Percentage by which our net worth has increased over a twelve-month period, including the rapid rise of the stock market up until July 2007 and our too-late-to-the-party home equity rise, which is now falling because some combination of reality and winter caught up with it.

I'm mollified to read that our windows replacement netted us a $4K in additional value to our home.

% increase from August 2006 to August 2007: 22%
% "" September 2006 to September 2007: 28%
% "" October 2006 to October 2007: 35%
% "" November 2006 to November 2007: 27%

Looking at these double-digit improvements I can see how people get tempted to buy Lexus vehicles and granite countertops.

Demos released a paper about the vulnerability of the middle-class. For optimal financial security, a middle-class household should be able to live for nine months at 75 percent of current living expenses using net financial assets (no home equity loans or lines of credit, no retirement savings).

Also, there should be more than $25,000 left at the end of the year (about $480/week). Ugh. Unless I sell my gold, my family is not secure. I guess it's good to have an honest and challenging reappraisal, so I can prepare appropriately for 2008 and not be caught unaware.

Just so you know this morning I had that legendary dream of arriving at school for my first class only to learn that finals are three weeks away. I had a half-hour to get myself to the campus, to a building I'd never been in, and oh yeah, to get a textbook: The Anatomy Coloring Book. Then I get waylaid advising a hungry woman where she should go nearby for food, and then lost in the library... this dream can be interpreted to mean I'm facing a challenge I'm not sure I'm up to.

I am told by my spouse we are doing okay, but that only means that in our 13-year marriage haven't yet had a crisis we haven't weathered capably upon our collected reserves. The windows were not a crisis, they were a tax-credit opportunity for short-term (under 90 days) leveraging. Until I have enough reserves to manage huge purchases in cash, I'm going to rationalize short-term (12 months for vehicles, 90 days for home improvement) borrowing.

Yes, the paper did come from a partisan think tank. I wonder what middle-class people as defined by Demos in terms of net assets (read the footnotes) and income and size of household of a differing political bent consider adequate reserves for optimal financial security, and if they would share them here. I invite them to. A plurality of perspectives would help us all see the truth.

I'll probably remove this later, but here goes...

Yes, free speech is a mighty fine thing. I consider it hucksterish and misleading, however, when finance lending and locksmith companies open up blogs here as extensions of their marketing activities because it's of no cost.

"Hey, I see that Curves and Jenny Craig have free blogs, I think those places are the best for me to market my donut and pastry business!"

There's nothing in the Code of Conduct that prevents these people to open their blogs. If they misread their target market or are so desperate to take whatever free space is available to them, they'll doom themselves soon enough. Edit: it looks like people know when their intelligence is being insulted, or when a company is marketing without integrity. I hope these 'commercial but don't want to pay advertising rates to give Jeffrey and Nate any revenue owed to them' blogging entities share their thoughts, issues, goals and daily musings about their personal finances and money today. You know, the way we other bloggers do, the way that the text on the Member blogs home page reads.

I tried to be as local as I could, shopping within twenty-five blocks. One chain was out of a gift (that I couldn't find anywhere except online) but gave me a terrific deal on it and its accessory as long as I picked up the item from another outlet further away -- it's apparently a hot item, and I got the last one in stock. Another chain store within walking distance didn't have in stock another gift I was looking for but put it on order for me. Again, a good deal. My spouse is getting spoiled this year.

I went to a local, unique store to buy some stocking stuffers and gifts for my lad. Sometimes I have to choose between supporting the local economy and getting exercise. Sometimes I don't: I bought a gift for a friend in New York state from a locally owned store, and I walked there.

I suppose that because I walked and enjoyed the sun and fresh air that I wasn't as misanthropic, claustrophobic and harried as I would have been if I had driven. The retail staff saw me, saw my list, and cheerfully directed me to where I would have found the item had it been in stock. I do try to be prepared because I have worked retail. The retail outlet that was further away was very slow at 3:40 pm on Sunday, which made me happy.

Amazingly, this could be the first year in nine where I haven't purchased any gifts through Amazon.com. (Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk do not count.)

Lots of little ideas to write about, not enough time or energy to expand them.

Homegrown link: Saving Advice's own five-step ugly duckling investment guide

Rated G, Safe for Work link for the 1980s synthopop music fans.

My psychological block comes from seeing these large but not large enough amounts trickle into our accounts. What do I mean by "not large enough?" I've been putting $1500 aside monthly into 3-month CDs for our mortgage. Emergency fund not really an emergency fund but a place to park the money for expenses we anticipate in the next six months. Because I don't understand how one can plan for an adequate fund for unanticipated expenses? Who knows what unanticipated expenses cost, anyone?

$10,000 is the minimum deposit allowed for a money market account at our credit union paying 4.x% as of this typing.

In 2008 Roth IRA maximum contributions for those of us under 50 is $5000.

$2,000 is the minimum balance required for a trading account to engage in options or to do any significant trading.

$20,000 is what we expect to pay for a used vehicle two or three years away, including taxes and insurance.

Expenses going up for sure next year: food, transportation, energy, insurance (it always goes up), taxes.

A new roof? $17500? I don't know.
Adding all those up, and seeing 1/36th of that total trickle into the chequing account... My HELOC is for $18,000 only, because I had this idea in my head that if I stuck to one year's mortgage expenses, or 5% of the house value, I wouldn't get into trouble.

I resolve to crack open my mind about saving and personal finance the way I keep my beginner mind open and fresh about politics here. It is the only way, that I know of, to learn how people earning an average income afford short-term, medium-term and long-term necessities and goals without going into debt in an inflationary environment. And to search for opportunities to save $100 more each month without cramping our lifestyle.

I also vow that if I find a way to do this without relying on one personal finance book alone, I'm gonna write a book.

We're doing it low-key today, being thankful for having the family we have, living where we live, having a positive net worth, and our health.

I was listening to the first three minutes of July 20, 2006 "Sound Investing." I'm now going to pump up my retirement contributions to 20%. Gradually.

Egged on, no doubt, by too much coffee and the crushing responsibility of managing twenty-two accounts, I phoned TD Ameritrade, valued client that I am, and requested to take advantage of a free Amerivest consultation.

Within fifteen minutes someone at the local branch gave me a call. Today is a DEAD DAY at work, not only for me but for the local TD Ameritrade branch so I made an emergency appointment, bringing my folders and my account numbers and statements from other plans with me.

At the end of the consultation, the rep gave me "professional validation" for my fund choices and allocations: "The only way you could do any better would be if you had a Series 7 license and were working professionally managing other people's money."

He is SO getting a holiday card from me!

He made his first consumer purchase at Target on Saturday, with the proceeds from sacrificing a tooth.

Yesterday I read online that: a fair predictor of a child's success in school comes from math skill proficiency in Kindergarten or Grade 1, so I took out some Spectrum Math Workbooks at K and Grade 1 level and told my kid we'd work on them after dinner. His eyes lit up. No, no sarcasm here.

He wanted to work exclusively on the money problems.

I had to get some ibuprofen because I kept slapping my head: "D'oh!"

Seriously, David Bach's book has some simple ideas that I'm eager to implement, but there are, thanks to hindsight, also paragraphs of unintentional hilarity:

"In 2002, Fannie Mae created what it calls the American Dream Commitment, a program to provide $2 trillion in funding over the next decade in order to increase homeownership in America by 18 million new families." (p. 168)

"In 2002, President George W. Bush announced a goal of increasing the number of U.S. homeowners by 5.5 million over the next eight years." (p. 166)

"As U.S. housing prices climbed steadily through the late 1990s and early years of the twenty-first century, some people began to worry if we were experiencing a real estate 'bubble,' similar to the unjustified run-up we saw with 'dot-com' stocks." (p. 165)

Getting back to 2007...
I was not happy to hear that the attempt to change the Alternate Minimum Tax rules to give middle-income families was vetoed in favour of retaining tax advantages for private equity fund managers. I know wars and social programs need to be funded somehow, and maybe middle-income people are falsely claiming entitlement in this case. After thirty years of being the economic martyr for the top and bottom 10% of the US population, you'd have to have either amnesia or some mighty gall to demand a tax restructure so you can afford food, transportation, clothing, education, healthcare and shelter. Who gets paid to listen to the middle-income? No wonder the voting population is low here... the middle-income people have figured out long ago few people are fighting for their interests.

Still, this infuses me with fresh motivation to downscale my expenses even further, to give my money to underserved populations (i.e. disadvantaged, not private equity fund managers) AND to increase my pre-tax contributions, anything legal to avoid the AMT. As if rising prices weren't enough: time to investigate bartering, "grey markets" and picking up some new skills.

I love my child. He told me today I was not dumb. You know how I fret about my inability to understand common behaviours and ascribe this inability to a personal failing or malfunction of one of the brain lobes than my eternal "otherness."

The Tooth Fairy visited my child very early this morning. It was her first visit, but she managed to do her job without rousing the lad or at least one other parent. Somebody apparently prepared the boy for what to expect when his baby teeth start to fall out, because he broached the subject of money when he announced his two front teeth were loose. My child's first financial planning exercise! "Should we go to the toy store?" he asked. Then he tried to help himself to more dollars from my night table.

I must start him on an allowance, where some of his money is apportioned to saving (most in the credit union), some for personal spending, and some to come back to us (rent and taxation: he told a check-out grocery dude he was saving his money to help pay for the house!). I like $5.00 weekly, where he sees $1.00 go to his accounts, $1.00 to go to his 'rent', and $3.00 in his pocket. Don't scowl at me like that, 20% gross income spent on housing is good! I could do take the money silently, telling him his allowance is only $4.00... he'd be okay with that.

I remember the time I was six, and a "roving reporter" 8-year-old with his tape recorder was interviewing the kids on the block about the economy. I grumbled about the high price of chocolate bars. It's never too early to learn about the hard knocks of life.

The gas bill came and our usage was higher than it was last year, even with the new windows. The weather was only a little colder. What do I blame: my penchant for hot baths, more frequent washing or baking? Someone playing around with the thermostat when I'm not home?

I have mentioned my impatience before. We were paid today, and I saw that our checking account balance was nearly twice that of the HELOC and I thought "if I pay it off now, I won't have a balance to think of again." Paying it off was like plucking a chin hair.

I had been in debt for six weeks Edit: paying off replacement windows. Hardly a situation to bring the loansharks a-calling, or worthy to pop open a champagne bottle.

My son's credit union account pays 29 times more interest than the School Savings Account.

For people who have E*Trade accounts: if you request a change of your surname, because E*Trade cut off a letter from your surname when it entered your data, and your zip code is changed instead, if you request a change of your zip code does your surname get changed? Is there a codebook of how to request changes from E*Trade? I'd request again, but the English I used did not result in 100% satisfaction of my request, and when I was requesting WinStar to cease sending me monthly billing statements for $0.00, I was advised that WinStar had more pressing problems, the same problems E*Trade seems to be having.

I could be making a big debt in my HELOC. I haven't: I've been allocating only 25% of our takehome pay to payments, and only on the day we get paid. I contented myself with taking 11 weeks to pay off the debt, and I have six weeks to go. I also am allocating 20% of my takehome pay to my Roth IRA. The rest of the money stagnates in savings and chequing. The sum of my chequing and savings is greater than what I owe on my HELOC.

Logically I should be moving as much money as possible to the debt, but I consider that we might also want to add to our emergency fund, and there are two four-digit expenses to anticipate in the near future: a new refrigerator, and the de-sharking of our kid (he has a double row of teeth). Yet we could charge the purchase of the fridge on a credit card, and the potential dental work on another one. Cross those bridges when we come to them.

Maybe I should just "trust in the Great Universal Energy" and cut my eleven-week plan short.

This is why I want lots of available cash: so I don't have to prioritize and stagger payments, but rather take care of things in full when they are due. "Oh, here is January 1, 2008. Think I'll drop $5K on my Roth IRA. Tomorrow." "Hmmm, looks like our car went to the Happy Carbon Emissions Ground. Time to drop $20K on a newer car." "Is that a drop of precipitation I feel from the ceiling of my house? What a good thing I have all these dollars kicking around for a new roof!"

No wonder "reserve" has two meanings!

Performance artist and activist Rev. Billy is the subject of a movie produced by Morgan Spurlock. What Would Jesus Buy?

I might consider seeing it but the trailer makes it look over-the-top and nothing but extreme theatricality. I hope it's not all evangelistic-fervour-pretense and cute neologisms like "shopocalypse" and "shopture." It's as if many people will pay attention only to sensationalism, and messages are received only if the messenger is haranguing and gesticulating wildly. The message of the movie is probably anti-corporate activism, and not so much how consumerism affects the individual. Which makes me suspect it's more about the entertainment value of the delivery of the message, than the quality of the message itself.

I suppose, if there are any compulsive shoppers left to convert, Rev. Billy's crusade serves a purpose. But Rev. Billy's clothes came from somewhere, he probably has a car, and where does he eat when he's on tour? Is he making an example of some easy, frequently hit targets like Wal*Mart and Starbucks? Is it going to be people shouting over each other for drama: i.e., the commonly accepted form of discourse perpetuated by mass media? Is there anyone left in America who doesn't know about sweatshop labor? Am I going to learn anything new from this film?

Retireability Check from Nationwide Insurance. A score above 100 is good.

My spouse received severance pay check #1. We have put 25% of it toward the HELOC, and $650 toward the computer purchase he made. Our credit card balance is at $0. I was surprised to see that our credit limit went up by $3000... must have been the spending we did on our vacation. If our credit limit had been raised only two months earlier, we would not have used the home equity line of credit for the windows.

Gave $110 to the Salvation Army, expecting lots of people to be hurting this year.

My son's school is participating in a "Penny Harvest" so we are harvesting coins (not Canadian) that we find.

Today, even though I was very much the consumer, I felt loved and appreciated everywhere I went this morning: Lowell's, because printed on its menu is "Lowell's Loves You!"; my optometry shop, because they fixed my bent temple for free; the Cafe I complained about earlier this year, because they noticed I hadn't shown up for a few months they were very nice to me without being obsequious; and a salon close to the cafe, for a needed haircut. The salon was a little obsequious, but excellent, only a little pricier than where I was going before, and deserving of my return business.

Median value of homes for people in their 40s according to Federal Reserve's 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances is $175,000. Mortgages are about $102,000.
I wonder what 2007 will bring. I bet higher house values and higher mortgages.

Median value of vehicles is $18,000.

I am disappointed by the Twenty Things to Get Before You're 40 piece from "marie claire" magazine. A Yves St Laurent tux? Gucci luggage at $3350? That would sit in my car trunk as I blow $3.75/gallon, or to be messed with at customs while I wait through interrogation and deep cavity searches at airports? A first edition of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse? A piece of art? A Cartier roadster watch? A 50-inch television? Why? What could television possibly offer me that would be worth that investment? A Cadillac roadster for a sweet ride? Would it get me from Point A to Point B any faster than my motorcycle? "Oh, let her disobey the HOV3 lane requirements: she has a CADILLAC!" What I do have are the equivalent of classic DVDs: Chaplin DVDs and a membership at Scarecrow Video. Maybe the fee-only Financial Planner would be good too, but that would require having taxable investment assets of $100,000 or greater, wouldn't it?

Are all mass-circulation magazines for American women for the affluent? Is it supposed that American women who aren't affluent are too busy or uneducated to read magazines? Are articles created by woman-haters? Is there anyone from marie claire or elsewhere keeping tabs on the acquisition habits of women in their 40s? Do you know many women who are 39.5 years old and have paid off their mortgages, solved world hunger, maximized their retirement and their children's college fund accounts, and have all this excess cash burning a hole in their YSL tux pockets? "Spend me! You need a $4K wristwatch and a $78K car!" Marie Claire subscribers are about age 31, are 82% employed with a median household income of $68K. Mail order shopping of apparel, general merchandise, gifts, home decor and more helps them juggle a busy professional and social calendar.

I would love to know what saving habits enable these women to afford these consumer must-have items...

This reflects apparently the reality of marie claire's subscription base, but not my reality. I am a member of America's bottom 75%...