Coffee heat rising

Retirement planner yields interesting discovery

by

If you’re nearing retirement or thinking about how you can escape into early retirement, check out Vanguard’s retirement planning tools. You don’t have to be logged in to use these things. Go to https://personal.vanguard.com/us/home and click on “Planning and Education”; from there navigate to Retirement Planning > I’m Planning to Retire > Evaluate Your Expenses and Income. Entering the site through this pathway takes you past a number of other options, including some for people who aren’t yet on the verge of retirement.

For example, you can create an investment plan, plan for college, learn the basics of estate planning, and discover how to manage your portfolio with an eye to tax savings.

But since I equate the coming layoff with enforced retirement (as in please don’t throw me in the brier patch), my exploration soon took me to Vanguard’s paired worksheets, one that allows you to estimate your expenses and one that helps you estimate your retirement income and figure whether it will support you.

To my amazement, Vanguard’s machine-generated planning estimates are more optimistic than what Excel  has been telling me. As you may recall, I’ve figured I might have to draw down as much as 6 percent of total savings to get by; at best, 5 percent was a likely number.

Because Medicare will cost about 12 times what I pay for health insurance now and because I’ll have to pay my share of the mortgage on the downtown house out of cash flow, my monthly living and emergency savings costs will rise from the current $2,800 to about $3,275—$425 more than my present take-home pay!

However, even with that stunning expense figure entered in the retirement income worksheet, Vanguard tells me that the amount I’ll have to draw down from savings will be only 4.3 percent of the total.

I can’t account for the difference. At first I thought it had to do with the way taxes were figured—Vanguard’s income worksheet automatically generates an estimated tax liability based on the tax rates you provide—but punching a few numbers into a handheld calculator shows that not to be so. Unless I’ve made a mistake in entering expenses, it looks like Social Security, part-time teaching income, and a drawdown of a little over 4 percent will just about cover the average monthly cost of living. Excel shows an average monthly cost of $3,306; Vanguard’s comes to $3,275, not a significant difference.

Either of these figures requires me to avoid extraordinary expenses at all costs, something I haven’t succeeded in doing for lo, these many months. One crazy cost after another—some optional, some decidely not—has overrun my budget three out of the past five months, and probably will overrun it this month, too. Last year I ran in the red five out of twelve months; once by only $37, but still…

If we think in terms of the whole year rather than focusing tightly on given months, last year’s total black ink came to $1,397.37; red ink totaled $726.23, leaving me $671.14 to the good at the end of the year. However! Last year’s discretionary budget was $1,500 a  month. The amount I entered in Vanguard’s worksheet comes to only $1,265—and that includes a $500/month allowance for extraordinary expenses. It’s highly questionable whether I can live on that: last year’s expenditures averaged $1,440 a month.

Starting in January, I cut the budget for nonrecurring expenses to $1,200 a month. As of June 20, the end of the last budget cycle, I was $681.89 in the red: an average of $136 a month! That’s after The Copyeditor’s Desk covered every expense I could justify as a business cost.

So it appears that in retirement, unless Medicare and income taxes are less than I think they’ll be, I will not be able to cover every expense that comes my way. I’ve got seven months to get the extraordinary spending under control.

Image: Micky, Hammock on Beach; Wikipedia Commons

State budgeteers continue to wrangle

by

Hauled back into session by a vetoing governor, the Arizona legislature unanimously restored funding to the public schools. The governor has agreed to sign the revised bills.

While the gov’ won this round, the budget remains incomplete, and so we state employees still can’t be assured our next paychecks will land in our bank accounts. One way or another, the fundamental problem remains: the state simply does not have enough money to pay for basic services, and other than having the legislators and state employees get together throw a giant bake sale, there’s no way to get the money without raising taxes. And the legislature is philosophically (one might even say religiously) opposed to taxation. Our elected reps want to lower taxes, not increase them.

Well, I don’t want my taxes raised, either. But then neither do I want to lose the benefits of soooo-cialism such as

• roads
• police protection
• fire protection
• unemployment benefits
• child protective services
• prisons
• state prosecutors
• public defenders
• public records
• public health protection
• water treatment plants
• libraries
• museums
• schools
• universities

…and on and on. Given a choice between sinking further into Third-World living conditions or raising taxes, I’ll take the tax increase any day.

Shopping frolics; budget strategizing

by

M’hijito called yesterday afternoon and invited me to drive out to the new westside Lee Lee, a long way from the central city but probably not as far as the original location in Chandler. Lee Lee is a large, interesting Asian supermarket, where fish are sold fresh-caught from huge tanks, the produce department offers treats you’ll never see at Safeway, two long aisles are filled with exotic cooking gear, and ethnic foods are organized by country.

He wanted to buy a mah-jongg table. We found one, but, being a chip off the old block, he felt $60 was more than he wanted to pay. He’ll be back.

While we were there, we picked up a variety of wonders, such as chunky anemone-shaped Japanese mushrooms, Madras curry powder, coconut milk, Philippine mangoes, and a variety of Asian snacks and candies that made M’hijito nostalgic for his old neighborhood in San Francisco. From there, it was on to Costco.

Interestingly, at about the same moment, Carrie over at It’s Frugal Being Green was making the Costco rounds in her precincts. As part of her project to find the best meat at the best price, she had already pretty well decided that the venerable warehouse store does mighty well in this department. Lo! What should we each discover in our separate treks: Costco’s got prime beef! Holy mackerel!

Well, at the Phoenix store, the choice was limited to a few packages of prime New York steaks, and they were frozen solid. They did look pretty rich: so baroquely marbled they must have contained as much fat as protein. Though the price was not off the scale, we were a little put off by their being frozen (like we don’t freeze the stuff after we get it home?). However, when M’hijito and I compared them with the ribeye steaks, we concluded that the choice quality ribeyes showed about as much marbling as the prime cuts…and they were two bucks a pound cheaper.

So, we settled for the middle-brow stuff.

That notwithstanding, I spent about $105 at the two stores yesterday. Not good, since I had exactly $2.82 left in this week’s microbudget, to last until tomorrow. Strictly speaking.

Not so bad, though, if you look at it from the new angle I cooked up: by spreading extraordinary expenses over the entire month-long budget. From that point of view, I could have spent almost $125 and still be OK.

microbudget2-7-6-09

So…did I go over budget? Well, I think not: as a practical matter, there was plenty of money in the month’s budget to buy a few food items this week. And I didn’t buy anything I didn’t need: the main reason I went into Costco was to pick up some orange juice and frozen strawberries, staples of my breakfast fare. I’d run my supply of meat down to nothing, so it made sense to pick up a package of ribeyes. I needed fruit, so the mangoes from Lee Lee and the Costco peaches (split with M’hijito) also were reasonable purchases. The only thing I didn’t really need were Costco’s Gloria Vanderbilt jeans…but hey! Buttercup yellow! When would a person ever see buttercup jeans that fit, ever again?

I like the idea of spreading extraordinary costs over an entire month. Both unusual bills, $243.68 for the incredible bargain on 1,440 paving bricks and $188 for the speed trap ticket, came up in the first week. Dividing each figure by four and debiting each microbudget for the respective figures—$47 and $60.92—reduces the amount available for each week but leaves plenty of cash in each week for ordinary expenses. Trying to take those amounts out of the week in which they occurred runs the first microbudget deep into the red and, when the red ink is carried over into the second week, leaves too little in that week’s microbudget to live on comfortably.

All in all, a successful day: had a nice time with my son, got a few things I need, explored an interesting new store, and ended up with plenty in next week’s budget.

🙂

Homo profligus rides again

by

Lordie! Will we never hear the end of Edmund Andrews? This morning’s NY Times Book Review devotes over 13 (three-inch wide!) column inches to a meditation on the Times reporter’s $25.95 exposé of his own stupidity. To reviewer Tom Vanderbilt’s credit, he does point out some of the questionable aspects of Andrews’s story, though not until the end of his comments.

Edmunds, responding to the question of why he got himself into an impossible mortgage, says “I took a gamble.” Five grafs later we learn that he and his serially bankrupt wife left their spouses and “proudly risked everything to be together.”

Financial insolvency doesn’t seem to be the only kind of bankruptcy this pair suffers.

Olive oil soothes sore, cracked heels and callused feet

by

At the risk of promoting olive oil as some kind of miracle elixir, I’d like to tell you about another small discovery. If you wear sandals a lot, you’ve probably experienced the cracked heels that come when dry summer weather takes after the calluses you get from barefoot or sandaled walking. The other day one of my dainty little paws developed a crack so deep it bled. Did that hurt! Every step made that sore heel yelp in pain.

Ouch!
Ouch!

{sigh} I’ve tried sooo many nostrums to deal with dry, cracked heels that I’ve about given up. Hand creams, cow teat ointment, horse hoof ointment, special cracked heel creams, Vaseline, callus scrapers, even prescription gunk. Not a one did any good. Usually when this happens I have to plaster on a giant bandage over a blob of antibiotic ointment and limp around until the split heals.

So I’m sitting there studying yet another brutalized heel when it occurs to me that if olive oil works on your face and works on your hair, maybe it would work on your feet. So, I hauled out some gear and went to work.

Feet & gear
Feet & gear

First, I added a little scented bubble bath to a bucketful of warm water and, after removing the raggedy toenail polish, soaked the victimized feet until I could scrub off all the dirt and dead hide  with a nail brush and pumice stone.

Luxury foot bath
Luxury foot bath

This felt pretty good, though I had to be careful not to cause another squawk of protest from the injured heel. After everything was as clean and smooth as I could make it, I applied about a tablespoon of olive oil to one foot and massaged it in, paying special attention to the calluses around the heel and on the sole and toes. Quickly put on a ped-sized socklet, to keep the oil on my foot and off the floor and furniture. Repeated the same with the other foot.

The next morning, my foot felt a lot better. It wasn’t fully healed, but at least I didn’t have to wear a bandage to walk around.

The following evening, I rubbed more olive oil into each foot, especially around the heels, and covered up with small, light socks again. Each night I wore the socks to bed, mostly to keep any oil from rubbing off on the sheets but also to protect the feet. Truth to tell, by the time I went to bed the olive oil had soaked into the skin (or the socks) enough that it probably wouldn’t have stained the sheets. But who can afford to buy a new set of cotton sheets just because her feet hurt, eh?

On the second day after the initial treatment, the cracked heel seemed to be fixed. As I did the preceding day, I wore shoes with socks (ugh, in 110-degree heat!!) instead of sandals. Again that evening, I massaged in some more olive oil.

By the third morning, the difference was noticable. Far from perfect (oh, to be 20 again!), but improved enough that it doesn’t hurt. At least.

After another olive oil massage and overnight rest, the feet looked pretty good, and the split in the heel was all gone. Given a toenail repaint, the effect is not bad, for an old bat:

DCP_2608

Note that this is absolutely, positively not an instant fix! For three full days, I didn’t even think about repainting the toenails. It took that long for the olive oil to soften and soothe the dry, callused skin.

Also take note that it does, yes indeed it does make you smell like a walking tossed salad. It’s probably not appropriate if you have a lover in the house, unless he or she doesn’t mind having you spend a few nights in the guest bedroom. 😉

Funny’s other uses for olive oil

Hair conditioner
Facial cleanser
Update on skin conditioning