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The Costco/AMEX Strategy: It WORKED!

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A month has gone by since I resolved to visit Costco once (count it: 1ce) a month and no more! This, in hopes of keeping the spending more or less under control.

The theory was that Costco is a gigantic hole into which to throw money, an effect amplified by the refulgent impulse buys that call out to one the instant one enters the door.

So last month I flew in said door on the first day of the February/March budget cycle, which begins on the 22nd of any given month (the day after the AMEX billing cycle closes). Being out of just about everything, I dropped $350 that day.

Holy mackerel.

But… As a practical matter, over the course of several Costco trips in any given month, I diddle at least that much away. The idea is, if I could make one monthly giga-junket and then fill in the blanks at grocery stores for the rest of the billing cycle, maybe I wouldn’t spend as much. Because I wouldn’t be entering Impulse Buy Paradise more than once a month, over any given budget cycle I would tend to buy mostly things I need, rather than repeatedly and ecstatically grabbing stuff I could live without. Comfortably.

And y’know what? It seems to have worked. American Express says the bill for the period that just closed was a piddling $1145, which is $55 below the amount budgeted for discretionary spending. I had two extraordinary (unplanned) bills last month, one for a plumber and one for a pool dude, and still came in under budget!

It’s a miracle.

Long as we speak of miracles, today when I went in to stock up on a slew of things that had run out — in specific, meat and veggies to make dog food, an expensive proposition — I spent $240, well under last month’s fling. And that included a pair of pink (!) jeans and a cool coordinating shirt.

Well. The jeans apparently are mismarked — they’re say size 8 but fit like size 6. So that return will bring this month’s Costco spend down to about $225, more than a hundred bucks less than I spent last month.

Last month’s relatively modest AMEX bill included a lot of trips to Whole Foods and to AJ’s, a gourmet-style market that’s a lot closer to my house than WF. I spend a lot more money than I need to in those places — obviously if I shopped in places like Fry’s and Albertson’s, my monthly disposable budget could be less than $1200.

However, I can afford that much and think I do without quite enough:  never travel, rarely eat in restaurants, buy my clothes at Costco or off the second-hand and surplus racks , drive a 15-year-old junker… There’s a limit already, with the asceticism.

Anyway, whether you live like a monk or not, consider: find the purveyor that consumes the largest part of your monthly budget, cut the number of visits to that retailer, and substitute purchases from other stores. See if that helps to bring down overall expenditures.

Monday Morning Mountain Walk

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Early this morning the dogs and I walked about a mile and a half through the neighborhood. And once again I was left thinking, This is not the kind of exercise that’s gonna take the flab off the belly. Wrestling a half-trained dog around a park and up a few sidewalks does not, alas, fill that bill.

We got back to the house early enough, however, that I realized that I could lock up the puppy, throw on a pair of boots, and head over to North Mountain Park for a short hike over at least some terrain that offers a little up- and downhill walking. It’s been a year since I’ve been on the mountain. It’s a time-sucking hassle to get over there, and so not something one readily does without the impetus of a companion who wants to make the hike, too.

Entered by way of one of the south-side entrances, having no intention of actually climbing either Shaw Butte or North Mountain. There’s plenty of rolling terrain that will serve to get you started before you try for a stroll on the highway to heaven.

On the south side of Shaw Butte there’s a low rise, a hill with a trail that takes you to the top of the mound and then, if you follow it further, up a pretty steep incline to the main trail on the butte’s backside.

What the hell, thought I, and proceeded up the rise.

Well. It’s not very far. And when you’re on top of that thing, you’re almost halfway up to the junction with the Shaw Butte trail. So naturally, I kept walking.

It’s a less than perfectly pleasant place to walk, especially when the weather’s nice. The park has become very crowded, largely with stupid people who haven’t got enough sense to keep their yaps shut as they’re hiking. Apparently they think everyone within a quarter-mile of them wants to hear about the intricacies of their office’s politics or their boyfriend’s behavior. Yakity yakity yakity yakity yak yak yak yak!

More kindly, I expect that most people don’t realize how far their voices carry across a desert landscape. In the county’s mountain  parks, you can hear people talking a half-mile away — especially women, but a tenor male voice will carry a long way, too. I find that annoying…but I suppose it’s because I’m the rara avis that happens to relish solitude. And I’d really rather hear the doves cooing, the quail hooting, and the thrasher calling than to hear a human’s voice babbling on.

Oh well.

Before long, I’d hit the main trail. Decided not to proceed to the mountaintop, figuring discretion was the better part, at least for today. The southside trail has two or three fairly steep sections — one of which I’d just traversed — and I’d just as soon not be crippled tomorrow. Considered following the main trail down to its starting point, but that would put me on the flat about a mile and a half from my car. To get back to the car, I’d have to walk along a main drag through a dangerous district: Meth Central, we might call it. Since that didn’t seem like the brightest of strategies, I turned back down the trail I’d come up and before long, voilà! arrived at the trailhead parking lot.

The other reason these trails are less than perfectly pleasant for hiking — besides the ubiquitous yakkers — is that all the trails in North Mountain are paved, at least in part, with loose scree. This debris turns into roller-bearing rocks when you’re walking downhill. It’s pretty dangerous: real ankle-twisting terrain.

It was 10:30 by the time I got home, soaked in sweat: half the morning was gone and now I had to bathe and wash my hair and wash my clothes, and that burned some more time. It’s now after one p.m. and so far I have not done a SINGLE ONE of the several things I really need to do today: read 25 pages of the client’s magnum opus, ride herd on the course that starts today, read and mark up notes for the Boob Book, or even write this silly little blog post.

And therein lies the problem: getting enough exercise by hiking, while it’s a quintessentially effective way to build health and shed flab, consumes a lot of time. It often doesn’t leave enough time in a given day for me to do the other tasks I need or want to do.

I guess I could take the attitude that dedicating a couple of hours a day to moderately strenuous hiking is something that I need to do, as much as I need to do paying work. For some reason, I find that difficult to do. Don’t know why.

Amazing Little Dog

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…and amazing countryside. Check out this spectacular post at MyCorgi.com!

These little sheep dogs are so amazing! Given how small they look, you’d never realize how much speed, energy, and endurance they possess.

People certainly dote on them. I’m afraid that won’t be good for the breed. These days instead of asking me what kind of dog Cassie or Ruby is, passers-by instantly recognize them as corgis and then go on about how much they want one. {sigh} I fear the corgi will be the next breed to be ruined by love. That seems to happen every time a breed becomes popular.

Problem is, admirers see Cuteness(!) but have no idea what’s entailed in living with Corgi Cuteness. Cassie ended up at the dog pound, so her former humans noted, because she “barks.”

Well. Yes. That is what we would call an understatement.

Cassie does not bark. She converses. Her conversation consists of a series of loud yaps. She likes to talk with humans. A lot.

And as Ruby attains adulthood, she’s also come into her own in the communication department. She doesn’t bark, either: she bays. Not quite  like a hound, though. The sound she emits combines a bark and a bay: ARF-A-ROOOOO! It’s used for alerting the world to every cat, dog, coyote, neighbor, and bum who passes by in the alley, for harrying the teenagers across the street, and for conversing with distant barking dogs.

While I would say that raising Ruby was far less difficult than coping with a young, high-drive German shepherd, it certainly hasn’t been easy. House-training a corgi can be quite a challenge. I’ve had quite a few dogs over the years, and I think I’m pretty good at house-training. So…I kinda doubt that my fumbling was the reason it took a good six months to house-train this dog. Other corgi owners say the same: expect to spend half a year to get your puppy reliably trained.

It really is a powerful, energetic dog — so much so that in spite of the dwarfed legs it’s classified as a “large” breed. The corgi needs a “job” to do, many daily dog walks, plenty of training…and it can’t be left in the yard or house to entertain itself or sleep the hours away. Believe me. A corgi will not sleep the hours away.

Here’s Ruby’s idea of mountain-climbing…

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Kinda have to click on the image to actually see it, in WordPressland…

Ruby can jump onto M’hijito from the floor. Cassie, on the other hand, does not climb on anything except her mattress.

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Kicking Off the Boob Book

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Last night I finally started the introduction to the Boob Book — the proposed magnum opus on navigating the world of DCIS and breast cancer. Between grading papers and trying to overcome inertia, I’m getting a slow start on this project.

Today I went over to the FedEx office and picked up the photocopies of all the research materials I’ve gathered since the Late Great Adventure began, some nine or ten months ago:

P1030429Two fat binders, chuckablock full!

No, I haven’t counted the pages, and I’m not gonna. Some things, you just don’t want to know. But I’d estimate several hundred. It’s nowhere close to the mound that writing the dissertation required me to plow through. On the other hand, most of that wasn’t technical stuff — unless you consider deciphering late 16th-century handwriting to be technical.

Thanks to the Internet, so far nary a word has had to be ordered through InterLibrary Loan. LOL! When I wrote the dissertation, I estimated that before I went to England, I’d had to order about 3/4 of my print resources through I.L.L.

At any rate, I have a rough outline for the introduction and seven chapters, some of which may end up being more than one chapter. I doubt if the thing will come to ten chapters, but it could end up being eight or ten.

Finding time to write this magnum opus is going to be the trick.

I did learn that the college has assigned me only one comp section next fall (they must have gotten wind of Adjunctorium and Slave Labor), so that means that if the magazine-writing course makes that semester, I’ll have just two sections to hassle with. So that will free up a little extra time.

Meanwhile, it looks a lot like this spring’s maga-writing course won’t make — only 8 people are enrolled, and the District requires 12 to let a course fly. So I may be relieved of a great deal of work and a small amount of income this semester, as I certainly will be next semester.

Fortunately, my 2014 earnings were so paltry that I got a large tax return — I owed nothing on the federal gouge and $33 to the state. Effectively, the federal government returned all the funds that had been withheld from my various piddling sources of income. This is more than the net on one section, and come to think of it, almost as much as net from two sections. Unfortunately, I had intended to set the money aside to defray the cost of the next vehicle, which I’m going to have to buy soon. Obviously that’s not going to happen. But beggars can’t be choosers. Or drivers, apparently…

I’m hoping this will free up a number of hours each week to work on the Boob Book. I’d like to have an introduction and at least once chapter in hand by mid-summer, so I can send out a prospectus to whomever I can importune, and with any luck at all to have the thing done by the end of 2015 or, at the very latest, by this time next year.

Meanwhile, in theory the diet book and the novel are about ready to turn into Kindle books. I’ve been too distracted to track down a PoD publisher but should do that soon, too.

Ah, the life of an author…

😉 😆 😉

I expect I’ll post updates and meditations on the process at Writers Plain & Simple, since I’d like to keep the site’s thousand or so subscribers entertained. Will let you know, over here, whenever anything of passing interest goes up — or just watch the feed in Funny’s right-hand sidebar.

Meanwhile, speaking of the which, I’d better go over there and show a sign of life.

A Nice Little DIY Personal Finance Guide

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 CutCrapOver at the westside writer’s group, I met an interesting live wire who’s thinking about writing a second book, after having self-published a handy guide to save money, get straight financially, and have fun on the cheap.

The book is Cut the Crap and Save 30% of Your Income, and its author, Ruth McCormick, is a retired home-ec teacher. The home economics teacher training shows. In addition to the classic advice on getting out of debt, saving your pennies, and living well on less, she provides worksheets, charts, and “assignments.” It’s like a hard-copy PF blog with interactive features.

Great way to get your act together, if you’re not already there. Check it out!

 

The Self-Appointed HOA

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P1030422So the first thing I had to do this morning, instantly upon rolling out of the sack after the dogs informed me that dawn was cracking, was to run out into the alley and post signs on the thick, lush cat’s-claw vines that overhang my back wall.

Over the (many!) years, they’ve piled themselves to a height of about 12 feet, effectively blocking the view from the alley into my yard. This is what allows me to skinny-dip in my pool. Although the fence is six feet high, it’s six feet from the level of the alley’s grade; from inside the yard, which is built up above grade to alleviate flooding, it’s five feet high, revealing all to passers-by. You have to get a variance to lay another couple courses of cinderblocks. Although some people have done so (and many have just raised their walls illegally) — it’s a hassle, and I can’t afford to have someone come in and do a proper job of building up the wall. But the vines, which do not violate city code, serve conveniently to keep curious eyeballs out of my backyard.

Meanwhile…

Of late a group of neighbors has taken on the function of a de facto homeowner’s association. They are unelected, and they’re a private club — they post their doings on Facebook, but they refuse to allow everyone in the neighborhood to join their closed page. They won’t let me in, for example, because I expressed my displeasure with folks who allow their large dogs to run loose — illegally — in the neighborhood park. One guy took issue, since he feels he has a God-given right to let his dogs run around loose, and people who don’t want to be bitten or to have their leashed dogs put at risk should stay out of the park.

Whatever business they’re up to gets reported on this Facebook page. I find out about it because a friend passes it along to me.

And they get up to all sorts of stuff. Among the “stuff”: having the City install speed bumps and roundabouts on the ’hood’s main north-south feeder street. Now it’s true that drivers who used to flow smoothly and happily on Conduit of Blight Blvd, the large main drag to the west of us, have diverted themselves onto Feeder Street NS because of the years-long train construction project that has made Conduit of Blight nonnavigable. And yes, it’s true that people who use our neighborhood streets as cut-throughs don’t give a damn about us, our kids, or our pets and drive like they were at the Indianapolis 500. And it’s true that all the junk now littering the formerly quiet Feeder Street NS does slow these outsiders down.

However, our self-appointed HOA seems to have no concept of “unintended consequences.” Among these:

• Speed humps cause truck drivers to gear down and then gear back up, adding to the noise pollution and especially creating a racket for people who live near them.

• Speed humps cause vehicles to go thump-THUMP every time a driver crosses over one, adding still more to the noise pollution — imagine having one of those outside your bedroom window!

• People have already learned that you don’t have to slow down to get over these things. Habitually offending drivers now just cruise right over them, without even bothering to cut their speed.

• Speed humps cause physical pain to people who suffer chronic conditions such as arthritis, back pain, and abdominal pain — every whack as your car bumps over one of the things feels like a stab.

• Roundabouts do not cause people to slow down. When people don’t slow down to a crawl, they find their cars climbing on the sidewalks and the neighbors’ lawns, or running over the (expensive taxpayer-funded) landscaping in the middle of the things.

• This phenomenon makes it unsafe to walk on the sidewalks near said roundabouts. So people walking to the park from neighboring homes detour across the lawns of the upscale houses facing the park, so as to avoid the risk of being hit while on a sidewalk bordering a roundabout.

• The junk with which they’ve littered Feeder St. NS has clogged traffic in such a way that for half the morning and half the afternoon, it literally is impossible to cross that road on foot. So if you live west of the park, you can NOT get to the park for your morning walk!

• As a result of the well-intended but poorly thought-out obstructions, many people who know the neighborhood now avoid Feeder Street NS by driving around it on formerly sleepy and private local lanes. I never drive on Feeder St. NS anymore, and I’ve noticed that I have plenty of company on the neighborhood back streets, now much busier than they ever were before.

• And also as a result, at least one neighbor on a roundabout has his house up for sale (good luck with that!). This likely is the same neighbor who stated in public that the things are unsafe and that he never agreed to a roundabout in his front yard.

These folks are not city planners, they don’t have good sense, and because they’ve set themselves up as a closed club, they’re not getting all their “constituency’s” approval or even any opposing input for their little schemes. They’re not elected. They’re just a bunch of well-meaning folks who see themselves as stepping up to the plate.

We did have a neighborhood association that was low-key but functioned well. It was headed by another self-appointee, whom we’ll call Thom, who did an excellent job at letting neighbors know what was going on down at City Hall and at facilitating communication among the neighbors, the local police, and the city leadership.

Unfortunately, his wife had designs on political office. They raised funds and saved cash to finance her run on a city council seat…and shortly before that election, what should happen but the Republicans gerrymandered the city council districts. They ran a line straight through the middle of our neighborhood, putting the four or five blocks west of Feeder Street NW into a low-SES district that is largely minority, largely lower-income, and largely neglected. Mrs. Thom had right-wing leanings, and as you can imagine, her vocal dislike of the firefighter’s union (and the set of opinions that comes with that knee-jerk stance) did not stand her in good stead with the working-class voters who make up the vast majority of our new political district. She lost magnificently.

So they moved eastward, into a more affluent and politically conservative district, and we lost Thom, the guy who actually had good sense and who was doing a fine job as volunteer neighborhood association capo.

Into the vacuum stepped the present coterie of naive do-gooders.

For their latest project, they’re calling on the neighbors (read “their friends,” since not all the neighbors are privy to their plans) to turn out this morning with garden shears and power tools to tidy up a couple of the ’hood’s chronically messy alleyways:

All Hands On Deck for the first annual Neighborhood Alley Clean-up! Let’s make this a successful and enjoyable community event. With the influx of opportunistic crime [they were shocked, shocked I tell you, when one of their band belatedly noticed the prostitutes who have worked Conduit of Blight Blvd for years, having spotted one of them servicing a client in an alley 😀 ] we are working the first two alleys just north of Feeder Street East-West and Conduit of Blight.

We will meet at [an address about a block from the Funny Farm]. The event is scheduled for Saturday, March 14, 2015 between 7:30 and noon. We need neighborhood participation! Please bring gloves. Supplies contributed by the City of Phoenix.

All alleys, exterior and interior, are to be cleared of debris, view obstructing shrubs and weeds. We can continue this effort by working together to report blight and maintain the alley-ways behind our homes.

“View-obstructing shrubs and weeds,” eh? And whaddaya bet these worthies will figure 12-foot-high cat’s-claw vines come under the heading of “view-obstructing”? Especially since that’s exactly what their purpose is.

So this morning I went out there and tied signs reading PLEASE DO NOT TRIM VINES! to the plantings along 95 feet of the back lot line. And I’m not kidding. If they vandalize my plants, I am taking them to court. Depending on how much it will cost to buy a city permit and have a contractor raise the height of that back wall (which is longer than just that 95 feet…), I will take them either to small claims court or into a civil court to get them to pay for restoring my privacy.

P1030423I appreciate their concerns about upgrading and maintaining the property values in the ’hood. And the alleys, especially at this time of year when the weeds start to grow, surely do get junky and cluttered. BUT…the city has a neighborhood slum abatement office. City code requires homeowners to keep the alleys behind their property free of trash, weeds, and obstructive volunteer shrubs and trees.  It’s not the place of some self-appointed band of busy-bodies to take it upon themselves to come along and cut down whatever they please. All it takes is one phone call to the slum abatement folks, and the city will send an officer to inspect the alley and issue warnings or citations to people who need to clean up their acts.

Y’know, if I wanted to live in an HOA, I’d have bought a newer house in a suburb that’s a LONG way from the meth gangs to the north of us and the city’s main conduit of blight of the west of us. One of the several reasons I live in this neighborhood is that I don’t want to live in a regimented, look-alike HOA development. None of these people are elected, nor do they seem to care whether everyone who lives here has any voice about their Great Ideas. And I for one wish they’d get a clue.