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 23, 2007
It won’t be the toys, gifts, comics, parking, or even the food. Especially not the food because my friend’s unspeakably awesome mother has not only offered to put us up, a veritable swarm of her children and their associates, she’s even planning to cook breakfasts and dinners, and provide lunch fixings so that we don’t have to spend any of our money on food. Seriously. She’s awesome. And not a little crazy, because there will be 6-8 of us, on any given day.
It’ll be the gas. I’m going to have to drive to work (90 miles, round trip), and then come home in time, just after noon, to go pick up BoyDucky for our long haul down to San Diego (+120 miles). Then of course, I have to come home on Sunday (+120). Or I could leave Sunday morning, drive up to Long Beach for BoyDucky’s tournament, and drive back from that (+170, +50 miles).
All told, I could be driving about 330-440 miles this coming week. That’ll be a nice chunk of change.
Am I on the verge of making a really stupid decision? Have I learned my lesson from previous incidents enough to make the right decision now?
The situation: I have finally overcome the savings watermark below which I would have been in deep debt once my 0% balance transfer money (that I’d loaned to my brother) came due. Unfortunately, that was very recently, so I’m just a few hundred(?) over that point. Aside from the deep sense of failure that brings, I’ve been feeling ohhh-so-insecure because if anything happens now I haven’t got any real cushion!
Recently, my parents have discussed starting another business which consists of supplying service businesses in a very specific industry. Dad’s friend encouraged him to try this line of work because it can be lucrative enough to produce a living wage, and even if they’re unable to develop the market in our area, his wife owns two of those businesses and would be willing to take the supplies off his hands. He feels that it’s win-win: If it succeeds, good. If it’s too slow? Sell off the merchandise and get out. The capital required to purchase the supplies? Approximately $5-7k.
My brother has nothing to do with this venture, nor will I allow them to involve him in any way, so that’s not a factor. But I don’t have that kind of cash. Or at least, I don’t right now. And I couldn’t even think of putting it on a card yet because I don’t have the money to cover it.
If I don’t come up with the cash, I’m not sure what other funding options they have. None good, I know that much. Dad will take some financially reprehensible cash advance at some ridiculous APR, and I’ll eventually have to help bail them out at a much later (and more expensive) date.
The only option I have to avoid incurring debt is to recall a $5k personal loan I’d made last year. I hesitate because the interest from that loan is reducing the principal of another personal loan Dad owes. It’s my “floater” cushion that I’d really rather not use.
So:
Con: I run the risk of losing that $5k cushion. It took me a LONG time to save that much, can I bear to lose it?
Pro: Alternatively, if the business works out, I would recoup that “investment” and possibly see my parents become more self-sufficient.
I’m finally asking the question that seemed unthinkable before. Not “Can I?” or “How do I?” but “Should I?
(oh Mapgirl, that’s your cue!)
July 18, 2007
BoyDucky’s been (let himself be) suckered into depending on United’s E-fares that publish the week of the weekend he’d like to travel. The last time he got complacent and found that United wasn’t going to fly him down to SoCal for less than $350, his coworker came to the rescue reminding him to use Travelocity’s last minute package deals that include airfare and car rental.
This time, however, he’s completely out of luck. Not only did lastminute.com, and various alterations to his itinerary still not turn up any good flight options, he was too late to buy the $166 fare I found, using more inconvenient airports, on farecompare.com. Now that it’s just a couple days before he wants to travel, options are much more severely limited.
If h’s determined to come down this weekend and work out with his team, it’s going to cost at least $250. *shudder* This is why I’d rather make arrangements far in advance and have a plane ticket I can live with that (< $150). I'm so glad that he's already got his tickets for the next weekend (Con weekend). We simply can't afford to keep flying him down at such exhorbitant prices!
And I can’t wait until we’re in the same city.
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!!
