The Dog Ate My Wallet

The Dog Ate My Wallet

Personal Finance in a World of Excuses

Article

Tangents My Mind Follows (Blogroll)

Jana over at DailyMoney $hot has her own shiny new domain. You should go visit her and tellher how awesome she is, because she is.
While you’re there, make sure you read the guest post fromNiki at Debt Free By Thirty, whoencourages us to StopStoring and Organizing and Just Get Rid of Your Stuff. If you read my lastpost with my 7 goals for the rest of this year, you know this is something Ineed to work on.
When you’re done reading what Niki wrote for Jana, head overto see what Jana wrote for Niki about SkillBuilding in Your 20s to Protect Your 30s (and beyond). But don’t worry,even if you’re past your 20s and 30s, these are great skills to work on.
Then check out Mrs C’s “JustDo It” Bucket List at AnotherHousewife
If you’re sensing a theme, it might be because Jackie at MoneyCrush asked us What DoYou Really Want to Achieve and followed it up with Make Time toChange Your Life
This in turn inspired The Happy Homeowner toask HowDo You Keep Your Eyes on the Prize? and then tell us how she manages it.
If you live in Personal Finance Blogger land, you probablyknow this weekend is the FinancialBlogger Conference. Lots of bloggers are working on what they really wantto achieve by attending.
If you’re one of them, Buck$ome Boomer has some great adviceabout how to Makethe most out of your conference experience (good not just for FinCon, butall cons).
However, So Over Debt(who’spretty excited about the whole thing) also provides us with reasons WhyPF Bloggers Should Never Date Each Other (in case you’re going to the conto meet that special someone…)
And while Sandyat First Gen American may not bedriving to the con this weekend, being out on the road last weekend gave hersome insight into her own feelings about EntitlementPrograms vs Motorcycle Laws.
Since I’ve now managed to move the conversation to what thegovernment spends its money on, you might want to find out about TheStudent Loan Debt Clock and Why You Should Care, as explained to us by the Family CEO
Student loans are considered by many (including me) to fallin to the category of good debt, but good debt can easily turn bad if you don’tknow what you’re doing. The same can be said of the other traditionally “good”debt- mortgages. Money is the Roottalks about the importance of Savingfor a Down Payment to help keep that debt on the “good” side.
If you’re trying to save for that down payment, Jason at Live Real, Now suggests you look in to Cutting CostsWhile Cutting Hair and Matt at Matt’sMoney Blog wants you to think about SavingMoney at Sporting Events.
Finally, DiningOut Challenge gives us actual practical help by passing on coupon deals. It’sgone now, but earlier this month we were reminded to keep an eye out becauseevery once in a while, you can get $20Whole Foods Voucher for $10. That’s a 50% savings on things you were goingto buy anyway.
And now I’ve taken you through most of what I read this weekand the odd tangential way it connects in my head, which is how my brain worksmost of the time anyway.
Date: 24/09/2011 Author: Category: Round Ups Bookmark: Permalink
Article

7 Things

So I’m not certain if the “7 Things” posts started with Wemay be poor, but we are happy or Making Senseof Cents. What I do know is that I stole it via TheHappy Homeowner.
Since in my last post I decided that I needed to come upwith some new goals, I thought this would be a good way to do it, along withreminding myself of the things we have already accomplished.
7 Things We Have Done
1. Had work done on the basement to prevent future flooding,rewired the basement
2. Paid cash out of pocket for the hubby to return to school
3. Paid $0 in credit card interest this year
4. Set my 403(b) contributions to auto increase the samemonth I get my annual raise
5. Prepared for and managed the adjustment to being a trulyone income household
6. Got rid of cable
7. Got my undergraduate student loan paid down to the pointwhere I finally owe less than I borrowed (11.5 years after graduating).
7 Things We Still Have to Do (in 2011)
1. Get through MIL’s total knee replacement surgery & rehabilitation
2. Have a cash only Christmas (and have shopping/shippingdone before Christmas Eve)
3. Clean out the garage so that the diesel vehicle can fitin before the cold weather / Organize the basement so that it’s usable again
4. Sell/Donate/Dump extra “stuff” from the garage andbasement
5. Prepare one unused room for having a roommate move in inNovember
6. Create next year’s budget
7. Create my own domain to host all my writing projects
7 Things We Hope to Do in 2012
1. Pay off basement work
2. Reach 50% paid off on the debt “race” we started Jan 2010
3. Hubby graduates with his BA
4. Take a major trip (paid for in cash) to celebrate(current plan is Ireland,but friends are planning a group Mediterranean cruise, so we might opt forthat)
5. Major kitchen renovation
6. Get MIL full set of dentures
7. Take on NO new debt
Date: 22/09/2011 Author: Tags: Category: Inspired by Bookmark: Permalink
Article

Lacking Motivation

Exhausted today and just not feeling inspired about anything.
I have a post I want to write about how the mortgage world has changed in the last 40 years, and how the rules of the 1970s really can’t apply to today’s mortgages because of the inflation of property values, but it needs a little more research so I know I’m using accurate numbers first.
I turned to the blogs I read for inspiration, but while I enjoyed the posts, nothing was jumping out at me enough that I though, I need to write about this.
I considered a blog round up, but I like those to be in addition to my regular posts. I will get one up this week, though.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t get enough sleep last night and today was the first day I had to wake up to an alarm in a week.
Or maybe it was because over $3,000 left our accounts today (6 month auto policy, paying for the hubby’s fall quarter at school) in addition to the new tire we bought last night and the costs of registering the car- which hubby should be doing today.
All of these things (well, not the tire specifically, but we have a general car fund) were planned for and we have the money. There is no financial hardship arising from any of this. It’s just hard to see so much money go elsewhere all at once.
Or maybe it’s because I had been so looking forward to reaching last week’s milestone of owing less than I borrowed on my undergraduate student loan that this week feels kind of like a let down.
I need to take a look at our debt paydown schedule and come up with some new milestones and stretch goals. Sadly, my original idea of making extra payments on my graduate student loans have been derailed by Citi’s awful web payment program that messes up my automatic payments every time I try to pay extra- even if I pay the extra on the same day the auto-deduct happens.
Still, having new goals and milestones will help me stay motivated.
Which gives me goals for this week:
1)      Blog Roundup
2)      Determine next set of goals and milestones for debt paydown.
I feel better already.
Date: 20/09/2011 Author: Tags: , , , Category: Budgets, Lessons Learned Bookmark: Permalink
Article

Sunday Evening Post #9

I feel like if I try and follow my normal Sunday EveningPost format it will be disingenuous. On Friday we spent $1.50. On Saturday, wedidn’t spend any money, and today we spent under $11. So it would seem like alow spend weekend, and technically it was, but…
My father arrived on Tuesday. We went out to dinner thatnight, despite not really having the room in our eating out budget. OnWednesday, we spent over $50 at various home stores on parts to fix some of thebad wiring in our house. We also got new auto insurance on Wednesday (I loveour agent, he comes by the house to do all of our paperwork) and paid our 6month premium then. Thursday saw more trips to the home stores and the purchaseof 6 new light fixtures.
Friday ended up being so inexpensive only because my fatherpaid for our wings and drinks at the pub we went to hear one of our favoritelocal bands play. And on Saturday he took us out to dinner. This morning hepaid for brunch when we met up with some of our friends (who he really likes).
In addition, on Friday, I had intended to renew one of ourdog’s licenses and pay for the hubby’s school for next quarter. I forgot aboutthose things, so they’ll happen this week.
We’ll also have to pay to smog and register our second car, whichhasn’t been insured/registered/driven in over a year. It also has a flat tire,so we’ll need to swing by Les Schwab and get that fixed. Hopefully we won’t getpulled over while we’re getting it to the smog station as we can’t register ituntil it’s smogged. I have reviewed the state laws though, so if we do, it willbe a “fix it” ticket. But we’ll have to show up in court.
Still, I can’t complain about the money we spent as the plug-insin the family room in the basement now work, and we have pretty new lightfixtures (that actually give adequate light) in there. We have 2 newreceptacles in the garage, meaning that everything isn’t plugged in through anextension cord, and we added a second light on the corner of our stairwell, sonow there’s light all the way up and down our stairs. And the big thing, theswitch in our kitchen has been fixed so we no longer have to jiggle it to getthe kitchen light turned on.
As the hubby told my dad, if we’d had a professional come inand tell us it would cost $2,000 to fix all this, we would have believed him.My father and hubby got it all done for less that $150 in supplies. Not a baddeal.
Date: 18/09/2011 Author: Tags: Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink
Article

Reaching a Milestone

Sometimes the journey out of debt or just to a better financial picture can be long and tedious. It gets tiring, and you just get sick of it all. In order to counteract this fatigue, I choose financial milestones that I am looking forward to meeting as little points of celebration along the way.
This week, we hit a milestone that I have been looking forward to meeting for a LONG time.
I graduated in May 2000 with $16,000 in undergraduate student loans. Due to deferrals and forbearances, I didn’t really pay on those loans for 5.5 years. By the time I started paying on them regularly, in January 2006, the balance had grown to over $20,650- a 25% increase.
I went on a graduated repayment plan at that time, so progress has been a little slow. But as of this week, 11.33 years after I borrowed the money, and 5.5 years since I started making regular payments, I finally owe less than I borrowed. The balance is finally below $16,000.
I still believe that federally insured student loans are “good” debt. In part this is because they are so flexible. At the same time, the realization that every payment for the last 5.5 years has gone solely toward the interest built up over the previous 5.5 years (really, 5 years, since there’s a six month grace period), is rather depressing.
I am very excited to FINALLY be paying on my actual debt.
Date: 15/09/2011 Author: Tags: , , Category: Debt, Uncategorized Bookmark: Permalink
Article

Advice I Hope You Never Need

Last week, some very good friends of ours (who live less than a mile from us) had their house broken in to. A few days later, one of their cars was broken in to. While no one currently thinks the events were related (there have been a rash of car break ins in the neighborhood), it combined for an emotionally and financially stressful week.
On Friday night, we showed up on their doorstep with a bucket of KFC and to offer any emotional or practical support we could. In talking to them, I was able to put together a list of information/advice that I hope none of my readers ever need, but it’s still important to know.
Know what your insurance policy covers:
In this case, their policy assumes that they will have a separate rider for jewelry, so it covers stolen jewelry only up to a certain (fairly small) amount. However, if they don’t file a claim on the jewelry rider, the company will apply any amount that goes over the limited reimbursement to their deductible.
Even though they didn’t have a jewelry rider (no really expensive pieces and not a lot), the insurance company will still apply any overages in their jewelry loss to the deductible. They weren’t actually certain it would be needed, but it was nice to know.
Be able to prove you own what you own:
Let’s be honest, most of us don’t still have the receipts from purchases we made 3 months ago, let alone 3 years ago, even if it was a $3,000 television. However, one of the nice things about all the computerized point of sale systems that stores have is that they do have that information, and they keep it forever.
Our friends had bought almost all of their high end electronics at the same store. And with one call to the customer service department, knowing what month and year they had bought items, the company was able to pull up their receipts. The phone rep was going to email them to my friends, but also provided numbers that they could take to the store to have the receipts printed out there.
I don’t usually do business with Best Buy because of a bad experience I had there over 11 years ago, but in this case, I want to call out the wonderful customer service my friends received. Those receipts represent the majority of the monetary value of what our friends lost, and the quickness and courtesy of the Best Buy representatives made obtaining those receipts a relatively painless process.
For him, his entire pocket watch collection was taken. Luckily, they had his watches serviced at a local store that provided warranty information with detailed descriptions of each watch.
The difficult part will be her jewelry. She had a number of family heirloom pieces, so there’s no receipt, nothing close to a receipt. And because they were in a style she didn’t wear, most had been looked at once when they were given, and then put away in a “safe” spot.
Here’s the lesson she (and I) are taking from this- When you get a piece of jewelry, take a picture of it. You can be wearing it, or it can be in the box, but take a picture. If its an heirloom, make a note of who it came from, how long its been in the family, etc. That way, you have all that information.
Don’t store all your information in the same place, or only one place:
Taken in the theft were one desk top computer, and three laptops: her new laptop, his old laptop, and her sister’s laptop.
Luckily no one tried to get into their locked file cabinet with all the financial records, but quite a bit of information was stored on the laptops (especially her sister’s).
Because the thieves didn’t get everything, they have a lot of their information where they can easily access it, but if they didn’t, there are a number of things they could not recreate.
The sister now has to issue a complete credit watch and notifications for identity theft, since her computer contained complete tax information including her social security number and driver’s license information.
Consider additional types of “insurance”:
In this case, we were talking about software that will let you remotely wipe your hard drive. If your computer logs on to the internet, a code is instantly sent out to wipe everything on the drive. This may not work with old computers, but with new laptops which all come equipped with wireless cards that log on the second they get the chance, it’s another way to protect your information.
We also talked about the guy who was able to remotely access his stolen laptop’s web cam. He just kept posting pictures of the guy who had it until someone was able to identify him.
This is by no means a complete list of things that need to be done or can be done, but it is what I got out of an evening’s conversation.
I hope you never have need of this advice.
h
Date: 13/09/2011 Author: Tags: , , Category: Lessons Learned Bookmark: Permalink
Article

Sunday Evening Post #8

Spendy weekend with more eating out than normal, but I won’tcomplain.
Friday
Husband Lunch: KiddValley  $12.13
Gas: $88.16 (filled the tank + 3 gas cans)
Dinner: KFC $31.67 (fed 6 people)
Activities:
DogPark
Hanging out with friends- Good friends of ours had their house broken into on Wednesday and one of their cars vandalized on Friday morning. We showed up on their doorstep for moral and nutritional support. No, KFC is not that nutritional, but I’m not certain the wife of the couple would have eaten anything if we hadn’t stopped by.
Saturday
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Sandwiches
Dinner: Teriyaki ~$20 (fed 3 people)
Shopping:
Exterminator ~$240
CostCo: $52.86 (Peanut butter, jelly, bread, andouille,sliced turkey, bananas, chicken thighs, and milk)
Target: $7.71 (notebook)*
Goodwill: $18.58 (2 dress shirts)*
UW Bookstore: ~$20 (document case)*
*Comes out of husband’s allowance
Activities:
DogPark
Hanging out with friends
Camarilla event
We’ve had ants since we moved in to the house. This last week, they finally got to me as they made their way to the cupboard with all the dog treats. The money for the exterminator will come out of our house fund.
We also returned to a club that we used to be members of (and that you could say is responsible for my husband and I meeting). They had a gathering on Saturday night which called for costumes and props (hence the hubby’s allowance spending), and also caused us to eat out for dinner with friends before hand.
Sunday
Breakfast: Starbucks ~$2.50 (I had a coupon for a free drink)
Lunch: Red Robin (MIL paid)
Dinner: Frozen Pizza
Shopping (all for the MIL)
Fred Meyer
Sprint
Catherines
Activities:
Critique Group
Shopping for the MIL
DogPark
Not nearly as much football watching as I would have liked
Dealing with things for the MIL took about 5 hours of our day. She lost her cell phone earlier this week, which was a pain, and caused her a minor panic attack, but it allowed us to finally move her off her individual plan and simply add her as another line on our account. She loses a $70/month bill, and my bill will only go up about $20, which she’ll pay us.
In addition, in the past when we’ve ordered her clothes(clothes she has asked for and in the size she tells us she wears) she wears them once or twice and then gives them away. So today, instead of ordering froma catalogue, we took her into a store that makes clothes in her size and let her pick out some outfits. It wasn’t cheap, but she has 4 complete new outfits to supplement the 2 or 3 she’s been wearing that she really likes.
As for football, I kind of wish I could have spent the first Sunday of the season vegging out in front of the TV, but I won’t complain too much. As a Raiders, the important game is happening on Monday.
Date: 11/09/2011 Author: Tags: Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink
Article

You Are Not Alone

I belong to a writing critique group because without them, my fiction writing would be nearly non-existent. I love to write. I love to tell stories, and yet, without the external motivation provided by this (amazing) group of people, I wouldn’t write. I wouldn’t commit those stories to paper.
You may wonder what this has to do with personal finances. Well, the same thing Weight Watchers has to do with losing weight. Sometimes personal motivation is not enough to see us through challenges. We get tired, we get bored, and the easiest person in the world to make excuses to is yourself.
My husband was laid off right after Mother’s Day in 2009. We spent the next six months living with an incredibly tight budget, freaked out and really, really uncertain of what would happen when unemployment ran out. The day in November that we got the letter saying he qualified for extended benefits was a major relief. But it also put us on an emotional roller coaster, never certain when UE would run out. It was 10 months after he was laid off before we could have survived on my salary alone, 14 months before we could have done anything more than pay our bills and survive.
By end of December 2009, I was at my breaking point. I knew that we needed to keep the belt tight. I knew what we had to do to keep our house and our car. And I knew I was sick of it. I was tired, so very tired of not being able to do anything for fun. I knew that my internal motivation was failing. I needed help to stay on the straight and narrow.
Because of the taboos our society puts on talking about money, I didn’t feel like I could talk to our friends, or at least like I couldn’t without sounding like I was whining (to the folks doing better than us) or bragging (to the folks doing worse than us). But I needed external support. I needed for the financial plan and my critique group provided for my writing- an honest outlet, a place I could go for kudos and criticism, a place for moral support and practical suggestions.
We had lost a dog in November 2009 and yet were paying the vet bill (and would be for the next year). My mother in law still lived with us and every day was an argument with her. I was at an emotional breaking point while we were at a financial breaking point. My husband was in even worse shape than I was because of dealing with the depression and self-esteem issues of not even getting called for interviews.
I managed our finances. If I could keep it under control, I knew he’d get through it, but I was terrified, terrified that UE would run out, that I would just get so sick of doing nothing for us that I’d run up the credit card debt, do something stupid that would cause us to lose the car, the house, us. Our relationship was fine, but it wasn’t going to stay that way if the stress kept building.
So, at the very end of December 2009, I joined the Women in Red message boards (see link on the left). I finally had a place where I could honestly talk about our situation, a place where no one judged our past mistakes, only helped me find the right direction, the right balance, for our future.
In addition, I now had a whole bunch of people to whom I felt accountable. I knew that in reality I wasn’t, but it felt like I owed them for the support they gave me. They had their own struggles and financial crosses to bear, and yet here they were, supporting me, telling me we could do this, giving me advice on how to get through the tough days. I no longer just owed it to myself or my husband. I owed getting out of this hole to them as well.
When I received the offer for my new position in June of 2010, I couldn’t get a hold of my husband right away, so the first people I told were the other members of the WIR Controlled/No Spend thread. They celebrated for me.
We are no longer in the do or die situation. In fact, our finances are pretty comfortable right now, but I know we wouldn’t be here without the support and the advice of the members of WIR. I am still a member of that community, “racing” my debts and keeping track of my spending. I don’t need the accountability that I once did, but it still helps. It still keeps me motivated.
And that’s a lot of why I started this blog, too. I wanted to be able to share what I’ve learned, what we’ve been through, to be there for others who are struggling. Maybe not everyone is open to sharing all their details on a message board, but perhaps just knowing they aren’t alone will help. Maybe they can see something in what I’ve learned that will help them.
There is a reason that any time you are struggling with a difficult situation, people suggest support groups. Having other people who honestly understand the situation, who have been there and survived, or are struggling to survive right along with you, fills a very basic need humans have of feeling like we belong to a group. We are not naturally solitary creatures, and feeling like we are alone in the world is not good for our mental health.
I will forever be grateful to the people I have met over at the Women in Red, and I hope that I can give back to that community even a fraction of what they have given me.
Date: 08/09/2011 Author: Tags: Category: Helping Others, Lessons Learned Bookmark: Permalink
Article

I have an allowance

Each month, my husband and I get an allowance. I don’t pull it out in cash, it just gets calculated on a spread sheet, but its there. One of the hard things for people- especially couples – who use an allowance system is determining what comes out of the allowance and what doesn’t. Like any of the decisions people make about their personal finances, I’m not certain that there is a right or wrong answer. There just has to be an understanding of what it means.
In our case, when we went to the allowance system, we talked about what we expected it to cover when we talked about how much we would each get. That’s right, we get different amounts. I get $50 more per month than he does. This is not because I’m the sole earner, but because I have a professional appearance (well, business casual) that I need to maintain.
Here’s a basic list of what comes out of our allowances:
Movies
New clothes
Haircuts & other personal grooming
Books
Domain registration fees (we each have our own domain)
Individual eating out
Video games/subscription fees
Here are a couple things that don’t come out of our allowances:
Eating out together (this has its own line item)
Netflix subscription (treated like a monthly bill)
But sometimes things come up that aren’t quite clear. And in those cases, we discuss. For example, I am considering joining a professional organization for my field. The husband does not believe that the fees for joining or taking their certification tests should come out of my allowance. His reasoning behind that is that this is something I am doing for professional development, kind of like going to school, and shouldn’t cut into my spending money.
On the same theory, if he ever goes back in to the work force, he will likely need a new wardrobe. Having been unemployed (now a student) for 2+ years and before that working for a company where jeans and t-shirts were the norm, he pretty much as one nice interview outfit. If he were to get a job in a business casual or business environment, he would need a whole new wardrobe, not just a piece here and there to replace old items. In that case, we would set a budget completely separate from his allowance to spend on new clothes. If he went over that amount, then it would come out of allowance.
The same would go for me if I were to move out of business casual into a business/professional environment.
However, I also run a weekly/monthly micro-fiction contest. The money for that domain and the prizes I give out comes from my allowance. I have edited and published one vanity micro-fiction book and hope to be doing another one in the near future. Costs for that will also come out of my allowance.
My reasoning for that is that while I would love to make enough money off my writing to pay the bills, I don’t. In fact, it costs us money. Since this is my hobby, much the way video games are his hobby, it comes out of allowance.
In the end, our determination of what is allowance and what isn’t comes from the determination of whether or not something is for the good of the whole family (there are only two of us, but still) or just one person.
Its not a perfect system by any means, but that’s okay, because the important part is that it is always up for discussion.
Do you use an allowance system? How do you decide if something comes from your allowance or another part of the budget?
Date: 06/09/2011 Author: Tags: , Category: Budgets Bookmark: Permalink
Article

Sunday Evening Post #7

First, some Thank Yous…
Jana @ Daily Money Shot and Gin @ Frugal Students – Thank you both (again) for your amazing guest posts. I am so blessed to have online friends like you, who I not only enjoy “talking” to, but learning from every week. You are both amazing.

Yakezie Summer Group 4 – I can’t believe its already time for new groups. You guys were great. My Alexa rankings have fallen from over 7 million to under 500k!

All of my readers: Thank you for being here. Please don’t be afraid to comment or ask questions.

I’ve been on vacation since last Saturday, so I’m having a hard time remembering exactly what day we spent what. Here’s how I think spending since Friday has gone…
Friday – <$20 @ Half Price Books, $1.60 @ Safeway for 2 cans of dices tomatoes (for arroz con pollo)
Saturday – $30 @ JCPennys for new jeans (I now have 2 pair)
Sunday – $0 – I only got dressed in order to take the dogs to the dog park.

For the week overall, there wasn’t much spending on our part. My mother was visiting, and since our trip out to the coast and the San Juan Islands happened because she wanted them to, she paid for pretty much everything.
I did CostCo shop on Thursday and pay for half of our meal at a new Asian buffet (nice, but pricey).
My mom bought us a new love seat, new curtains and curtain rod for the room she uses (she broke the old curtain rod and used that as an excuse), and some new yard tools. She did a lot of yard work and cleaning/decluttering, which she almost always does when she comes to visit. (And yes, she does it because she wants to. I have a hard time getting her to stop.)

That’s about all the excitement here for now. Next Sunday should be a regular weekend update, but then my father comes in for a week the following Tuesday, so we’ll be kind of off again the following weekend.

Date: 04/09/2011 Author: Tags: Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink
Older posts
Newer posts

Find Out More

1. My Sites

Amazon

2. Blogroll

Yakezie

Proud Member of the Yakezie Challenge