you used?
January 20, 2010
Shrimp Scampi
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
4 cloves garlic (chopped)
1 pound shrimp (shelled and deveined)
1/4 cup white wine
1 lemon (juice)
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 pound regular penne to avoid leftovers, I would probably use a whole pound next time for a better pasta/shrimp ratio.
Parmigiano reggiano (garnish)
Chopped tomatos, basil (garnish)
Directions
1. Heat the oil and melt the butter in a pan.
2. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute.
3. Add the shrimp and saute until cooked, about 1-3 minutes per side.
4. Remove the shrimp from the pan.
5. Add the wine and lemon juice and bring to a boil.
6. Simmer the liquid until reduced by about half, about 3-5 minutes.
7. Add butter, wait for it to melt and turn off the heat.
8. Add shrimp, pasta and toss to coat.
9. Serve with a garnish of parmigiano reggiano, tomatos and basil.
Notes: On a shampoo and loaf of bread trip to Costco we were surprised by a showcase of gorgeous White or Black Tiger Prawns for $8.99/lb. [Nothing like Frugal Scholar’s $2.98/lb shrimp!]
We bought a pound (17 shrimps) to make tiny appetizers to accompany the chicken bites I’d planned to serve at a housewarming, but we ran out of time. Which was all to the good for me and my pasta ambitions the following day.
I would recommend serving with fresh tomatoes and basil.
VERSUS
Lemon Garlic Chicken
Ingredients
8 drumsticks
3 lemons
15 cloves of garlic, peeled
Salt & pepper to taste
2 tablespoons fresh thyme Italian parsley leaves (it turns out Trader Joe’s does NOT have thyme)
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. In a bowl, add the chicken pieces. Slice the lemons in half and juice them. Add the juice and the lemon rinds to the bowl, along with the garlic, salt, pepper, and thyme.
3. Mix well with your hands, then dump this all in a large baking dish.
4. Put the dish in the oven and bake the chicken for 30 to 40 minutes, basting every 10 minutes.
5. When the skin gets crispy and the meat is cooked through, it is done.
Notes: For my fat-fearing companion, I skinned the drumsticks ahead of cooking, and used a foil shield over the pan to protect the chicken from drying out.
Verdict: Both are absolutely delicious, but the shrimp scampi ringing up at more than $3/lb and using white wine is too decadent for a frugal budget. We’ll use 2-buck chuck, of course, but a bottle has to be drunk within a few days of opening.
The chicken, however, at $1.29/lb isn’t terribly cheap but is quite a bit more affordable for an everyday dish.
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Daily Exercise Update: Nuttin. I was paying the price for procrastinating on homework and other needful things. As penance, tomorrow, ANKLE WEIGHTS.
January 19, 2010
I forgot to add the Lending Club account to my net worth snapshots, so I’ll be adding them this month under the investment services tag. I’ve had the account for about 5 months and forgot about it since I only funded it with $50 of promotional money.
Pictured above is my 2009 year end review. So far, my only note, a Grade A paying 7.74% note is coming along nicely. I wish I’d had a chance to help fund MoneyFunk’s loan, it would have been nice to help out a fellow blogger but she whipped up 85 borrowers and fully funded in 16 hours!
I’ll go ahead and check out potential new loans this month to commit another $100 or so to it. I’m sticking to A grade loans, I don’t have any need to take major risks for an additional 5% at this point, 7-9% is perfectly adequate.
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Daily Exercise Update: Ran many errands in the cold and wet. If I were in this for the weight loss, I’m sure I burned many calories trotting from store to store, and a bonus sum from shivering. I’m not so I’m counting it as stiff upper-lipping in nearly-extreme weather conditions instead.
January 18, 2010
and I’m aiming to be rich. Like, filthy never have to worry about money again rich. (Except maybe not the filthy part -can’t you be uberrich without being dirty? That might be a discussion for another day.)
The two go hand in hand- I don’t want to retire in the traditional sense of the word: work until 65 or 70, then creak back to a paid-for home with a modest financial cushion to live out your days.
I do like a little of that picture, the paid for home and the comfortable cushion, to be sure. But I want much more than just moderate wealth because I have a huge goal. I want to have boatloads of money by developing many income streams so that I can concentrate on what really matters to me which, incidentally, will cost a lot of money and would probably never break even.
I’m a huge fan of adoption: children and animals alike. I’ve witnessed the tearing difficulties of adopting a child and am under no illusion that it’s all rainbows and kittens, but I still believe in the principle of giving an orphan a home. There’s something about bringing someone into your family by choice that resonates deeply with me. I think everyone should have a place to call home, and someone to remember their birthday. But that’s a different discussion for another day.
My far-off, one-day-some-day dream is to open a pet rescue/adoption ranch. Ideally, my family would be supportive of this as well, and be hands-on in the place, but you never know. I kind of always dreamed that my family would be composed of fostered and adopted kids, and a love of animals is more nature than nurture. (Especially when it comes to allergies.)
It would be a nice facility, clean but not sterile, not soulless like some animal shelters can feel sometimes. They do good work, and I used to volunteer for the Humane Societies, but there was something so dismal about the place knowing that every animal brought in was on a timeline.
The ranch would have wide open spaces for the dogs to play during the day, room for the cats to roam, a paddock or two for any potential horses or pigs.
I don’t know how big it would be- after all, the bigger the place, the harder it is to maintain. And we’d need grooming facilities, of course. But even when money was no object, I’d have to find the balance between taking in everyone and providing the best possible care for each.
I want all those boatloads of money to support not just the ranch, but medical facilities on the ranch. Perhaps employing several full time veterinarians would be unsustainable, but I think that sponsoring a year of a veterinarian’s education in exchange for a year or two of commitment to the ranch in some form or another would be reasonable. Same thing for animal technicians, they could exchange work time for tuition payment. I really like the idea of the ranch being a home for animals and fostering education at the same time.
This ranch would just bleed money, it could never be self-sustaining even with reasonable parameters on spending and fundraising so it stands to reason I’d just have to be trust-fund wealthy.
Yep. I want to be rich (pass on the famous) someday so I can spend my life working with animals.
What’s your dream?
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Related posts from ’round:Mrs. Micah doesn’t want to retire either
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Since writing this, I watched Animal Planet’s Pitbulls and Parolee‘s show and my heart was breaking. The work is hard, and may seem thankless, but that’s exactly what I want to do.
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Daily Exercise Update: Held an 18 pound baby in my arms for more than 20 minutes. More efficacious than lifting weights!
