31 posts tagged “musings”
Man, this news of the recession is getting old. I don't have as much empathy as I ought for people in bad real estate situations - one of the reasons I was willing to leave Portland was that I was bitter that I was priced out of the housing market, so I'm not feeling it for people who were part of the great bubble that cut me out. (I guess maybe I should be grateful to them.)
But the recession is a bummer, nonetheless. My job is intact and my life hasn't changed, but I've noticed that all is not well around me. My favorite little pen/stationery store went out of business. A cute little French restaurant down the street went away. And my very favorite second-run movie theater (that sold beer!) closes tomorrow.
The loss of the Parkway Theater hits me the most. I admit I didn't go often, but I was proud that it was an option, and often made a note that I'd like to see a certain movie there. It was certainly my preferred option when I DID go to see movies in the theater. Should I now feel guilt that I'm not a good enough consumer to keep these places in business? My focus has been on getting out of debt - my car is paid off and my credit card balance has been paid off almost every single month since August 2007 (with a couple of little lapses in the interim.. just keeping me on my toes!).
Even better, I've been saving consistently so I can pay for my big trip to the UK without incurring any debt. Of course now I've got an unanticipated trip to New Orleans throwing a small wrench into the paid-for vacations scheme, but I'll pay it off quickly after I return.
I do keep eyeing the real estate market here, which is dumb. Although I have no plans to leave, I also don't know that I'll be here for the 5-10 years it really takes to make a mortgage make sense. And since I'm stubbornly insisting on keeping my housing expenses at 31% of my gross, and that includes insurance, taxes, and maintenance, I can really only afford about a 200k mortgage. And guess what, my friends? In this part of the world that doesn't go very far at all.
Plus, ironically, I love my apartment! The neighborhood is great, I have the top floor so no one walks on my head, and the view out my windows is of a green hillside.
Still, I keep watching to see things go down in price. I dunno, it may happen, but realistically I am going to go on my trip and keep saving money. I'm sorry for the pen shops, French restaurants, and Parkway Theaters of the world. I'll spend a bit, but I don't think I can save them all.
Ah, what a nice sunny day it is today! I frittered it in a lovely way: got caught up on BSG (wow), did tons of laundry, got a bunch of recycling out, and have been poking about looking at my travel plans.
It looks like I'll have about ten days in Scotland traveling solo. It should be really cool! But it leads me to really really think about what I want to do, where I want to go, and how structured I want to be. I know I'll be leaving from Belfast, probably on the 3rd of May, and have to be back in Dublin on the 13th (my flight is mid-morning on the 14th). I just spent a while concluding that a ferry back to Dublin is going to be a huge hassle, not worth it, so I'm going to probably fly back to Dublin from wherever. That much will definitely get locked in!
Leaving Belfast, I think I will take a ferry to Stranraer, which is about 2 hours south of Glasgow. If I leave Belfast early Sunday (a 7:25 am ferry), I'll get to Stranraer with an hour before the train to Glasgow, and will arrive in Glasgow just before 1pm (13:00 - I'm trying to get used to that time structure). That seems perfect, and is the best arrangement I could find so far.
From there, it's a bit of an open question. I can take a train from Glasgow north to Oban or Fort William, and from there maybe to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is a major hub, so I can then take the train to Dundee or Aberdeen or Inverness or, or, or...
I'm leaning more and more toward traveling ultra-light. I expect it'll be rainy and not terribly warm. I have a rain coat, and a couple of wool shirts and silk long johns. Do you think I can travel with 3 shirts, 2 pants, 2 warmer layers, a couple of shoes and a jacket or two? All I know is, I get stressed out by having too much crap with me. So, hm.
I have to start deciding soon: about a week from now I can start booking tickets and rooms at hostels, I think.
Of course the idea of traveling ultra-light opens the luggage question: wheels or backpack? what I own, or borrowed, or purchased? the handle broke off of my small rolling suitcase; I hope I can get it fixed but am not sure how to start working on it. I have a camping backpack I could use, but would prefer something more suitcase-like. I've looked at a few carry-on bags that convert to backpacks, but I would have to be VERY dedicated to the traveling light proposition.
hrm, hrm, hrm.
I get paid twice a month, and I've developed a ritual. Every time I get paid, I note the various balances in my accounts - both what I owe, and what I have. Today I looked at my cashflow for the month of October (not bad, I spent less than I earned, which is always my primary goal), and wondered how I was doing, big-picture, compared to last year.
So I looked! And it was easy math: I looked at the cash in my various accounts, and the balance on any debt, and calculated the difference. (this is called net worth - though it doesn't take into account anything I could raise by selling my stuff, nor does it count my retirement funds)
The bad news: I still owe more than I have on hand. My net worth is a negative number! -$1,539.86
The good news really is good: this time last year my net worth was a much larger negative: -$6,494.12
I'm torn. On the one hand, yay, moving in the right direction. On the other - I've been working for 15 years and feel like the above is a pretty sad state of affairs - I really should have more money in the bank than that. Or, conversely, I should have a mortgage and therefore OWE a hell of a lot more than that.
However: I vow to be in the black by next Halloween, even WITH the vacation I plan to take in the spring. Here's hoping everyone I know is doing better financially than I am.
[The above numbers do NOT take into account my retirement savings. I consider that the sacred sacred holy holy money - 100% inaccessible to me for another 25-30 years.]
[Also, at first I wrote this draft with the real numbers, what's in the bank vs what I owe, but in the end, that felt like too much information to share with the internets.]
Last August, I paid off my credit card. Earlier this year, I paid off my car. So, yay!! and all, but I have one more big hurdle, which has a higher balance than those two debts combined (though a low rate): my student loans. In January, when I realized that nearly 30% of my loan payments were going to interest, I came up with a plan to double up on my payments.
Then I realized that just paying ahead wasn't getting me out from under the interest load, as they were probably applying the overage toward future payments in general, not to the principal of the loan. (That whole concept is vague to me, so I even got a second opinion.)
That pissed me off, so I changed my school loan repayments to the minimum required, figuring I'd deal later.. or something.
Well, no more, my friends. I again looked at my monthly payment and how much of it goes toward interest (26% of last month's payment!). I have just pillaged my travel and emergency funds and will be paying almost half of the loan off next week. (I was going to go for a straight 50% but that last few hundred felt too tight.)
That means that my Christmas plane tickets (when purchased) will not be paid in cash immediately, but will probably be paid off before they start accruing interest. It also means I won't be able to do some fun warm trip next winter, as I'd thought I might. But it ALSO means that if I really kick ass, I can pay off the loans this year - and more likely that I'll have them paid off by next spring, or a year from now at the latest.
I wanted to get money in the bank for a down payment, but let's face it: it ain't happening in this market on a single salary. And the stuff I could MAYBE afford is crap. So, let's do the thing that makes the most sense big-picture, and get rid of my very last debt.
I'll keep ya posted.
I've been tracking my spending in pretty good detail for quite a while now - since last Sept or so. I started doing some math while on transit yesterday. I started on groceries, and looked at the last six months.
I got the answer to these questions:
- How much do I spend on groceries?
- What percentage is at an independent shop or farmer's market, vs how much is at a chain?
- Of the chain spending, how much is at Trader Joe's (which I consider not as bad as the big chains.. I haven't analyzed that further)?
- Of the independent shop spending, how much is at my neighborhood grocery store vs. the neighborhood green grocer vs the farmers' markets?
- How much do I spend on car payments?
- How much on insurance? (I'm lumping renter's insurance in here b/c it's the same bill and I'm lazy)
- How much on gas for my car?
- How much on gas for others' cars?
- How much on local transit?
- How much on travel transit (subway/cab/bus, not airport shuttle or other full-on travel expenses)?
Whee!! There's a new baby in my life. Welcome baby Kaelyn, and thanks for cooking fully, rather than coming early like certain older siblings. I can't wait to see her in the dress I made for her, and gave to her parents last month:
Aside from new-baby, not much to report. I'm feeling tired, and am now blaming it on the dirty air we have (fires in the region) rather than on, I don't know, going to bed too late. For the last few weeks.
I started watching Battlestar Galactica with Kristin - we're on season 3 now, but it's been ages and ages since we finished 2.5, so I'm finding that I don't remember too much about it. I should've re-borrowed all the seasons from my sister.
Money spending is going well: I'm about to close in on the second month in a row of spending sharply less than I had been. Which is great, but it also means I'm putting off buying my two December plane tickets (Portland & RI) until July, which means I'm pre-hosing that month. Ah well.
I made my best lunch ever for lunch group yesterday, both recipes courtesy Mark Bittman: SPICY chilled mango soup
and radish salad (which I used as a topping on salad greens, along with some garlic-rosemary white beans). We've been doing lunch group for over a year, and I've kept a list of everything I've brought in. Cool stuff on there!
Finally, I'm over 500 miles for the year so far. Which is only half-way to my biking goal of 1000 miles by August 24. eek.
I really like the blog Get Rich Slowly, and today's post is particularly interesting: He's part of a group writing project wherein various financial writers look at how they were doing financially ten years ago.
Naturally, it got me thinking. Ten years ago it was spring 1998. I'd moved to Oregon less than two years previously, was 5 years out of college, and was finally working the first job that felt like it could be a career.
Job:
In October 1997 I'd gotten hired at a small software company, and already my job was changing and growing a lot. I got hired making 27,000!!!!! Considering I had no direct experience, and it was a small company, and the start of the tech boom, I think that was probably reasonable - and it was the best money I'd made by far. I'd broken through the 20k barrier! I was working a tech job! I was traveling all over the country for work! It really felt good.
Career prospects:
Better than having broken through shattered the 20k barrier was the fact that my job was really engaging and challenging and fun. I had great coworkers and we enjoyed each others' company (two of them are among my very closest friends - I'm still in touch with them nearly daily). Also, the money improved quickly - I jumped to the high 30s, then the low 40s, and by the time I was laid off in June 2000, I was making 60k (for a short period of time before the lay-off... and ironically, one of the main reasons I was cut was my pay level). After working there I got another software job, then changed my life completely, went to grad school, and took a massive (50%-ish) pay cut. But, the job was a great experience and really set me on the path I'm still on today.
Retirement savings:
Financially, things were pretty good too: I started saving for retirement (and since I was 26 at the time, it felt good to finally get started). I've managed to pretty continuously save for retirement ever since - I lost some time because of layoffs and not being eligible at new jobs, and I took some time off of saving for retirement when I thought I was going to buy a home (and instead wound up moving to California). I'd say of the last ten years, I've been saving for retirement for almost eight of them.. and I've never tapped the sacred sacred holy holy retirement account. Better, my retirement saving rate has been good from the start, never dipping below 10% of my salary and more often hovering around 15%.
Living situation:
Ten years ago, I was sharing a house with three other friends and paying $275/month for rent, and I'm sure my share of the utilities was equally paltry. (I'm remembering we had a complicated phone system: two phone numbers, and if one was busy, the call would roll over to the 2nd line, then to voicemail. It was excellent, especially if we had friends calling on both lines at the same time.) We didn't have cable tv (in fact the tv was in the basement and almost never used), and internet from home was nearly non-existent (one of us may have had dial-up.) I hadn't acquired any expensive habits like eating out a lot, although I was just starting to get into biking.
Debt situation:
My debt situation was pretty good, too. I paid to have my dad's old car shipped cross country, and then when it didn't pass the emissions test, I gave it away and paid cash for a thirteen-year-old Honda. I loved that car and kept it for seven years, until it died an untimely (to my mind) death. I again bought a used car, though this one was only a year old, cost 6k, and I financed it for three years.
I graduated college owing my parents $9,600 at zero interest, so I did have that debt, but I paid it regularly and paid it off in the late 90s. I had some credit card debt - never extreme, but as I recall, it seems like it was often hovering around 3k - never enough to be really worrisome, but too much to easily pay off. I finally got smart and in 2000 cashed out my stock investments (since I was guessing anyway) and paid off my debt.. right before the market tanked and I got laid off!
How things have changed, and stayed the same:
Today I'm back to making decent money. My living expenses are a lot higher, though (my highest rent ever before here was $650, and my average rent over the vast majority of my years in Boston and Oregon was $375... my current rent is nearly three times that amount). On the one hand, I hate having such a large chunk of my income earmarked in a way that I can't control or change much, but on the other hand.. that's pretty much the way it goes. I could trim two or three hundred dollars by sharing, but after 13 years with roommates, I really enjoy my own space.
I do have school loans from grad school, and loathe them. But, the biggest thing that hasn't changed, that I really don't like at all, is that no matter how much I make, I don't seem to accumulate cash in non-retirement savings. That is my biggest financial weakness - it was then, and is now. No matter if I was making 20k or 45k or 60k... I never had lots of spare money sitting around. I guess my nature is to expand my spending to the size of the container, much like a goldfish, and now that I've got my car paid off, my biggest priority is to get more money in the bank in normal savings.
Still.. an interesting trip down memory lane!
The NY Times has a fascinating article/graphic that breaks down the average American's spending.They've got eight main categories (food & beverage, misc, recreation, education/communication, transportation, health care, apparel, and of course housing).
I'm sure they are using before-tax figures, but I always find it more interesting to calculate these things based on my take-home (which means I'm not counting my taxes, retirement savings, and health care expenses), so I ran the numbers both ways. I'm geeky that way.
So how do I line up?
Category... Average American... My % of gross/% of net
Food & Beverage 15% 8% / 13%
Recreation 6% 4% / 6%
Education/comm 6% 1% / 2%
Transportation 18% 1% / 2%
Apparel 4% 3% / 5%
Housing 42% 20% / 33%
I didn't calculate: Misc or Health Care. Misc seems too vague. Health Care is not something I feel I can control, but I feel like I have a good deal in this regard courtesy of my employer.
Apparel is a very spotty category for me. I can spend nothing for several months, then a couple hundred dollars, and I haven't been tracking my spending long enough to have a good feel for this category. I did use my numbers for the first four months of this year, so that's probably a good rough number anyway.
I'm glad my housing expense is lower than the average. That seems really really high to me!
In the recreation category, I did include my hobby spending, which is bike maintenance, bike club & organized ride fees, and my knitting expenses. However that doesn't cover all my knitting expenses, as anything that I am buying to give away gets stuck under the Gift category (helping me in my knitting expense denial, I'm sure). I didn't include Gift spending in the above numbers because I'm not sure where that would fall.
One category I didn't see, though it's got to be in there somewhere, is travel. That's a big chunk of my income, 13% of my gross/ 21% of my net. And I still haven't bought my Christmas ticket! Note that this is 21% of my net income so far this year.. I expect my travel expenses will drop sharply as a percentage of my monthly spending, since I've paid for several trips that are happening later this year.
The above numbers account for 61% of my net income. Adding in travel accounts for 83%. Where is the remaining 17% going? Well, off the top of my head (and with the help of my spending notebook):
gifts (2% of net)
school loan repayment (4% of net)
household/upkeep (decorating, laundry, shampoo, etc.) (4% of net)
charity & miscellaneous spending round it out at another 4% of net
... and a little bit is getting tucked into savings. That's my biggest gap right now. All told that adds up to 97% of my net income accounted for (i.e. spent!) each month.
In an ideal world I'd like to save 20% of net every month. So far it's not even close to happening!
Allow me to insert that I JUST finished paying off my car (whoo! go me!) so my transportation costs don't count a car payment.I WAS paying 8% of my net income, and I'm looking forward to doing something with that money that is more satisfying than paying off a loan.
At the end of May I'll be attending a college reunion: my fifteenth. Which, frankly, isn't possible. I'm sure there's been a mistake somewhere!
At any rate, I have extremely mixed feelings about this event. On the one hand, I'm single, childless, and still in an apartment: therefore a failure (before my Dear Readers leap loyally to my defense, I don't really believe this.. but I think you know what I mean). On the other hand, I've lived in three cities, packed up my life and jumped to a Scary New Thing not once but twice, traveled a bit, gotten my master's degree, pursued a successful career, met lots of interesting people, and experienced a lot of great things. Therefore, clearly, a success.
For the most part I'm really great with where I am in life. I feel good about where I am and who I'm becoming, and I am aware there are things I'd have different, if I ever found that magic wand, but all in all things are great.
I'm excited about the people who I'll get to see:
- J, with whom I shared an apartment for three years in Boston post-college. I recently spent a week having her here for a visit, after way too many years of brief Christmas visits.
- S, with whom I traveled up the West Coast in a rented car in 1995. He was the one who told me that Portland existed and was the perfect answer to my quest. He was so right! I got to spend another trip with him in 2005 when he came to visit and we drove/took the ferry to Victoria BC. I hadn't seen him in ten years, but it was as if no time had passed. I guess I should bookmark 2015 for another trip with him.
- J, who went on to law school, a great husband, and four (four!) daughters, three of whom are reportedly as hell-bent on destruction as she was, which is only fitting. She loathed Hillary Clinton back then, so every time they bring up Clinton, I think of J. It'll be great to see her and see how she's doing (and how she feels politically these days). I visited her in Chicago twice while she was in law school, but haven't seen her since her wedding in (I think) 1997.
- M, who still lives near Boston and claims that he has become quite fat. I don't know what to expect on this one! He was sooo skinny in college.. perhaps life IS fair and he will be pudgy now.
- M, who is married now and participates in something like the organ transplant recipient Olympics. They're adopting twins soon.. which is a crazy thought.
- M (yes, another one!) who apparently has 3 kids. I don't know anything else... I seem to think when I worked in software I actually went to her company in the Boston area, and we met up.. but that is so vague a memory I can't pin anything else on it.
- D & T who met at our school and have two sons.. who are probably, um, 8 and 9? 9 and 10? I missed their wedding as it was in 1996 or 1997 and just didn't fit into my schedule, but I regretted missing it, and I think it's the only friend's wedding I've missed (when invited, of course... I'm not a wedding crasher!)
- D, who was last seen on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? She called Regis "dude" and lost pretty quickly.
- K, who was the editor of the paper; I was the copy editor. He was a cool guy and hooked me up with my first real post-college job.
See that short list? You know why? I was shy in college. Stupidly shy. The kind where I engaged with the people I knew, and flat out ignored/"didn't see" the ones I wasn't already friends with. The kind that comes off as snobbery. I went back for my five-year reunion, all blossomed and changed and stuff, and reverted immediately to my former behavior. So, I don't know how it'll go this time - I'm only going to be on campus for a few hours so I may not even have time to try to reach out to new-old people.. but hopefully I'll have the inclination, and I'll make the opening. I guess time will tell!
It's still a full month away, so I'm rather premature on this. But oh, the agony of never fully growing up, huh?
I was supposed to bike 62 miles today, and go out tonight, and pick up a few hours at work tomorrow, and go out tomorrow night, and Monday night, and.. I just had to put my foot down. It was supposed to rain today so I bagged the ride, and I decided not to work on Sunday, and I can finally get some stuff done at home! It looks like I had a small explosion in my living room - not too bad by objective standards, but relative to my preferred state, it's pretty bad.
On today's to do list:
- Goodwill run to drop off stuff that's been
piled in the cornerready since October. - Laundry
- Start cleaning
- Plan lunch for this week rather than waiting til Tuesday morning to think about it
You know, it's not that long ago that I wouldn't touch anything pink with a ten foot pole. These days, it's much of a pinkness in my world! I got my new phone! And it's pink! and it's so cuuuuute! Witness the cuteness:
Also: my first cable project is going swimmingly:
money money money
My car will be paid off next month! wooooooop! So I just raised my insurance deductible from $500 to $1000, which will save me ten bucks/month. My cell phone swap will save me about 20 bucks/month. No longer having a car payment will save me 257/month (that was my doubled-up payment.,.. behold the brilliance of an inexpensive car).
So, that's just under 300 dollars that I can do something else with. Despite my dismay about the amount of interest I'm paying on school loans, I'm so far going to resist sending extra money to it, in favor of getting Cash in the Bank. I'd love to save a huge chunk monthly, but I fear I'm setting myself up for failure, so I think I'll try stashing a certain amount per month in a relatively inaccessible place, and then a bit more in a more accessible spot. I've paid for most of my travel expenses for the year (not counting my Christmas flight), but of course doing the actual travel takes money too! And I'm going to have guests in town later this month, and guests = fun spending of money!
Last month was SUPER expensive as I paid for 2 plane tickets, a train ticket, theater tickets, Pink Martini tickets, a fire ballet ticket, AND my week-long bike ride. I spent 144% of my take-home! But I was able to dig deep and pay for all of it without fully emptying my savings, so that was good.
Speaking of my guest later this month, we're going to eat at Chez Panisse, which I've wanted to do for over a year. We're going to eat at the cafe, rather than downstairs off of the prix fixe menu, so we can pick and choose and share.
spendy spendy spend spend
And, things I'd like to buy, in no particular order: knitting books (stitch 'n bitch, a book of finishing techniques), more shelving for my kitchen (to be wedged in the last remaining bit of room), storage for knitting crap, some improved kitchen cabinet organization thingy, new case for my new phone, a little bag to go on the top tube of my bike, and a much smaller seat bag, new shirts, new sports clothing, chairs for my dining room table, tablecloth for same, art/decorations for my bedroom, a more grown up/nicer looking set of drawers/bedside table, new shoes, more expensive meals out. I probably won't buy any of these soon, and I'll likely buy all of them eventually, but the list is a reminder that if I just buy what I want, I'll NEVER get money in the bank. Plus: I can totally live without almost all of that.
