Snowflaking April 30, 2008

One of the most interesting and valuable concepts I’ve learned from reading personal finance blogs is that of snowflaking. Basically, its the idea that all sorts of found and extra money can be directed towards your debt, in small amounts. I like the idea, so I’ve set up a new Electric Orange checking account at ING Direct to hold all the extra bits of money that I can generate, and make sure that I funnel it all towards my debt. As of right now, the account has $192.00 in it – I transferred over $10 from my ING Savings account to get it opened, then added my $25 bonus from opening up a Revolution Money Exchange account, as well as $20 in referral money. I then got a $3 check from Pinecone Research, and my $134 State Tax refund. I’m planning to leave the initial $10 in the account (I have this fear that accounts with no balances will be closed), and add my federal refund and my stimulus payment to the account when they arrive.

I know it will be slow-going, but every little bit helps, right?

Numbers update April 30, 2008

Well, Its the 30th, so I got paid today. I’ve already allocated out almost all of the money from this paycheck, and re-calculated the debt figures, and frankly, its disappointing. I know, I know – this is still a transition month, and things are sort of in flux, but it is incredibly frustrating to essentially send my entire paycheck to debt, and have nearly nothing to show for it. The net amount of debt that I paid off this round was only somewhere around $300, due to the fact that some of the cards I had transferred balances off of still had accrued interest. Still, I am down to 8 cards with balances, and as soon as I recieve my federal tax refund and my stimulus payment, that will go right towards paying off 2 cards, and the majority of a third card.

My goal is to have the next three cards in my list – the Gap, Old Navy and J. Crew store cards – paid off by June 15th. After that, I have a choice of tackling either the Bank of America card or the AT&T Universal card – they both have balances around $2000, and they are both now at around 21% APR. If I can possibly get them both cleared by the end of August, that would be amazing. My goal is to have balances only on the Amex, US Bank and Citi cards by the time I move at the end of the summer – ambitious, but very do-able, I think.

Yum! April 29, 2008

Today is Free Scoop Day at Ben & Jerry’s – one of my co-workers and I just walked over (in the pouring rain!) and got our free cones. I felt pretty bad for the workers – they looked rather miserable as they endlessly scooped ice cream.

Frugal or Tacky? April 28, 2008

So, yes – my posting frequency has fallen off a bit in the past week. I blame it on the fact that my boss threw 2 fairly major projects in my lap early last week, and told me to have them both ready for a meeting on Friday afternoon. This managed to screw with both my free time at work and my ability to actually leave the office at a normal hour – I only made it to the gym with L. on Monday. Also, I ended up having to cancel on the Red Sox game BF and I had tickets for Thursday afternoon – he brought his friend instead, so at least they weren’t a total waste.

In any case – I’ve been musing over something that I had a disagreement with my mother over this weekend. See, I’ve got a fair amount of extended family, and, well – we don’t really get along at all. We suffer each other’s presence a few times a year at family holidays and parties, but it is increasingly unpleasant and ugly. After a rather horrific scene at a graduation party last May, both my sister and I have made the decision to largely opt-out of the family gatherings. There are a few cousins that we don’t have particularly ill feelings towards, but they don’t make up for the general level of vitriol and hatred that goes on at a family gathering.

That being said – one my my cousin’s is getting married next month. She’s actually doing the destination wedding thing, then having a reception back home a few weeks later for everyone else that couldn’t be there. Now, none of the extended family except my grandmother were even given the option of attending the destination, which has already caused a few hurt feelings. This weekend, I found out from my mother that they received the invitation to the reception – it was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. X, and family. Now – I am 30 years old, and my younger sister is 26 years old. My sister does live in my parents house, still, but I haven’t lived there for almost 6 years. I told my mother that I thought it was hopelessly rude and tacky to expect that to suffice as an actual invitation for me, particularly as I am in a serious relationship (and all relatives have met BF), and, in addition to not being invited myself, I’m not allowed to bring a date? Really? My mother thinks I shouldn’t add this to the stack of rude and nasty things my family has done, and just chalk it up to a money saving exercise. Sure, I guess – but I won’t be attending.

Guilt April 23, 2008

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but – while I live in the suburbs, I work in the City. In fact, I work in one of the nicest and most affluent areas of the city, where everyday things are very expensive. Along with all of the expensive, tempting stores, nice areas tend to come with homeless people. Now, admittedly, they are not nearly as bad here in Boston as they are in, say, San Francisco – but I still see my fair share on a daily basis.

The weather has been getting really nice, and I’ve been wanting to wear open-toed sandals again. When I heard that today was supposed to be 80 plus degrees, I was convinced – I had to go get a pedicure yesterday after work so that I could wear a summery outfit today. I know, I know – pedicures are expensive, and an indulgence that I probably can’t afford, but I really am helpless at trying to paint my toenails myself, and its actually not that expensive to get one – $27 plus a few more dollars for a tip. I tend to get one every 4 weeks or so from about the end of April to the end of September – I really am trying to make them last. Its better than my previous habit, which was to simply buy endless bottles of nail polish that I would waste, and never have decent looking feet.

So, I get my pedicure, then I stop off at Ben & Jerry’s for an ice cream cone, which is another part of my pedicure ritual day. I am eating my $5 ice cream, walking to the train station to head home, when I pass a homeless man. He looks up at me, and says in a very clear voice – “Have a nice day, miss”. I sort of mumbled “You too” and kept on walking. As I walked away, I was immediately seized by the idea that I should do something, contribute something – I may be in debt, but really, I am so privileged, and I have so much. Even though I had a walk light, I grabbed a dollar out of my purse, and turned around and put it in his cup. He said “Oh, thank you sweetheart, have a lovely evening!” in this surprised tone of voice, and I felt even more guilty – should I have given more?

I don’t know what it was about this man. Perhaps it was his kind tone of voice, or the fact that, while he seemed to be dressed shabbily, he was very clean. I can’t imagine getting to a place in life where you have to sit outside a Starbucks, asking strangers for spare change. I thought about him, and my reaction, the whole train ride home.

I really am trying to reform April 18, 2008

You know how I mentioned that I wasn’t going to be using any credit cards except my Upromise card? Well, I’ve actually been ok with doing that. What hasn’t been going all that well is the totally minimal use of the card that I was planning for. Its very hard for me to say no, especially to myself. The card had a balance of $20.50 when I first added everything up a few weeks ago. Now, its up over $150, which isn’t going to be good when it comes time to charge the auto-debits that come due at the 1st and 15th of the month. That being said, lets take a look at the damage:

Not so bad, right? The first 2 charges are the co-pay at the Doctor’s office, and the cost of my perscriptions for the never ending cough. Can’t really say I regret those, as I am feeling about a million times better. The $45.98 at Rum Runner is for alcohol I bought last weekend. I’ve been dying to try those new Starbucks liqueurs, and had gotten a recipe to make a coffee and coke float. So, I bought the coffee flavored one, the cream flavored one, and a bottle of Stoli Vanilla. It wasn’t until we got home that I realized the liquor store had actually only charged me for one of the bottles of Starbucks stuff, so I actually got something of a deal on it all. The Gulf Oil charge is for filling my gas tank. My car is both tiny and pretty good on gas, and since I take the train to and from work, I don’t actually have to fill it up very often, which I am thankful for. That tank of gas should probably last me a good two weeks. The D’Angelo’s charge is from last Sunday, when I was tired and lazy and hungry all at once, and craving a stir-fry chicken sandwich. And the Dunkin Donuts charge is from the other morning when I missed my train, and I bought BF and I bagels.

So, all in all, not bad. But, I really need to work on keeping the impulse fast food purchases under control. Everyone needs to eat, but its so much healthier and cheaper to not give in to my every impulsive desire to eat out.

Is it possible to be both social and frugal? April 16, 2008

As I’ve mentioned, one of the biggest obstacles to me actually saving money and paying down my debt and getting ahead in the world is my rather active social life. I’ve got a pretty amazing group of friends who like to go out and have a good time – and who often seem to be willing to do it Thursday, Friday and Saturday every week. For a while, BF and I were just going along with the flow of what others wanted to do, and really not helping our own financial situations in the process. But, we’ve put our (collective) feet down, and decided that we just can’t go out as much as we would like to.

That being said, we do have a farily busy social calendar for the next 2 weeks. We’ve got our usual Thursday night karaoke, which is the one social event that we’ve decided is a must go, for us. We’ve got next Tuesday, which is a celebration of a monumental life decision for a very close friend of BF’s. We have tickets to a Red Sox game next Thursday. A friend of mine is having a toy party that Friday. Then, the next week is BF’s friend’s birthday, and we know in advance that he is looking to make a big night of it – dinner someplace nice, then drinking. It looks like a lot, but I think I’ve figured out how to handle it all, and not spend crazy amounts of money. How, you may ask?

1. We’ve decided to limit our collective budget for Thursday nights to $20 each. This is easily 4 beers for BF and 3 Vanilla and Diets for me. Since I like to send him to get the drinks, I will give him $20 at the beginning of the evening. This has the added bonus of ensuring that we don’t overdo the drinking, which is another something we are both trying to watch.

2. Some of these events are parties at people’s houses. The Tuesday celebration, and the toy party are both drinking/hanging out at home situations. We’ve already contributed a fair amount of alcohol to BF’s friend’s collection, so I think we are probably good on that front. And I can probably spend less than $20 to bring something to the party at my friend’s house. Another thing I think we will try to do is eat at home before we go, saving that cost.

3. BF’s friend’s birthday is going to be expensive. This is kind of a given. But I think if we curb our own going out to eat habits for the next 2 weeks, and just consider that our night out, we will be fine.

There is an additional complication, and that is a friend of mine who I don’t get to see very regularly, and who I’ve been putting off, asked us to go out with him and his girlfriend next weekend. I’ve tentatively said yes, and told BF that I would pay for that, because he isn’t too fond of my friend to begin with. I know they are also trying to save, so I think we can suggest someplace fairly cheap for dinner, and they will be ok with that.

Numbers update April 15, 2008

I get paid on the 15th and 30th of each month, and its usually disturbingly quick how quickly the money is allocated out. This time around felt pretty good, though, as I was able to pay off 3 credit cards in their entirety. My Capital One card, Bank of America US Airways card, and Chase Amazon.com card are all at $0 now. Its a little bit cheating, as these were the cards where I transferred the majority of the balances to the US Bank card, leaving me with just odd amounts and interest to pay off. Still, I feel good that the number of accounts I am paying on each month is going down – it makes you feel like you are making more progress to be able to send a larger amount to something, rather than having to worry about many smaller amounts.

So, I’m down to 9 cards with balances, and I will pretty easily have 2 more of those paid off next pay period – 3 if I happen to get my tax refund before the end of April. Between the tax refund and the economic stimulus check next month, this is looking like a really good few weeks to catch up and get things paid off an under control.

As I mentioned before, I am trying to move to a credit-free lifestyle. One of the ways I am trying to accomplish this is to put a total ban on using any of my cards, with one exception: my UPromise card. I’ve decided to still use the UPromise card because it does earn rewards towards paying off my student loans (a debt that I can’t really even begin to think about until I’ve got the credit cards under control, though I am currently making the monthly minimum payments). Also, the UPromise card only has a $500 limit, so I really can’t get myself into too much trouble there. I’ve switched all my auto-payments over to that card (Verizon for my cell phone, Netflix, which I am considering canceling, and my gym membership, which is definitely worth the $15 a month I pay). I’m also going to charge my $235 a month Train pass to this card. My intentions are to pay it off every 2 weeks, as part of my bi-monthly bill pay, but doing it this way will let me both earn the rewards and stretch out the dollars a little further, particularly at that tight, first of the month time period

Waiting April 14, 2008

Despite my previous post, I generally am not a very patient person. If I want something, I want it now, and its partly this impulsiveness that has gotten me into such credit card debt to begin with. I’ve never been one for sitting back and saving and waiting, but I’ve realized that all of that needs to change.

One of the things that I love most about BF, and that has really convinced me that we have a future together, is his total openness about money and finances. I knew, even before we started dating, about his massive amount of student loans. He is really good about talking to me about his finances, and sharing what is going on in his world, particularly as it affects our relationship. When we started talking about moving in together back in January, it was because he was thinking about moving in with some friends of his. He did a little preliminary research on the situation, and then came to the conclusion that one of his friends wouldn’t make such a good roommate, and the other friend was pretty close to wanting to live with his girlfriend. It was then that we started to discuss our own living situations, and the future.

We came to the decision that yes, we would move in together, but that it would be a ways off, to give us both time to get some money saved up for the inevitable first/last security, and also to make sure that our relationship was solid. Now, 4+ months later, I am starting to get impatient, in part because I feel like its a done deal, and I just need to wait, and in part because my own living situation has deteriorated rapidly in the last few months. I’m ready to move on, personally and emotionally.

We had a long talk about it Saturday night, and while my impulsiveness makes me want to make a move NOW, his rationality convinced me that we just need to stay the course for a little bit longer, and continue to follow our individual savings plans, and September will come quicker than we think. I can only hope.

The cost of being sick April 11, 2008

About 6 weeks ago, I managed to catch a really nasty cold/flu type thing. For the better part of a week, I literally slept 18 hours a day, and the mere effort of taking a shower and blow drying my hair was overwhelming. It was miserable, and recovery was slow, but eventually I started feeling like a normal person again.

Except for that whole lingering cough and congestion thing. I’ve been dealing with that ever since. The coughing is severe enough that I wheeze when walking up a flight of stairs. When ever I laugh, particularly when its spontaneous, I end up devolving into a coughing fit. I’ve gone through 2 big bottles of Robitussin to try and control the coughing, to no avail. After last night, though, when I was awake from 3am to 7am coughing my lungs up, and keeping BF awake as well, I finally broke down and worked from home today so that I could schedule an Doctor’s appointment.

I’ve been reluctant to do anything about the persistent cough, despite continual urging from my mother and grandmother, for a couple reasons that border on totally stupid. First, I don’t like taking time off to do boring and/or mundane things. I get 4 weeks of sick/personal/vacation time a year, plus I’ve got a week from last year that I didn’t use and carried over. And, while i can think of a few occasions to take time off, vacation time generally means spending a lot of money, and that is something I am trying not to do right now. So, why the reluctance to use a day? Stubbornness, really. I just don’t like to waste my time. The other thing that’s been stupidly holding me back from seeing a doctor is, well, the fact that the co-pay is $20, plus I knew there would be another $20 in medicine costs. I know, I know – I dropped $50 on dinner the other night, $40 to make myself feel better is just a drop in the bucket. I’ve got to get over this particular impulse, and just do what is right for my health and my sanity, despite the costs.

Now, the incalculable costs of being sick for 6 + weeks: I haven’t been able to keep up my gym routine, and I can feel all the hard-won progress I made on that front slipping away. I’ve been generally exhausted, and its all I can do most days to go to work and do the bare minimum. I’m not performing as well as I can, and I’m also not making much progress on any of the other tasks and goals I have for myself. General tiredness is also making me irritable and less than wonderful to be around – I’ve spent a lot of time going out and trying to have fun and really just being miserable.

My Doctor told me that the symptoms can last easily for 3-4 months if left untreated, but you pay the price in being miserable and unhappy all that time. She told me I was her record this winter, for waiting 6 whole weeks to come it. Its not a honor I think I should ever aspire to again. The costs of not treating a lingering illness are incomparable.