Coffee heat rising

Month: September 2012

New Growth

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Sustainable Personal Finance reports on a surprise harvest from the yard: out of the blue a tomato plant found a welcoming place to grow. Check out the pictures of what the little volunteer produced! And tell SPF about your take on gardening.

Me, I’ve pretty well given up on growing veggies in the yard. Buying them at the store, even organics, seems more cost-effective, and it’s one heckuva lot less work.

LOL! Look what volunteered in my yard. Spotted it when it was just making a bud and thought…what the heck, maybe it will be some sort of purty little flower. Its leaves look vaguely geranium-like, after all.

It’s probably some sort of wild gourd. Could be a squash of some sort, I suppose. But…does that look like a zucchini or a crookneck to you? Naaaahhhhh….  SDXB had a squash-like volunteer in his yard a couple of years ago. Hoping for a bonanza, he let it grow. It turned into a leggy, sprawling vine with hard, inedible fruits, evidently a native gourd that never made it to cultivation.

Budgets are Sexy hosts an amazing story in which blogger “Joe Taxpayer” claims to have turned a $4,550 profit by taking up a credit-card lender on a 10% back offer: he and the wife used this miraculous Platinum Mastercard to buy $50,000 worth of Visa and AMEX gift cards. It worked for him. But…hmmm…. Don’t try this at home, kids! 😉

At I Pick Up Pennies, Abigail ruminates about the crying need (or not…) to own a smartphone. In the ensuing comments, one of her readers mentions an app called Pinger that allows iPad and dumbphone users to make free phone calls and texts. Suddenly this makes my iPad look a lot more interesting…

Over at My Journey to Millions, Evan contemplates the strategy of borrowing from himself (i.e, against various assets) to come up with a larger down payment on the house he’s buying. Uh huh. That’s one of several ways Ex-DH and I got ourselves one million dollars (count’em, $1,000,000) in debt. Argh! If ya can’t pay for it today, don’t buy it!

Mrs. PoP has been having a bit of an anxiety attack over the advent of her mother, who intends to visit for the next eight days. {sigh} I wish my mother could come and visit.

She died before M’hijito was born. She’d be 101 now, if she hadn’t been murdered by the tobacco peddlers. (And yes: selling an addictive product that you know causes cancer, stroke, and cardiac disease is indeed a form of homicide.) I wonder how different our lives would have been if she had lived even to my age, to say nothing of the 94 years other women in the family have reached. My son’s would have been better, of that I’m pretty sure.

Oh well.

At Bargaineering, Jim Wang is not quite so harsh on the tobacco druglords as I am…but check out this discussion of the relative cost of cigarettes for low-income smokers.

Budget Glamorous is calculating some strategies for gardening on a shoestring. Apparently she has a nice green thumb, for she reports being able to revive those underwatered, peakèd plants the warehouse stores stick on a back shelf and peddle for a few pennies. Where she lives, though, they have a foraging deer issue… Where there are deer, can coyotes be far behind? Maybe set out some dog food to call the coyotes in? Deer repellent on four feet!

Eemusings is filling a blog break with a whole series of guest posts at Musings of an Abstract Aucklander, some of which are very good. I got a kick out of cantaloupe’s reflections on what she learned while couch-surfing her way across the U.S. this summer.

At a Gai Shan Life, Revanche contemplates spending, nonspending, and a large looming vet bill.

Hmmm… Just got a notice from Tie the Money Knot that yesterday’s post, “The Relativity of Time,” has been accepted for this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance, slated to go live tomorrow morning. Thanks for that, TTMK! [Update: Gosh…that post made Editor’s Pick! w00t!]

Have you seen this province in Crystal’s blogging empire? The proprietor of Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, she’s built a number of other sites. This one, which discusses copywriting for various purposes, goes into detail about writing for business websites (and other purposes). Of interest to bloggers, here’s a really good disquisition on five common mistakes blog writers make.

At Blue Collar Workman, TB rings his readers’ bells with a rumination on fences. This post elicits a long series of crazy neighbor stories. Very entertaining!

Today FMF has his usual Sunday sermonette at Free Money Finance, in which he reflects that the advice dispensed by prominent personal finance gurus is basically the same common sense that appears in the Bible. He reflects briefly on how modern-day Americans could have lost track of that common sense.o

Afford Anything came home from a camping trip to a plague of headaches. She explains why delegating tasks is the best way to get a life.

Heh heh heh…you probably have to be an academic to appreciate this. At first, I didn’t realize it was a parody, so near to truth does it ring.

In the seriously??? department, did you know there are people—make that “people who don’t live under the Seventh Avenue Overpass”—who argue with a straight face in favor of going unbanked? The Digerati Life hosts a guest blogger who advocates abandoning commercial banks and following a 100% cash-only lifestyle. Generated a whole lotta comments at TGL.

The hour grows late. The dog wishes to dine. The weekend’s almost over. And so, to work…

 

The Relativity of Time

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Something weird happens as you get older: time itself goes faster and faster.

You don’t believe me? You will. It’s a law of nature: the passage of time accelerates as you draw nearer to the end of your life.

I first noticed this as I was approaching middle age, probably in my early thirties. It struck me that when I was a kid, an hour seemed like an eternity. That was one reason why, when offered a choice of whether or not to take piano lessons, I inadvisedly declined: the whole hour the neighbor kid had to spend every day at practice filled my little heart with horror. By the age of 30, an hour felt like a half-hour, barely enough time to get anything done.

Now that I’m old, an hour passes in a minute, sometimes even a second. It goes by unnoticed. Day by day, there’s never enough time to get through all the things I want or need to do.

Yesterday SDXB remarked that he’d been in the Sun City house almost ten years. He moved out of the neighborhood shortly after I moved into my present home. How can that be? I couldn’t possibly have lived here an entire decade!

It confirms what one of my former graduate assistants said the other day. She’d checked in from the Midwest to say she was applying for a swell new job and could use a recommendation. She’s now a mother about to enter her second marriage, working in a publishing house. “I can hardly believe it’s been ten years since I started at GDU,” she said.

Ten years? It hasn’t even been ten months, kid!

But no. I moved into this house at the same time I moved over to GDU’s main campus to found the editorial office that employed her. If SDXB moved to Sun City ten years ago, then she went to work for me ten years ago, and indeed, I bought my present house ten years ago.

SDXB reflected that he and his former wife married over 50 years ago. My ex-DH and I would have been married 45 years this December, had I not run away to the Outback.

What does this have to do with you young pups and your money? A lot.

Before you know it, you’ll be old. At that point, only a few moments will remain in your life, or so it will seem to you. The relativity of time makes it seem like old age is a long way off. But it’s not.

For your money, it means…

• Plan early and often for retirement.
• Start saving for the future now.
• Even if you’re just starting, save more than the standard amount toward retirement.
• Put savings in several instruments: a 401(k) or 403(b) if your employer matches contributions, or if not, your own standard IRA; a Roth IRA; and ordinary brokerage accounts. Use non-tax-deferred instruments as well as deferred.
• Pay off the roof over your head as quickly as you can.

For the quality of your life it means…

• Do not waste your life in a job you hate. If you’re unhappy on the job, search for other work.
• Make a plan, one that will guide you in the direction of contentment, if not security. But do not marry your plan—stay flexible and open to new opportunities and ideas.
• Get yourself educated in something that will open the door into reasonably un-obnoxious work. Happiness is more important than money, on the job as well as in your personal life.
• Take care of your health. Eat well, exercise, and spend time in activities you find pleasurable.
• Free yourself, to the extent possible, of the toxic people and situations in your life.
• Engage in altruism. The people who are happiest in their careers have relatively low-paying jobs that help others—members of the clergy rank number one in job satisfaction. If you can’t help others for a living, do it as a volunteer.

Enjoy it while you’ve got it.

Costco: How Much Does Saving Money Cost You?

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Scrutinizing the budget now that this month’s bills are all paid… Several extraordinary costs—those Heath dishes, for example, and a pair of shoes, and a trip to the car mechanic’s—ran the American Express budget $325 into the red. But in theory, all of them combined shouldn’t have overtaxed that budget. So…WTF?

In addition to those two extravagances and the car repair, I’ve been spending with gay abandon at Costco: $407.39 diddled away in that place!

And what on earth, pray tell, might I have purchased with this munificent amount? I’ve been strictly on the wagon for the past three months, so it didn’t go to my favorite potables. Mostly food and household goods, I think: the lifetime supply of paper towels. And the $75 or so for the underwear extravaganza. Haven’t bought toiletries. Haven’t bought pool tablets. Haven’t bought Brita filters or blue jeans or replacement toothbrush heads or a lifetime supply of laundry detergent. Looks like the main costs were large packages of chicken thighs (at 99 cents a pound, a better buy than anyplace else where I shop), pork, produce, the paper goods, and clothing.

Probably paper towels and toilet paper and detergent, purchased in bulk, are a little more cost-effective than the same goods bought in smaller quantities more often at grocery stores. However, a funny thing happens on the way to the Costco: Sure, a giant container of paper towels lasts four to six months. It sets you back $15. But then next month you need toilet paper: $20. Next month after that, you need chlorine tabs for the pool: $80. And so on  to infinity. If every month you’re buying a lifetime supply of one thing or another, then each month you’re spending more on groceries and household products than you would at an ordinary retailer for smaller amounts that would only last a week or a month.

Although over the long run you might spend more at a grocery store for a specific product than you would, unit-wise, by purchasing a gigantic supply at Costco, because each month you buy a new lifetime supply of something else, each month’s bills are likely to be higher than they would be if you equalized purchases over time.

What that suggests is even though you’re paying less per unit for certain products, you’re actually paying out more each month as you have to replenish different products month by month.

By comparison, during the budget cycle just ended, I spent only $35 at Safeway and $68 at Trader Joe’s. Admittedly, I haven’t felt well and so haven’t eaten much—mostly I’ve grazed off the Costco stash. But still..one wonders.

I decided to try to limit Costco purchases to $200 a month. Which…well, really, shouldn’t that be more than enough?

This led me to consider what routine purchases are available only at Costco, and what things might be bought somewhere else in more manageable quantities at more manageable ongoing prices. Videlicet:

Some of these items are hard to find at other stores around here, or can’t be found in the same quality or for the same price, or both. I’ve marked those in green.

There also are a number of things I buy on occasion at Costco because they don’t seem to exist in any other stores or because, as in the case of the chlorine tablets for the swimming pool, Costco far underprices its competitors:

Bed sheets comparable to the sets you get at Costco, which come with four pillowcases BTW, would cost far more in other stores unless you caught them on sale. Anywhere else, it’s almost impossible to find either underwear or denim jeans that fit a normal adult woman. Face cream is expensive at Costco but downright outrageous elsewhere. So it goes.

I’m none too sure what these things would cost at non-warehouse stores. But I’d be willing to bet that when you buy less, you pay less at the checkout stand, even if you’re paying more per unit. In some cases, you’d have to pay a fair amount more. For example, I wouldn’t consider buying fish at Safeway; probably the only other source of acceptable fish in town is Whole Foods. Don’t even ask what they charge for the stuff.

If I limit spending to $200 for the September/October budget cycle, what could I buy between now and the end of the month-long cycle?

I’ve already spent $104 at Costco this month. That leaves $96 to diddle away:

That’s not unreasonable, I think. It provides enough meat to last the dog for the rest of the month (since canids need about 2/3 of their food to be in the form of animal protein, a 25-pound dog consumes a surprising amount of fresh meat). My blue denim jeans are wearing out, frayed at the cuffs and faded at the knees—the height of style for younger things, but not, I’m afraid, for moi. So pretty quick I’ll need a new pair. Arizona doesn’t charge tax on food, and so the 10% soaking applies only to the clothes. And…that even leaves something for one or two other purchases! Buying the rest of my food—mostly produce, since at least two months’ worth of beef, fish, and chicken reside in the freezer—shouldn’t cost much at Safeway, Trader Joe’s, or Ranch Market.

What think you? Does it make sense to try to stay on budget by spending more per unit on less product?

 

 

More Days from Hell

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Ugh, ugh, ugh! Will this never stop?

Yesterday:

• Up at 4 am.
• Blood test bright & early: H. pylori or not?
• Noon class, the one that takes a gigantic chunk out of my work day
• Take the disruptive kid by the hand, sit her down in a conference room with my chairman, and tell her how the cow ate the cabbage
• Race to the creative writing class for which I’m substituting: another 2½  hours

The day is done by the time I get home. Between 4 and 6:45 a.m., wrote two blog posts, answered e-mail, responded to blog commenters, put issues on paper for unruly student, hustled a graphic artist friend to do our brochure, watered plants, fed the dog, bolted down a chicken sandwich, and flew out the door. After class: too exhausted to move. Ate dinner, fell into bed.

On the docket today:

• Feed dog; forget watering plants, forget making bed, forget any and all other routine tasks
• 7:30 a.m. class
• Another confrontation: student who hasn’t shown up for 5 of the 10 class meetings turned in a failing paper; expects to be allowed to turn in a paper she didn’t do several weeks ago, asks to be forgiven for all the absences, and thinks she’s going to pass the course.
• Race from that to meeting with client.
• Race from client to Chamber of Commerce meeting
• Race home, try to work
• Choir practice: 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

I won’t get any work done, of course, because I’ll be too tired. I got up at 1:15 a.m.  Worked, spending part of the time trying to decipher nervy bird-brained student’s incomprehensible paper, 3 pages with no paragraph breaks. Went back to bed at 4. I’m now about to be late for class and haven’t even had time to brew a cup of coffee.

Bathtub’s full. Gotta run!

What Goes Around Comes Around

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In a good way, not just in the negative way that phrase usually connotes.

Yesterday afternoon the phone rings. It’s the guy whose company installed all those sliding doors and the window I ordered up after the late, great garage invasion. After the work they’d done, installing some very nice improvements at a comparatively reasonable price, I wrote a rave review at Angie’s List. The boss didn’t notice this until a couple of days ago, when Angie’s called to hit him up for more money (yes…people pay to be listed at that site) and mentioned that he had a couple of reviews to check. When he saw what I’d written about his company, he was beside himself with joy. Called to thank me profusely (?? I’m the one who was lucky to find this outfit!) and invited me, free of charge, to an upcoming BNI meeting.

That, he said, would give me a chance to introduce myself and hand my cards around.

Mwa ha ha! We’ll need to get our brochure printed between now and then. BNI meets at the same time one of my classes meets this semester, so it’ll have to wait until after fall classes end. But this will be a nice opportunity.

And speaking of the merry-go-round, 101 Centavos not only linked to both Adjunctorium and Funny about Money in this week’s round-up, he also generously highlighted one of my recent rants at Adjunctorium, along with a cri de coeur by a young anthropology Ph.D. that appeared at Al Jazeera.

A couple of naive comments at Centavos’ site led me to publish another rant this morning, about the specious theory that teaching is somehow “rewarding” in a metaphorical sense. Where on earth do people get ideas like that?

Image: Larry Pieniazek, View of the Grand Carousel at Kennywood. GFDL and Creative Commons Attribution 2.5.

Weekend Roundup: Politics as High Comedy Edition

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The Presidential debate is coming up. Am I the only one who thinks the whole affair is garnished with high comedy? Some of the things the Romney people have said, especially… The other day as I listened to the news while driving across the city, we were told that the Republican party is “the natural home of Latinos.” I started to laugh, and then broke out in guffaws when Romney followed that up with “we’re not rounding people up and deporting them!”

Freaking hilarious. I guess that makes Sheriff Joe not a Republican. 😀

Some of the things the extremists say wander so far beyond the pale that they come out as truly laughable. It’s scary, though, to realize that when our college students think World War I happened during the 1800s and Wisconsin is a Rocky Mountain State, the average Joe and Jane on the street could very well be convinced that most of the writers of the U.S. Constitution were clergymen  and that Joe McCarthy was our greatest American hero.

America needs Jon Stewart to emcee that debate.

Fortunately, PF bloggers are so staid and so stodgy that we never say anything silly. Right?

🙂

Various new stuff has been ongoing this week, none of it likely to force you to pull off to the side of the road until a crippling spasm of laughter passes. Recently, though, I did come across an entertaining and engaging writer with a fun schtick and a way with words: Mr. Money Mustache. You’ve gotta check out this guy’s site. His post on electric cars seems to be pretty typical: well written, skeptical, and thorough.

Speaking of things to make us skeptical, over at Blue Collar Workman TB reports on a moment of human greed and stupidity.

Budget Glamorous is back from a summertime hiatus. She continues to wrestle with the challenges of living well on an academic income (such as it is).

As if Mrs. Accountability didn’t have enough on her plate, she just learned that she gets to engage battle with Arizona’s endlessly incompetent bureaucrats again…this time for no good reason whatsoever.

Here’s an interesting personal story from Planting Our Pennies, about the time Mr. PoP took a minimum-wage job and viewed it as a great opportunity.

101 Centavos holds forth about American exceptionalism and…uhm…some exceptions to that. Nice, articulate essay.

Two interesting posts at A Gai Shan Life this week, one of them amazing. Those of us who have followed Revanche’s adventures for the past few years recall when she was laid off her job in the depth of the Recession-That-Is-Not-a-Depression. She spent some time searching anxiously for new work and then landed a nice position at a highly respected company in San Francisco. Lately she’s decided it was time to move on from that as she’s re-evaluated her priorities and assessed what really matters in life. Various recent sources of stress, though, seem to have caused a flare-up of a painful chronic ailment, which she’s now plodding through unhappily. In describing this episode, she publishes a poem, and it is an extraordinary thing. One would expect to find it in a literary magazine, not a PF blog. Don’t miss it.

Frugal Scholar contemplates the strategy of regarding frugality as its complement, enrichment. Burritos will make you rich!

Money Beagle’s cookies were frosted by the discovery that roller-coaster riding days may be a thing of the past. Moving on, the Beagles purchased a new video monitor to keep an eye on the puppies, with mixed results, according to their review of the gadget.

Hmm… Speaking of risk-taking (which is how timid souls like me regard roller-coaster rides), eemusings has been heavy into risk-taking this week! If she’s not losing her shirt at the poker table, she’s throwing herself out of airplanes! Take a look at those photos… New Zealand is even more gorgeous than Arizona. Which is gorgeous.

An interesting guest post by a writer named Em surfaced at My Journey to Millions this week: the author says that sticking to organic, whole foods and grass-fed beef relieves her depression, and that the connection is so evident that slipping off the real food for even a few days results in noticeable symptoms.

The globe-trotting Donna Freedman is moving—yeah, as in picking up and moving, lock, stock, & barrel—from Seattle to Anchorage. She writes winsomely about those strange going-to-miss-all-this feelings that come on us as we’re about to take permanent flight.

Over at I Pick Up Pennies, Donna’s daughter Abigail describes a surreal reunion with a suicidally inclined woman who claims to know her well, but whom Abigail herself doesn’t remember.

Fabulously Broke has published a whole slew of posts on interesting topics, about half a dozen one right after another. Naturally, being the flibberdegibbet that I am, I gravitated instantly to the fluffiest piece: how to avoid make-up shopping blunders! Buying make-up is a lot like buying shoes and purses: one tends to do it because it makes one feel better. Better than what? That’s a question best asked after the stuff is paid for and the budget has recovered…

At Bargaineering, Jim wonders about the extent of upward mobility still accessible in this country and asks his readers to comment.

NicoleandMaggie discuss the strategy of using one’s emergency savings to “float” a debt. Not my favorite scheme, now that I have no real, credible income. But I did use to do it back in the Dark Ages, when I had a real job.

Where’s My Trust Fund is collecting interviews from PF readers and bloggers.

We know there’s no such thing as too much fun. Five-Cent Nickel considers whether you can have too many credit cards.

So it goes.