Or do I want Julie Morgenstern to do a declutter makeover with me? I just need a makeover. No, I need four makeovers: physical, career, financial, and home. The quad track solution project planner.

My hardcover copy of Steve Pavlina's book came last night: hurray! In addition to reading Didion, I'm rereading Orchids on Your Budget, a Depression-era guide for women on making it through dark financial times.

A local periodical did a feature last week on a bank on the verge of seizure by the FDIC and of ownership by JP Morgan Chase. It was refreshing and hopeful to read that there are people whose life savings are not at risk in this environment, even if it is because they have very little in life savings.

In short, I want to be the superhero and star of my life, and not play Louise Beavers or Una O'Connor to some over-entitled lazybutt doofuses.

Whee, I have a lower net worth than I had this January, never mind that I diversified and bought precious metals, CDs, I-bonds, foreign currency and bear funds, and contributed over 15% to my 401(k) and am 70% through my annual Roth IRA contributions. Ignore the sustenance of 65%+ equity in the home and prepayments too. Never mind that I improved/remodelled the bathroom. Anyone out there speeding their way in reverse gear like me? Oh wait, Wade Cook and his wife Phyllis have their $1.8 million property in Fall City, Washington up for County auction -- way to default on that Deed of Trust, Wade! Was that part of your high-flyin' "I will make you rich" stock seminars of the 1990s? Think I'll submit Wade's name to Jean Chatzky for an Oprah Debt Diet...

It's safe. No discussion of what happened today. No snark. No politics. No juice recipes. No 'my kid said the cutest thing today.' Come on in.

Humberto Cruz's 20 rules to apply to your finances

Andrew Tobias, six years ago, had a multi-article run on the wisdom of Dick Davis, who had an investment newsletter and who has a book out: The Dick Davis Dividend.

We had a hectic day, even though we let the natural sun wake us this morning. I should have gone out earlier, but such is life. I cheated on my fast by having an 8 ounce drip of coffee, settled some more details with the contractor, MAILED MY FILLED BALLOT FOR THE OCTOBER 14 ELECTION, bought food to donate to food banks, returned library books, did yoga, got farmers market goodies, paid mortgage, did laundry, walked to library, got brandy for Poulet á la Moutarde, bourbon for the Man Who Worked Too Much, ordered birthday cake for Spridle errr... my kid, went to Archie McPhee's for loot bag treats, picked up library books, made sausage and peppers where I totally broke my fast, and am now breaking wind (bet you needed to know that)!

More stuff you didn't need to know: picked up a book on kitchens, Bob's Red Mill baking book (was hoping to get King Arthur Flour baking book), Slouching Toward Bethlehem (Didion, not Yeats) and Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi.

Organic Valley is offering preferred stock with a 6% dividend, 100 shares minimum at $50/share. I'm tempted, but I guess I'd have to research that... I haven't owned so much of one stock and frankly, I'm slowly growing my allocation of bonds and fixed income instruments -- essentially buying once a month and letting my stocks sink like Virginia Woolf. My rancher/meat provider was offering stock at a 10% dividend eighteen months ago, didn't take up on that either.

Bonus Bible Quote! "A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh glad the life: and money answereth all things." Ecclesiastes 10:19

Or should the Entry Title read: "We Faw Down and Go Boom!"

Our son could buy 1200 shares of WM with the money he saved in his WM account. We haven't talked to him yet about the bank failure. We're hoping he doesn't notice. I'm reminded of something he would say when we did Banking: he'd announce "only bankers drink at the banking table!" Indeed, that might very well be what they're doing now...

BoA has finally offered me a 0% APR for check cash advances and balance transfers, but the standard transaction fee for either of these is $10. No cap of course. It's for a year, though, and that's better than the 2.99% for eight months I'd been getting for oh, four years. Hmmm... HELOC @ 4.74% @ $20K or BoA @ 3.00% @ 15K and some other combo...

One friend has solicited my advice over the past week about investing: what brokerage? what funds? ETFs? How to save for certain goals? I recommended Scottrade, ShareBuilder or Zecco, but she's chosen to make an appointment where I have my accounts (what can I say, my discount brokerage takes care of me and doesn't do dumb things like diversify into mortgages, like E*TRADE did). I feel good in that I genuinely and honestly shared an approach that wasn't intimidating, nor required a lot of new vocabulary, and was completely about what would be best for her.

I recommended Andrew Tobias's book The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need to her: I think she'd really enjoy his writing and would learn lots from him -- I still do. She's meeting with the guy I talk to about my investments: he remembers me and said I was very analytical about my investments!

Now if I could bottle up this lovingkindness and use it when I need it the most...

Thank you to all who contributed recipes and advice on my potluck predicament, and thank you to the people who validated my culinary skills. I may invite you to dine once the kitchen is done. At least it'll be done before American Thanksgiving.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney's Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights was approved by the House of Representatives this week.

Analyze Now publishes a letter its author wrote to his family, advising them on financial strategy and asset allocations during this tough time.

I'm not going to do any active rebalancing, other than check my periodic investment plans to see that I'm still contributing to short-term treasuries and BEARX.

Another question: someone on another forum boasted that her electricity utility cost was $0.0008/kWh, or 0.08 cents. What state has insanely cheap electricity costs? I'm paying $0.069/kWh and thought that was fairly decent... or did she not know how to use a decimal points with Anglo-American standard currency notation? This matters to me, I don't want to be paying electricity bills that are 70x higher than some other state's... [updated price per kWh, also found Nationwide Utilities survey. My utility is at the bottom of the list, but I'm paying 87x more than someone else?

(See how nicely that Entry Title skirts any gender or familial suppositions?)

Apparently there's a school potluck on Friday that two of my family members are keen to attend. The schoolchild's ego is tied up in making sure his mom (me) supplies a dish and, more importantly, the dish be well-loved and tasty. I have OODLES of cookbooks, so I am at risk of analysis paralysis. What have been past potluck super-performers as the weather turns cool and grey?

I tried an apple flan and brioche last year. No one touched the apple flan, and only my coworkers gobbled up the brioche. I misunderstood the bake sale market. I keep thinking that the families drive Lexus minivans or Subaru Legacies and have hot tubs behind their $500K houses -- I don't, but I have emotional scars of poverty. Still, one can be not-as-well-off and enjoy good brioche attractively priced...

Maybe a vegan red pepper - tomato soup with some yogurt herb bread...

It was 40F when I left the house this morning. It was 60F inside the house and unsurprisingly no one was really keen to get out of bed. I considered taking the scoot, and am sad now I didn't. I have not yet reset the thermostat from our summer usage. I wonder if this is the year we see a $200 monthly gas bill.

Bought power strip and contact paper for bathroom. I guess an insulating blanket for the water heater is next; maybe a heavier door, replacement screen doors and a weatherstripping moment follow soon after.

The spouse has offers pending on his miniature fantasy army and his scooter. I guess the money will go to the increased cost of our countertops, or pulls/knobs and pendant lamp for the kitchen. When I find my Visa card I'll buy the appliances.

More fun to do: landscaping, Japanese, flooring selection, yoga.

Vignettes of Seattle housing, Sept 2006 purchases then and now:
3 bdr 2 ba 33 y.o. SFH, average 5.5% appreciation since purchase.
2 bdr 2 ba 2 y.o. townhome, 2.4% depreciation since purchase.
3 bdr 1.75 ba 61 y.o. SFH, average 5.3% appreciation since purchase.

Assessments for next tax year are up and out: 5.3% home appreciation average, 10% tax assessment increase. Strangely, the greater percentage was in the improvement value. With the big "condensed community" development happening a little over a mile away, I'd have reckoned the land...

Yesterday evening my son asked me why his bank was going "belly up." I hadn't prepared a response for him. I will have to oversimplify the financial environment for him. In the meantime I am rehearsing him to offer a giftcard to the teller who'll be soon losing his/her job and look him/her in the eye and say "bad lending decisions make the children cry. Your bosses destroyed my budding faith in banking."

The house down the street sold after five months at a 15% discount from the initial price to a newlywed couple.

It has been three days since I signed on a contract and I have: ordered cabinets, designated appliances, shortlisted my flooring options, shortlisted my cabinet hardware, taken paint samples, and am now considering lighting and countertop options. I have spent 10% of my budget already as a deposit and "mind-shopped" 55% of the rest on cabinets and appliances. Wahooga! Dive! Dive!

My 401(k) contributions are down 24.4% since June. Whee. At least it's money flushed down the drain, and not going somewhere irresponsible, like the U.S. government.

Seriously, though, I did cut back on my retirement contributions a little so I could have more money available to pay off the kitchen faster. The bright side is that if lending rates go down even further, spending 4% more from my HELOC money is not going to look all that dumb.

The silver linings of the big market drop is that there will actually be voters who will be thinking about the economy (just like Canada! wow!).

This will interest only BA, but what the hey.

During a slow period, I researched some ticker symbols by using Standard & Poor's STARS reports: PG (Procter & Gamble), SBUX (Starbucks), EBAY, RIG (Transocean), and GME (GameStop). PG received a 100% recommendation, but it's overvalued at present. I own the stock already through a direct purchase plan, but wouldn't accumulate at a price above $66.50. EBAY looks undervalued. Don't know yet how to evaluate GameStop, but my husband likes them as a company and their revenue stream of reselling gently used games adds a sustainability streak. I've been bitten by retail before (BEBE, GPS) and don't tend to buy companies that caters to a fickle youth market anymore. Then again, Q4 2008 is the RETAIL quarter. Maybe people will be downscaling their gifting to used video games this holiday season.

SBUX is also undervalued but I wouldn't look at them for another quarter at least. Its Price/Sales ratio is still high

May check positions of PHO. I like the Price/Sales and Return on Equity of Big Lots (BIG) and Nordstrom (JWN). My gemologist gave me a tip of MTR (Mesa Royalty Trust) a few months ago, which now has a tantalizing yield of 13.99%. Later in the fall, I'll quite possibly be looking at EXC.

12% increase over this time last year, 24% increase year over last. Seattle is very late to the house crash, and I think perhaps the improvements we've made to the house and the city's investment in our neighborhood as an urban center has made our land more valuable, so it may be later for us to see the crash. I don't deny the crash -- in 2006 I was reading SeattleBubble everyday and estimating a 33% dive over six years. My friends and husband thought I was nuts. Then in 2007 I reset my expectations to a 25% dive over five years -- only my friends think I'm overstating this. This year, gosh, I don't want to be lulled into a false sense of security. Perhaps deep and hurtful slashes to home prices are just around the corner--I'm still thinking 25% reduction. The house seems to be keeping abreast with inflation: 4.6% inc. from 2006-2007, 5.9% inc. from 2007-2008, but then we've redone the bathroom and put in new windows and improved insulation.

The Chief Executive Officer of Washington Mutual has made an overdue exit. I was expecting his removal at the annual meeting, when one board director resigned voluntarily, but no go. For some reason his ouster coincides with the stock tanking by 17%.

I watched "The Today Show" for a certain segment this morning -- television is a rarity at my household, so my kid was downstairs trying to watch. So I took the scoot out on this beautiful morning and had little problem with the traffic. A man walked in front of me as I was stopped at a light to discuss gas mileage and refill costs -- my Sunday trip took me 210 miles before I refueled at 2.95 gallons for $11.08. In the city I get about 55 - 58 mpg. I know littler scooters have better mileage but for me it's all about storage and HOV access.

I mailed in an optional cash purchase for some more General Electric. The Price to Earnings ratio isn't quite where I want it yet, but 4.45% is a good yield, and the Return on Equity is within my range. Who knows, maybe GE will sink back to 24 by the time my payment is received.

Dinner last night was healthy, nutritious and cheap: home garden beans and cherry tomatoes with couscous. My pickling course was cancelled, as the course director didn't think it was worth carrying through with the course for just one registrant. I was offered a credit for any other course but I couldn't find a course that was the same price as this one. I would have liked an offer to take a course that was slightly higher in price for the same price I paid for the pickling course. I will have to try Puget Sound Consumers Co-op (PCC)'s courses instead.

Prescriptions, dry-cleaning, party room booking, clothes: went to discount outlets so paid $129 for what would be $452 at full price: two tops and two cardigans for me, a pair of slippers for His Nibs, and two pairs of earrings. Then we used our two free movie tickets to see "Wall-E."

After seeing "Wall-E" I feel a twinge of self-contempt for being so consumed by shopping, but the truth is I buy clothes for myself maybe twice a year. Also, we went to an appliance store to price out and get dimensions for kitchen appliances. It's very easy to let kitchen costs get out of control. I need to cut down on my expenses. The beautiful thing is that I'm 99.3% sure whom I want to design and contract the kitchen, now that I've gone through a referral list and have talked to one of the appliance sales staff. I'm going to wait until after my remodel class to sign stuff.

I bought my desktop four years ago. It's running low on space -- I've been storing media files on it, and I have some new software that optimally performs on a newer operating system, on a machine with more RAM and more storage.

I've considered a laptop for the following reasons: portability for when I take 1099 contracts, ability to use wi-fi on the bus (my bus is pretty much only for geeks in my neighborhood commuting to Geek Headquarters across the lake) space considerations, and price. I could clean my desktop and give it to my kid. So it's primarily for business, but I know enough about PCs to know I don't need extra power or storage to do things like write letters.

I had a 1997 Dell Dimension before I updated in 2004 to a locally made system.
I'm already squeamish about blowing $35K-$40K on a kitchen, and $3K on Japan, should a li'l thing like a $654 laptop purchase worry me? Back-to-school sales are still raging, and my options now are a HP Pavilion, Sony VAIO, or Dell.

Insanity, they say, is the act of doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting a different result each time. I've held off on contributing to my savings goals for one month, and paid off the bathroom.

I'm freaked out about how much the kitchen will cost. It's about as much money as I have now. I'm also alarmed that I may HAVE to do something with the kitchen: ventilation is not up to code, no dishwasher. I'd love to preen that I paid for everything in cash, but that's not doable: best I can shoot for is paid off in a year or when the house sells.
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Made two types of pickles: dill pickles, and sweet sliced pickles. Of course I do this one week before my pickling class starts. I know I erred by buying pint jars instead of quart jars, but thought I'd try the pints.

Made Dr. Connelly's Vegetable Soup on behalf of my queasy spouse: tomato paste, chicken broth, home garden zucchini, celery and home garden green beans. He enjoyed it. Also made succatash for me. Monday made my third meatless day in a row. I better see some budget improvement!

Handwashed the fineries, cleaned out the air filters, swept under the bed and couch.

Am also trying to make rejuvelac: a fermented wheat berry drink.