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 1, 2010
I’m weak. I swore that I’d stay within budget this year, and wouldn’t buy any supplemental gifts. Usually I’m great on that score — I don’t allow myself to feel guilty about “underbuying” if I’ve been surprised with a gift.
But this year’s a bit different than the usual. This is our first Christmas without Mr. S, and his son’s heart is sore. I had to do something, anything, to help. How about …. a cosmic entity of Doom? For those unfamiliar with the Cthulhu mythos, I’d say this little guy is a handcrafted knit godlet of Doom, Cthulhu’s cuter, younger cousin. Thanks to Mrs. Micah!
And then we went to the “Premium” Outlets I tend to avoid because outlets really aren’t that much of a deal. Then I saw a vest like this one at Gymboree:
Baby clothes are irresistably cute. It was marked down substantially, though (60%), to all of $8.25 after tax.
I almost spent $30 on these shoes so my nephew and I could match, but settled for taking pictures:
And because one cannot show up with gifts for the wife and the child, but nothing for the husband, Harry & David got my business for their aromatic chocolate covered espresso beans.
I think I’ll be happy that I only went ten dollars over budget instead of being upset that I went over at all — the gifts weren’t overly pricey and they are pretty perfect for the giftees. If I do say so myself.
🙂
How did everyone do this year? Over, under, on budget?
December 31, 2009
From December 2008 to December 2009, after the layoff and continuing unemployment, I’ve recorded a 47% total increase. The progress was distributed pretty well across the board: retirement accounts (aka untouchable money), emergency cash to alleviate recessionary anxiety. The relatively low increase in the short term cash isn’t a surprise; that money is saved in advance for spending throughout the year – I still haven’t decided if I’m going to change how that money is represented in the net worthing. Ultimately, I like seeing that I’ve kept a fairly even keel in terms of pursuing all my goals.
I’d forgotten that I established my cash expense account earlier in 2008. That reminds me that this process of building a solid financial foundation has been slow and steady, and not the work of a few weeks or months. It’s hard to say when the most progress was made, I guess that depends on how you measure progress? Straight numbers? Debt reduction? Asset building? These are all parts of the same puzzle.
These snapshots tend to reflect only what I saved, and not the income and spending. The first half of 2009 I was on a mission to reduce monthly costs down to the $2200 range. We had obstacles along the way like the truck payment until we sold it, getting the family car out of hock and then losing it in an accident. We also had happy expenses like marrying off a friend, planning baby showers, taking care of people, and bought some stock.
Oh yes, then I separated from my job! (Didn’t lose it, I know exactly where it went.) Went on a mess of trips: NYC, San Diego, Miami, Hawaii. Good grief, I’d lost track of everywhere I went in the latter half of 2009.
What I’m saying here is that I spent a whole lot. And you can’t expect me to keep track of all that! I kid, I kid. I’m just too tired to pull together a real spending report, but I’m going to say that it was in the range of $30-40,000. I think what I’m going to do for 2010 is tailor Excel spreadsheets to track spending my way. I just haven’t been terribly happy with all the templates out there.
In blogging, and no small thanks to Twitter, I’ve become much more at home here in my corner of the PF blogosphere this year, and appreciate the community and friendships – deeper than I would have ever have imagined to blossom from a purely online relationship. The Internet’s been an integral part of my life since childhood(ish) but I couldn’t have predicted the candor and wisdom to be found here.
I’m grateful to you, my readers and friends, and wish you all a very Happy and safe New Year’s Eve (New Year to my international friends)!
December 30, 2009
How do you like the new Snapshot format? I’m rather awfully proud of it, it’s growing up to be a real adult being formatted in Excel.
As you can see, the damage is rather substantial this month. I spent another $1100 on classes for next quarter and $210 for Christmas gifts. The rest of the discrepancy was a glitch in the unemployment but it should be resolved in the next two weeks. Oh and I didn’t really add another $231 to the emergency fund, I just “stole” that from the tax fund temporarily. It’ll probably go back. Or not, I like seeing 15k in the ING account.
I’m still prepared for costs to go up in 2010, and I didn’t pick up that 2% CD.
December 29, 2009
Some days, I feel impossibly old. But then my 15 year old fluffy mutt mix pops in and demands my attention. She’s always great for my blood pressure, until she does something weird or demanding like try to break through a metal screen door.
Her thing last month was that she no longer loves the Furminator. Sacrilege!! Fourteen and a half years, she couldn’t get enough grooming love, and suddenly she’s leaping and contorting like never before to get away from the brush. Or dramatically yelp-shrieking when the brush touches her. Note: There’s no pain at all, she’s definitely being a brat because I’ve gone over every square inch of her to make sure she’s not tender, cut, bruised, lumpy or any other darn thing that could cause pain. So, fine. Now I’m reduced to finger-grooming her which is seriously a bundle of fun with arthritic hands. But … she’s so CUTE I can’t really say no. Also? Soooo fluffy and furry, she looks like a furball about to burst into tons of little furballs.
Today, we played with tennis balls. Two large dogs, two tennis balls at the same time. (Such a bad idea every time I try it.) The other dog played fetch — he looooves chasing the ball around the house. She’s got the bad joint thing going on, like mama like puppy, so I gently roll the ball in another area for her, or just toss it to her for catching. She’s got a rule about fetch: If you throw a ball, she’ll chase it. But if you want it back, get it y’r darn self. She’s not your fetcher. *shaking head* It’s not something we’re going to discuss at this late date, though.
After a few tosses, she had gotten tired, but evidently still wanted to play: rolling around on her back, mouth hanging open, tossing her head from side to side, casting about for the ball. This time, she changed the rules. Now that she was tired, she laid in one place, grabbed the ball IF it came close enough, looked me dead in the eye, and tossed it over her back. The first time she did it, I thought she just got too excited about grabbing the ball and lost it. After the third time, it struck me: she’s throwing the ball back to me! And if I moved around from the side to the front of her, she’d throw the ball toward me.
Check that out. My dog recognized her limits, went right up to them, and innovated so that she could still have what she wanted without hurting herself.
December 28, 2009
It’s the end of December, which means tax preparation time! Well, prepping for tax prep, anyway. I like to start pulling together my records early in December to make sure things are all set for this tax year.
This is the first year since 2004 that I can claim Education Credits because I took a couple classes this last quarter. I should also be able to claim the money paid towards next quarter’s tuition since that’ll be paid before December 31st.
The usual two choices are the Hope and Lifetime Learning Credits. This and next year, however, a new player is in town: The American opportunity tax credit (AOC), a modification of the Hope Credit.
Here’s a quick comparison of the credits:
AOC, a modification of the Hope credit:
— The maximum amount of the AOC is $2,500 per student. The credit is phased out (gradually reduced) if your modified adjusted gross income (AGI) is between $80,000 and $90,000 ($160,000 and $180,000 if you file a joint return). Exception. For 2009, if you claim a Hope credit for a student who attended a school in a Midwestern disaster area, you can choose to figure the amount of the credit using the previous rules. However, you must use the previous rules in figuring the credit for all students for which you claim the credit.
— The credit can be claimed for the first four years of post-secondary education. Previously the credit could be claimed for only the first two years of post-secondary education.
— Generally, 40% of the AOC is now a refundable credit for most taxpayers, which means that you can receive up to $1,000 even if you owe no taxes.
— The term “qualified tuition and related expenses” has been expanded to include expenditures for “course materials.” For this purpose, the term “course materials” means books, supplies, and equipment needed for a course of study whether or not the materials must be purchased from the educational institution as a condition of enrollment or attendance.
After all is said and done, the Lifetime Learning Credit remains my best friend. This gives a 20% of the first $10,000 of qualified education expenses you paid. Quick calculations say that I’m looking at a credit between $400 and $500. Of course, these are just rough numbers right now — there’s still a lot of income crunching to be done before I’m ready to file my tax returns for 2009.
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Carnavale!
The last Carnival of Personal Finance for 2009 is up at Gather Little By Little. Mike included my update on investing.
December 26, 2009
I hate to admit that, honestly, because I prefer to do things when I want to. Who doesn’t? And operating on that philosophy, housework, schoolwork and work work does get done around here. But, like medicine, while compulsion doesn’t sound pleasant, looming deadline(s) tends to have a terrific effect on your concentration.
It turns out that while I like doing things “when I wanna” holds a certain hedonistic pleasure, it’s not the most productive, and thus – for me -ultimately satisfactory. It’s the workaholic in me: getting lots done makes me happy.
I’ve had the pleasure of running my own routine, such as it is squeezed between travel, etc., for some months now. There are certain tasks that must be done on specific dates. Where possible, I schedule those tasks for completion a week in advance of the due date, while treating items on the Should Do list as rolling objects from day to day.
One area this worked quite well is for my online classes. The syllabi, reading lists, assignments, quizzes and discussion boards were all posted during the first week of school. Armed with this information, I could creatively schedule several weeks’ worth of schoolwork to accommodate other things, a la Hawaii. [By “creatively” I really just mean: did all the work early.]
Basically, A) I spare myself the stress of working against the clock when it matters (ie: timed quizzes and exams), and B) I create more free time at the back end in case of problems, questions, or complications.
It also works well in handling my finances. My account aggregator is good for daily and weekly check-ups, and sitting down to pay the bills once a week.
An area where I hadn’t applied that scheduling ethic is right here on the blog. This has always sort of been a time-sensitive blog, written on the spot and during the heat of the moment but that doesn’t necessarily equal writing worth reading. During my leisure time, I’m slowly changing that habit in the pursuit of higher quality writing; a cushion of posts would be a lovely bonus.
There’s definitely an element of “makes me feel like I’m winning” at play here as well. If there’s a deadline and I handily beat it? WIN. It’s the same as that intrinsic love of rules or benchmarks.
So I can make this work for me during the most unstructured time of my life. Step by step, I’m imposing structure on my daily routines: blogging, recreational reading, “research” reading, schoolwork, even cooking, and most importantly, career development.
December 25, 2009
to all my readers who celebrate Christmas! And to everyone: warm bunny snuggles!
