Ah, retail December 10, 2008

Last night, BF and I splurged a little bit. He had to stop by his parents house to pick up some things that he had ordered, and it just happened to coincide with my arrival home from the train, so I stopped by as well. We left the puppy with his parents for a few hours, and went to dinner at one of our favorite local pub-type places. We also decided to stop by Target, as there were a few random present-type things that we wanted to look for/get – swap gift for my work, Toys for Tots present for his, A few Christmas toys for the dog.

Target was fine, we got what we needed and proceeded to the checkout counter, where we had the most….interesting cashier I’ve ever had. He was a young kid, definitely still in high school, and I don’t know of he was just new to the whole concept of how to behave when dealing with the public, or if there really was something not right with him. It started when I pulled out my ridiculous bundle of cards to search for both my target card and the target gift card that I had received a few months ago when I opened up the account. First, he told me that I had too many cards. Then, he started asking questions. Who was the iTunes gift card for? Who were the horse calendars for? Then, finally, as my patience was wearing thin, we finished up and headed out. “Have a nice night!” we say, to Target boy. “I won’t – this place sucks. Working sucks.” is his reply.

I can’t convey the sheer ridiculousness of it all here – his demeanor, his tone, everything, was just very strange and semi-rude. Luckily, I was in a pretty good mood (credit the 2 glasses of pinot noir I had at dinner for that!) and didn’t really take offense to his behavior, but still – is this the way the youth of America think that they can act in a business setting?

The bed that BF built December 9, 2008

Back before BF and I moved in together, I was living with my grandmother. This had originally been intended to be a temporary thing, but I ended up staying for close to 3 years. When I first moved in, I was staying in her guest room, on the ancient and increasingly uncomfortable double bed. About a year and a half ago, when it didn’t seem like I was leaving anytime soon, I decided to purchase myself a new mattress and box spring, and ditch the bed frame in favor of one of those bare minimum frames, to make a little more room. Everything went well, except….the minimal frame was on wheels. On a hardwood floor.

It was a constant adventure about the moving bed. Things would fall down behind it and get seemingly lost forever. Blankets constantly needed to be re-adjusted. When we made plans to move, one of the things that BF and I both agreed on was that we needed a real bedframe, and quickly.

It was a pleasant surprise, then, when we moved into our new place and realize two things – 1. That our new bedroom was carpeted and 2. That the wheels on the bed frame locked into place. If I had known this, I might have saved myself a lot of irritation over the past year. But, regardless – I was now content to not spend any more money and just deal with the bed frame as it was, particularly since we’ve been tentatively planning to purchase a larger, Queen sized mattress in the semi-near future – in a year or 2, perhaps. I figured that we could just get a bed frame that would make up both happy then.

Oh no, says BF. Sometime in September, he decided that he wanted a project. He is an engineer by trade (and by nature), and quickly got to work sketching out plans to create a bed. He bought the wood, and the screws, and borrowed some tools from his father, and spent the better part of a weekend working on it. After a few weeks, he had the pieces mainly done, and went to put them together, and realized….that he had measured incorrectly. So, then, the bed frame pieces sat in our hallway for the better part of 2 months. He finally, finally finished bed construction last weekend, and, while I certainly do not love the bare, scratched wood monstrosity he has created, I’m trying to be supportive because I know how much he enjoyed doing something like this.

The thing I am less supportive about? Total cost. All told, after buying wood, and replacement wood, and screws, and replacement screws, and who knows what else, the bed frame alone has cost us almost $200. BF promises that when spring comes, we can drag the thing outside and sand it a little bit and put some stain on it, in an attempt to make it a little better looking, which will only be an additional expense.

Not happy about all of this, particularly when I know I could have gotten something that I wanted at IKEA for a whole lot less money and time, but trying my best to bite my tongue and be supportive, since it was a project, and he did put a lot of effort into it.

The puppy November 17, 2008

One thing that BF and I have been talking about for quite a while, even before we officially moved in together, is getting a dog. His parents have 4 shelties that he is very attached to, and my parents have a Jack Russell Terrier that is known as the 3rd, and favorite child (really, my sister and I don’t mind). We’ve always been concerned, though, that our work-heavy schedules wouldn’t be conducive to giving the dog a good home. Regardless, this weekend, we became the proud parents of Diesel. He is a 9 month old JRT, formerly owned by a friend of BF’s mother, who had decided that she couldn’t manage him anymore.

It was sort of a spur of the moment decision, but after having played with him a few times, we really just fell in love. And, yes, we work a lot, but we are dedicated to taking him for walks when we do get home. I’m in the process of trying to find a dog-walking service that will come and take him for approximately a 1/2 hour walk in the middle of every day. For this week, we are getting various family members to help out and make sure that he gets plenty of chances to go outside.

We didn’t have to pay anything for the dog, and he also came with a large crate (which he dislikes) and some toys and food. We’ve gotten more supplies from my mother, and so far, have only had to spend about $40 out of pocket on him, in the form of a retractable leash. The dog walking places that I’m looking into seem to be between $15 and $20 for the 1/2 hour visit, but I think thats a fairly reasonable price to pay. Yes, he will be an expense, but he will also enrich our lives so much – we’ve both felt a little lonely not having an animal companion in our new home. I’m sure I’ll have much more to say on the topic of pet costs in the future!

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.

Adjusting budget categories September 30, 2008

If you read any personal finance blogs at all, you know that one of the most important things that you should do to get control over your money is to create a budget. I’ve tried to do this, and one of my favorite things to do is to project out how my budget might look in the future. I’ve currently got a spreadsheet that tracks my money into 2013. I know that anything that far in the future is pretty theoretical, but it gives me a bit of motivation to see that if I work hard, and am diligent about things, that I can get to the end of this.

That being said, I’ve just done a pretty serious re-write of the projections. I was finding myself in a place where I frequently had much more to pay than I was anticipating, and I wasn’t sure why.

Let me explain – previously, I had allocated myself $100 every pay period to take as cash, to deal with things like paying for gas, paying for parking every morning at the Train Station, and paying for other miscellaneous things that came up. I quickly found, though, that it was nearly impossible to change my habit of paying for gas on a credit card, and that I was having to forego taking my $100 in spending money, and instead applying it to the card I use for daily expenses – which just perpetuated the cycle of having spent too much money on the card.

So, I re-evaluated. I dropped my free cash amount down to $20 a pay period, and came up with a more accurate number for the essentials that get charged to my Citi UPromise card every month. They are:

• CVS copay – $15
• Gym Membership – $15
• Netflix – $14.69
• Cell phone – $60
• Cable/Internet – $70
• Gas (2 tanks a month) – $80
• Train Parking – $70

For a total of $324.69. So I’ve now budgeted $325 a month for this, and adjusted my payment outlooks to reflect this. I do imagine there will be some wiggle room in here – Cable/Internet might be a bit less than this, but I haven’t gotten an official, one month bill with no adjustments yet. I’m also considering cancelling Netflix. I’ve already downgraded my cell phone significantly, which seems to be working out.

Its much better to just be honest with myself and realize my own habits and impulses, and plan for them, rather than pretending I will be able to make myself behave in a way that I won’t.

Employment Woes September 29, 2008

I’ve got sort of a strange situation going on right now with my job.

I’ve been working at the same company for just about 3 years ago. When I was hired, I was initially hired as a part time, 25-30 hour person, paid hourly. I was doing grad school full time back then, and intended that to be my focus. Unfortunately, my focus quickly shifted to the job, and about 7 months in, there were a bunch of shakeups that left me temporarily covering what had previously been 2 other, full time jobs, as well as my own position. I was soon working 40+ hours a week, as well as full time grad school. Shortly thereafter, my boss offered me an offical full time position, which I accepted. The company also hired a few more people, and my initial role was expanded.

I began year 2 as a full time employee. I took a few more classes towards my Masters degree, but after a particularly disasterous semester, ended up temporarily stopping my progress. I enjoyed my job, but found it a little monotonous at times. As year 2 came to a close, I unexpectedly found myself in the position of having a job that I liked, at a company that I loved, and having a job offer from another company that was both different and exciting. I weighed my options carefully, and decided to take the new job. I went into my then-boss, and told him that I was leaving, and he asked me what they could do to make me stay. I told him that I wasn’t really interested in continuing on in the same position I had been doing for the last 2 years, and that I would like to learn a different area of our business. And that I was offered significantly more money, and that they would need to meet that.

Within 2 days, I had my offer for about 15K more than I was making in the current job, and the chance to learn a new position. I turned down the new company, and chose to stay.

Its now a year later, and strangely enough, I find myself back in the place I was a year ago, only now, I am sharing the position with a co-worker. The promotion position was great, and I was and am still really interested in learning more about that, but the current business needs don’t allow for there to be multiple people doing that job. I’ve found myself doing projects related to my former position, and working on committes for the new CEO. I write a lot of reports. I create a lot of spreadsheets.

I’m intensely nervous that, in 6 months or so, when my main project wraps up, they won’t have any more for me to do in the new job area, still, and they won’t have a continued need for 2 people in the old job. I know I need to finish my MS, but I also realize that I don’t really want to do what I was going to school for – though I am interested in being at the periphery of the field, which is where I am right now. I’m really kind of at a loss, though, in thinking about where the next year of my life will take me professionally. I’m not loving the idea that my fate isn’t in my own hands.