Visited Hardwick's. Saw a juicer for 40% off: considering getting, but might try the juicer we inherited secondhand. Also am considering the kerosene lamp with lamp oil, for those romantic power outages. "Time to curl up with some Wordsworth or Dryden!"

Surprised to see most of my stocks up from last time I checked. My kid's stock is performing the best. Wish I had enough cash to feel comfortable enrolling in a direct purchase plan for Microsoft and Colgate-Palmolive.

I have less than $200K to satisfy in combined principal and interest on the house. Whee!

New credit cards arrived with higher limits. Too bad the 1997-era terms and conditions we agreed to when we applied aren't offered as well. Does Bank of America REALLY mean it when it prints 'we look forward to serving your credit card needs'? What if I need to have only 1% or lower exchange surcharge when I shop internationally? What if I need a 25-day grace period?

Purchased some raw, unpasteurized almonds, yay! Will sign up for pickling class for next Sunday, and buy daikon and cukes for pickling the day before.

In the screening room for the weekend -- Comedy Central's TV Funhouse; Corner Gas (Canadian television show); Fistful of Quarters, or the King of Kong (documentary about video game players)

I've been gifted with a giant zucchini, so large it makes women giggle especially after the punch line: "when 4000 rpm aren't enough!" (helps when the audience are women motorcyclists) So I'm being frugal this week and making zucchini dishes (with eggplant and sometimes tomatoes or eggs) until the Godzilla of Cucurbits is digested. And as self-serving this may read, it will help me when I have my dark low-confidence days to know that it is a brilliant mother who can make eggplant and zucchini taste so delicious her picky seven-year-old will beg for more.

Much later: I have learned Comedy Central's "TV Funhouse" is NOT child-appropriate. One is lulled initially by the presence of puppets, cartoons and guidance films...

I am impatient with regaining control over many parts of my life; it is hard when I need to share my life with uncontrolled variables such as people: the people who are deaf and keep loud barking dogs who bark at other dogs so three or four dogs are barking sixteen hours a day; the people who don't notice cat urine odor; people who crayon on walls; but this little hint delayed my throwing myself under a bus:

WD-40 works very well to remove crayon marks from painted walls.

I wonder what challenges I will overcome, and what problems will be solved tomorrow.

It seems many things are going awry in my world: I've waited far too long for my bathroom countertop to be replaced/fixed; I must redouble, singly it seems, my efforts to be better organized; and the first bid for remodeling our kitchen came in.

How much of this is my fault? The organization of the house and calendar planning, and the bid for the kitchen, as they are self-initiated. I don't have the patience to deal with other people's incompetencies right now, but I have to.

Understand that I'd be back to 2001-era debt levels if I used all my HELOC for a contingency fund, taxes, materials, and labor. I wouldn't do that anyway, because I don't want to poke my credit utilization ratio above 30%. If I used all of our available cash I can kiss goodbye the emergency fund and my Japan trip.

The kitchen is 61 years old. By kitchen I mean cabinets and countertop and hutch for the milkman to deposit glass bottles. No one will buy my house without a dishwasher. I am freaked. But yeah, without the $40K kicking around I'd be in much deeper financial muck.

I will not commence work on the kitchen nor sign any contract until the fershlugginer bathroom countertop is dealt with effectively. I've contacted the store, and the contractor I visited yesterday offered to call and see what the deal was with our bathroom -- I now have a call from the supplier to return! Wish me luck!

If you're feeling generous, post some recommendations for reading about flooring, countertops and dishwashers. Karma will kiss you back.

What I need, and I'll post them here and write them down so I can conjure their apparition: a no-b.s. job with bennies that pays well, and a kitchen-table financial mentor to show me where I can scrape back. I love mom-from-missouri's 100+ list for food savings, but wonder how much of that I can manage with 2 hours of spare time on the evenings I'm not learning Japanese, doing yoga, or decluttering the house.

Housing: 30%
Food: 10%
Auto/Trans: 7%
Insurance: 3%
Cons. Debt: 7% (kitchen remodel payments)
Recreation: 9% (includes travel -- remember, I'm flying to Osaka)
Investments: 20%
Clothing: 3%
Med/Dental: 2%
Miscellaneous: 6%
School: 3%

Food is easily the hardest one for us to cut back on, psychologically; Entertainment/recreation would be second; miscellaneous is third. It's hard to schedule for the sudden:
oh this event came up, we won't have time to have dinner at home.
Oh this is a concert we'd really like to see.
Oh my only surviving immediate relative is getting married in a country that's foreign to him.
Oh someone came in from out of town.
Oh someone I know had a stroke and needs cheering up.
Oh I got rear-ended and want a massage so my back doesn't seize up.
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I did not get the job I interviewed for, which is just as well. Someone else with lower expenses can truck it into no man's land on a daily basis in his or her Chevy Tahoe or Hummer H3: I will look around some more and maybe I'll find something bus-accessible or even walkable. Or I can look for opportunities in Toronto, Vancouver, Kamloops or Victoria.
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Cranky as of late, but a silver lining is that my city's Noise Abatement crew understands that penning two Great Danes in a 20'x40' run and leaving them unattended all day so they can bark out their frustration is a violation of the city's noise ordinance. We're logging the incidents of the dogs' owner's pet abuses. The dogs wouldn't bark in excess of 20x/daily if they were happy or satisfied with attention. Our neighborhood is simply not that dangerous to justify 20x/daily dog barking. Maybe their owners are unaware of the abundant doggie daycare businesses in the city.
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I wonder why my questions are not being answered on the forums. Gailete responded to my search for a 25-day grace period w/no mandatory arbitration card question, but I thought the 'household interest ratio' question was legitimately financial.
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Every time I check my Roth IRA balance I am reminded of the film Groundhog Day: even though I add $400 to it monthly, and have diversified positions (cash, ETFs, Vanguard funds, bear funds) my balance seems the same as it was the last time I checked (three weeks ago).

Paid $139 extra toward the mortgage, and $200 toward the Roth IRA.

I wouldn't have thought so, but I am very motivated: either to sell, or to pay off the house. A friend in the United Kingdom tells me her partner is on track to pay off his house in two-three years.

So I found on the Money Crashers blog two useful spreadsheets: a debt elimination spreadsheet, and a budget spreadsheet. I hope you find them as useful as I am finding them.

The dawn simulator timer works well. My cat wasted no time in telling us he had SAD, and appropriated my pillow the moment my spouse tested our ceiling-mount light setup.

Can someone also tell me how "looking for 25-day grace period" translates automatically yet incorrectly into some people's heads as "doesn't pay in full each month"? Because I've paid in full for years, and don't see how an increasing credit score and longer, more robust credit history disqualifies me from a 25-day grace period offered by major credit issuers. Are there some people who cannot process questions without running through some autopilot "blame the victim. Where there is no blame to hand victim, shut off contact" psychoscript?

I feel like baking blueberry muffins and listening to Erik Satie. Instead, I will declutter my bathroom junk and hookup an ugly yet effective dawn simulator for September - March. It wasn't cheap, but my happiness and effectiveness are worth it.

I have just been approached about F/T job opps at a major regional employer. Woo!

Earlier in the day I rode my scooter up to north Snohomish county (Arlington). Then the rain came, and I rocketed back home on the interstate. As much as 72mph in wind and rain can be considered 'rocketing'. I am a wuss.

I'm angry. I know, what else is new? I'm angry because I have just now understood that if I remained angry, I'd be closer to being completely debt-free. But no: I had to be melancholic, lethargic, maternal, content, stuck, pessimistic, distracted. I did not stay quixotic.

MSN Money contributor Liz Pulliam Weston's article "What if we all got money-smart? has fanned my flames.

What if every household in America:

* Paid off credit cards in full every month and carried no high-rate debt? (54% of credit card holders do this; at least 25% of the population has no credit cards)

* Had an emergency fund equal to at least three months' worth of expenses? (38% of Americans actually keep that much savings on hand)

* Saved at least 10% of earnings for retirement?

* Paid off cars before trading them in? (76% of people do this)

* Bought only as much house as it could afford? (2% of households in the country are in foreclosure, so 98%? or are we waiting for 12% of the mortgage-payers to go under?)

I thought 67% of American households were already doing that, and that would be enough. Why does it have to be 100% of households? Maybe I'll just sacrifice some more, and really build up my savings, so I can:
• pay off the mortgage and starve the bank;
• buy real estate somewhere where the crash won't be so keenly felt;
• pay less in consumption taxes and worsen the infrastructure budget, and shame the government(s) I don't approve of.

When I save 40% of our pre-tax income, and prosper in a failing economy, you'll know I am well and truly vexed beyond measure.

"We increased your APR [for Check Cash Advances, Direct Deposits, Cash Equivalents, ATM Cash Advances, Bank Cash Advances, Overdraft Protection Cash Advances and Returned Payments] due to the balances and APRs on this account" to 24.99%

My APR? 12.99%
My prior APR [for Check Cash Advances, etc.] 21.99%
My balance: $0.00

So who's the bad guy here? Me for having a clean account?

It went okay: I think I have a 25% - 55% chance of securing the position. I sent thank you notes to everyone via e-mail, as some conversations were conducted over the telephone. The morning commute is sweet -- 20 miles averaging 50+ mph. Compare with 18 miles of averaging 15 mph. Sadly, transportation options would be limited.

I took the afternoon off, getting little errands run like completing my child's school supplies shopping, changing security questions at the credit union, making buns, buying eggs.

I'm reading Julie Morgenstern's Time Management from the Inside Out and I think I understand why my house is always in such a mess: it's disorganized, and no one is motivated to do much cleaning. It takes 1.5 - 2 days to properly organize/clean a room. I don't want to pay someone $40/hour to direct me to label boxes with 'keep' 'decide later' and 'purge', or to ask me every time I pick something up if I need it or if it adds beauty in my life. I can do that myself, it's the time that's the problem.
I'd sooner pay someone to make my meals and run my errands. Then I can organize my life and save the world, or at least 3/8000000000ths of it. Canning, harvesting food (greens aren't being harvested --- they're bolting in our garden), learning Japanese, teaching my kid manners, making kitchen decisions, keeping up correspondence, decluttering primary election materials: people superior to me can manage this while they have 160-minute round-trip commutes. I sure wish they'd tell me how they do it and keep a healthful sleep and exercise routine. With a planned menu for the week, I could save maybe $20-$25/week which I could use for investing in more rainbarrels, or creating a sustainable landscape design.

If I get this job I'd like to take a week off to literally get my house in order. Then plan on living with a reduced income (transportation costs, lower salary).

This documentary, featuring Warren Buffett and David Walker is coming to 400 theaters nationwide August 21, 2008. Check here for a theater near you. Patrick Creadon, who helmed the fabulous documentary Wordplay partnered with his wife to create I.O.U.S.A. so I am sure it will be worth watching.

Speaking of I.O.U.S.A, or the color of money, I'm surprised not all of America is a red state by now. I'm going with black is beautiful, which I thought it was before I got my green card. If things get worse, I'll be blue about having to return to my pink country so I can have some black and green in my life, and not red and blue.

"Mom! Let's pick blackberries! Let's go!" x 3 last night. One child, three iterations.

So we forage, the three of us, into the brambles and blackberry patches a block away from us, with a large plastic bowl. I should learn to make jam with the berries, I guess. Or freeze them. We used them with our ice cream, and now my son is all about vitamins and free food and foraging. Bless that child.

I should look into workshops and events that teach how to forage in an urban landscape. The only times I do this it seems are in January for rose hips and August for blackberries.

Have you seen this one?

http://htaindex.cnt.org/map_tool

Maps of metropolitan statistical areas that track Housing and Transportation Costs as Percent of Income. Blue areas indicate areas that do not meet affordability standards (housing + transportation greater than or equal to 45% of median income). Cream areas meet affordability standards.

I'm surprised to learn that my area is among the unaffordable. We have postwar houses, trucks, RVs. Not really manicured lawns, few luxury SUVs, no homeowner association - subdivisions. The new Priuses and the Subaru wagons with the Thules and the Coexist bumper stickers are in the even less affordable areas south of us. On the other hand, the affordable areas in our city are the ones with the highest crime rates (burglary, gang violence, car theft).

Then again, I can also understand why the payday lending places are nearby. It's cheaper to rent where I live than to own.

Note to DH, who's reading this: your parents live in one of the few "blue" areas of your hometown. It's a small area, but over a mile away from any other blue area so it's easy to identify.

or is it lacking payment stamina? These past two weeks have been the fiscal equivalent of having three pints of blood withdrawn.

We made our last payment for childcare. I signed up for some community education courses: Japanese, Yoga, decluttering and kitchen remodeling.

Mailed the cheques out to the contractor, although he's on vacation.

I showered in our new bathroom. I love the light in it. Everything gleams so brightly, I suddenly note the rust on our shower rod. Guessing $3300 addition to the house value. Bathtub may need a new enamel job: its beige tint doesn't go well with the bright white gleam.

Considering a dawn simulator for the fall and autumn months. I had pondered a big full-spectrum therapy light box but they're expensive, and I haven't had a proper diagnosis of Seasonal Affective Disorder. The dawn simulator would help us both. I should start on the St. Johns Wort now, I reckon.

A new Yamaha battery would set me back a mere $70 on eBay. Considering... one thing I really like about my city is that there are many scooter and motorcycle riders who are generous with their advice. If I get the job in the city 20 miles north I'll lean on the spouse to sell one of our scooters, and consider blowing my car fund. Or -- gasp! -- lease a car. If I knew for certain I'd be back in the home country for keeps within 24 months, I would lease. Ideally, he'd get a ZipCar membership for taking the kid to appointments.

$5000 away from having 67% equity in the house. Watch this happen five years from now.
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Link du Jour: Home Equity Frenzy Was a Bank Ad Come True -- "The Debt Trap" series by the New York Times: banks' advertising campaigns to promote home equity loans and home equity lines of credit.

remaining balance on bathroom materials: $1245
8/14: paid $440 down on credit card

invoice for bathroom labor: $4836.34
8/14: sent cheques totalling $4836.34 to contractor.

school supplies shopping: $120.00
8/14: $35 spent so far, needing low-odor dry erase markers

interview outfit with fall boots (I held off on fall/winter boots: this will be my first ever adult fall/winter boots purchase): $450

anniversary: $200 (presents plus dinner?)
8/14: $179. No babysitter was available, so we didn't drink or have fancy desserts.

outstanding doctor visit bill (insurance won't cover it): $185
8/14: placed on credit card

I'm ready for my winning lotto ticket.

Americans are beginning to reduce their debt exposure - as seen in the savings rate, which rose from 0.3pc to 2.6pc in the last three months, the third steepest quarterly increase since the Second World War.

Before the US economy can truly begin to expand again, Rosenberg believes the savings rate must rise to pre-bubble levels of 8pc, that the US housing stocks must fall to below eight months' supply, and that the household interest coverage ratio must fall from 14pc to 10.5pc.

"It's important to note what sort of surgery that is going to require. We will probably have to eliminate $2 trillion of household debt to get there," he predicts, saying this will happen either through debt being written off, as major financial institutions continue to do, or for consumers themselves to shrink their own "balance sheets".

My family's share of household debt to pay off: $19354.84. Could be house renovations, could be the mortgage. But there's a goal: $1612.91/month to divide between the mortgage and the home renovations, maybe even a car. I'd looked at CarTalk.com and MotherProof for car recommendations and reviews. Still liking the Nissan Altima Hybrid, or honda Accord, or Toyota Prius, although the Nissan Versa is a consideration too now.

But hey, way to crank up that savings rate, America! If you can nontuple your savings, why can't I?

Scheduling to tackle the $19354.84 after March 2009, when the bathroom is done, and I've returned from Japan.

I'm reading Mary McCarthy's The Group and Evelyn Waugh's Scoop. This weekend I rented from the library "Adam's Rib," a 1949 film adaptation from a play by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.

In The Group, a minor character tells a fellow alumna how she and her husband keep the books as an evening ritual. Lady Metroland in Scoop tends to her books with the help of an assistant while she has a facial, in bed. (This would be my preferred housekeeping modus operandi.)

I should do this. I absolutely should. Along with making a lunch for the next day, evening prayers, a ritual for sorting the books and accounts. Right now I keep a weekly record of goal allotments, and a monthly tally on the net worth, but with so much going on, I need to do some money juggling.

In "Adam's Rib" the two lawyers beam with pride after paying off their Connecticut farm after SIX WHOLE YEARS. The last cheque was for something like eight thousand dollars (in 1949 money). Wow. I bet they had to cut back the maid's hours to weekday mornings.

When I read short stories or novels about the Twenties or the Thirties I wonder how people afforded maids. My grandmother worked part-time as a maid. I also wonder how bad the Depression was: I had read The Grapes of Wrath and assumed it was like that--starvation, violence, riots, homelessness--for most people, especially after learning that stock traders in New York had jumped out of windows. Ah, the good old days. Now they bottle up their rage and shame and unleash their demons in churches or at their families, with assault rifles. And stories of people licking wallpaper paste for vitamins.

And yet my grandparents survived. They had a house in what is now a prime real estate area and four children, after moving from their Dust Ice Bowl home province which was hit hard by the economic slowdown -- my very own ancestors, the Joad family of the North! (J/K: nobody in my family got into scraps or got killed or picked fruit) I think they moved to the West Coast during the early 1930s. Not everyone lost their houses. Some people make money in a recession.

I might name my scooter after someone largely blamed for the rise in gas prices, except I think it really is 'peak oil' and I don't have the time to get 2.5 billion names for the bike.

Obligatory 'Murkin' content: Depression photos of St. Louis, Missouri

Q. Regarding large chains of retail outlets, where did you shop until the last straw came along? What was the last straw?

Some large chains do much, it seems, to keep me out of their stores. Kroger's QFC would clutter its aisles with fourth-rate DVDs for sales and institute anti-employee policies ("do not use your Advantage Card to give deals to customers who don't have them," "work standard hours near our promo display with hay when you have allergies"). I used to spend at least $300/month on groceries there, now it's like $40/month on necessities or last minute items.

Walgreen's seems to demand its check-out personnel robotically ask if I am interested in some useless item on the counter. Because I can't possibly be interested in limiting myself only to the purchases I want or need, supposedly. Or go in thinking I need an invitation to spend my dough on one of the useless "last-minute purchases" at the counter, but help myself to what's on the shelves. I go in, get the spiel, smile sweetly and say "are you giving them away for free?" and if they say no, I go to a local drug store chain (not within walking distance) instead for three months.

You've read about millionaires who dress as if they earn $30K, and have the car to match: here is The $30K Millionaire. (Sorry if I've insulted anyone's son, brother, husband or boyfriend.)

At first I read this to mean "30K" was what they owed, but it's apparently salary. I was honestly unaware of this phenomenon, although one friend would likely claim several of her coworkers are like that. I wondered why Dallas came up as the prime city for "30K millionaires" until someone in a forum explained that Dallas is the mecca for discount outlets for high-end designer label clothes. Does this happen in other cities too?

I skimmed some sites on moving back, and one suggested I buy a house and rent it out. Not enough money in the budget to go buy another house right now. I might ask some friends to go halfsies with me on a duplex: I could count on them to keep an eye on real estate prices.

Today my first kitchen designer comes through. I am worried about the cost of the kitchen: I have a large enough HELOC to cover it, but the preferred credit utilization ratio is less than my anticipated kitchen budget.

I had a good phone screen yesterday: a half-hour call turned into a 95-minute conversation. I hope to interview in person next week. This is a full-time permanent position that will not be cut back in an economic downturn. My concern is transit: I fear my options would be limited to scooter, car, carpool or vanpool. It piques me that there's so much promotion about riding transit: it's a no-brainer if I'm going downtown or to a major employment center on the Eastside, but try going to a minor employment center in an industrial park in another county 24 miles away and there's no hope to make it taking fewer than three buses or two hours. The commuter rail runs counter to my route (I would have reverse rush-hour). Is it my fault for choosing a house in a major city and getting away with public transit for most of my years in that house? Should I spend $28.00/day on transportation (rail fees) to prevent "climate change" when gas would cost me $36/week by car or $20/week on scooter? I see that my choice to ride the bus for free hasn't singlehandedly reduced gas prices or eliminated the threat of climate change.

I reserve the right to have sushi on occasion with the coworkers. Seriously, since August I have brought my hipster-ironic 1940s "modern living" lunch kit with me, and remembered to pack a lunch. I hope this will help prevent food from spoiling and help us save some money.

I also suspended our CSA for four weeks while we eat our way through our garden. So far we've eaten only the parsley, basil and the lettuce.

I can't do much to make a sizable difference in my water bill. I will try one method of body cleaning that apparently saves 90% of water.

I was going to bake bread this weekend -- opted for rolls instead, and oh boy, the difference lukewarm water and the Kitchen-Aid dough hook make! These were the best rolls I'd ever made, and I'd used the recipe 30 times. Very fluffy on the inside, wee bit o' crust on the outside.

My splurge today has been for products on the King Arthur Flour website.

To celebrate the completion of my bathroom and garage door savings goals, I am taking some continuing education classes through the local community college: yoga, Japanese, clutter clearing, and how to plan a kitchen remodel.

Not my words. But they charged me into investigating my usage. Electricity: 17kWh/day. Water: 55 CCF or 112 gallons/day.

As mentioned earlier, our residential utility rates are going up, like everything else except electronics. Yet I found that our SFH usage of electricity and water was 68-70% that of the average home in our city. So how is it that we are paying too much? The water cost is $22/month.

I freaked a little yesterday when I read my utility needed to raise its water service charges by 40% over the next three years. So, because I am stoopid, I Googled the following links:

Save Water 49 Ways

How to conserve water in your home and yard

How to conserve water

Questions and answers for the three people who read this:

1. What personal finance podcasts do you listen to?
I don't have any money podcasts I can use RSS or subscription methods for. I know of Financial Sense but never have the time to listen to it. I have started to listen to Michelle Singletary on NPR. I have a bookmark for Gerri Detweiler's ARCHIVED podcast too.

2. If you have a del.icio.us account, what bookmarks do you have for 'frugality', 'budgeting' or 'saving'? Bonus points for 'housekeeping' or 'home organization'

Some of mine are: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/10/02/the-one-hour-project-thirty-ways-to-use-one-hour-to-improve-your-finances-and-open-the-door-to-more-riches/

http://www.frugalfun.com/frugal.html

Most of my del.icio.us links are added on this page as links in a side column