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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July 17, 2007
Well, one reason is articles like this one remind me how much it takes, in one go, to buy a home!
A scary excerpt:
“My mortgage broker wasn’t accepting zero down,” says Alfonso Rey, 32, who in February bought a one-bedroom, one-bath condo in San Francisco ā one of the nation’s most-expensive markets ā for an eye-popping $714,000.
Rey and his wife had been outbid on 16 properties until they offered $62,000 more than the asking price for the condo ā and wrote to the owners, pleading with them to accept their offer so they wouldn’t have to move out of the city.
While I doubt I’d ever go to such lengths just to stay in a particular area, (I sure hope I wouldn’t need to!) buying a home of any sort is still so far off in the horizon that I can’t even make out what shape my castle in the sky takes. Is it a single family home? A duplex? A condo? Who knows! All I know is that it’ll cost an arm and a leg š
July 16, 2007
This blog is one year old!
After a whole lot of random blog posts, and a small group of readers, this blog has really become quite a fun outlet for all the deeply personal and financial issues close to my heart. Thank you all for participating in the conversations, and I look forward to many more!
July 12, 2007
*sigh* I’m holding my breath that BoyDucky has a pristine CD with all our photos from Vietnam because it turns out that my CD is damaged and half the photos aren’t downloadable. It’s probably time to buy a flashdrive or external harddrive to save everything because while I don’t value too many electronic files, my photos are irreplaceable.
July 10, 2007
And while wealth doesn’t just mean access to gobs of cash, I’ll take that as a down payment. š
Of course there are dozens of reasons why I’d love to be wealthy but my need to be is most poignant when I greet the morning (like this morning) with “ow” followed by “ow ow ow crap ow! Don’t move!” These sorts of mornings remind me how important it is to achieve a sustainable level of financial stability. It’s important to earn and save for the present, for the short term future and long term future. It’s not just important to me because I don’t like pain, but also to my immediate family for whom I cannot care if I’m out of commission and for my future family.
Health has been on my mind a lot lately. MaDucky’s not doing well, nor am I, and the biggest barrier we face in resolving those problems is financial. There’s nothing I’d love more than for Ma to quit working entirely for a period of time to deal with her health issues, but she can neither afford the time off or the cost of *serious* treatment and I’m sad to say that I can’t yet pay for her either. Ironically, if she were financially stable enough to do that, I think that’d go a long way to relieving her stress-related issues. If only I could add her to my health insurance, I think we’d have a far better shot at addressing her needs.
For myself, if I didn’t spend half of every month fussing over finances and overworking, at least some of this nastiness that I’m combating would be less intense. And there’s an alternative medicine center down south (not too far south, don’t worry!) I’d like to try, but taking a week off to spend money there is simply not an option. Heck, just a week off now and again would go a long way in reducing stress!
My financial planning is geared towards eliminating these obstacles, but the steady worsening of my family’s health firmly underscores the correlation between good healthcare and a sturdy financial base. If you cannot afford access to good healthcare, and cannot afford to take the time and effort required to USE that healthcare, it’s vanishingly unlikely that you’ll have satisfactory resolution or treatment of health problems.
The point has often been made that those of us scrimping and saving so much today are running the risk of being rich but too old and sick to enjoy the money, but if you’re going to be old and sick anyway, you’re really going to need money to address your health concerns. I don’t think relying on “the good die young” as a guarantor against needing a hefty retirement plan, Bruce Lee notwithstanding, is such a great idea. ‘sides, I’m not that good!!
July 8, 2007
I’m back from a very nice weekend with BoyDucky. We just hung out with friends and each other. All in all, it was Quite Relaxing.
This trip, I only took one backpack of clothing and few very necessary odds and ends like my book, an extra book, my iPod in case I ran out of reading material and my planner which is attached by umbilical cord. It was an effort to save my shoulders from the duffel-slump that’s caused by dragging a 40 pound duffel around the airport, and to prevent me from accidentally shopping. It worked, until I saw this beach towel (the middle one) and the 60% off headline in the ad at Mervyn’s:
Sadly, it was not at the lowest end of the sale price range (4.79) but neither was it at the high end (13.97). I’m ashamed to say I still wanted it. So, as penance, I’m going to return the pink flowery dress, and embroidered sleeveless shirt that I bought from Macy’s on sale last week. I don’t NEED them, I just really liked them. Still, they’ll go back so that I can indulge in this childish impulse buy instead. *tsk*
July 4, 2007
It’s the beginning of the third quarter, and it’s still not clear who is going to win this year’s fiscal game, but I have to say that despite all the setbacks, financially, emotionally, and familially (that’s not right, is it? It’s just familial), I’m slowly creeping towards a milestone of financial stability.
No, there’s not much left after the bills are paid and I’ve mentally subtracted the amount of the outrageous loan I made to my brother. Nonetheless, I have a steady job that brings in a few slices of bacon every two weeks, and I am, at the end of the day, able to pay the bills and have a little left over. It’s time to be grateful that, despite all the obstacles in the way, and despite all the hardships that are yet to be faced, progress is still being made.
There’s light at the end of this tunnel. And I’m grateful.
June 29, 2007
It’s amazing how little time, and how few sentences it can take to evoke that numbing sensation of helplessness.
Pa: Your mom wants to work three days at the local *business which I’ve asked her to give up. It pays next to nothing for hours upon hours of work.* They’ll pay her $50.
*Realization: She’s doing this because she’s absolutely determined to do whatever it takes to gain some financial stability and independence. She resents PaDucky refusing to change his ways, and in the meantime letting me work constantly, and not getting a real job himself until I finally insisted on it. Despite her poor health, it’s not practical for me to ask her to not work at all because I can’t take on the one bill that she does pay out of her own pocket, and I won’t undercut her independence. But knowing that my mom is literally toiling away at drudgery and I’m not able to save her some of it is …. utterly depressing. There’s a small bright side to this. She was offered extra hours at the local restaurant, cashiering, and so she’ll do that instead. But I have a sinking feeling that if Pa hadn’t tattled on her and the cashiering hours weren’t offered, she would have done the other job behind my back.*
Ma: Your dad is really short of money again because your brother made him cover his portion of the monthly investment bill. (This is the investing thing that I’d talked about before, I’m part of it but I’m positive that I’m the only one of the family who is disciplined enough to make money from it.) Your brother said it was because your dad owed him money.
*Realization: One, the two of them should never deal with money together. Neither the borrowing nor lending of. I made my stance on that crystal clear years ago. If Pa needed money, he should have come to me. But he won’t. Why? Because he’d rather lie to me than tell me that he needed something. He’d rather lie to me and say that “Oh, haha, Ma took out the money I meant to give you (my profits that he collects from the investment on my behalf) I’ll get that to you later!” I knew I shouldn’t have asked for it if he didn’t volunteer the payment, but I had to know if he was still going to lie to me. I guess he will. Two, apparently there’s still nothing I can do to force anyone in this family to GROW UP. And for the sake of my sanity, I have to bite my tongue, and refuse to get involved if they insist on making deals, plans, or anything behind my back.*
I realize I’m not the parent here, but with all the tattling going on, and the sheer inability to make the tough, prudent choices anymore, I feel like I AM their parent!! Part of me finds that exasperating, yet a little bit funny. This had better be good training for the future.
