Traveling for Work October 29, 2008

I’m back in my cozy office in Boston today, but the first part of this week found me riding the train to Philadelphia, for a Conference. This was the first time I’ve traveled for work in over a year, and the very first time I’ve gone to one of these sorts of things by myself – usually I have at least 1 other co-worker with me. It was an interesting experience for me, to see how the dichotomy of my newly furgal self plays with the reality of being reimbursed for my expenses.

The way my company works is that, when you are traveling for work, all of your food and travel expenses are reimbursed. Its pretty generally understood, though, that we are not a wealthy company, and that you should not be overly extravagent in your eating or spending. Still, knowing that the money wasn’t coming out of my pocket made me spend a little more freely than I might have otherwise.

For example – I took the Amtrack Acela train, rather than the Metroliner – I’ve taken the Metroliner Regional before, and its pretty much a nigthmare. It stops about a million times in Connecticut, and adds at least an hour to the trip from Boston to New York City. The Acela makes many fewer stops, and is much more geared towards business travelers – it has outlets at all the seats for you to plug in your laptop, and much more comfortable chairs. I very much appreciated the speed, particularly on my return trip when I was tired and just ready to be home. But, if I had been paying for it myself, I most likely wouldn’t have paid the extra money for the comfort and convenienve of the Acela.

The Hotel I was staying in had a seemingly overpriced restaurant in it. I gave some thought to finding something a little more interesting, and a little more reasonably priced, to eat on Monday, but the combination of the rain, the cold, and the unease at being by myself lead me to just staying where I was, and paying $38 for a small salad, a pasta dish and a glass of wine. If it had been my own money, I know I would have sought out something more interesting to spend that kind of money on.

I also treated myself to a Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate at Starbucks – again, something that I’ve all but eliminated from my regular spending, but which I felt no qualms about when someone else is paying for it.

All told, my expenses for this trip came to about $630 – that includes hotel, train tickets, meals and taxis. It feels a little bit indulgent, but I also know that its no where near the sorts of things people at bigger companies do – on one such business trip a few years ago, we went out with the representatives from one of the biggest companies in our business, and he literally bought drinks for a group of 10 of us all night long – endless flowing alcohol that the company would be picking up the tab for.

It feels almost like a moral issue to me – when you are traveling for business, you should be compensated for being comfortable, and maybe even a bit above what you would normally do if you were paying for it youself, given that you are sacraficing time with your family and friends. But the crazy expense accounts that some people have just seem irresponsible, particualry when you realize that those costs are just being passed on to the consumer.

Food for thought, anyway.

I feel panic October 14, 2008

Maybe its just a sign of the times, but I can’t help it – I am spending an awful lot of time feeling panicky and sick to my stomach lately. I just can’t stop thinking about everything – how on earth I am going to pay down my debt, and still pay rent, and school loans, and utilities, and eat. And then, I get news like this and it just destroys my world. Now, really, in the grand scheme of life an extra $2 a day isn’t catastrophic – but I already have my budget so tightly allocated, trying to find an additional $40+ a month to pay for parking just makes my head hurt. I’ve long-ago cut out my daily Starbucks run. I’m down to buying lunch maybe once every three weeks. We aren’t going out to bars, or movies, or dinner at all anymore. The only places to cut money are from my debt repayment plans, and, wow, I can not even express how much that sucks.

I found out about this little fare hike yesterday afternoon, and have literally not been able to stop thinking about it since then. I feel like something has to give, financially, but I’m just not sure what. I am at the point where I could literally spend an entire day reimagining what I would do with the money I project I will earn in the next few years – different debt allocation, different priorities, “what if?” scenarios galore.

I just feel very helpless and out of control right now.

Return of the Social Life October 7, 2008

I might not have ever mentioned it, but one of the things that BF and I both love to do with our friends is to sing karaoke. For the better part of a year, it was a nightly ritual on Thursday nights – a huge group of our friends would meet at the local karaoke bar, and have a great time. Of course, its pretty much impossible to go to a bar and not have a few drinks, which always meant that we were spending money. Plus, it always seemed like it was someone’s birthday, or there was something to celebrate, which meant buying drinks for other people.

Towards the end of Spring, we got pretty good at limiting Thursday night to $20/each – I would give my $20 to BF and just put him in charge of getting us beverages for the evening, because if I were in charge, I would be much more likely to have a drink or 2 and overspend. Then, there was a huge friend crisis, and the karaoke place stopped having karaoke on Thursday nights for the summer, and so, we stopped going. We both miss it a lot, and have been talking about how and when we could get back to our fun habit.

We considered going last Thursday night, but heard through the grapevine that the particular group we don’t want to deal with anymore would definitely be in attendance. So we stayed home, had people over and played Wii. It was fun, but nothing is quite the same as getting up there and belting out a song.

There is a restaurant/bar about 1/2 a mile down the street from our new place that we have recently disovered has karaoke on Thursday and Saturday nights, and I think we are definitely going to check it out this week. Lets hope that the book is good, and the drinks are cheap.

Impulse Control October 6, 2008

I have some serious issues with impulse control, and its definitely a large, contributing factor to why I have so much debt.

I just nearly bought $50 worth of Christmas ornaments. In the beginning of October. Seriously, what is wrong with me? I was on a mission this weekend to find and purchase these very particular bowls that my Mom has from Crate + Barrel. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to have them, or anything like them, anymore. So, I went online this morning to look at the website. Still no luck. While I was there, I remembered that we also discussed needing an entryway mat for the kitchen sometime in the near future – its not a big problem right now, but the carpets in our apartment are all pretty light, and winter is about to descend upon New England. So, I was searching for a floormat when I also noticed a link for the Crate + Barrel Outlet. I, of course, clicked on over, and found a veritable treasure trove of new things that I <b>must</b> have! I had filled my cart up with $50 worth of Christmas ornaments, reasoning that Christmas is coming soon, and we don’t really have any ourselves, but something made me pause, and reconsider.

Did I really want to spend that kind of money on Christmas ornaments? Didn’t it kind of go against my already, formed thoughts on Christmas ornament acquistion – that it should be more personal and meaningful than just buying a bunch of random stuff?

I closed the browser window. One small victory.

Refund Victory! October 1, 2008

Last Christmas, due to some circumstances I don’t really want to get into, I got guilted into buying my Grandmother a rather extravagent Christmas present. I ended up getting her a 6-month Muffin of the Month Club, from a company that shall remain nameless. It cost quite a bit of money – nearly $300 – but the Muffins were beautiful, and seemed like a good idea at the time.

The first shipment of muffins arrived in January. They were, as promised, an assortment of the flavors on the website, and seemed both tasty and fresh. About a month later, the 2nd muffin shipment arrived. These were less varied – only 3 different varieties, all repeats of the first month (and, incidentally, the flavors that were less popular with her). They sat around for a while, and I’m honestly not sure if they ever did all get eaten before they spoiled. Oh well, I thought – better luck next month.

Next month never came. There should have been 4 more shipments of muffins, and they just never arrived. I wasn’t sure if I had just missed the arrival of the muffins, or if they never really did show up – so I asked my grandmother. She confirmed that the muffins were, indeed, missing. I asked her again this weekend when I stopped over for a visit if the muffins had ever shown up, and she said they had not.

I called the muffin company today and explained the situation, and they offered to either refund my order, or to re-send the muffins now, with an extra order thrown in for me for my troubles. As they proved themselves to be less than reliable, and less than what I anticipated based on the website, I chose to cancel the order. I’ll make up the gift to my Grandmother in my own way.

They did, however, write me a very nice email letting me know that my credit card was being refunded, and apologizing for their error, which I very much appreciate. Still, I’m not so sure that I’d want to go this particular route with a gift again – it seems way too easy for something like this to happen, and the disconnect between the purchaser and the recipient can let mistakes happen too easily.

Travel Lust October 1, 2008

I absolutely, in no sense of the word, can afford to take an out-of-town vacation right now, but I am dealing with some serious travel lust. I’m subscribed to a lot of different travel deal type newsletters, and every time they come, they have some awesome deal to a place that I’d love to go. Last year, BF and I took a very spontaneous 3 night vacation to an all-inclusive resort in the Mayan Rivieria – and it was amazing. I’d love the chance to do something like that again, but I know that financially, its just not in the cards for us right now. I’ve got some very rigourous payoff goals to meet, BF has his student loan payments beginning in November, as well as a small debt that he needs to finish paying off. Plus all the other, unspoken things that need to be paid for.

Today marks one month since we moved in together, and so far, so good. We’ve definitely cut down on the eating out thing – We’ve only gone out a handful of times this month, and some of those were unavoidable (his Sister’s Rehersal dinner, food in the city before a baseball game, Sushi with friends). It still sounds extravagent compared to a lot of other PF bloggers, but for us, it is definitely progress. There have been periods where we were eating out 5 days a week, or more. We are still working on developeing a reasonable grocery budget, but I think that will come in time – every trip so far has been between $100 and $200, mainly due to adding a bunch of “kitchen staples” items. But, we will get better. In the meantime, I am left wishing I had been smarter all these years and could afford to fly off to someplace tropical and wonderful for a few days.