September 5, 2007
Family Ties
My future father in law is having surgery right now at a university hospital. Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well without complications!
family
Farewell to the best boy in the world
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
Read MoreSeptember 4, 2007
September Snapshot
| Retirement Savings | Roth IRA: $3,439 401(a): $832 403(b): $8,581 Total: $12,852 |
| Emergency Savings | $10,856 (of $15,000) |
| Goal Oriented Savings | House/Wedding: $9,813.36 Currently intended for BT repayment: $2,357 Total: $12,170 |
| Investment Loans | Prosper-ish: $12,630 Personal Loan: $5,000 Total: $17,630 |
| Total Assets | Non-Liquid: $12,852 Semi-Liquid: $17,630 Liquid: $23,026 |
| Debt and Liabilities | Truck: $8,515 BT (Brother): $17,537, due 02/08 Total: $26,052 |
Not only am I crap at updating NetworthIQ.com, I don’t even have the faintest idea of what my finances were like this time last year. For a completely neurotic person, that doesn’t make much sense now, does it? Ah well. Easily fixed. I’m seeing immediately that the original money pots I’d created: Emergency and Goal Oriented will need to be combined to cover the BT debt and anything left over will go back into a new Emergency pot. Originally I’d thought that the Snapshot should just be annual to give an overview of how things have progressed, but this could easily turn into a much more frequent task. In the meantime, I’m just twiddling my thumbs waitin’ on that raise money we heard so much about a couple months ago. Any day now …..
833 miles, $200, 3 days: Quarter-century road trip
I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend! Mine was packed with fun and excitement. I feel like we played road trip Monopoly, only without buying property, just talking about it. I see that everyone in blogland has blogged up a storm as well, so I’ll have to take some time and catch up on my reading.
This Saturday was my best friend’s 25th birthday so she and I spent the day with her family up north (two hours away). At 6:30 pm, we jumped in the car and headed for San Francisco. She insisted on driving the whole way, and also paying for gas so I can’t really include gas in the cost of the trip but on the way back we bartered labor for gas. Er, BoyDucky’s labor, not mine. 🙂 She bowed to his need to do his Man Duty of driving us home on Monday after we’d eaten lunch in the car. And he managed to win the fight at the tank to pay for one fill-up as well.
As for the trip itself: BF paid for our dinners at Carl’s Jr. in the world’s smelliest town. I’m serious. That town, (Harris Ranch?) smelled to the high heavens and beyond. Even though we’re city girls, we’ve also had our fair share of Cow Town experience, and mucking out stables. This smell was unbelievable. It was so bad that we rolled down the window approaching the order box, rolled it back up gagging, and refused to roll it back down to order for at least 5 minutes. I’m sure the person taking orders must have been annoyed, but she couldn’t possibly have been surprised!
We got into BoyDucky territory by 10:30 pm, so we’d made decent time. The next morning, she and I walked up and down the length of the Small Town Art and Wine Festival in search of some Killer Brownies and snagged a bag of Ends & Edges ($7.50). A stop at the Small Town BART station ($14.80) and off we went to 16th & Mission. Um, why didn’t anyone tell me that Mission District is quite seedy and smells of urine? And is NOT the most efficient way to get to Haight-Ashbury on foot? Well, we never got to Haight-Ashbury. We got as far as Mission & Market Street and gave up on Haight. Instead, lunch somewhere towards the downtown area was sounding really good, so off to Civic Center we went!
I tried to treat us to lunch at Nordstrom’s Bistro (I know, it was no hole-in-the-wall, chock-full of character restaurant, but I needed clean and comfortable after Mission Street) but BF beat me to the check after a glorious white chocolate bread pudding. Little did she know that I was going to get the dinner check. Hah! Lunch: ~ $30.
We wandered for hours, shopping and sightseeing. I played mock tour guide at first, but it was actually a great way to really learn my way around, I’ve only been in the city alone once before and otherwise BoyDucky always navigates so I’ve felt more than a little handicapped.
For a joke, we popped into the Tiffany store in Union Square to take a picture of rings to send to her hubby; he one-upped us and sent back a picture of a receipt for a ring with strategically placed “glare” spots. To add to my authentic aura of a tour guide, she wanted to go the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa and look at a price menu. For those of you who’ve been there, (or not), the sign is prominently placed over the door, but you have to go into an empty lobby/hallway to an elevator and go up a few flights. Stepping through the glass doors, I immediately noticed the signs on the wall with the various businesses and the floors they were on, but BF hadn’t. Not knowing this, I pompously announced “Red Door Spa, Fourth Floor” once we got into the elevator. She was floored.
“You DO know where everything is around here, you’ve been everywhere! How can you say that you don’t feel at home in this city when you know where everything is???”
“Er …. I didn’t. It said, it said on the wall.”
“……..oh.”
Our foray into Macy’s yielded a brand new wallet for BF with my coupon and a sale, the wallet was $22 from $34. I like getting people presents they want, need and will use. Forever 21 had a nice pair of brown (real brown, not the brown that turned out to be gray like my pants from Banana Republic), stretchy work pants ($20), and Ann Taylor had a lovely brown/white patterned halter top in XSP. Mine! Unfortunately, BoyDucky distracted me at a crucial moment, and BF beat me to the cash register with my goods.
Parking in Union Square for an hour was $2.50; BoyDucky was kind enough to come pick us up and drive over to the Embarcadero and Osha Thai for dinner so that we wouldn’t have to BART to Embarcadero and back home. I treated BF and BoyDucky to dinner as it was her birthday dinner and I rarely treat BoyDucky, $71 with 3 entrees, 2 drinks, and 1 side dish and parking was validated for 3 hours, so: Free!
BoyDucky got our round of drinks and pool at the local brewery, and our 4-miles-walked day ended at 11 pm. Actually it didn’t, BoyDucky also drove Oakland friend back to Oakland because we didn’t want her to BART home alone at that time of night. She has a lovely apartment in Oakland, and an even lovelier popcorn popper; we got home at 2 am.
Monday was our day of travel. Other than gas, and a couple bottles of water because we were dehydrated ($2), we spent very little else. Eight hours later (thanks to an hour spent in traffic on the 152) we ended Operation: Mini-vacation and BoyDucky retrieval!
All under $200 including lots of yummy food and presents. Not bad, eh?
August 30, 2007
Humility in all things
Sistah Ant’s favorite financial advice unexpectedly struck a nerve. She reminds us that it’s important to place pride where it belongs: firmly behind our goals. It should not get in the way of, or undermine, our efforts to carve out a stronger financial position. We shouldn’t let appearances or materialism take precedence over that which we truly value. That could be anything. For Sistah Ant, it’s a Home of Her Own. For me, it’s financial security. For you? Anything. Your castle in the sky, your early retirement, saying “I don’t have to take this, I’m going home!” to your boss when the job gets too uppity. Anything.
That car, those accessories, the pieces of plastic that enable you to spend more quickly, efficiently, and wastefully so that you don’t “look poor” in front of your family, friends, or complete strangers shouldn’t get in the way of what really matters.
This piece of advice resonates strongly with me. Growing up, my best friend never hesitated to state clearly “I/we can’t afford that.” This statement and attitude came from her parents who worked hard to provide for their children and set firm limits on how much they would spend on wants. This is how they live comfortably and own their home on one income. They would say “no, that doesn’t fit in our budget” and that was the end of the story.
Their attitude was as fundamental to my financial growth as my parents’: “We’ll make sure you get it, no matter what we have to sacrifice.” While my parents’ work ethic serves me well when I need to put my head down and bull ahead through obstacles, it ultimately wouldn’t make any difference without the ability to both identify priorities and be humble enough to admit that I can’t afford everything.
I’m sure it started out as honesty when we were twelve, but now that we’re adults, it’s a matter of pride. These things actually matter more to adults than they do to kids or teenagers; I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone. Every week, every day, opportunities to spend money comes up. Every week, I remind myself that I’ve a small allowance. After that, it’s money that I don’t have.
It’s not easy, even if I did expect to be my parents’ sole provider. It’s not always easy to say, “Sorry, I can go to a dinner OR a movie, not both.” Or not being able to give cousins “enough” for their birthdays and graduations. Not being able to gift that much for family weddings. Not buying lunch at work because it just adds up too fast. Or wearing the same suit to multi-day work functions, so that even your boss notices, because new suits and tailoring are too expensive.
It just sounds so petty, and who wants to look like a piker?
If, as a junior high student, as a high-school student, and as a college student, she hadn’t been consistent about knowing her limits and living within her means, if my best friend hadn’t been humble, I might not have seen that there’s nothing wrong with openly living on a budget.
To know how to spend less than we make, and save more than we spend is wisdom. Actually applying that wisdom to your life despite temptation is humility.
August 28, 2007
Death By Cuteness
No, that’s not a band name. It’s just that the coworkers send me pictures like this:
Insurance: Go 50/50 or go for broke?
My car insurance agent, Mr. Pokey Agent Man, finally faxed me a copy of the police report from my car accident back in April and tells me that the companies are willing to settle 50/50 because the report is inconclusive and it’s come down to my word against that of the Idiot Driver who tried to run me out of my lan and then hit me anyway.
My options are to accept a 50/50 decision, which means that it’s no-fault on either side, and pay half the deductible and the insurance companies pay for half of the damages, or go to arbitration to pursue an actual decision.
The play it safe side of me says to take the 50/50. “No fault” is good, and I have the $500 in the bank, sort of. Well, I can, anyway. The truth and justice side of says that’s a crock. HE hit me when he was driving recklessly, I got out of his way and he still hit me (on the rear left side, basically at my wheel well). Therefore that side wants to go to arbitration and pursue a 0/100 decision against him.
It’s clear to ME what happened, but what’s the arbitrator going to decide? I’ve got photos of the damages done to my car but I can’t tell if it’s obvious there that he hit me either. And I can’t really expect a Holmesian arbitrator, I’d just have to hope for the best arbitrator to be interested in deciphering how it all went down and then deciding for me.
That’s sort of a lot to take on faith. What to do?
August 27, 2007
Google Search Phenomena
Can someone explain why about a million people are all suddenly searching the phrase “May you have an interesting life” and ending up here? Is there a radio contest that I don’t know about?