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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April 3, 2009
My eyebrows still haven’t crept back down from my hairline after reading the positively dismal comments on FMF’s article posted over on Consumerist.com: 50% Of Americans 2 Paychecks Away From Having Big Financial Problemos
I knew that some people took exception to financial advice, but didn’t realize that there were people who took personal finance axioms so personally. At first, the comments started out fairly benignly, with understandable exasperation at uncomfortable or tight living circumstances. Been there, you know?
Saboth: I’m actually surprised that it isn’t “0 paychecks”. Most people I know barely have enough money to pay their bills currently.
edwardso:@Saboth: Sadly I am one of those people, between rent, student loans, credit card utilities I can only save about $50 per month and most of my friends (1-2 years our of college) can’t even save that.
Then people started getting agitated:
nakedscience: Seriously, ThickSkinned. People just go, “SAVE! You have to SAVE!” acting like it’s easy — but it’s not. Especially if you barely have enough money month-to-month to cover the bills as it is! This is especially true for people with kids, or for those who were doing fine, got sick, then lost their jobs or something.
Not all of it is because people are irresponsible. Some people just can’t get above water enough to save.
But at some point, it took a plunge into outright anger and labeling the presumably financially responsible as “smug bastards.” To whit:
edwardso: I can’t wait until some smug bastard gets on here and proclaims that they pay off their credit card every month and make x amount of dollars through bonuses or remind everyone of how much they would save if they canceled cable, used prepaid cell phones, etc.
jake7294: @edwardso: So true…we already have the “I pay myself first” and “when I get a raise I put the increased income in savings” comments
Yikes. Yes, everyone’s having a tough time. But after working my tushie off to overcome many major obstacles (ie: major health problems, business failures, family bankruptcy, supporting a household), it’s unsettling to see such vituperative comments skewering the fiscally aware. Actually, I think it’s gross.
That energy could be channeled towards something more productive, like, say, learning. Fine, being told “save” isn’t helpful in and of itself. But it’s a basic concept: if you want the products of saving, ie: money to spare and not living paycheck to paycheck, then you have to save. Unless there’s a whole other world that allows reaping the benefits of saving without actually doing it. I sure don’t live there. I’d love to! I had to sweat through endless trials to create a situation where I could save and pay my bills on time. And don’t think I don’t understand catastrophic situations while trying to build a career. Flip through the archives. That doesn’t even include the years I spent putting myself through school and food on the table. It’s been 9 years of working since high school, 17 if you count the years of unpaid labor at my parents’ business, and many more to go.
There is a way. Do not dismiss those of us who made savings, and paying bills on time, and not carrying a credit card balance a priority in our lives. Maybe there are a few who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, but by and large, it’s work, dammit. It’s sacrifice, and making choices, and being mindful, and exercising willpower. It is NOT easy to reach the point where we get to be referred to as “smug bastards” for paying ourselves first. And those with silver spoons? Still don’t deserve to be called bastards.
FB makes a wonderful point in her recent post Forget Earth Hour? about taking control of your money, and the predominant attitude of those who rely on denigrating others and complaining about their less-than-legitimately “poor” circumstances:
Not only that, I find it strange to be proud of being cash-poor, broke, overdrawn, maxed out and generally penniless working paycheque to paycheque.
Maybe it’s just a mechanism for people to nervously deal with what they know is a hot financial mess.
The principle of saving, and the people who point it out or live it, is not the problem here. The problem lies in a situation you’re not happy with. That cries out for a solution. Ask questions, ask for help and be willing to figure what part of that help is applicable if you want an answer. But don’t put us down because all you see is the end result of countless hours of toil.
There are as many ways to find help as there are to save. Heck, I’m sure if you were open to any of the PF bloggers so forcibly disdained, some of them might even have some useful information. If you ask.
April 1, 2009
I’ve been working on making an habit of bringing decent lunches on a very short attention span. The best way to form a habit is to actually do it. Repeatedly. Simple? It should be, but it’s equally easy to fall out of the habit of say, going to the grocery store every Sunday. Things come up, y’know?
Sometimes the bringing of lunch works out wonderfully throughout the week, sometimes groceries are supplemented by leftovers from dinner, other times I have to get creative or purchase a meal or two. Here are a few of the oddities that prove I don’t always eat well. š
Normal: Leftovers from dinner.
Creative: Egg and spinach on a whole wheat bagel, 91 cents
I’d failed to plan for lunch one week, and had brought disparate ingredients that were supposed to magically coalesce into a meal. It sort of did. My unboiled egg was microwaved just long enough to make a little scramble, spinach meant for a salad served double duty as greens for the sandwich and leftover bagels brought for breakfast become sandwich bread.
This was so yummy I did it again the next day, this time mixing in leftover string cheese, for some dairy.
A huge helping of spinach topped with sunflower seeds (that I’ve had in my desk forever) and some balsamic vinaigrette rounded out those meals.
Deal and Coupontastic: Quiznos turkey sandwich and deli sandwich on Dutch crunch, $5.60
Armed with a Quiznos free small sandwich coupon, I picked up a small turkey sandwich (terribly puny, if you ask me), a small drink, and a small Italian sandwich at a deli joint (twice the length and width of the Quiznos sandwich) to make a lunch for two. The deli sandwich was quite a good deal, it was only $4.50 for a substantial roll and hefty meat filling. If we’d gotten the equivalent meal at Quiznos, sans coupon, it would have cost about $14.50.
Filling at the time: Bags of salad (usually $1/bag) are great when topped with some chicken or tuna, and other veggies. It’s satisfying, but for a much shorter period of time.
I could use some good ideas for what to try next!
March 31, 2009
| Retirement Savings |
Roth IRA: $4,212
401(a): $5,399
403(b): $12,751
Total: $ 22,362 (20,415)
|
| Emergency Savings |
Catastrophe: $ 28,721
Problem Cushion: $ 1,000
Total: $ 29,721 (24,816)
|
| Short Term Goals |
Car Maintenance: $1067
Insurance: $2,178
Travel/Con: $401
Taxes: $3,522
Moving: $1,465
Total: $ 8,633 (7,278)
|
| Long Term Goals |
House Down Payment: $101
|
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $3,000
Savings Bond: $362 (current accrued value)
Total: $ 15,992 (16,992)
|
| Total Assets |
Illiquid: $ 22,362
Semi-Liquid: $15,992
Liquid: $29,721
Expense Acct: $10,133
Goals Savings: $8,633
Total: $ 86,841 (78,640)
|
| Debt and Liabilities |
Citi 2: $255
Chase: $171
Rent: $1,360
Total: $1,786 (1,807)
|
| Net Worth |
$ 85,055 (76,833)
|
One might wonder from the wildly inflated numbers above, based on my less than abundant salary, if I am some sort of saving genius. Savant, even. They would be incorrect. I’m simply a modest saver hugely motivated by the soon-to-end income stream. More transparently, the rest of my salary from the past quarter came in yesterday, and was quickly deposited into the insurance, maintenance, expenses and savings funds. In the pursuit of obtaining life insurance, the car insurance fund is simply meant for all insurances, now.
So, the plan is to have as much cash on hand as possible. That’s meant seriously paring any and all expenses down to bone, to the marrow even, in the budget. That might be a little too extreme, some of the monies in savings might have to migrate to the expenses fund.
Plus, I made some stupid mistakes like forgetting to pay my DMV registration. After six years of car ownership, paying for three car registrations, this year I managed to forget my own registration and ate a $91 late fee. Ugh. Pray for me. Even better: the registration is always due on Valentine’s Day! I managed to forget a major commercial holiday and it cost me nearly a hundred dollars. The only side effect of recent health issues is that I’m too drained to get as worked up about it as I normally might.
Speaking of stupid fees, this time in the sense that I think the fees are stupid rather than paying a fee because I’m stupid as above, Chase was gifted with a solid $100 for the privilege of giving me back my money. Thusly the Rollover IRA has disappeared, rolling further over into the 403(b). At least it was a relatively simple process.
At a time when hoarding and squirreling away money is Priority Numero Uno, I’m sure wasting a lot of it on fees. *annoyed with self* There are way better things I could have spent that money on.
March 30, 2009
March 28, 2009
There are a billion and one articles in the pf blogosphere on saving (or not) money when planning a wedding. That’s not what this is about. I’ve linked to a few of the more recent conversations, some controversial, some not, about weddings below if you want the juicier stuff.
I’ve put weddings out of my mind for the foreseeable future, but my family has a few cultural traditions that amuse me. I’m opting out of most, but they’re still fun to editorialize on.
1. Invitations: Seeing invitations on the kitchen table is what prompted this post. In all the ways money is saved or spent in wedding planning, the bride and groom can count on the clumping of families to save on mailing costs. They pick one person who can be relied on in each branch of the family, and send all the invitations in bulk to that one person. Cost of sending ten invitations to my family for distribution: $1.85. I’m betting there aren’t even RSVPs in there because they depend on the family grapevine to deliver that news since people are terrible about RSVPing. (This would drive the plannerly side of me insane.)
2. Wedding gifts: We’re Asian. We give cold hard cash, enough to “cover” the plate just means about $50/person, now. My family does not impose this expectation on guests from other cultures, so you can invite your bosses, coworkers or other ethnically inclined friends without having to shun them afterward for improper gift giving. (There’s never a registry though, so that doesn’t make it easier on the non-family guests.) Anyway, as my parents explained it, there are two parts to the traditional wedding, and the money involved.
3. The morning ceremony: This is the “religious” part of the wedding, generally only family and very close friends are invited to this session. Most of my family is Buddhist or just observe Confucianism, so it involves the groom’s family bringing the representative symbols of the bride’s dowry in the form of a roast pig, fresh fruit, and bottles of wine or liquor. Also, jewelry for the bride. I know it’s awful, but it’s one way to see how much the groom’s family likes the bride. If they break out awesome sparkles, they love you lots. If the necklace and earrings are lackluster, watch out, your in-laws are not cool with the marriage (or you). Good time to find out, eh?
At the tea ceremony, the red envelopes stuffed with cash are presented to the bride and groom as the new couple share a cup of tea with the guest. A rule of thumb: the older the guest, the closer the relationship, the more money you’re expected to fork out. My parents had to give her siblings upwards of $500-$700 each, back in the day, in addition to paying for parts of the wedding. Then again, we don’t keep track of who gave what (I don’t think we do). It’s all put into a bag or basket anyway, so if the guest wants to remain anonymous, that’s fine.
Traditionally, the bride’s family hosts this part of the day, and serves lunch to all the guests. The bride’s parents get to keep all that money from the morning ceremony. It’s “repayment” for all the weddings they attended in the community. I always wondered what the groom’s parents got their share. If everyone followed these rules, they seem to get gypped.
4. The evening portion is the reception. Guest lists can easily surpass 400-500 people if you’re so inclined, and with an extended family like mine, we could fill that many seats on my side alone. Again, the gift expectation is cash, but the bride and groom get to keep that money. It usually goes towards covering the cost of the wedding, reception, etc. Some people, in Eastern European countries or Asian countries, actually plan to make money off their wedding. It’s part of their accepted cultural practice, and it’s all very interesting to see that kind of planning. One girlfriend used to call me and tell me in hushed tones what her brother in law was doing this time to minimize expenses and maximize profits from his upcoming wedding. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard my uncle dismiss my wish for a small wedding to reduce costs, “Pf, why make it small? To save money? Don’t worry! Invite everyone you want, the gifts will help pay for the wedding.”
Well, no. *shrug* I hate being the center of attention, and my guests are not cash cows so the whole thing is not my bag, but I know they think I’m being silly. Shhh, they don’t know that if I’m getting married, I’m doing it my way!
5. Thank yous: If you’re going totally traditional, you don’t send thank you cards. Most weddings will have photographers taking your photo with the couple at the reception’s receiving line, and some will print those out for you to take home. Just like Medieval Times.
Makes sense, if everyone gave you cash. What would you say? “Dear Auntie, thank you for the lovely $200, we’ll display it on the mantle”? “It’ll be a great part of our down payment”? I’m kidding, of course you could write a lovely thank you note for their attendance. Really, the potential anonymity of the gift-giving plays into this part of the tradition, as well as the usually outsized guest lists that can frequently include more than 100 guests you’ve never met or haven’t seen since you were three. It happens.
Oh, and the photos have a “thank you for attending” printed on them. Sooo … free pass! š
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Obviously, all of these little traditions and accepted practices are specific to our family. The reason they “work” is because most weddings are still considered formal affairs that include negotiations, love match or not. Weird? Yeah. Definitely. But it does makes sense to discuss all the expectations when there’s obviously so much emotion, time and money invested. From my parents’ generation, I’ve even witnessed the debates over acceptable negotiators! My dad was frequently requested as a go-between for the bride or groom, to speak on their behalf to the other side’s parents and work out the details of how the wedding would be handled, so I heard more about the nuances than most kids.
Still, I’d like to make my own path because after being involved in so many traditions, it feels like a bit of an ordeal. I want to be able to sit and talk with my family and friends, and know that the people attending actually cared. Bratly it may be, I’ve paid my family dues so I’d like to have a bit of fun for my wedding.
Wedding talk
Paranoid Asteroid: 10 frugal things I’m not doing for my wedding
When people ask how you can spend $30K on a weddingā¦
March 27, 2009
My dad sure has good timing. Whatever he’s feeling guilty about, yesterday was definitely the best day to eat my cooking in an attempt to soothe my supposedly troubled soul. In my life, he’s never offered to eat anything I’ve made from scratch. It’s usually a good instinct, even though he claims it’s only because he prefers Asian foods, since my stovetop experimentation rarely produces a home run. But, last night’s? Was magic.
Presenting: the green bean, asparagus macaroni and cheese casserole!
In true old-Asian-woman style, I didn’t measure but by hand and feel. I will guarantee that’s at least a pound of shredded cheddar, one whole egg, and a can of green beans (found one, score!), but cannot attest to the quantities of any other ingredients. Handfuls, what looked about right, more handfuls, and so it went.
It may not look like much, but I assure you: delicious! It’s got a perfectly crunchy cheese and cracker crust, with gooey cheddar underneath holding the penne pasta, asparagus and green beans together. The best part is that the cheese forms a distinct layer on top, and is lightly distributed through the rest of the strata so it’s not overwhelmingly cheesy. One pound of cheddar notwithstanding.
Or wait, is the best part that it cost me less than $5 to make an entire pan of it?
No, no, no, don’t be silly. Cheese is the best part. Cheese is like unto manna for my taste buds. š
March 26, 2009
Every single time canned vegetables are on sale for less than fifty cents a can, I buy sweet corn and green beans. Usually French cut style, but sometimes regular cut when the French is out of stock. This is a compulsion of unknown origin and rationale: I never actually open those cans and do anything with them.
For the first time in years, I decided to make something with green beans. Mac and cheese, specifically. I was contemplating a casserole, or just green beans on the side. There’s nary a can to be found, though. None! My family doesn’t eat the canned green beans, they’re never on the dinner table, and I just keep buying them. So …. what happened to all those cans??
And then there’s that little white dog running around our front yard. A cute little brown-tip eared white Chihuahua that looks just like my dearly departed Chihuahua with reversed colors who ran right up to me and stood up on my knee, wagging his tail for all it’s worth. Strange day.
