The Dog Ate My Wallet

The Dog Ate My Wallet

Personal Finance in a World of Excuses

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Real Estate

This is a guest post from Gin @ Frugal Students
Real Estate, like any other investment opportunity, can make or loose you money.  However, real estate is more risky because it requires renters to pay the bills and a buyer when you want to get out of it and if you do not purchase correctly, you may never get ahead.  I was luckier than I like to admit but I also planned for over a year to buy my current property.  My husband and I bought a duplex in December 2009 in Cheektowaga, NY after moving there that August. We decided that we would only buy if we could afford our bills without a renter in the other half and that the mortgage should cost less than or equal to the rent of one half so we could afford to keep renting out the duplex when we moved.  If we are unable to rent it out when we leave, we will lose money because of the six percent realtor fee to sell.  So far we have done well, it only took us two months to fix up the place and get renters and have had the same renters since.  They are moving out in October/November and we will see if we do well with tenants again.  We did have many people look at our apartment and many we were unwilling to rent to.  We had one woman who brought her new dog with her and the dog bit her kids, thankfully we had decided to do animal interviews and therefore knew not to rent to her. Others did not make enough money to pay rent and their other bills and still others with so many bills in collections.  We only offered the place to two renters over than two month period.  Being able to not rent the apartment saved us a ton of headaches. 
We are enjoying being landlords though.  We do have to work on the weekends to keep the place nice and there have been a couple of emergency repairs but mostly we have had a good run.  We are even in the market for another rental.  So far though, we have not found one that meets our qualifications.  We require the tenants, if any, to meet our qualifications for tenants, that the mortgage is less than one apartment’s rent, the property must be in good condition, built after 1950 and must be in an area I’d be willing to live.  I won’t be a slumlord.  We have been looking for about six months now and nothing.  Our response is to continue to save, we must have three month emergency fund plus twenty-five percent down and six percent for closing and keep an eye on overpriced properties, just in case they come down.  Right now we have enough for the down payment and closing but not the full three months so I am alright with waiting but I would jump on the right property in a second.  But my husband has a very stable job, as a graduate student, with the money to pay him already set aside.  If we were not extremely stable, I would need to wait till we have the three month emergency fund.
Everyone’s situation is different, some people can take risks, some can’t and that is ok.  Find out where your comfortable situation is and base your decisions on investments and life on that.  Don’t invest or live for someone else, live for yourself.
Date: 01/09/2011 Author: Tags: , , Category: Guest Post Bookmark: Permalink
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At The Intersection of Work and Personal

Thanks to Jana @ Daily Money Shot for this guest post
For most of us, work is a necessity. We need to work to earn money to pay for things like housing, food, transportation, clothes, utilities and the occasional splurge. If you’re like me, you like to leave your personal life at home and your work life at work. But what happens if something personal occurs and there’s no way possible to take time off without losing money? I’d be hard pressed to find anyone who hasn’t had a day where her personal life hasn’t encroached upon her ability to do her job. 
If you are ever in that type of situation, here are a few things I’d recommend doing so that you can handle your personal affairs without compromising your employment:
1.    
            Check out your emergency fund. No one expects a death in the family, a serious illness or even severe marital problems. I classify these situations as emergencies, especially if you’re time and energy are better spent at home. Try to calculate how much money you earn per day and determine how many days of unpaid work you might be able to pull off without a) losing your job and b)completely depleting the emergency fund.
2.       
      Talk to your boss. I used to work for the devil. This woman was literally evil in human form. But even she has some sort of soul when it came to personal problems. If at all possible, talk to your boss to see if you can negotiate some sort of flexible schedule or a temporary work from home situation. Make sure you’re very clear about time frames and your boss’s expectations for you. You don’t want to seem like you are taking advantage of your boss’s willingness to work with you.
3.      
      Designate certain times during the day to deal with your issues. When you’re in the throes of a crisis, it’s easy for it to become all consuming, even at work. It’s easy to forget why you’re at work. To prevent getting into trouble, pick certain times of the day where you will exclusively deal with your problem. For instance, make travel arrangements during your lunch break. Schedule appointments before or after work. Use email instead of the phone. 
4.       
      Don’t bother your coworkers with your problems. Most of us like to have an ear to listen. Since we spend so much time with our coworkers, it’s easy to rely on them as a sounding board.  But using your coworkers as a personal support network can get tricky for two reasons. One, it can compromise boundaries and two, it can make you the subject of workplace gossip. Neither of these is at all beneficial to your career.
5.    
           Make sure you’re fulfilling your job expectations and meeting deadlines.  We go to work in order to work. Sometimes that’s hard to do, especially in the middle of personal drama, but you still need to make sure that you’re adhering to deadlines, showing up to meetings on time, actively engaging when required, and completing all work that’s required of you. Personal drama is not an excuse to skimp on your work obligations, even if you are struggling with getting them done.  If you’re having trouble, try to set mini-time goals. Tell yourself, “I will finish this report and respond to these emails. After that, I can take 10 minutes to call the attorney (or the hospital or the kids’ school or the whatever).”  This shows that you are capable of handling both work and personal business effectively.
When personal crises and emergencies arise, it’s easy to have work take a back seat. After all, this is your life! But you want to make sure that when the crisis has passed, you still have a job to return to. There’s no need to replace one crisis with another.

Have you ever had a personal crisis or emergency that impacted your ability to work? How did you handle it?
Date: 30/08/2011 Author: Tags: , Category: Guest Post, On the Job Bookmark: Permalink
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Sunday Evening Post #6

A condensed post tonight as I am officially on vacation tomorrow and tonight I’m busy getting the house ready for guests. I hate putting away laundry. Sometimes I think it would be worth hiring a maid just for that…
Friday:
I had an orthodontia appointment in the morning, so copay there. I no longer have to wear the bite plate, so I can start eating foods that require molars again.
We took the MIL to Red Robin for dinner. She paid. Its her favorite place to eat, so we have their rewards card and one of the burgers was free.
After dinner, we took the dogs to the dog park.
Saturday:
Laziness abounded. We didn’t even get up until after noon.
At some point, I ran to Safeway for milk, cream cheese, salsa, tortilla chips, waffle mix, syrup, ice cream, chimichangas, and a new cheese slicer. All told I spent around $43.
In the evening, we took the dogs to the dog park, then came home and had left over curried chicken and rice for dinner.
Sunday:
I had writing critique group in the morning. Paid for my tea and bagel in cash. The barista thought that maybe she charged me too much for a plain tea (vs a latte), so she gave me a coupon for a free drink next time I go in.
We took the dogs to a “new” dog park (not new to us, though it has been over 8 years since we were there last, so these two have never been there) near where we get our B99.
Filled the car at just under $4.50/gallon.
Shopped for the MIL and took her groceries to her. She bought us bananas, grapes, and drink mix.
Did some shopping for us: chicken andouille from Trader Joe’s, then back to Fred Meyer for a dozen burgers with cheese and bacon mixed in and a six pack of Mike’s Hard Mango Punch.
Home for dinner which was quickie jambalaya- Zataran’s jambalaya rice mix with some chicken andouille mixed in.
We’d done our CostCo shopping on Wednesday, so no need to stop by there again. Tomorrow my mother flies in and then on Tuesday we’ll head out of town for a night. So right now, I’m busy getting the guest rooms ready for my mom and the dog sitter.
There will be guest posts from Daily Money Shot and Frugal Students this week.
Date: 28/08/2011 Author: Tags: Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink
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A Role-Playing Scenario

Back in 2010, when my brother took his job in Australia, hubby and I made a plan to go visit him in March 2012. We figured it would take us that long to save for the plane tickets- flying to Australia is ridiculously expensive. When my brother first hinted that he wasn’t happy in Australia and might be looking to come back stateside before March 2012, we said not to worry. We’d just use the money we saved for that trip to go back to England and Ireland.
At the time, we assumed the hubby would be working again by then and that I’d have a spiffy new job. I got the spiffy new job, but the hubby, instead of going back to work, has gone back to school. The idea of taking a big trip in March 2012 kind of fell by the wayside.
At the beginning of this year, we found out that the Western Regional Tournament for Roller Derby would be held a few hours drive from us at the end of September. Since we’re season ticket holders for the local team, I immediately put together a plan for going to the tournament. We’ve been saving for it and have the money to pay for the trip in cash.
Last week, one of the sites I was on had an ad for Aer Lingus and special rates to Ireland. I looked to see what it would cost to fly there over hubby’s spring break- March 2012- about $1,750 for two round trip tickets in to Dublin.
I mentioned this to the hubby on Friday night, mostly in a “this is what I did today” kind of way. After all, I plan all sorts of trips that we will never take, and I tell him about all of them.
Monday night, I get online to purchase our tickets to the Derby tournament. I have a few questions for the hubby, and he comes over and looks at the computer screen and starts hemming and hawing about the cost. I assure him that we have the money saved, we can afford this. And that’s when he says, but it will work out to 1/3 the cost of a ticket to Ireland.
Now, he’s right. I hadn’t been looking at the total cost. I’d only been looking at pieces – $200 for three day passes (after fees), $200 for two nights in a hotel (after taxes and parking fees), $80 for gas, and probably close to $100 for food, since we’d mostly be eating out.
He’d rather go to Ireland than Portland. I can see that. But I’ve had my mind set on going to the Regional Tournament pretty much since the season began. So now, we have to talk about what we’re going to do. If we’re going to make a change to our current plans to accommodate our bigger goals and dreams.
The answer is that we’re most likely going to drive down for the final day of the tournament- $60 in tickets, $70 in gas (less driving around overall), and we can get away with only one meal out- eat breakfast at home. Pack lunch stuff and snacks for the car, and grab one “meal” at fast food- $15. Now we’re down to $145, about a quarter of what we were going to spend.
And, of course, I’m looking at dates and attractions and trying to figure out if we currently have an RCI membership to go with our timeshare (its more convoluted than you might think at the moment). Is March when we want to go? Or do we want to wait until after Spring quarter? Or maybe after Summer quarter (when he will officially have his BA)? But then, the Olympics are in London July-August, and do we really want to travel to the Isles at that time?
And, there’s the planning where the money will be coming from, but that’s easy. We keep saving at the rate we’ve been saving at to pay for school. In addition, we’ll have the added income of a roommate starting in November. What money isn’t there already, will definitely be there by March.
So, I can be talked out of some plans. But goodness help anyone who tries to talk me out of an Ireland trip in 2012.
Date: 25/08/2011 Author: Tags: , , , Category: Budgets Bookmark: Permalink
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Know Your Role

I originally thought of this post in regard to being in a romantic/life partner type of relationship, and some parts of it will still be geared at least a little toward that. But it occurred to me, that regardless of whether or not you share financial responsibility with someone, its important to “know your role”, to understand your relationship to money, regardless of any other relationships out there.
Let’s start with me. Like sand through the hourglass, so is cash in my hands. I am a spender. I am a can I afford this now? And if so, why aren’t I buying it now, kind of girl. This is good in that it allows for spontaneity, but it’s also a draw back to achieving long term goals. This is something I have to know about myself, and accept about myself, in order to work around it, to prevent myself from derailing the plans we’ve made.
Because of this, I am the checkbook keeper, the bill payer, the day to day money manager of all of our money. And its not just because I like playing in Excel. I need to see the money, see the balance going down, understand the cash flow, etc, in order to curb my desire to buy what I want when I want it.
Having all of our financial information at my fingertips also allows me to plan. I LOVE to plan. I plan when our debt will be paid off (and run different scenarios). I plan how we’re paying for the hubby’s school costs. I plan vacations- mostly vacations we’re never going to take –and how we’ll pay for them with cash.
The planning also allows me to spend money in the future scenarios without actually spending it.
I still have a problem, though, with once we’ve saved up for something, I want it, and I want it now. I don’t want to delay. I don’t want to say “maybe we don’t need this, lets hold off and see if something better comes along.” I don’t want to. It doesn’t mean I won’t, or that I can’t be talked out of spending the money. It means I don’t want to, and the hubby actually does have to talk me out of it.
My husband is a natural saver. Well, maybe not saver, but he doesn’t really spend, or at least not often. He’s a homebody and perfectly content to play his video game one more time, or watch a movie on Netflix while playing a video game.
And yes, new video games cost $50-60, but considering he plays them for more than 20 hours when he initially gets them, and then will return to many games years later, it averages out to less than I used to pay to keep my acrylic nails.
He also isn’t a have it now person. He’s more than willing to wait a few months for the price to go down, or for used copies to be available for a discounted price.
Now, the hubby is not a paragon of financial virtues. It took a long time for me to convince him that we needed an emergency fund. His theory was always that as long as we had debt that was costing us more in interest than we were earning on savings, why should we have any savings. And our expensive (or more $ than I ever thought I’d pay for a car) car, is totally the car he wanted. I wanted one that cost about half as much. At the same time, the car we got should last years (decades even) longer than the one I wanted.
He’s a big picture person (where I’m a details person), so he often sees where he wants to go without looking at the steps needed to get there.
Our strengths and weaknesses tend to balance each other out. We have an EF, but we also have a step by step plan for paying off our debt. We take advantage of low interest rates when we can. Together, we make a pretty great team.
But sometimes, our differences really come in to play.
Date: 23/08/2011 Author: Tags: , , , Category: Budgets Bookmark: Permalink
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Sunday Evening Post #5

This has been an odd weekend for shopping.
Friday
Dinner: $7.84 ($2.61/person)
Chicken Fingers & Jojos from Safeway
Activities:
Dog Park
Saturday
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: $59.76 (4 people, also served as dinner)
Old Spaghetti Factory
Shopping:
Borders (going out of business sale) $21.67
Game Stop (pre-order SW:TOR) $5
Activities:
The new Conan movie for 4 people $24
Board Games
Pinochle
On Friday one of our best friends dropped off 2 twin XL memory foam toppers for the cousin to take back to school for herself and her roommate. The friend works for a company that makes memory foam, so cost is about $30. To repay him, we paid for his movie and lunch on Saturday.
Sunday
Breakfast: Waffles
Lunch: Sandwiches
Shopping
Fred Meyer $41.49
            2 men’s t-shirts                        $14.96
            9 notebooks                             $1.35
            Dish Detergent                        $1.99
            Burgers (93% lean)                 $10.99
            Burgers (bacon & cheese)       $7.99
            Buns                                        $0.59
            Bananas                                   $1.88
            Tax                                          $1.74
Dinner:
Burgers
Activities:
Dog Park
Games
This is the last night my cousin will be with us. She’ll leave sometime tomorrow while I’m at work. This should mean that our grocery spending (all spending really) should start going down next month when there are only 2 of us to feed and take to activities.
However, we have some vacation time coming up – my mom is coming to visit for a week, my father is coming for another week, we’ll be headed to Roller Derby Regionals, I’ll be going to a friend’s wedding, and then there’s Geek Girl Con.
That takes us from the week of Aug 29 through the second weekend in October. So there’s going to be a lot of inconsistency in the spending over the next 6 weeks or so.
Then, come November, our good friend is going to become our roommate again. He’ll pay rent and help with the groceries, but it will require a new juggle of the budget.
Date: 21/08/2011 Author: Tags: Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink
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Baking the Budget’s Blog Round-Up

I’d originally planned for this post to go up Monday, and then Wednesday, and then… Well, life got in the way this week, so my blog round up is a few days later than I’d intended. Still, that means there’s more great posts to choose from.
So, in case you’re wondering, here’s what I’ve been reading these past couple of weeks.
Student Edition (because my dear cousin, who has been staying with us for the summer, leaves to head back to college on Monday)
1) Brand new today, and ack, I say, ack – from Frugal Students, Say Goodbye to Subsidized Student Loans for Grad Students
2) Daily Money Shot talks about the costs of sororities in Go Greek or No Greek
3) Beating Broke advises Don’t Be A Fool, Focus on School
4) Everything Finance tells us about a rally being held because Students Demand Credit and Debt Awareness
5) My University Money thinks you should Get Involved on Campus- The Benefits are Great  AND announces their first Scholarship Contest (great going guys!)
6) Bucking the trend (at least the trend here), Not Made of Money put up a guest post on Why Online Degrees are a Great Alternative to Traditional Universities
Did the World Go Crazy Edition
1) Barbara Friedberg asks What should I do with my investments now?
2) Family Money Values says Stop the Roller Coaster Ride- Build a Long Term Family Wealth Plan
3) Doctor Stock, over at Invest in the Markets did a series on Predicting Which Way the Markets are Headed
4) Living in Financial Excellence gives excellent advice in Winning with Money Part 1: Stop Digging
5) Money Beagle wants to know Why Does Standard & Poors Hate America?
6) And in these crazy times, Step by Step Finance is wondering Is your emergency fund big enough?
7) You Have More Than You Think is finding Financial Wisdom from an Unexpected Source
Getting to Know my Summer Yakezie Group Members Better Edition
1) Brave New Life did a Popular Search Q&A for the search questions that bring people to his blog
2) The Power of Money is something Matt of Matt’s Money Blog is trying to explore
3) Our Journey to Zero wants to know- Would You Blow Your Budget to Leave a Tip?
4) So not in my summer group, but a Yakezie member none the less, Squirrelers posted their entry in the 7 Links Project
3 More to Take me to an Even 20 Edition
1) Another Housewife talks about dealing with medical costs (and issues) in A $55 Sinus Infection
2) Virtual Travel Advisor gives you reasons to consider Travel Insurance – Yes or No?
3) Road Remedies has about the coolest job ever (travel writer – Classics majors are good for something) and shares her experiences on Cable Cars of the Colombias
Date: 19/08/2011 Author: Category: Round Ups Bookmark: Permalink
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4.5 Years of Peer to Peer Lending

This post is inspired by Brave New Life, who posted about his strategy for lending in a peer to peer network in Lending Club Investment Strategy
Back in March 2007, we had some extra cash from yearly bonuses and decided we wanted to try peer to peer lending. I’ll be honest, I do not remember exactly how this came up. One of us probably read an article about it and thought it looked interesting. Then we looked at the different sites and decided to give it a try.
We went with Prosper. Again, I don’t remember the exact reasons why, but it might have been that Lending Club wasn’t accepting new lenders or borrowers at the time because they were going through an accreditation process. Prosper would later go through this process (taking around 18 months or so) but at the time was free and easy, so to speak.
What I do remember is that looking through the loan applications was addicting. Addicting.
We did not have strict money making criteria like Brave New Life. A lot of our decisions were emotional. I seem to remember I was more likely to invest if there was a picture, especially a picture of an animal. We did a lot of investing in animal emergencies- a horse that needed a surgery, a dog hit by a car, etc. We also invested in people trying to get out of the pay day loan cycle. We did a lot of investing in people who had very poor or no credit what so ever.
We did try to balance that out with investing in the occasional small business loan for people with great credit. And then there were some loans that were made just to be the one to fully fund a person.
Like I said, these weren’t sound investing strategies, but they worked okay for us.
In fact, in the early days, we were making a better return on our Prosper loans than we were on the money we’d put in CDs at the same time. And since this was 2007, the CD rates weren’t ridiculously low like they are now.
When payments came in, we reinvested while we could.
We originally invested $3,000. In November 2008, we pulled over $1,200 out to pay to move my mother in law in with us. This was money she eventually paid us back, but by then my husband had been laid off, so instead of reinvesting, it went toward debt payoff.
We continued to pull money out here and there to help get our debt paid off so that we could afford to live on my salary. We last pulled money out in July 2010, for a grand total of $2,545, leaving us with only $455 invested.
Prosper underwent some big changes during this time, too- getting federal accreditation and all. For a period of about 18 months, people were unable to apply for new loans and we were unable to invest (hence having $1,200 sitting around in Nov 2008.) We did not place a new bid from March 2008 to October 2010.
Over the 4.5 years we’ve been invested, we received interest payments of about $850, but had principal charge offs over $1,170, so we’re down about $320, or 10% of our original $3,000. Currently, we only have $135 in the account- $120 invested and $15 in payments sitting there.
We’ve had 26 notes charged off and 28 paid in full. Of those, the best investment, risk wise, were those with AA and B credit ratings- we made 6 loans in each of those categories, with 5 paid in full. On the AA loans, the interest rate yields varied from 8.15-10.7%. The B loans had yields from 13.5-17.26%.
The next best investment risk wise? Those with Prosper credit ratings of HR- or not enough information. We made 9 such loans and were paid back on 6 of them, with interest rate yields from 18-29%.
The worst rate of return came from those with D & E credit ratings, where we were paid in full only 25% of the time. People with A credit ratings paid in full 57% of the time, and those with C ratings paid 40% of the time.
Looking at reward, we made by far the most money on the HR loans- getting a profit of almost $125, once all the paid in fulls and charge offs have been figured in. The only other two categories where we made money were the B and AA, but so little ($7.80 & $13.38 respectively) given their percentage pay off rate that is just seems silly.
I also want to point out that though we had 26 defaults, of those, 14 honestly made what I consider good faith efforts to pay off their loans (we received over 50% of what we loaned back), and in fact, one of them had already paid back 124% of what he’d borrowed; he’d just happened to borrow at a rate of 27%.
Loans to those with a D credit rating continue to look like the worst investment. We lost the most money on that category- over $300 -and half of those we invested in did not even make it to 50% paid off.
Yes, it was disappointing to get the note from Prosper that a loan had been charged off. At the same time, getting the notes that others had been paid in full was a great feeling. When we got the note that said the 17 year old (now 20) who had borrowed for her horse’s surgery had paid her note off in full, we celebrated her victory, and were very glad that we could have been there for her.
Obviously, no one is looking for a 10% loss on their investments. But given the economy over this time frame, and the fact that we pulled money out instead of reinvesting it, I feel pretty ok about where we are. In fact, we’re at a point where I’m ready to consider depositing more money in to the account- get us back up to our $3,000 and see where it takes us. I may decide to stick with loaning money only to the HR folks, though.
Date: 18/08/2011 Author: Tags: , Category: Debt, Helping Others, Investing Bookmark: Permalink
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Managing Someone Else’s Money

This post was inspired by Marie over at Family Money Values, who asked Do You Talk to Your Parents About Money?
We’ve been managing my mother-in-law’s finances since 2008. While my husband and I are younger than most who have to deal with this, it is not uncommon for adult children to eventually need to step in and handle the finances for aging parents. Often, it is do due poor memory or dementia associated with aging. In our case, it stems from some minor brain damage (that sounds odd, doesn’t it- how is brain damage ever minor) my MIL sustained in a car accident back in 2000. Over the years, she also had multiple (untreated) mini-strokes. It led to her having very poor impulse control and an inability to understand abstract or delayed cause and effect.
She was still capable of living on her own and physically caring for herself, but she started racking up late fees and overdraft penalties because she lost the ability to truly grasp how money she wasn’t holding in her hands actually worked.
What I mean by this is, if we give her $50 cash every two weeks, then she knows she only has $50 to spend for those two weeks. If she runs out, she runs out and she can’t buy anything more. She knows this because she can hold the money in her hands. She can count it and knows there is less of it every time she spends it. And when she’s out of cash, she doesn’t try to buy anything until she has more cash.
However, if she has $250 in an account, with $200 in bills due in one week and no more money coming in for 2 weeks, she will spend all $250 in that first week. She is perfectly capable of only spending $50, but when you take the cash out of her hands, make money abstract instead of concrete, she is no longer capable of understanding her limit. If she has $250 in her account today, then she has $250 she can spend. Because the $200 in bills isn’t due for another week, the effect of spending the money today is too far delayed for her to be able to connect it anymore.
To most of this, this may seem ridiculously simple. If she can subtract, why can’t she add. Well, brain damage doesn’t always make sense, and after beating our heads against the wall for what felt like forever trying to get her to grasp these concepts that she once understood, we had to give up. Instead, we asked her to give us Durable Power of Attorney for financial purposes.
She still has theoretical access to her money. She can still legally enter in to contracts and all of that. We just also have the power to enter in to contracts for her and to access all of her financial data.
She gets a cash allowance. We make sure all her bills are paid and take her grocery shopping, paying her bills out of her money. Once she was no longer paying a couple hundred (sadly, I am not exaggerating) in late fees and overdraft charges a month, she had more than enough money to live on.
Still, she lived with us, rent free, for 16 months. (Never again.) We got all of her credit card debt paid off and closed the cards. We paid off her first mortgage and did the math on her HELOC to figure out how much a month needed to be paid so that it would be paid off before the balloon payment was due.
This was not an easy 16 months, and I don’t recommend it for anyone. But sometimes you do what you have to do.
There’s a trickiness to managing someone else’s money. How do you prioritize her wants and needs? Or perhaps, when she feels something is a need and you feel it’s a want? What about when the person decides to try and play you against other family members like a pre-teen playing newly divorced parents off each other?
We had more than one uneasy conversation with my MIL’s sister when the MIL called and asked her to buy her something because she needed it and couldn’t afford it.
Except, we didn’t think she needed it (or at least not now, now, now – the impulse control issue) and she could afford it, but there were other priorities for the money. Naturally, her sister was only getting her side of the story, and we would have to jump in.
Then there’s the problem that her sister doesn’t want to admit the brain damage happened. She wants to treat her sister as a fully functional adult. And she’s just not anymore. So sometimes, we’d have to remind her- we live with her. We know how she actually responds to things (can’t tell her anything in advance because she has no patience), and we also know what other things are looming. Just because she feels something is an immediate priority does not mean that it is.
Trust me, these are not conversations you want to be having with your Aunt, or even a sibling. But when it comes to taking over a family member’s financials, you have to be prepared to have them.
Date: 16/08/2011 Author: Tags: Category: Other People's Money, Uncategorized Bookmark: Permalink
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Sunday Evening Post #4

This weekend is going to look spendy, but it was in the budget.
The husband spent a week working a convention for a friend’s company. While he wasn’t paid for it, he was given a per diem of $427. He only spent $160. That gave us extra money to spend at the Renaissance Faire this weekend. And considering the Faire is usually serves as our anniversary “gift” to ourselves, it was nice to have the freedom to spend some extra money. But there were a number of purchases that would not have happened without that per diem.
Friday
Shopping:
CostCo: $30.01
            2 bunches Bananas      $2.78
            2 gallons Milk             $4.91
            Irish Cream                 $13.89 + 1.32 tax
            Sourdough                  $2.29
            2 loaves oat bread       $4.82
Dinner:
Pot Stickers & Rice for us
Grilled Cheese & Banana for the 2 year old we were watching
Activities:
Rock Band 3 (the toddler loves music)
Saturday
Breakfast:
Jam on toast for me
Breakfast burritos (eggs, sausage, cheese, tortillas) everyone else
Faire:
I’m listing costs as best I can, but I don’t know all of it. I had $60 in cash and came home with $4. The husband also has some cash that was used. The only thing not paid in cash was the new costuming pieces.
Tickets had been bought weeks before. We paid for ourselves, the cousin, and her best friend.
Tips for 4 live performances: $16
CD for a favorite band:          $15
2 crepes:                                  $14
Gyro:                                       ?
Barbecue ½ chicken:               ?
3 bottle refills root beer:          $6
Bottle of water:                       $3
Circlet (for me):                      $30
Drawstring bag:                      $15
New Costuming:                     $152 + tax (myself and the cousin)
So, $197+tax that we otherwise wouldn’t have spent. We pondered a $165 Highwayman’s cloak for the husband, but decided against it. We do still have money left over from the per diem, and may decide to return to the Faire next weekend just the two of us.
Dinner:
Taquitos and poppers and other random finger foods
Other activities:
Rock Band 3
Sunday
Breakfast (eaten at noon): Waffles
Dinner: Pasta and sauce
Activities:
Finally got my phone working!
Friend over for gaming and dinner
Date: 14/08/2011 Author: Tags: Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink
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