Welp, I’m officially out of money, at least til the end of the year. The amount transferred from savings to supplement Social Security and teaching income enough to keep me afloat through 2014 is gone…and we have almost two months to go.
{sigh}
This is all incident to the endless health-care flap, which arose last June and has not quit and probably literally will have no end. When I realized I was going to be undergoing surgery — even before I understood that meant “surgery after surgery after surgery after…” — I also realized that with half my chest ripped up I would not be brushing down pool walls, mopping floors, scouring sinks, scrubbing toilets, oiling furniture, deconstructing and cleaning the gas stove, dusting light fixtures & blinds, and polishing mirrors & windows. So I hired a pool guy and a cleaning lady. That added $240 to the monthly tab.
Then there was having the plumber come and fix up the shower in the front bathroom, where the tub has an easy-to-clean 1970s plastic tub & shower surround. The house’s master-bedroom shower was beautifully renovated by the idiot previous owner, whose parting shot (literally!) was, “Oh, and this travertine has to be stripped and resealed every six months.” Huh-uhhhh…. Between that and the fact that the damn clear glass showers have to be polished dry and the damn travertine has to be wiped dry from ceiling to floor every time you shower, I never use that thing — I’d been using the tub in the front bathroom and taking actual baths, except in the summer when I could shampoo outdoors in the hose after swimming. Since I’m not allowed to get the incision underwater for three weeks after each surgery, that means I couldn’t bathe…all summer long and into the fall. I still can’t get the boob seriously wet. So…I’m glad I had the plumber install a functional showerhead in the outmoded but radically convenient front tub, but still…it did cost something.
So it has gone since last June: one unplanned expense after another.
The car also racked up several hundred bucks worth of bills. It now needs its brake drums replaced: $500.
So, financially I’m back where I was when the university laid me and my underlings off. Except that the stock market hasn’t tanked. Yet.
I probably should buy a new car now, before the Republicans do a repeat performance of their excellent financial leadership under Bush. Presumably within another eight to twelve years my shirt will be tattered again, and so it might be good to have a decent vehicle in the garage. One that the dogs & I can live in… 😉
And speaking of tattered, the diet is getting that way, too. The accursed surgery, which you would think would debilitate one and cause weight loss, had exactly the opposite effect: it’s made me gain weight!
Shee-ut!
I think that happened because I was forbidden to swim, and swimming formed a major part of the exercise program. Now it’s too cold to get in the pool — not that I’m allowed to do so anyway, but within a week or two in theory I will be. Assuming we decide not to lob off the guilty boob, in which case it will be yet another month or two before I can take a real bath or indulge in any vigorous exercise.
After dieting and walking four miles a day this week, the result has been another pound gained!
I’m now about five pounds above the desired weight. Figured that two pounds off a week would restore the coveted sylph-like figure in a month or less. But that just doesn’t seem to be happening. And I don’t know why. None of the strategies I used to drop those 30 pounds a year or two ago are working anymore!
So, what to do?
Well, first I’m going to have to re-institute the stringent budget. This means cranking out those accursed Excel spreadsheets and tracking every. single. expenditure as it occurs. And staying out of Costco. And staying out of AJ’s and Whole Foods.
Haven’t bought any clothes since the current fiasco started, since I have no idea what will fit on top and no way of knowing until I could see the final result of whatever they end up doing to me. Now even if we decide to keep what remains of the boob intact, I still won’t be able to buy any much-needed shirts — the old ones are wearing out. And if the boob comes off, I’ll just have to figure out how to cope with the old cleavage-displaying shirts and crocheted tops.
The dogs will have to not get sick or hurt. If they do, they’ll just have to suffer through it.
No more eating out. No more concerts. No more anything that costs any sort of extra money.
No Christmas present for my son. Nor will I be able to entertain over the holidays. Which probably doesn’t matter, because I’ve got to stop eating, anyway.
Assuming no more extraordinary expenses arise, I’ll need about $2,000 to make it to the end of the year — not counting the $500 for the car. Enough to repair the car does reside in a short-term emergency savings fund, so it won’t have to be drawn down, taxably, from retirement savings. But two grand to cover living expenses? Not good.
Between now and mid-December, I should extract about $1500 from the community college district, with both classes in full swing.
That’s going to leave me $500 short. In two months, if I pinch every penny in a vise, lay off the pool guy, lay off the yard guy, and cut back the cleaning lady, I might manage to make that up.
Merry Christmas!
MAN…this is when I ask my “dear wife” (who is a saint)….what do “real people do”?….I mean folks that aren’t thrifty and have mortgages…car payments….student loans…etc. Imagine what the outcome would have been if you had a nice mortgage and car payment hanging around your neck! I swear I don’t know how folks make it….Just interviewed a gal for a unit….an RN no less….cell phone bill….$180 along with student loans…car payment…health insurance bill and yes she carries a blance on her CC’s….
I look forward to you sharing the “righting of the ship” on your blog….
First of all, don’t lay off the pool and yard guys or the house cleaner. I have complete faith in you. You always seem to have money tucked away for emergencies. You’re the best “tucker” around. 😀
Secondly, forget the hell about Christmas presents. No one needs a damned thing. And tell people all that you want is a phone call or visit after the NEXT surgery.
Thirdly, I wish to heck I could help with the diet, but as a fellow middle aged woman (cough, cough) my metabolism has slowed down to where it no longer even has a pulse, as in dead in the water, can not be revived with a cattle prod. I try to live on around 1200 calories per day, hungry all the time, and the weight does not shift. However, I do plan on going to my grave without ever stepping foot into a gym.
On the gym issue: exactly what you said.
What I don’t understand is why this worked so swimmingly before (uhm…with the swimming available, o’course) but this time around is a giant FAIL. Maybe I haven’t given it enough time. though.
MAN…this is when I ask my “dear wife” (who is a saint)….what do “real people do”?….I mean folks that aren’t thrifty and have mortgages…car payments….student loans…etc. Imagine what the outcome would have been if you had a nice mortgage and car payment hanging around your neck! I swear I don’t know how folks make it….Just interviewed a gal for a unit….an RN no less….cell phone bill….$180 along with student loans…car payment…health insurance bill and yes she carries a balance on her CC’s….
I look forward to you sharing the “righting of the ship” on your blog….
God help us all!
If I’d had a mortgage, I would not be living in my house today. By raw luck and sheer oblivious refusal to listen to my financial advisor, I paid off the mortgage before I tossed SDXB out. Financial Advisor urged me not to do so — he, being a believer in leveraging and also knowing how much I had in TIAA-CREF REIT’s, felt I was overinvested in real estate. But if I’d listened to him, I would’ve lost my home after I was laid off my job at the Great Desert University. There’s no way I could pay for a mortgage and put food on the table today.
Cell phone: One of the guys in SBA admitted this morning that he pays FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLARS A MONTH for the five cell phones he supports. Godlmighty. I looked at the kid and thought…you were born about 25 years too late…single, but useless for my purposes….
Most people carry a balance on their credit cards, if they use them at all. At least, that’s what I believe to be true. Do I have data? Well, yeah. Hang onto your hat and paste this little fella into your browser’s address bar: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-industry-facts-personal-debt-statistics-1276.php
Car payment? Holeee mackerel would I be screwed if I had a car payment. Uhm. Maybe. Financial Advisor suggests that if I can get a 0% loan, I should take it and instead of withdrawing 20 or 30 grand and plunk it down, just let Fidelity dribble out a monthly amount over the next few years. This would preserve capital for reimbursement (or to go down the tubes, in light of recent election returns), which one way or the other is probably not a terrible idea.
I think things will work out. It’s not like I’m really broke: it’s that I absolutely positively do NOT want to make another taxable drawdown in 2014. That’s different (as in Mars and Venus) from true brokitide. If I can hang on till January 1 (and I can, but will run in the red to do so), it will be OK.
SOME of us hate running in the red. It’s a psychosis, I suppose…
….”single but useless for my purposes” …..TOO FUNNY!!! But this is the mindset of these young folks. With my applicant I asked to hold her $180 a month cell phone and placed it beside my 10 year old $6.66 per month Virgin Mobile “wonder” on the table. I then asked the gal …”is your phone 30 times better than my phone”? With a blank stare she said she wasn’t sure…OOOOKKKK….
Few things can replace the feeling of freedom of no mortgage….
@ Jestjack: Actually, he’s a “kid” only in comparison to my advanced old age. I expect he does OK in the money department: he’s a financial manager by trade and also an extremely nice man. One of those guys who’s very, very smart but disguises it under a veneer of amiability.
He was divorced agin’ his will, and in fact would make a great spouse for a 30s-ish to 40s-ish woman. Don’t know that his taste runs to women who are not spring chickens, now that he’s realized he’s FREE and on the open market. But he is a charmer.
If your true issue is not wanting to withdraw in this year for tax purposes, but you do have funds, you could as a temporary strategy, charge some expenses in December to pay them in January.
That’s a great idea.
Also, come to think of it, I have a line of credit with the credit union, at a pretty low rate of interest. Same there: if I charged against that in December, I could pay it off on January 2, before it began to rack up much expense.
About the….”kid”… Let us not forget Burt Reynolds and Dinah Shore were an item for years. And as memory serves she was no “spring chicken” but rather a kind and generous gal who saw something special in the young Florida Country Boy. She was a “cougar” before there were “cougars”….
I was gonna say (in line with jestjack) you never know … 😉
Floating your December expenses to January is actually a useful idea, along with the payments on the 0% interest loan for the car. Keep that principal in your pocket if it’s free!
Not that I should need to draw down investments in the next 8-10 years but I dearly hope your prediction doesn’t come true!
What goes up must come down.
It’s important to remember that the stock market is effectively the same as the craps table. You have winning streaks and you have losing streaks. Money that’s crucial to survival shouldn’t put into the game.
That said, in our culture there are only two ways to make enough money to survive. One is to work and the other is to invest. You can’t NOT invest, because there’s no way normal people can earn enough, even over an entire lifetime, to support themselves through an extended old age. But you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversity is crucial. So are strong nerves.
A real-life example of How Things Don’t Always Go As Planned. Flexibility is essential.
I’m with you on the house payment et al. My partner is staring down a potential layoff in six months or so. He’s OK with it because he has a paid-for home and vehicle and well-entrenched frugal habits. Plus a girlfriend who’s even cheaper than he is. 😉
LOL! There’s nothing like a Tightwad Partner to keep a rein on expenses!
The six-month lead time (in my case it was nine months) makes for some serious tooth grinding. On the other hand, it also gives you time to pay down (or off!) any outstanding debts and get things in order.
Pay. For. It.
I think putting this car on a loan is about the same, since the fund is there already to pay for it, and all we’ll be doing is drawing down from that money. I guess. Frosts my cookies to have to pay it at all. But…wot the hell.