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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August 26, 2008
I ran the numbers on Salary.com to compare the cost of living expenses and the salary figures between where I’m living now and NYC. I can’t figure out how to black out the personal data to show you the graphic, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
The cost of living was calculated to be 81.1% higher in NYC, so I would have to make at least six figures to maintain my current standard of living. (Of course, all the calculator asked for was my current salary, so it assumes I’ve got a pretty decent life, without dependents, I guess.)
Their assessment of the typical salary, for the same type of job and same type of company, stated that NY employers pay about 6.1% more than my employers in my city. Again, the calculator is likely limited in scope and accuracy because it doesn’t address the industry, type of job, or anything in detail.
Still, it’s a sobering thought that I’d need a 50% raise to earn what passes for the same standard of living as I have here.
August 25, 2008
For about five minutes, I imagined several things that would totally rock:
1. Seeing a zero balance on the dratted truck payment. Yes, it’s still around. Yes, it’s a terrible time to be selling a truck. I think my best bet at this point is to continue trying to sell it, but if I can’t, I’ll just have a paid-off truck with really low gas mileage for sale about a year or two from now. If the gas prices cooperate at all, that is. In the meantime, just getting it off the monthly expenses? Awesome.
2. If the ticket voucher from United had NOT been restricted to the 48 contiguous. I’d take that month of vacation, ideally half the time and the other half in money, and spend two weeks in Hawaii. I’d use hotel points for as much of that time as possible, of course, and we have family friends (and I think I have family there too) that I could possibly spend some time with. Whatever. Two weeks in Hawaii coasting on vacation time. That’d be awesome.
3. (utterly burning my bridges) Walking out. Uh, yes I know, totally not classy. But if I could say what I wanted to say? Do what I wanted to do with no regrets and no repercussions? Ahhh …. sweet. That’d be awesome.
4. Landing a dream gig, preferably on this coast, but I’ll take the East Coast as well. That’d be awesome.
What would your five minutes of That’s Awesome! dreaming look like?
August 22, 2008
This quote from Michael Phelps in the Festival of Frugality over at Four Pence Worth really resonated with me:
“Back in the winter, at 5.30am, when I didn’t want to get up and train on some cold and dark morning I’d still make myself snap on the light and look inside my swimming cap. ‘Athens’ is stitched on the inside. I’d get up then. I’d grab my bag and head for the pool. I’ve been doing that 365 days – year after year. I can’t remember the last day I didn’t train. Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day. I haven’t missed one of ‘em for years. And every single day I got that word, Athens, running right round my head.”
It’s not that I have training to do, and I’m certainly not headed for anything so incredible as competing in the Olympics, but I definitely suffer from I-hate-mornings-itis. And you know what? A visual reminder to combat my hatred of getting up could be just the ticket to get my cranky, sleep-deprived self out of bed. And, eventually, to better utilize those early hours in pursuit of career development. It’s such a small, simple thing to do, for such great dividends. And more, though I am intrinsically motivated and driven 98% of the time, even I can get disheartened and lose focus over time.
I need to program a message to myself on my phone to accompany my morning alarms.
Not wholly unexpected, I’ll admit, but somehow one of the DMV registration bills slipped through the cracks and wasn’t entered into my planner. While filing an already paid registration bill, I realized that the one at the top of the file was one coming due today. That’s another $145 deduction from the auto maintenance fund. Rats. I cannot wait until I’m only paying registration and insurance for one or two cars, not three.
August 21, 2008
No, no, not from MY wedding, from the wedding we attended this past weekend. It was absolutely gorgeous. The winery was way up at the top of a mountainside, and overlooked the vineyard. It was really cold and breezy at first, but warmed up to the perfect temperature within minutes of the ceremony.
The view from ceremony area:
The reception area:
The view from the balcony:
The spiky plants that look like lychee to me:
The program fan: each page had a little proverb or quote at that bottom.
What $6000 worth of flowers looks like: the family encouraged everyone take them all home at the end of the night
A salad roll! It was lovely to look at, but it would have been tastier if it had consisted of more than just spinach.
We had at least a dozen wine servers during dinner. It seemed like they had an army: three drink servers would descend upon each table every drink rotation. I suppose that’s the most important thing to the winery, their other servers were a little off their beat because they tried to serve half a table’s dinners before bringing out salads. Oops!
It was a short and sweet ceremony, which I always appreciate because my attention tends to wander, and there were hors d’oerves galore: a spring roll station, a sushi station, a wine tasting station, an open bar (open the ENTIRE TIME), an assorted candies station with little Chinese takeout boxes designed for the guests to fill up on their own favors, and servers walking around with rectangular serving plates with six little servings of each food. I can’t imagine how many times those poor folks had to go back to refill on the banana topped, brie-filled brioches, the cheese stuffed figs, or several other items that I can’t even remember. Oh, and we can’t forget the coffee and tea station because BF promptly spilled coffee on his shoes. Honestly, I’m just glad I didn’t pratfall on my way out to bring him napkins, we’d be the klutziest pair there.
There was a string quartet playing before the ceremony and a DJ for the rest of the evening, and the older folks had an absolute blast because they played mostly oldies.
The pf blogger in me was quietly more than a little amazed at how people could afford the kind of money this wedding cost. I’m just now toting up the prices in my head, thinking, the amount of effort that went into this is far more than I’d be willing to commit to a wedding for myself, much less the resources. The venue alone must have been $8000 because it’s still summer and wedding season, it was on a Saturday and lasted the entire day. As early as everything started, complete with several limo buses to ferry people up the mountain, they had to have booked the winery for the entire day. Oh yes! They had luxury limos to bring their guests to and from the wedding site to the selected hotel. Amazing. I’m pretty sure the limos were reserved for the full day as well because the invitation stated that the limos would be available to return people to the hotel for a four hour block before the festivities ended for those who wanted to leave early. We already know the flowers were $6000, from the groom’s mother, and that’s a cool $15,000 just for a place, before all the catering, drinks and service, music, or any other wedding party accoutrements.
As lovely as it was, as gorgeous as the entire ceremony and all the trappings were, I felt absolutely certain that the older I get, the less I want this kind of wedding. I’m not sure what I’d want, I can’t quite picture it other than not to be the center of attention, but the fuzzy edges of the image of what I’d enjoy certainly looks much less grandiose.
August 20, 2008
I’ve gotta say, my insurance company has been crap at following up with the arbitration decision on my car accident back in April of last year.
After today’s call, the twentieth follow-up call since arbitration dates were set, I’m walking on a little cushion of forgiveness-air: the guy who hit my car was deemed 100% at fault and I get all my money back!!
(That’s right, jerk, that’s what you get for driving recklessly, speeding, cutting off at least 4 cars and then lying about it.)
I can’t even remember if I had to take that $1000 for the deductible out of my car fund or from my expenses fund anymore, but I need to decide where it goes. I’m told that I can expect the check by the end of this week. Squeeeee!
August 19, 2008
right out of my wallet!
I have a couple $20 reimbursements from my dad that I needed to take to the bank. Instead …
– $10, to reimburse my coworker who covered me for an unexpected office farewell lunch last week (yes, we get to pay for our own now. Joy.)
– $3.79, yesterday’s tuna salad sandwich because I haven’t gone grocery shopping for 2.5 weeks.
– $3.79, today’s sandwich … didn’t go grocery shopping yesterday either.
Total: 17.98
I have GOT to get that cash into the bank before I spend it all on lunches!
