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 17, 2006
I think PaDucky’s lying to me again. In fact, I’m sure of it. To “protect” me. Supposedly, MaDucky’s been making noises about how hard I work and how bad she feels about how hard I work. [She should know by now that that’s not a good idea, that just pushes him to pull some hardheaded foolishness!] He decided to take matters into his hands by not only telling me not to pay for rent this month, don’t put in my fair share either.
I’m SO MAD AT HIM. I know he’s lying to me because he feels guilty, but WHY can’t he see that he’s making matters worse? Even if I chooose NOT to hunt down where he’s unravelling things to patch things superficially because it’s his choice to make, I KNOW my own father looks me in the eye and lies to me. I don’t lie to them! Doesn’t he care how much that hurts? I’m completely deflated right now. And there’s nothing I can really do about it. Even if I just throw in my fair share wherever he’s stretched, it doesn’t solve the problem. No matter what I say, he refuses to see that his choice upsets me.
Besides, just because I tell them not to stress over the bills when they’re short doesn’t mean I’m pretending not to stress… at least no more than I would if I was making oodles of money I could keep but had no idea how secure they were. I have to work overtime no matter what, even if money were coming out my EARS I would still have to work this hard. And how can I help them, protect them, or otherwise support them if he’s constantly working against me?? [I know he’s making some poor decision in this situation, I’ve seen it before and I’ve had to clean it up because it affects MaDucky too.] Is THIS how parents feel when they have teenagers?!??
I know I’m his little girl. I know I’m supposed to be his coddled, pampered, spoiled to death little girl. I’m already spoiled! I’m better off than every other kid out there who doesn’t know bone deep and off the top of her head that her parents love her. What more do I need?
THIS is not right. Lying to your little girl is NOT RIGHT.
Check out the Festival of Under 30 Finances over at Tired but Happy’s place!
November 15, 2006
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This was the post that never made it up from a few weeks ago.
“If this is the man you’re spending the rest of your life with, he should know and he’ll understand.”
In all my months of blogging and years of financial planning, I never thought I would be on the receiving end of this advice. But I was, and rightly so. Why?
Because I’m so deeply involved in my family’s finances and yet feel like I cannot and do not have the right to discuss them outside the family.
Because I feel that it’s my burden to bear and that no one else needs to be privy to the conversation.
Because it’s embarrassing to admit that as together as my finances are, my family’s are not. It’s a huge responsibility that feels like my real job – making sure everything’s ok – but it’s nothing I can really articulate. I didn’t, and don’t, want to admit to myself that I can’t save them from their circumstances. I don’t want to admit to the world that I’m foolish, and stubborn, enough to try.
Because keeping my mouth shut was better than trying to explain why the situation is the way it is to anyone, even BoyDucky. Especially BoyDucky. I’m as bad as PaDucky: he insists on not disclosing financial need to me and I insist on not asking for help from anybody. This is my baggage. How do I check it?
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For weeks, I’ve alternated between feeling guilty for refusing to admit that I have a problem, and being determined to fix the problem instead of talking about it. But month after month, things didn’t really get better. I found myself putting off conversations about our future and wondering how exactly I think I’m going to plan our future together with this big blank information-shaped hole that I insist on censoring.
So, I did it. I finally did it. I finally ‘fessed up to BoyDucky. I admitted that there are times I’m fully supporting the family, and there are times when it’s to a lesser degree. There were times I’ve made poor decisions. There were times I should have simply put the extra money towards savings instead of rushing to the rescue. But I didn’t know, because I didn’t ask. And maybe my naïve insensitivity had just as much to do with PaDucky’s reluctance to reveal times of difficulty as did his pride. The communication on this particular front with PaDucky may never change. And I don’t know if and when things will be in better shape.
It’s the first step, the first salvo fired, but it’s not the war. It’s not even the battle. Despite his reassurances that he both understands and expects to help my parents as I would expect to help his, I know that it’ll continue to be a struggle to ask BoyDucky for help when the time comes. I can hardly reconcile myself to accepting that he can support me through school, but to add the burden of my parents?
Still, it’s a step. And we’re reading the same book, even if it’s not quite the same page.
November 12, 2006
BoyDucky and his sister are sleeping off the hangover [BoyDucky: was TOO well loved by the gang] and the early morning rising and cooking [she took one for the team: got up, grocery shopped AND cooked. Mm, good sister!!]. I’ve done the dishes and settled down to do some work, but couldn’t quite get into it.
I’m amazed that my wallet escaped the dinner and karaoke relatively unscathed … well, not unscathed but in much better shape than I feared. It would have helped if a handful of people DIDN’T leave karaoke without paying [!!] but we were still ok. I might make it through this birthday weekend in pretty good shape considering I [rather uncharacteristically] didn’t even want to think about how much everything would cost! Of course I’ll do a post-weekend checkup, but I notice that when it comes to planning things for BoyDucky with his family, it’s hard to maintain my usual frugal sensibilities because I feel like I’m the only one who thinks about how each decision impacts the overall budget. And then I feel totally cheap for thinking that way for someone else’s birthday or event, especially when it’s BoyDucky! Anyway ….
Saturday was the first of three days of festivities celebrating BoyDucky’s big 30th birthday! My big surprise for him was rounding up all his old gang, including one out-of-state couple, for some quality time from morning, noon ’til night. We finished off the evening with countless rounds of soju and karaoke with all the friends we could squeeze on the invite, his poor sis-in-law had to do all the guest list trimming! …. never have I EVER imagined the notion of joining in any sort of karaoke, much less with about 30 other people in a private room, but it was absolutely hilarious! Not a bad week’s worth of work, if I do say so myself 🙂
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOYDUCKY!!
November 10, 2006
Has anyone had a lot of trouble with Blogger lately? Has anyone tried the new version of Blogger yet?
November 9, 2006
I’m giving Yodlee a whirl! I’ve been using pen and paper for as long as I’ve had a credit card. While I like it and it works for me, I’m always half convinced that I should be using some sort of technological doodad to keep my finances in order; I do just about everything else online, why not this? More importantly, the sheer number of accounts I have are becoming overwhelming and I’m absolutely certain that I’m going to get so busy one day that I won’t have time to neurotically check every account six times a day, and I’ll miss a payment or something. It happens.
After all, the whole software thing sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? Upload all your finances into a single site or program that organizes everything for you and it makes your life easier! Yeah, I can get behind that. But, in past years, I’ve tried MSN Money and a really old version of Quicken and I just couldn’t stand them. I’m not sure if it was interminably waiting for an update or trying to separate out these cards from that account or having the software judgmentally sorting through my spending. Whatever it was I didn’t like about the other programs, I’m pretty sure the clincher was that none of the programs had a calendar with the payments written on the due dates like I do manually. This is a problem because I’m very visual when it comes to the calendar and need to see whole months in advance whenever I plan anything. But Yodlee does! If nothing else, their financial calendar has seduced me.
I’m not enjoying the process of adding accounts right now because I have to remember every username and password I’ve set up, but I do like the ability to nickname my accounts. I didn’t like how Citibank didn’t let me name any of my e-savings accounts. Here’s hoping it doesn’t take me as long to learn my way around and reconfigure the Yodlee account as it’s taken with Blogger!