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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November 9, 2008
it’s just that … I’m hungry now. And my dad has this sixth, seventh or even eighth sense where I + kitchen are concerned and always seems to head me off RIGHT before I can start cooking something up. If he manages that, he kicks me out of the kitchen because he has to prepare the food. It’s like I have to turn on super-stealth mode just so I can cook for m’own darned self and stuff something simple and easy into my system before I pass out.
I usually understand why he’s crippling my once burgeoning, nearly fantastic cookery skills because he has to provide for me in at least one way. But I’m staaaaarving and ramen or a quick curry will only take two minutes!! Not twenty!
I have got to be quieter next time I’m really hungry.
Having spent the better part of morning reading a series of rather depressing NY Times articles, I finally found one that was heartening: Barbara Raab’s “Need to Take a Breather? Have a Game Plan” breaks down the important steps to take in order to secure a sabbatical that won’t sink your career and leave you twitching with regrets, and not so incidentally, unemployed.
Balancing on the precipice of a major change for the past several months, or at least preparing to take the plunge while keeping mum about it, has produced much the same jangling nerves she experienced:
Every little thing was on my nerves: every buzz of a BlackBerry, every too-loud ring of a phone. I was going home exhausted for all the wrong reasons. I have never been easy to manage, but I was becoming downright hard to take.
Yep! I keep it bottled up for the most part, but the tensions physically manifest themselves in knotted shoulders, an aching neck, a brilliantly spectacular headache at 9:30 every morning. As my dentist pronounced after a thorough exam: You need a vacation!
Or a sabbatical. I like the idea of taking time off, but I love the idea of taking a significant break that’s not just R&R, but is also a time of refreshing, learning and improving. If only I could keep my health insurance like she did …..
What about you? Would you embrace a sabbatical if the circumstances were right? What would those circumstances be?
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The other articles I read:
On Healthcare, Deported in a Coma, Saved Back in U.S.
On the World Economy, Stunned Icelanders Struggle After Economy’s Fall
On the US Economy, Working Poor and Young Hit Hard in Downturn
On the Business Plan of a new Country Performer, My Music, MySpace, My Life (Actually, not depressing)
On a Different Perspective into PayDay Loans, Check Cashers, Redeemed
November 6, 2008
The weather has finally turned (what I consider) cold, hovering in the 60 degree range all week…. and I’ve been bundled up in scarf, sweater, and trenchcoat every day. I’m sure that people on the train think I’m utterly dramatic as they relax sans sweaters or coats, but I get really cold quite easily. [And the CPW has to be about $1, now! 🙂 ] The nights are even nippier and I’m thankful for my super thick Asian blankets rolled at the foot of my bed all year for the sudden change in climate. All this weather talk means is that, instinctively, I’m bracing for Christmas, and for once, I don’t have the first clue what gifts to get for anyone. Heck, Thanksgiving is practically upon us, and I haven’t even written out a gift list!
For those who need a slew of generic gifts, Plonkee’s got a great list posted, and I loved Grey’s Cake in a Mug. Generally, though, I dislike giving gifts that aren’t personalized in some way, and I don’t mean in that in the engraved-with-initials sense. As practicality-minded as I am, I much prefer to give things that the person would love and use, but not purchase for themselves. Obviously, this is much easier to do when the recipient is on a budget, and doesn’t buy everything they want. 😛
Off the top of my head, I’ll need to get a gift for:
BF
Best friends, two (we usually do a group exchange within our crowd)
Cousin
I’ve already got comics for the one friend I always exchange with, and I’m not really inclined to do anything for my coworkers. Well, maybe I’ll make them cake in mugs. My immediate family doesn’t exchange gifts, so I’m free to get gifts for anyone in the extended family if I wish.
Have you begun your lists of what to get and for whom yet?
I’m finally victorious after months and half a dozen hour-long calls.
No joke, I’ve probably spent more time on the phone with Verizon and their DSL branch of the billing, customer service, technical support, and cancellation departments in the last several months than I’ve spent talking to my own relatives.
Sheesh.
Long story short: We had problems with our Verizon DSL service several months ago, and after fighting with technical support (“We have a problem.” “No, you don’t, it’s fine.” “Yes, we do have a problem, we have no internet.” “No, you’re fine.” “NO, it’s not fine!” etc.) my family decided to jump ship by cancelling the service, and switch to another one without telling me.
Since I had originally reduced the price of our service ($15/month) just by asking, and had been told there was no contract and no Early Termination Fee, I was just peeved that they switched to a more expensive service without checking with me first.
Then I was royally ticked when I found out that Verizon was charging me an ETF.
Fast forward several months, and several painfully long, fruitless calls later, I had my final bill with the ETF ($79!) in hand, and got through to the cancellation department. After another 45 minutes of very patiently explaining the situation, a supervisor finally finally finally waived the fee.
It’s a good thing I’ve had all this time to simmer down before talking to the person who could help me out because I was mightily grumpy on all the previous calls. It might have been the holding for 25-30 minutes at a time, or being transferred no less than 4 times per call only to find that what I’d been told by the previous CSR was completely untrue, or you know, any number of things. Whatever the case, it became a crusade not to pay those liars their $79 when I’d been explicitly assured there wouldn’t be any such charge. And I’ve finally completed my quest: ETF has been waived.
November 5, 2008
Reading the New York Times about the state of New York is making me seriously rethink this notion of relocating to the City.
There are several considerations, not least of which are: who is still hiring, how much are they willing to pay, and will most (or more) employers adhere to the LIFO (last in, first out) rule?
The state’s economy faces some stark times with budget cuts, job cuts, and more to balance a deficit of $1.5 billion. Calling it a “budget challenge” seems a little bit of an understatement. Or perhaps I’m simply pessimistic.
The mayor has already announced several billions of dollars in belt-tightening measures for the 2007 to 2010 fiscal years, and he made it clear on Wednesday that more austerity was still in order. Even with the measures announced on Wednesday, the city still faces a deficit of $1.3 billion in the 2010 fiscal year, which starts on July 1.
“We do take these measures with a heavy heart,” the mayor said, adding, “We’re committed to keeping New Yorkers working, but we also have to keep the city’s finances in order.”
The mayor said he was not calling for the kinds of deep cuts in police, fire, education and health-care spending that characterized the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, when the city teetered on bankruptcy.
“We’re just not going to return to the dark old days of the ’70s when service cuts all but destroyed our quality of life,” Mr. Bloomberg declared. “We are faced now with the reality from the financial crisis: We must cut spending and generate more revenue. Each path is unpleasant and painful.”
The mayor recited a grim litany of statistics: $500 billion in losses on Wall Street, a loss of 147,000 jobs in the financial sector, and a projected $2.6 billion drop in city revenues between the last fiscal year and the current one. (The fiscal year ends on June 30.)
For weeks I’ve been reading about the tightening credit market in response to the crises that abounded, and I wondered how long it would be before we experienced it in our daily finances.
Lackluster loans, both auto and mortgages, isn’t a problem as the idea of taking on debt in this economy is right out. I do, however, have fairly extensive credit card lines and decided to start trimming them back just as Citi decided the same. One of my older cards was canceled outright by Citi for inactivity, and I moved another hefty credit line to an active account and canceled a second card.
Yesterday’s mail brought a notice that Citi Premier Pass cards are being discontinued and changed to CitiBusiness cards. The draw of the Premier Pass was the Thank You flight points which effectively doubled my point earning on regular purchases, so I have until January 19th to earn as many spending points as I have flight points, freeing them up, and canceling that card since the CitiBusiness doesn’t offer rewards I’m interested in.
I may voluntarily trim back a couple more cards, perhaps another Citi and another Chase card, just to clean up the credit card landscape further. I don’t depend on them, anyway, except for rewards and cash flow purposes: I spend much less using credit cards than cash and it’s a great tracking tool.
I’ll keep my Citi Driver’s Edge because I have about $130 in rewards and I’m earning Drive Miles as well, so that supplements my car maintenance account. The AmEx Hilton is used for cell phone bills and dining out for hotel points; someday I’ll have enough points to go on vacation! The Chase Cash Plus card is excellent for generating 5 points per dollar spent on gas, groceries, and drugstores, while the Citi Diamond Preferred is still giving me 2 points per dollar on all other purchases. In all, four cards cover any and all spending. Extra cards are just on rotation for negotiating leverage when I want better rewards – I used to let them know that I was looking to cancel for better rewards and bonus points. Nowaways, retention may not be as diligent or generous, though.
Have you begun to experience any sort of credit limitations? Does it bother you at all?
November 4, 2008
Wanda at Well-Heeled‘s trying out a new game called Emergencyopoly which, as it turns out, is a game (slightly altered) that I’ve been playing for the past few months. I won’t rehash the update here, but it amuses me that this article from Savvy Sugar on back-up plans coincides with the theme of preparedness and a question we’ve all been asking ourselves:
What’s your backup plan? What does your parachute or lifeboat look like when the plane/ship goes down? If you lost your job tomorrow, do you know what you’d do? What are you doing right now to prepare?
Some answers I’ve heard:
1. Look for another job, doing anything necessary to pay the bills.
2. Take the leap to do something I’ve always wanted, but was too afraid to leave my job for.
3. *pointed to me* Hang onto Revanche as she walks out the door. [double take] “What?”
Yes, someone actually said I was their backup plan. Hah!