Buttons and a Lesson Learned

I was on a mission this morning. I have a shirt in my closet that has a cracked button. I couldn't bear to throw it away becuase it's one of my better shirts--all wool, deep forest green with black buttons. It can dress up under a blazer or it looks pretty good with jeans, too. I've had it about three years and I paid $75 for it. Well anyway, I decided instead of not ever wearing it again--the cracked button is pretty obvious when it's buttoned up--I went to Long's Drug Store to find some buttons. I was going to take them all off and sew on some new ones. I found eight basic black buttons for about $3. OK so I thought. I'll spend about thrity minutes sewing them on, and I'll have a good-as-new shirt.

When I went to the closet, I found an old linen shirt--I was really nice at the time-- that I bought at a garage sale for $2.50. I liked the shirt so much, I practically wore it out, and it now has all kinds of holes in it from wear and tear. I should've thrown it out a long time ago, but it's been in the back of the closet.

When I went to get the cracked button shirt, I saw the linen shirt and had a moment of Eureka! Instead of buying the new buttons, I could've have easily taken the ones off the linen shirt and recycled those onto my wool shirt. Dang! Not only did I waste $3 on something I really didn't need, I missed an opporntunity to wring some more life out of that shirt. I guess now I can wash it once more and use it as a dust rag, but honestly, I don't need anymore dust rags. Lesson learned!!

I also bought some seeds for planting about a dozen batches of Swiss Chard. My snow peas are coming up nicely--I have about five stalks of those going. When I was at the farmer's market last year, the growers were charging $5 dollars a bag, which was worth about two servings. ( I can make a whole summer meal of slightly cooked peas with butter and parmesean cheese, some French bread, and a glass of white wine) As much as I like supporting the local farmers, my budget takes priority. But, I'm trying some patio gardening. If this works out, I've figured out a way to eeke out about 25 sq feet of planting space, as long as I use contatiners. We'll see, though. While it's satisfying to grow your own food, it can get expensive, especially if you have to buy soil, compost, seedlings, etc. The initial outlay might me expensive, but perhaps it would pay for itself over time. I live in an urban area, on the third floor, so I don't have access to a yard.

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Money Musings and a few new Goals

I keep a budget, but  I could do better. I usually allocate money to different accounts, but the amounts sometimes vary. For example, I budget about $75 for dog care, but sometimes I spend more than this. It cost $30 per month to groom the little guy; the other $45 goes for food/treats/toys.  Someitmes I'm overbudget about $25. I try to whittle down something else to compensate, but I'm not always successful.   This month, I'm going to get very strict with myself and allocate every penny, spreading out the money down to the penny. And then, I'm going to try and beat the numbers on areas where I can.  Any excess money, or money that I save due to tight budgeting, I'm going to send over to the online savings account.  Since I know how much I'll bring in during the month, it will be easy to sit down and slice the financial pie.

I'm also going to try out an experiment. According to the USDA, I should be spending about $30 per week on groceries--that's on the frugal plan. For the month, that's $120. Usually  I budget about $175 per month, and in some cases I do better than this, depending on sale items and items I can buy in bulk. Sometimes I spend as much as $250. I need to be more disciplined with this.  So, this week, I'm going to try and spend no more than $29.70 for groceries--that's for breakfast lunch and dinner for seven days. So far this week, I've only spent $14.65.  I two bags of frozen cherries and marionberries on sale, some yogurt, some raw veggies, and a very unfrugal bag of shelled almonds for $7! I justified the almonds and frozen fruit, as they're a healthy snack that are packed with dense nutrients. I'll start keeping a spreasheet on what I buy and how much I paid for it, and then post the results here.

I don't make alot of money, but I'm now saving about 25 percent of my monthly income since I've eliminated consumer debt.  $375 goes to online savings, $375 goes to online Roth, and another $428 goes to 401K. Paying off my consumer debt has been a huge relief --it's the first time in my life when I haven't had some kind of consumer debt.  My only debt now is my mortgage.

 One of my biggest expenses that I wish I didn't have is a $500 dollar check that I send to my mother each month, who lives with my sister and ekes by only on Social Security and the money I send her. I have five siblings, but as far as I know, I'm the only one who consistenly sends money each month--my other brothers and sisters complain that they never have enough to send to Mom.   Though I love Mom dearly, I'm seeing the results of my parent's  non-financial planning through her.  Don't get me wrong: I'm glad I can help her out, but there's a part of me that wishes I had this money to save or invest for my own financial future. I'm not married and don't have kids, so I'm all I got.  I'm not going to bitch about it, as I know that when she's gone, I'm going to look back on this and see that I did the right thing--in the end, having some integrity about it is more important than the money. 

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Money Shocker

My tax accountant called me yesterday with some distressing news. Apparently, my tax bill is much higher than I anticipated.  Instead of getting a refund like I was expecting, she informed me that my federal tax liability was $1700. Not sure what the state tax bill will be. Hopefully, she made a mistake. I did some rough calculations and thought I was getting back close to $3000, which I was going to use to add to my emergency fund. The deadline for filing taxes is getting close, and I really did want this over with by now.

I'm experimenting with a new blogging tool called Qumana. Here's a picture of an orchid. Qumana is a Web 2.0 utility I found over on the PC Mag site. I may be behind the curve with other bloggers, but it seems to work so far.

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Finding New Ways to Trim My Budget

To keep track of my finances, I use an Excel spreadsheet. I tried the trial version of Money 2006, but didn't really like it. I also used to use Quicken, but I found it to be tedious. As long as I'm diligent about posting what I spend my money on, the better I'm able to come up with ways trim the excess fat. To borrow a cliche: Knowledge is power.
Here are some things that I'm considering hacking from my list of monthly spending.

Wall Street Journal $19.55: This is actually a pretty good deal, but I rarely have the time or inclination to sit down and read an entire day's edition. Sometimes on the weekend, I'll get thorough one or two, but during the week, I rarely read it, except if there's a really interesting article. Mostly, I use the paper as padding for the puppy to use as his peeing pad, but at $20 a month, I would probably do better buying some of those puppy training pads. I don't usually buy a Sunday paper--I cancelled my Sunday NY Times. But I have thought of buying the local Sunday paper, and use the coupon section to find deals that would amount to the cost of the paper--$1.50. If I really need the paper for padding and didn't want to spend the money on a Sunday paper, I could go down to the building's recycling bin on Monday mornings, and pull out everyone elses.

My Cell Phone: This bill is usually about $47.50 per month. I don't use the cell phone much--I've carried it along in case of a freeway emergency, to sync up with friends. I signed a two-year contract to get the phone for free. Sometimes I even lose it or leave it at work, and I generally consider it both a curse and a blessing. The contract expires next June, (cancellation fee is $200) so I'll probably keep this until then. Then, I'll start looking around for another plan.

Credit Score Monitoring: $7.95 per month. My score hasn't really changed in the six months I've tried this service. At the time, it seemed like a neat thing to do. The highest the score went was 805. I suspect it might slightly increase since I've now paid off the car and won't have any revolving or installment credit, except for my mortgage. I'll wait one more month or two to see what effect paying off the car loan has on my credit score, and then I'll put it to rest. I mean with no debt, and with no intention of applying for or using credit cards, why even bother? This one is a no-brainer.

DSL: $39.95. I've had DSL since oh about 2000 and for the most part, I can't imagine living without it. But from what I've read, dial-up technology has gotten better, with web caching technologies. One never knows until one tries it for himself. Before I moved into the place I'm in now, I was close to a switching station, and I had awesome download speeds. Now, I'm doing good if I can transfer data at 37kps--that's worse than dial-up, right? I've complained to DSL company several times, but they've never answered my e-mails. Based on my experience, their customer service sucks.

The downside: I pretty much live and breath on my computer, it's on several hours during the day, and it's booted up almost all day on the weekend. Of all the expenses I should probably cut back, this one would take the worst hit. I've signed up for a pre-trial version of PeoplePC, but so far, I haven't been impressed. At $10.95 per month, the price is right, but what you get is pretty restrictive. Final analysis: I guess I'll keep the DSL--at least for now. What I'd really like to do is get rid of the land-line and just use my cell phone. But I haven't quite figured out how to do this. I mean I would neeed a phone line for DSL, so I would have to pay for it anyway. I can't get Cable Internet in my building--too long of a story, but it's not an option.

Netflix: $13.04. I go in spurts. Some months I watch alot of movies, other months I barely turn on the TV. Generally speaking, I like going to the movies to watch movies--they lose some of their escapist allure on a TV screen. The last few years, I've gotten very selective about what I'll go see, and I always hit the bargain matinee. I haven't been to a movie during the evening in several years.

The Netflix plan allows me to check out four movies a month--that's about all I can handle. This past month, I had two movies I rented, but they sat on my nightstand for the entire month. A few months ago, the same thing happened. I checked them out, and never even watched them. I did watch one of them on Saturday night, but I ended up falling asleep about half-way through it.

My local video store charges $4 to rent a DVD, but honestly, I'd have to drive down there and go through the hassle of finding parking, spending time in the store, and the selection isn't all that great. Surfing and clicking is pretty easy--and I can do it in pajamas. On the upside, I really like Netflix service--I mean they couldn't make it any easier.

As for actually going to the movies, I'll usually meet a friend for a weekend matinee two or three times a month. These days, the matinee price is $8. I usually forego the expensive popcorn. After the movie, it's usually lunch to chat and discuss the movie, or to catch up. About once a month, I'll treat, so the day's outing ends up being $50 bucks or so. Usually it's dutch, or the other person foots the bill. I'm make a point of keeping better track of this expense.

Car Wash. $15.95 per month. Is this excessive? I don't know. My friend in LA gets her car washed every week. Truth be known, she's a financial disaster, so this could one of the reasons why. Sometimes, I'll get the car washed twice a month, if it needs it, but I wonder if I kept track, and washed it only every six weeks, if I would really notice any difference. That's about 9 washes per year compared to 12-15 washes. So, is $48-$78 savings a year worth it?

Dog Grooming $30 per month. I take my Yorshire terrier, who has long hair, to the groomers once a month. I've tried bathing him at home, in the bathtub, but it always ends up being a big mess. And, I'm not that good at it. I'm soaked, there's water everywhere, and I usually end up drying him off with flannel sheets, which means they have to be washed afterwards. If I happen to take him on a beach walk, I have to take him to the groomers the next day--he gets muddy and matted up running around in the water and sand. Ideally, he should be bathed every other week. Right now, he gets bathed once a month. I should really be more disciplined and bath him myself.

AAA--$49.95 per year. Okay, I've had this for a few years, but I've never really used it. I got it for emergency puposes, similar to the cell phone. If I break the cost down, that's about $4.16 per month--not a bad deal for the "safety" factor of knowing towing help is nearby. If the car happens to break down at night, I would definitely want the cell phone and AAA. But in the many years driving it's never happened. Adding in the cell phone, this "safety" feature is about $52 per month. Should I tempt the Fates? That's probably not a good idea--you always end up loosing. I'll consider this a bit more.

Typing this out, It's pretty apparent to me that when all is said and done, I don't need the WSJ, NetFlix, and the credit monitoring score. That's a total of $40.54 per month that doesn't give me very much in returns. Since it's the beginning of the month, I'll keep these services for the remainder of the month, and then cancel them. That's $486 per year.

Also, if you haven't experienced the new PF blog aggregator, bookmark it. This is a TERRIFIC addition to the PF blogging community and really useful. Before, I had about a dozen or so PF blogs individually bookmarked. But this useful aggregator is a definite time-saver. Plus, it puts me just a click away from PF blogs I may have never read. Since coming across it through another blog, I've been using it everyday to hunt down PF posts. You can find it here:

http://pfblogs.org/pf/

Woo Hoo!---I'm Debt Free

I knew I'd eventually see this date, but Saturday was the day. No more consumer debt. Hallejuiah! I still have my mortgage payment, but it sure feels good not to have anymore "bad" debt. On Saturday, I sent an online payment for $1775.74 to pay off my car--a 2000 Jetta, which I plan to drive until the struts fall off. I've been whittling down the car loan over the course of a year, adding 50% of the payment. I did this for about six months, and then increased that another 50%, so toward the end I was making double payments. It seemed like I would never pay it off. I also made double, sometimes triple payments on the school loan--that was a huge relief when I finally got that one done, and it had been hanging around forever.

I don't know the precise numbers, but I've paid off about $20K in debt over the course of two years--that includes credit cards, car, and student loan. About 10K of this was wiped out during the last six or seven months when I finally got serious about not carrying debt. It doesn't seem like alot compared to others, but hey everything's relative. I got mad as hell at my debt and wanted to get rid of it--it felt like such a burden. I firmly believe that if you're serious about getting rid of debt, you can. Once I had the credit cards paid off, I cut back my use of them, but paid the balances off each month and started tackling the two biggies--car and student loan. I never had alot of credit card debt to begin with, but I did carry balances on three cards. I always paid more than the minimum, and if I charged 1K, I'd pay it off in three or four months.

Other good news: A freelance editing gig that was supposed to end in March has now been extended until the end of May, so I'll be able to add about $2500 to investments. I'm also anticipating a $3K refund--which I'll put in my online savings account to pay property taxes in November. Plus, there's an extra paycheck in the month of June, any my anticipated raise should kick in then.

If you're working on getting rid of your debt...trust me, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Doing something--even if it's a little at a time--is better than doing nothing at all.
Keep at it, and don't give up.

Sunday Shopping as Insanity


I had a very interesting experience yesterday during my visit to the big Target store. I had initially gone in there because I needed a new pair of blue jeans and a new printer cartridge. When I discovered that Target didn’t carry either, I started looking around, and during the course of wandering through the aisles, I entered a kind of consumerist daze. Even we diehard tightwads have to be ever vigilant in the fight not to buy unnecessary stuff. We aren’t always successful, but we can put up a good fight, as the following blow-by-blow account attests. And though we may lose a battle or two, that doesn’t mean we’ve lost the war.

Here’s a highlight of things I saw that I seriously considered buying, but managed to forego.

Two Bamboo Pillows…Hmmm..That's interesting. Bamboo Pillows? Never heard of those. Let's see....$9.99 each. I have four pillows on my bed. That’s enough for me and the Yorkie, but to be honest, they’re a bit worn out. I could use some new pillows, but I need to buy four. That's $40, plus tax. The copy on the packing appealed to my “environmental” side, promising an e-co friendly sleeping experience. I fluffed them, imagined resting my head on them. I could finally get a peaceful night of sleep, comforted by the fact that I was protecting the environment while I slept. I did pass on them when I reprimanded myself. “Do you really ‘need’ these?” No. Can we say "Marketing Gimmick?"

An iPod! ….Apple’s products definitely have the cool factor, for which the reason escapes me, but I stay away from Apple because I don’t like Steve Jobs. I think he’s smug, just a little too self-important, and his products are overpriced. I can't believe I was there, acutally thinking of buying one.

I swear to God had there been a red-vested salesperson milling about instead of hurriedly ringing up other customers, I think I would have bought one. Target had them on sale--$299, marked down from $399—black only and no video, so that appealed to my “cost-saving” nature, even though I reasoned, if I was going to buy technology, I should go for what’s currently the “in” thing. As soon as they start marking down “hot” tech products, the market is beginning to get saturated, and they’re no longer “cool,” so then what IS the point of buying it?

When I looked all the pretty iPods in a row, I thought of all the ways I could use it—after all, I have iTunes on my PC, and I periodically buy a tune or two. At least Jobs got smart and made a PC version. But I don’t have an MP3 player. I have almost all of my favorite CDs on my computer, which amounts to about 500 tunes.

With my iPod, I imagined myself having a nonstop soundtrack to my very un-hip life. I could take it on plane trips, I could use it in the car, I could take it just about anywhere. I could block out the word with my iPod barrier of tunes. I could use it in the living room while reading. I circled the aisles about three or four times, came back and looked at them over and over. I even went over the cashier station to see if someone was available so I could feel how sleek it was in my hand, try out the jog dial. (Note to Dear Reader: Do you get a sense of how insane shopping can be?) But anyway, I digress. They were all busy ringing up digital cameras, cell phones, and other electronic stuff. “Should I buy it?” “I haven’t bought anything fun, why not? “Everyone has one.” “Gee, these look really cool.” Finally, my miserly side finally got the best of me, and I told myself “Are you an idiot?—You hate Apple. Just walk away. You’ve gone this long without an iPod, so why don’t you wait a week and see if you want it then.” I did, and I was ever so thankful! Whew, talk about a close call!

A Paper Shredder---$15, now that’s a deal! Of course, when I picked up the box and so how lightweight it was and that it was made in Tawain, I knew it probably would break after shredding my first credit card offer from American Express, so I began to suspect its durability. I have been considering buying one, instead of shredding the paper myself, which usually consists of ripping them into little pieces. I mean—that’s how stuff got shredded 5 years ago. Naturally, the ad copy on the box was spot on as it promised me protection from identity theft—that assumes a thief would actually like to steal my identity, and if they knew me and how I carried on about my life, being frugal and all, they probably wouldn’t like it very much. I did pass on it, because most of my stuff is electronic these days, most things are delivered online.

Stereo headphones—These ranged in price from $9.99 to $59.99. The ones I have are a bit uncomfortable, and the foam on the right hand speaker is a bit ratty. These were free, and I’ve used them for at least three or four years. I finally decided to pass because I wasn’t completely sure the headphones I was considering (Sony-$29.99) would work with my computer, and I asked myself…”Why are there so many of these, and none of the Philips’ ones?” The reason, I concluded, was that like most Sony products, these headphones were probably not worth the money and wouldn’t work without jumping through a bunch of technological hoops. If you’ve ever tried their music software, you know what I mean.

Quicken Deluxe 2006--$59.99. I’ve read the reviews, but passed on it eventually. I mean until there’s a better product out there, $60 bucks is a lot of money. I tried the trial version of Money 2006, but hey come on….I don’t want to see all those ads!

I don't know about you, but it seems whatever private space we inhabit—even something as private as our computer desktop—some corporation tries to elbow in to sell us something. Enough already!! I use an Excel spreadsheet, and I have pretty good handle of inflow and outgo. My finances aren’t THAT complicated—at least not yet.

In my spendthrift days, I probably would have bought every one of these items, and then shrugged it off, telling myself I’d pay it off in three or four months—no big deal. Three or four months later, I would’ve asked myself—as I often did: Why did you buy all this stuff. You don’t even like Apple, and you don’t even use the Quicken software. And I could’ve been staring at a $500 credit card bill the following month.

So, what did I buy?—Good question. Here’s the list, paid with cash.

An cantaloupe colored cap--$4.99. I really did need a cap of some sort, as the one I bought when I went to Palm Springs is pretty ratted out.

A package of Brita water filters—I forgot I needed these. They were on sale for $16.99, so I bought them.

A package of Trail Mix—I was starving, so I figured I could eat these on the way to meeting my friend at the movies. ($3.49—but as you might expect there’s far more raisons than nuts.) Duped again.

Visine Tired Eyes formula: This one is a mystery to me. I’m not sure why I bought it, ($1.99 for like .0025 ounce) but it was an impulse item (OK—shoot me!). At the time, I think I was thinking that my eyes felt a bit dry, and I had my contacts in, so I thought I might need it before the movies. As it happened, I didn’t need it at all. My eyes were fine.

My Yorskshire Terrier

Most of my weekend was spent hanging out with my dog, a very fiesty, somewhat overweight Yorkshire Terrier. Sometimes I think the breed was coined from the word "terror," as that fits him perfectly. I know he's a little overweight because the last time I took him to the vet a year ago, he weighed 8.10 lbs--the average weight for the non-toy breed. Yesterday, when I took him for his annual check-up and vaccinations, he clocked in at 13.6 lbs!...I don't know how he gained so much weight in a year, but when I saw the scale numbers climbing, I suddenly felt ashamed, like a negligent parent with an obese child, as if I had fed him on a diet of chicken McNuggets and popcorn, shinily slathered in butter and salt. Not true, as he's one of the most finicky eaters of any pet I've had; he barely eats anything at all.

Since Casey just turned two years old, I asked the vet about teeth cleaning. The doctor looked at his teeth, and gave the little guy a clean bill of health! No tartar--which he thought was kind of surprising. A proud moment --no cavities, no plaque. Casey loves those little organic green chewies, so he's intutively practcing good oral hygiene.

But because this is a PF blog, I must also mention the price of keeping this dog healthy and presumably happy. He is expensive! First was the cost to acquire him--$800--actually a "discounted" because, although he's pure bred, his ears didn't jut up like Yorkies do. I thought it made him cuter, a little genetic mishap made him unique. I belong to a Yorkie group, and one of the members recently put two newborns up for sale at $2,000!

Then there was the nuetering part--another $475, a traumatic two-week ordeal for the both of us. The poor little guy had to wear one of those cone collars for two weeks straight, and he was always bumping into to things becuase he didn't have complete peripheral vision.

Then there's the grooming, a monthly scrubbing and trim ($30), plus another $50 in dog food items, then another $40 or so for his special treats--these include a whole basketful of things to chew on, such as liver treats, salmon treats, natural organic chicken strips, Pupperonis, Lean Treats, etc. Then there are the toys--he loves the small furry things that squeak when you chew on them. Not counting vet visits, I probably spend about $150 a month, all in all. Cheaper than a shrink for sure, but much more high maintenance than the disdainful cat I had for about 8 years. Yikes!

I didn't expect him to cost this much, but in the final analysis, you really can't put a price tag on a pet, becuase they give you so many intangible things. And they can teach you about acceptance, tolerance, patience, determination, loyalty and a host of other things that fall into the "integrity" category.