Although I am not (yet) in crisis, sometimes I feel overwhelmed attempting to impose order and routine and to create a plan. I don't do the most obvious and elementary things like track spending. I don't schedule my time well enough to bake loaves of bread. I fear I have to take some steps backward, for example decluttering my kitchen and donating extra food or disposing waste, before springing for bulk containers to hold milk powder, flour, et cetera.

Sometimes I want to turf everything out and begin anew. Mostly I want to start new and healthier habits. I want to escalate my debt repayments and savings, and I don't think I can achieve adequate results without my family's participation or without a black belt in family budgeting and scheduling (preferably a working mother, not a 'oh I do everything right and always have because I am so gifted to be born in an upper-middle class family and I am so perfect no partner will ever live up to my standards and I'll probably miss my childbearing years so I sit alone in front of the blue glow of my laptop screen posting on forums intended for people less perfect than I how I am so much better than they; I wonder if they will ever suspect how lonely and insecure I am and how I make little dolls out of dryer lint and scraps I find in the dumpster outside the strip mall's fabric store and name them after the international children I adopt through CARE or World Vision' type) sitting down with me over tea and cookies, going through expenses.

I want to know how to request statements of beneficiary appointments, or restate my beneficiaries for my accounts.

What brought this on? Reading that the average mortgage debt owed in 2004 for my current age group was only around $108682.

Bleah. If only I knew what one or three simple actions I should take immediately to make the rest of the actions simpler.
If only I knew what the ideal percentages for slush fund allocations should go to Home improvement, replacement car, Tokyo, college, Roth, and disability insurance.

Huzzah -- a quote for replacing the garage door came in at $900 under what I was expecting. Can you say "freed up money?"

Aiyee -- dreamt last night that the market would drop 600 points today. I typically buy an ounce of gold when the Dow drops 300 points. I'm several drops overdue, but the darn coin shops are closed when I come visiting.

Huzzah -- according to David Wann, my wee house inna city, in an area undergoing 'community condensation', with my small but vital garden, will eventually be considered very valuable as people downscale and move away from the burbs. 2/3 of what David Wann wrote in his book of Simple Prosperity is an Aiyee.

Aiyee -- my child wanted to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy asking to up the payment per tooth to $2200. No doubt to cover emotional damages from seeing and feeling blood, and separation anxiety. What's worse -- he thinks the Tooth Fairy is Dick Van Patten in a pink tutu.

Huzzah -- call me Jimmy Carter, I'm growin' peanuts! A peanut shell dropped by a bird into my raised bed is sprouting. The Urban Farm Boys are surprised to see how well my tomatoes are doing, but what they don't know is that I give them tomato food every week.

Another huzzah -- found a recipe for making creme fraiche. Perhaps that will save me gas-fueled trips to Whole Paycheque.

I posted a while back I wanted to leave my house. I still want to leave. I live next door to people who seem to think it's okay to let their neurotic, lonely, neglected dog howl. I have lived next to these people for six years. They've been noisy after midnight before, but we've been okay with asking them to turn down the noise, and they've done as we've asked. They have this deck, high fence and other things for "privacy", and let their dog bark at us through the fence because it sees or hears people. They've developed their property and have maybe $75K or 16% equity in their plot. After six years. They have a newborn and seem to think they can manage being first-time parents and two large dogs without much room to exercise or attention to thrive. They've had at least one large dog since they've moved in, just to let you know that I don't hate dogs, nor had it in for the neighbors since day one. They had three dogs at one point, when they had a family renting beneath. That didn't bother me, because the dogs were quiet and happy and got exercise. Now they have two dogs, and the newer/younger one of them is seriously yappy/messed up/neurotic/lonely.
What I can tell you from the time my father lived with a woman who owns dogs -- dogs love exercise. They are happy when they are running, bounding, playing. They are not happy when they are howling at night or all through the weekend while their owners, who already are ignoring them because they have to adjust to parenthood, take off and leave them alone. So the dogs take their frustrations out on us, and I end up wondering if I bayoneted babies in a past life and am suffering torments now.

My spouse works all day at home. I had to work pretty much all yesterday, some of it from home. We have lived here nine years, on this street with other homeowners with dogs we've never had reason to complain about, because the homeowners and dog lovers are responsible, considerate people. I wanna blow my e-fund on fixing the garage door, landscaping, remodeling, and getting out. Having to leave my home of nine years in a bad selling environment because I have inconsiderate or irresponsible neighbors would suck. I'm not sure I can wait for them to go underwater on their house and get foreclosed upon, especially if they are too distracted to do anything about their dog. They've had an anonymous letter sent to them asking nicely to keep the dogs quiet during evening hours--our city has a noise ordinance effective from 10 pm to 7 am.

So I thought I'd try the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, starting on #4. Except I have some problems:
• My brother expects me to be in Osaka to see him get married next February

Partial Solution: go solo and save 60% in projected expenses. Do I really want to bring a seven-year-old with me on a lengthy flight? Or rationalize that a once-in-a-lifetime combination of seeing my only surviving sibling marry in a country/continent I've never visited is very worth getting into a bit of temporary debt

• I have planned to update my upstairs bathroom, and would prefer not to go into debt to do it

Partial Solution: get into the mindset of "it's not really debt if I put half down and pay the remainder within six months, knowing that I have four times the remainder in my emergency funds"

• Distribution of the cash flow would be optimized if I pushed as much money toward the Roth as I can before my current contract expires -- it doesn't offer me a 401(k) plan, whereas I am instantly eligible to participate in the next contract.

Partial Solution: Start contributing $150/week to Roth until contract starts, then start putting 10% in 401(k). With the first thousand deposited into the Roth, increment the percentage contributed to the 401(k) by 1, and cut the Roth IRA contribution down to $100. It's harder this year, getting that extra thousand. Also, according to two retirement calculators, one at choose to save, and the other at MSN Money, I DON'T have to save 15% of my pretax income. I need save only 9.46%, so that lets me maximize my Roth IRA and lower my 401(k) contributions to 9%. The 15% must be for people who are starting fresh, yet still expect to see Social Security.

• I have gone over my budget several times, and whereas many people in reasonably-priced cities might gasp and point fingers at what we pay for in Gloomtopia, it is a considerable challenge for the overscheduled and underorganized to knock down expenses by 10%. I have to wait for the cell phone contract to expire, cats to die, garden yields to increase, boy to mature out of requiring supervision. I might even have to cut down on my health regimen.

Dave Ramsey doesn't know my life. He doesn't know how haphazardly I've hopscotched along the retirement/pay off home/big childcare/college funding/home improvement/energy savings mosaic of financial planning. People don't get married a whole ocean away, don't buy homes so antiquated Lucy Ricardo and June Cleaver would feel right at home in because that's all they could comfortably afford (3x gross income, mtg pymt 25% of gross) at the time (which was two years after the very best time to purchase in the 1990s), don't develop life-threatening pregnancy complications that later rob them of their eyesight, don't save up for replacement items and landscaping and sustainability and inflation all at once.
They don't parachute into environments where bubbles are the norm, nor do what everyone else is doing because they don't know any better or haven't ever had disposable income before.

I don't like debt, maybe I don't loathe/hate/despise it as much as Ramsey does. Maybe I've dipped into the HELOC, gotten a vehicle loan at 2.9% APR. But I haven't intentionally missed a payment, nor carried a balance on my credit cards since 2002.

Maybe when it comes to improving the value of an asset or leveraging for a greater gain I put down my mace and shield and learn to love my liabilities. Or do what I can to increase my salary this year. That might mean stop volunteering at my son's school.

I fear the myriad of financial goals means making difficult choices, or learning to prioritize/plan down to the hour my money-saving healthful financial moves and household activities. Sometimes I feel enmeshed in a web of my own devising, only I had thought everything I did was a good idea at the time, or thought I was doing the best I could. No. Taking eleven years to complete Ramsey's baby step #3 of building four months of expenses because I was trying to do #2, #4, #5, and #6 all at once in a frantic race to catch up to the middle class is not doing the best I can. Even if my net worth went up thirty-six times in those eleven years.

Ratios to Aim For:
Assets: Liabilities 4:1
Liabilities: Liquid Assets 4:1

Where I am now:
Assets: Liabilities 3.75:1
Liabilities: Liquid Assets 4.66:1

I received a cheque for $84.81. $35 went toward refilling the car's gas tank, and I saved twenty-nine cents at the pump. Woo woo challenge money. $30 went for my medication. Now I have a two-month supply.

I'm considering giving up some out-and-about time for baking bread, and soaking/cooking large amounts of legumes to freeze in small containers. Yes, friends, I'm rereading More with Less. Some of the introduction, originally written by Doris Janzen Longacre, was penned at a time of grain and fuel shortages and high inflation.

I gotta stop blaming myself for everything. "Oh inflation is here, this is my fault--if I had a vegetable garden up already I wouldn't be paying so much for Community supported Agriculture boxes. I am rotten because I drive a car that gets 28-35 mpg and we haven't yet forsaken our scooters and gas-powered lawnmower. The US dollar is tumbling and I better put my money in gold or else I won't afford to see my brother get married in Japan and then I win the award of World's Biggest Loser. I suck because my 60-year-old house still has a while to go before it can be energy-efficient and I was distracted by child-care and retirement. If only I did a mega Mortgage Equity Withdrawal, remodeling the house to dozens of thousands of dollars, anticipating energy shortages and spikes, I'd be okay today." I require so much reassurance, and when I don't get it I believe it's because everyone else has managed these achievements. Because these ideas don't just come to me from the aether -- I read about Americans doing these energy conservation things. I feel especially ashamed as my goals don't seem all that frivolous: we don't NEED all this stuff, but I sure am attracted to the idea of saving 10-30% off my energy and food bills. I should take the Joe Stalin route and develop a five-year-plan.

Joan.of.the.Arch, I didn't get through much of When All Hell Breaks Loose before returning it to the library, but the first chapter is all about not panicking and keeping a cool head and wits about one. Preparation goes a long way, but so do self-directedness (believing one is entirely and directly responsible for one's life) and confidence.

What I'm reading now is Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life which is entertaining. My kid sees it on the table and says "Jim Cramer yells all the time." I think Jim's editors should have named the book Stay Livid. So far I'm only on the second chapter -- first chapter is very basic for beginners: get out of credit card debt, plan ahead, make a budget and stick by it, reassess when you miss budget targets.

With some preparation and luck, I may Freecycle or junk some large items downstairs. I've got to remain upbeat and positive about our survival chances.

Maybe it's a hormonal fluctuation, but I've been anxious since Wednesday. Perhaps I should sip some chamomile tea, do a crossword, go out for a walk.

I did prune my roses today, in the sun. A local media gardening expert said this was the time to do it (The All About Roses book I have said April was the time to prune). Seeing all those thin, reedy, large, canes with red leafy growth was initially daunting, but I picked up some momentum and energy and went to it. I think there are some stragglers that might be shovel-pruned soon. The grandifloras did very well indeed (Lagerfeld, and Queen Elizabeth, for any rose enthusiasts reading).

Sharp observers will note that I have shaved one month off my the actual term end-date for my mortgage. I have learned, from looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Inflation Calcula..., that our new mortgage payment, in inflation-indexed dollars, after taxes, is cheaper than the principal and interest was when we first purchased! And that's AFTER a 127% rise in assessment values since purchase. So I don't know who these people are who complain about property taxes in our county: hard to believe that they'd be homeowners in my city. They should try living in the states of New York or New Jersey.

Also went to the Farmers' Market today -- talked with a honey farmer who told me that in the next few months we could expect a 150% price jump for honey. Good thing we have a cool place to store it. Next week I'll bring a cardboard box and my credit card.

I bought a Canadian Maple Leaf gold coin today, as I do at the end of any week where the Dow drops over 500 points, and adjusted my Savings Tracks. I also deposited my first cheque from my current position.

Causing me some consternation is my whack at a budget. I have read Consumer Spending Patterns in my metro area and used the inflation multiplier of 1.26. People are/were, in 2004-2005, still paying less for rent and shelter than we are/were. In our city, expenditures are 20.3% greater than the U.S. average. Why, I don't know. Greyness, misery and self-absorbed PDA-twiddlin' drivers can't be worth THAT much... why do I stay? It's close to where I used to live and still have friends and family, and I don't have to drive in snow, and don't have mosquitoes or cockroaches to contend with, and the jobs are pretty easy to come by.

We lost someone in our debt support group, but for good/happy reasons: she took a job in another state that paid better, and had a lower cost of living. She gets to live near her ailing parents, and will soon have a 4-bedroom house with a swimming pool, in a sunny location. I'm thrilled that she's happy. It would be nice to have some new faces in our little social group, but I guess we're the only people in a population of 600,000 who are freaked out enough by our debts to meet and share goals and work through plans over a social breakfast.

I dreamt I was with some folks from my old workplace, and I said something to the effect of: "I'm more into paying for what I owe now, rather than leave it up to my kid. It's bad enough he has to live with environmental devastation and a huge tax burden." And people looked at me like I was bonkers.

I reasoned, in my dream, I was the only person who had a child, and the workplace folks were counting on my kid to support them and their consumption in their old age.

A few days earlier I dreamt I was given a nasty bill from a small event thirty years earlier.

I'm reading Cody Lundin's When All Hell Breaks Loose. Weeks earlier I had read Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Slowly I'm reaching toward the center, where the joy is.

Seattle Urban Farm Company is coming over in two weeks.

A. Gardening
1. Bought one start of English thyme. Why? Because it can be grown year-round.
2. Bought one start of Cupani sweet pea. Why? Because I like the smell of it.
3. Bought one bag of potting soil. Why? To start potting some herbs.
4. E-mailed Seattle Farm Company to help me with my urban farmscape.
5. Am sterilizing my plastic pots with a vinegar-water solution.

I am not kidding myself so much to believe I can tend a backyard garden by myself. But I would like to grow tomatoes (I've read your comment, lostindebt: last May at Mother's Day I got two tomato plants, and they were pumping out succulent fruit like it was nobody's business).

B. Exercise
1. Reserved my spot for an introduction to yoga class.

C. Being sociable/good neighbour.
1. Agreed to donate blood. Now must go buy some iron and some Vitamin C tablets.
2. Paid for tickets for school auction.
3. Strongly considering attending an ice cream social at a community club.

Learned through the Hsh.com calculator that we need an income of $63925.57 to afford our mortgage payment. This is some relief.

Counted forty-four homes for sale as we arced from the Fremont neighbourhood back to our home. Who knew Fremont, Phinney Ridge, and Greenwood areas to be so crappy that people would be rushing to sell early in the year? Or are the looming ARM resets responsible?

Had a nasty dream this morning: in my dream I had a memory of us as a family doing something fun and leisurely in July 1978, and the bills accumulated and came to me in payment this year, as my mother had passed on almost a decade ago. "$16,000? Okay. $37,000? For one little trip? That's pricey, but I can manage." and then a third bill for $310,898. "Holy moly! I can't pay that!"

I think $314098.92 might be very close to what we would eventually pay for our house, with principal and interest. Blood rushes from my head to think about what bill my son would be looking at for our collective short-term fiscal myopia... he might never leave our house.

I have 48 hours left on my contract. Most of tomorrow is taken up by an interview and a doctor's appointment.

At the cafeteria I saw two men I loved working with prior to this contract. I told them what I was up to, and what my job prospects were -- I have an offer I haven't yet accepted.

I have to trust that things will continue to go well, and that if they don't, the support of my family and our adaptability and ability to accept certain losses will see us through.

I get scared when I look at this article and at Calculated Risk.

Then I remember that I have, so far, a very cushy life here, and peoples everywhere have lived through far worse and with far less.

Furthermore, if we get sucked down financially thanks to some rotten central bank dealings, so will hundreds of millions of other people. At the very least, we'll have a mass attitude adjustment and some nasty quarters. Maybe one of us will have a run of unemployment. And if things turn authoritarian/nasty, at least one of us will have a run for the border.

I don't know what the future has in store for me in the next three days, other than some appointments and a goodbye lunch. I might have to give up my volunteer position, I might have to pay people to set up my garden. Is this all worth it to afford disability insurance, pad the emergency fund, and to bend over and accept this year's gold-plated tax-whacking with a J.K. Lasser guide tucked in my motorcycle pants? I hope so.

I also know nothing is forever, and this too shall pass.

...I found the two cafes I went to have "winter hours" posted on their windows, "winter hours" being a euphemism for reduced hours. Where do the university students go to earn tuition/living expenses when the nearby cafes are closed? Where do the cheapskates like me go for warmth and free wi-fi access to freelance instead of keeping the house at a comfortable temperature? I should mention that snow is an infrequent event where I live, and 99.97% of the time our roads don't have black ice, and very often the dusting of snow is gone by the next day.

Actually the first cafe I went to today was closed, although its hours sign indicated it was supposed to be open. This is the fourth time I've arrived during normal business hours to find it closed. Thee other times I've shown up only to find it changed its hours to later. And the owner wonders why he doesn't see me anymore.

Maybe I read too much into this. Then again I recall January 3, 9 am, when I showed up for my hair colour, and the colourist said I was his first appointment of the year and I was doing him a favour, helping him out with his rent money.

I am cowardly, yes. I'm all about preservation. I think it's easier for people who've started from a point of strength, rather than weakness, to take risks when everything appears hazardous. With people dying in bicycle and pedestrian accidents, I sometimes wonder if drivers where I am are passive-aggressive ("I hate it when people save money, so I'm going to put on my iPod or play with my PDA or talk on the phone and pretend to be shocked and remorseful when I hear a bump.").

I thought of refinancing. I did so once in 2003, and I am not even sure now that was the right thing to do. The way I saw it then was "gee, mortgage rates will not be this low for another 40 years" and "6.625 * 30 is almost twice as much as 5 * 20" and "we'll be paying a smaller mortgage amount and finish six years earlier." We haven't yet reached our "breakeven point" for the costs we paid to refinance -- that comes in another three years.

I looked at 15 or 10 year rates, and my income isn't so fixed and secure. The real estate equity drop just started around August/September 2007. There's no clear winner, because I don't know what goal would be met by refinancing. "I want to minimize my pain/exposure to inflation." Well, there's the house -- that's supposed to be a help. The payments are fixed. It's more telling of my state of mind that we got over the sting of changing our $535 monthly payment for shelter for $1490 a month, even when I had a car loan on top of that, but I balk at the idea of paying another few hundred dollars to be free and clear at fifty. We're at $1436 PITI now, with a 200% runup in real estate taxes over nine years. I want to pay less, and I want my mortgage over with faster. I can't achieve both right now. I can prepay, and then I'd be paying less in interest. 3.5% with 0 points at 15 years isn't going to happen. I'd have to cross over to the credit union to get 10 year rates, and then we'd have much more of our pay going to mortgage...

I have thought about cutting back on the organic food, or at least the vitamins, but not both. Eating out I have cut back on. Confound it, I want easy and simple ways to save, and easy and simple ways to beat inflation, and the ways I know involve time commitments beyond five minutes, except for flossing the teeth. I need to break out of the "bad stuff always happens to me, so I have to be prepared and aware and never risk anything" mindtrap. If only I knew for sure my peers weren't counting on their parents (and their dwindling retirement assets) to bail them out in hard times... I have considered remodeling the home to accommodate the in-laws as an enticement to get them to move over here. I guess the hubby and I would sleep downstairs.

How do I know when I have enough?

I really need to get out more. Perhaps because I've been preoccupied or do not visit stores other than supermarkets or fish shops unless I really have to, but I never hear conversations like this in real life. I hear the "yeah, I bought a thousand shares of Google at its IPO" or "yeah, took my family on a three-week vacation in Thailand, six months after the Italy jaunt" conversations. Me, I had my first real vacation in three years last year, partly to celebrate from getting out from under daycare tuition.

These snippets accentuate the psychic distance between my city and the rest (excepting L.A., Fort Lauderdale, Litchfield County of Connecticut, N.Y.C., and the Bay Area) of the country. How can people be in foreclosure when my coworkers own lakefront property? How can people be in five-year-car-loan debt when I see Lexuses and H2s on the road? How can people be foreclosing on properties valued less than what my property is worth? Me, I am on neither extreme end of the spectrum. 12-year-old car, live in old house with 19% net income going to accelerated mortgage, bus to work, shop for used clothing, wearing sweaters in the house, renting more DVDs from the library these days. Probably poor compared to my coworkers. However, I am likely to keep my house over the next four years.

Where do I have to go, other than Debtors Anonymous meetings and visiting this forum, to witness in person someone talking about their debt? The next job I take, I hope to take where there are "normal people" whose conversations don't depress me. I'd like to be among people who say "debtfree and with a good emergency fund and ample retirement is a good enough place to aim for." And if you're strolling by looking for some Schadenfreude, you won't get much of a fix here -- I've been debt-free more or less, aside from a 2.9% 12-month vehicle loan and a 6-week HELOC, for six years.

If I knew for certain that I would get a job with a salary 25% greater than what I'm earning now if I went to a career counselor, I would go to the career counselor. That might be easier than knocking 25% off my expenditures this year...

Typical 2007 Residential Bill per month where I live:

Water: 22.97
Sewer 38.74
Drainage: 11.83
Solid Waste: 21.55
--------------------
$95.09/month

Last bill for prior two months was $157.57, so using 17% less water. Rates are increasing so the typical residential bill would be $203.32. A 7% increase. I wonder if that's the inflation rate. Can you see now why I'm more into cutting costs? I must find a sure investment that is higher than inflation...

I'm posting it here because I feel raw and sad and I feel safer posting this here than elsewhere.

Someone who was one of my earliest friends when I first moved to Seattle lost her battle with cancer and died yesterday. We hadn't been in touch since December 1998, when I was in a Seattle Cacophony event designing wacky calendars for 1999. Weirdly enough, she had made some acerbic comment that rubbed me the wrong way -- my mother was weeks away from dying from cancer and I was hyper-sensitive.

I still am very sensitive when I read of any female acquaintance having cancer, and succumbing.

We did have good times at events, making our own harmless performance art fun: playing Broadway Bingo, performing a puppet play in February, creating our own installation piece at Sand Point. I have not lost my appreciation for serendipity and homemade play and entertainment.

You don't have to write anything about being sorry for my loss -- I haven't seen this person for close to nine years. I will pray for and offer consolation to her widowed husband. If anything, I'll be stricter about developing and following my moral code, and accomplishing my mission here, with whatever time I have left.

God rest the departed.

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 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!

I am reading the above mentioned book, written by Henry K. "Bud" Hebeler, and I am already scared.

10-15% a year, which is what we were paying into our retirement, does not seem to be cutting it as a long-term strategy.

I'd share what I learned with my peers, but you good folk have the author and the title of the book now, so you can go borrow it from the library as I did, and I'm afeared of mentioning what I learned to my friends because the ones who care about this stuff have already retired, and I don't need to hear "oh that doesn't apply to me because I have a trust fund" nor the sobs of people I like when they reflect on their situations and regard them as hopeless.

I'm not out to make you cry -- like I mentioned, you're probably already retired or on track; or if you're only doing 15% in the 401(k) and maxing out the Roth IRA like me, you're just a few clicks away from learning how to change your consumption patterns so you can save more. I'm just saying I was complacent without good reason, and I'm now scared into making better decisions or cutting back further.

Right after I blow $678.11 on R-38 insulation for my attic.
------------------------------------
frequently I wonder if I'm the one in my peer group who's behind, and how I can catch up. I wish I had more friends I could discuss this openly with.

I took the Living to 100 Life Expectancy Quiz and despite my lack of exercise, and both my parents packing it in before either reached 65 the calculator gave me 90. I was projecting a death age of 70 (cancer) or 71 (car accident), the ages my non-smoking grandmothers died at. Then I could look at my retirement portfolio and say "hey, this is looking SWELL! Four cruises per year until I have my cardiac on the shuffleboard deck!"

I didn't lie on the quiz -- I intentionally answered honestly to get a shorter result. However, I've been eating healthier for the last year and am supplementing as prescribed.

Let me tell you something: Canada may have a lot going for it right now -- a strong economy, progressive government, strong commitment to globally competitive education, no wars for our kids to have to pay off -- yet the fact remains that my American in-laws, shortish and roundish they may be, are still alive and working and have been cancer-free, and my Canadian parents: tall and lean, retired early and were ashes after four years. Does education factor into this? Fewer stress factors?

The life expectancy result was 90 years. Sheesh. I DO have some money saved up: I just hope the US economy can rebound after twenty-five years... but Social Security is projected to be empty by 2042, which is too bad, because I know I could have used that monthly $1015 for a nice hot cup of 2042 coffee... if this calculator is a relatively good predictor I regret not having more children to shelter me in my dotage. I better start exercising so I can have a healthy body to lure the few septuagenarians... go swimming like Gertrude Ederle or mountain climbing like Leni Riefenstahl... but that'd be tough, because septuagenarian single guys are probably gay or divorced with too much trauma to remarry or they have longevity genes...

Ninety. Not looking so swell.

Freed from monthly $950 daycare expenditures, I bumped up my 401(k) contribution to 15%, and am now second-guessing myself. I am buying at the "top" of a market, although 50% of my 401(k) assets are international and 20% are bonds. Should I go 70% int'l?

I'm concerned about the further $103 reduction from my weekly paycheque. How to budget so as not to notice it? I could be paying off my HELOC with it, or buying gold, or prepaying my mortgage.

These past seven days have been a barrage of reminders of the fragility of life: a 34-year-old friend of several acquaintances died from a fall in a shower; yesterday I learned an acquaintance is in an adult home because of HER fall in a shower; an acquaintance lost his father last week to multiple organ failure; ten people aged 18 to 40 died in a plane crash in our state; breast cancer incidences among women who are not genetically susceptible are on the rise. I don't feel my chances are good here. Why am I contributing to retirement beyond what I need to so as to get the employer match? So I can make a political statement by cutting down on the taxes I'll owe? To avoid Alternative Minimum Tax? To juice up my creativity in thinking of ways to save (e.g. go to WaltonFeed.com and order huge barrels of legumes and grain)?

As far as saving money goes, I don't have cable television nor do I smoke or pay for daily expensive coffee. I do have a 30% discount on a family cell-phone plan (my spouse GREATLY overestimated the # of minutes we use), use a programmable thermostat, bus to work 30% of the time (and scoot for 55mpg the 70%). I have raised my automobile insurance deductible. My kid's clothes we get either second-hand, or at Target, or from my stepmother. I could start brownbagging it, which would save $25/week. If I take my bike only two days a week on average to work I'll save $18/month. I don't eat a lot of processed food, so coupons don't do much good for me. I rent movies either from the Northwest's #1 DVD/video rental/sales store, or from the library, although I do pay full dollar for the occasions that Chaplin comedies make it to the ornate, deluxe theatres: call it therapy.

Maybe I'll try to sell the excess stuff we have, like that 1950s GE refrigerator and the handmade glass and wood booze cabinet.

Links from my Google(tm) search for "save $100 a week":
1. CashBulge.com
2. Arcamax.com
3. AlanHaft.com

I'm clearing through my papers and I have the flyer for my Bank of America Rewards (SM) American Express (registered trademark) Card, which is for average credit.

I have a ten-year credit history with no late payments, and I own a home: I'm one third through my mortgage. Very very lucky to not have had crises like health or divorce compromise my financial security. I have two other cards that I use regularly (stopped using one, actually, last month). How can I improve my credit? Apparently making timely payments in full, and paying off vehicular loans early is not getting me past the "average credit" setting. I am careful not to go beyond 30% utilization of the credit limit on my cards. I did apply for 100% financing on my motorcycle in 2005, but I paid off the balance within twelve months last year.

What do I do to have "good credit" so I can apply for and get cards better than the Bank of America (SM) American Express (registered trademark) Card? Every time I call Yank of America and ask for something better they refuse me. So either Yank of America is evil, or it hates me because I am of "average creditworthiness." If I knew what I could do to improve my creditworthiness, I could do it and then it would only be a matter of "is Bank of America evil by not rewarding me for my improved credit."

Honestly, when people improve their credit scores, do their credit issuers ever proactively reward them, or do the people have to take their credit requests elsewhere?

I'm reading American Mania by Peter C. Whybrow, a neuropsychiatrist at UCLA who offers an interesting hypothesis about the allele for exploration and risktaking that is predominant in immigrants to this country.

It's occurred to me I am probably more interested in comfort and security than ostentatiousness and opulence. Despite having that risk-taking and exploratory allele. And I have to remember that, if I choose to run back to the homeland with my tail between my legs ("I couldn't do it! I couldn't buy a Mountaineer and a house five times my household income! I couldn't day-trade WCOM and ENR and JNPR! I couldn't see the value in Beanie Babies and the Macarena and Martha Stewart and Tom Hanks!"), I did manage to lure a man who does not share my genetic makeup (only because a Congregationalist preacher was forced into exile 375 years ago is my man here in the New World) to go 2,000 miles from his birthplace.

I think the market is exhibiting bipolar behaviour. Witness the Dow's volatility of late. Read how fund managers and federal economists insist everything's going great as long as you don't include debt, or try to add food, energy and housing costs to the consumer price index. Or the U.S. is in some sort of manic economic phase. I also believe that revolutions come from the masses being starved and deprived into a fight-or-flight point, and at some point the war isn't going to be between the left and the right (it really isn't: check how the left have been in cahoots or capitulating to the administration -- most people who've been polled about Congress's activity as of late are aware there's no real opposition between the left and the right when it comes to corporate sponsorship of legislators) but between the old fighting for their benefits and the young fighting for their livelihood, and the rich fighting for their continued way of life and the poor fighting for the dreams they've been promised and denied. I don't know where I am here... I'm neither young nor old, and I fight for my benefits and my livelihood simultaneously; I suppose because my net worth is above $17,800 I fall on the rich side, but somehow with a six-digit debt and a lack of the outward success markers, I don't perceive myself as such. No one's smashing my windows to get at my books or my software or my Value Village clothing.

I don't want to get involved in class warfare nor age warfare, although as the fiscal squeeze is applied to the bottom 80% of us, I can see the 80% turning inwardly hostile. Remember that with the Rodney King verdict Asian communities' storefronts in Los Angeles were vandalized and torched, although it'd be tough to argue that the first-generation Asian-Americans have been at cause for 300 years of slavery and oppression for the African-American people. If landed immigrants are going to be the first scapegoats and victims, well, then that's my cue to scram, right?

I want a community lifeboat of those who live creatively and keep an eye out for looming danger. I hope that I can find it here without having to return home, and I'm giving myself 16 months to find and belong to such a lifeboat here before retreating for good to the Motherland. This country has produced Duane Elgin, Vicki Robin, Janet Luhrs and Bill McKibben -- maybe there's a growing community of people who are poised for a frugal environment and know what the markers of wealth will be (collateral for local economic trade, health, farming assets).

My spouse will be outsourced in October, and probably gaining another job with a staffing firm, at least on a one-year contract. He'll get $12K severance pay, so that's not entirely sucky. If the staffing firm messes up, then he'll probably be hired back.

This week 35% of our team received "don't worry, those layoff rumours have no weight" e-mail messags. I wasn't one of the 30% who got a message, but it was unsettling nonetheless.

My child agreed to have $1600 of his education fund go to his kindergarten tuition.

I DID book all the accommodations on our July/August roadtrips. Now to research where to eat... (Pacific Coast Highway--from Seattle to Los Angeles)

Oh, and for the second time, the gold I've mislaid has been found in the futon downstairs. Why do I never check the futon first thing anymore for missing jewelry/coinage?

My husband's job is being outsourced. He has options: all require him to revise his resume. I'd like for him to be picked up somewhere else inside the company, I'd also like for him to pick up some other sys admin or trades skills that would be useful in Canada, where I'll be returning in ten years. Or hey, maybe a 15-20% bump in pay at another company.

I had been warned this was coming, for oh, four years now. Still, it's a sock in the gut, even with ten weeks' severance pay, which would be fabulous.

I give thanks for my fabulous work contract. Every day I try to demonstrate value and excellence so I can keep my fabulous contract.

We are ordered to take tomorrow (Friday) off -- work for six weeks. I have worked eleven days straight. I am going to treat myself to a haircut and colour, and do some financial stuff -- closing accounts, making phone calls, shopping for new pillows, calling for appointments for the windows and the garden. I wonder if I can swing a facial.

And I did remember to order flowers to my stepmother for Mother's Day. I hope I don't have to work on Mother's Day. Then again, do I want to go on a day-long trip with my scooter pals before the six weeks and then work on Mother's Day? I dunno...

So in prep for this layoff/outsourcing, cover my husband and my son's health benefits, reduce tax withholding, reduce 401(k) contributions to getting only the company match, and work 50 hours a week on average for the next six weeks, netting $1330/week.

We're still going on vacation in July, outsource or no.

Thirteen and a half hours' overtime.
My work had to be done. Eight of us came in today, ten yesterday. They're not kidding about overtime. They maintain it's "strictly voluntary" but it's "highly encouraged." Both of us toiled mightily this weekend and had Cuba Libres (at least I had all the ingredients on hand and didn't buy them) and Rum & Cokes at dinner last night... we don't drink hard liquor at dinner normally -- NOT A GOOD SIGN.

And for what purposes do I risk exposure to Alternate Minimum Tax? Circuitously the extra $ goes to minimize my tax burden in April 2008, either in tax-efficient accounts or extra withholding, or to pay for the gas I consume getting to work, or the treats we compensate ourselves with for working overtime -- eclairs, videos, Chinese food.

Tomorrow I want to take it easy if possible: lunch with Mr. JoyBoy, dinner with a friend. I ran into the reserve tank problem -- five days of regular commuting empties three gallons. I'd also like to visit my brokerage firm and make a deposit to some accounts.

Yesterday I had some difficulties with other people's realities: whether it was documentation stuff at work (capitalized words appearing at random, several unique entries for a term), or people thinking that layoffs at Nokia, IBM, Circuit City and elsewhere mean the economy is going gangbusters and the STOCK MARKET IS HITTING AN ALL-TIME HIGH, never mind that it took six years for the S&P 500 to rebound to 12,000, and let's not pay attention to the fact that falling house prices typically signify the onset of a recession. What drives me nuts about the latter is that I am such an economics flunkie, but even I know there's something wrong. What Jonestown (I'd written Jamestown, as in early Pennsylvania settlement: how uh, Freudian!) Kool-Aid got passed around after 1979 that made people think "it doesn't matter if the middle-class is losing jobs or shrinking, it's the profits that companies are taking and holding at the executive level and upward that matter. It doesn't even matter that residents in gated communities are being foreclosed upon." It's heartening to know at least 62% of Americans who can walk upright without dragging their knuckles on the ground think there's something wrong, but I'm betting none of those 62% works for the government or for mass media...

Convinced the hubby to knock down his 401(k) contribution to the minimum to receive the employer match. He'll be renewing contributions toward his Roth IRA.

Hubby helped boy spend ALL of his Easter money on toys. Not impressed.

I've often wondered why I have the situation I have, and what lessons from it I'm to share with the populace. I've often wondered also how people in my income group and demographics and zip code can manage.

The only other person I know a dysfunctionial and unstable family situation similar to mine and grew up in poor circumstances elsewhere to reach at least a level of self-sustaining comfort and complete autonomy over his work and career died thirty years ago. I wish there was someone like that I could talk to -- okay, I could talk to the aether and pretend it's him but even I'm not crazy enough to think he'll respond. Maybe the problem with me is that I can relate to his childhood but I can't relate to his adulthood, which has been so legendary and phenomenal and successful I can't measure up. I don't even know how I can measure up to my childless friends. I don't think I can, and that's why I withdraw. I imagine they have some insurance, some deus ex machina, some ace in the hole I'm not privy to.

Maybe I need clearer examples of why security and freedom are mutually exclusive: I crave both, and this craving makes me unhappy. I note my godmother and mother-in-law tell me I have everything: decently funded retirement fund, decent credit rating, paid-for car and bikes, house, spouse, job, almost-normalish kiddo, health but do my childfree peers? Nope.

I wish I knew people who, like me, are not only attempting to raise a child and "catch up" to their "we have always been in the middle-class" friends but are also preparing for:
* interest rate risk
* risk of still-falling US Dollar
* mortgage implosion
* peak oil

and are asking themselves what the worst case scenario they need to prepare themselves for. Maybe my acquaintances have already prepared themselves and told their friends, and left me out of it. I've tried to have this conversation with them and they're not interested.

If you can't tell, I'm looking for the Guiding Light with a Bell-Clear Voice to tell me if I'm on the right path. Am I on the right path if I'm coaxed by tax breaks to put my money in mutual funds that invest in companies that oppress other citizens and plunder the earth's resources at an alarming rate? I'm not the guiding light for my ex-social circle.

Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate

Consumption Smoothing

Behavioral Finance Insights -- Actually PassionSaving.com is new to me, and seems to be highly worthwhile.
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I'm still working out ideas in my head about what to save for when there are more goals than money. Still torn between snapping up precious metals funds, TIPS, or just cash.

If you ever had some disposable income, and an arm's length of goals to save for, how many at a time did you choose, and how did you allocate $ for each? For instance, if you had $5000 and eight items, did you rank and prioritize the eight and fund imaginary or real accounts in descending quantities like Goal #1 gets $1000, Goal #2 has $750, Goal #3 500 and so forth; or did you give them equal amounts to begin with, or did you supply the goal with the nearest end date with the largest amount of money?
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Why can't I get the notion out of my head that only renters and people who have over 60% equity in their fixed-rate mortgages, or a paid-off home will be the least scathed with the housing bubble?



Gee, only a 72% YOY increase in Notice of Trustee Sales in our county from 04/1/2006 to 4/10/2006 and 04/1/2007 to 04/10/2007.

Over the past 6 months: 11.7% increase from same term in 2005-2006.
Over the past 3 months: 12.7% increase from 2006.
Over the past 30 days: 35% increase from 2006.
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Personal position: 25% tax bracket. I'm asking these questions because the CPA I wanted to use for my 2006 tax return is a leetle busy.

Convinced my marginal tax rate will rise -- think it's too small anyway, 34% would be better, am hoping for a state income tax. I am very very very unlikely to rise to a higher tax bracket unless the tax code changes significantly -- I'm not privy to the ways of a 60% return on my annual income and at my tax bracket I'm not likely to become privy.

Considering Yanks are living longer, and the attempt to salvage Social Security will be made, and the attempt to pay for the war and to pay down the deficit will also be made, should I be expecting a 50-60% tax rate in my golden years? Is it stupid of me to be contributing to a 401(k) account while I have a 25% tax bracket if chances are very good I will be in a 50% or greater tax bracket when I withdraw my 401(k) funds?

If making significant contributions to tax-deferred retirement accounts place me in a lower tax bracket currently, doesn't that reduce the value of mortgage interest? Should I also then be working to prepay my mortgage? If Social Security isn't going to be around for me when I retire, does that mean I don't have to be worried about a substantial increase of funds and benefits that become subject to federal income taxation?

If homeownership w/mortgage interest payment deductions, and the tax exemption for having a kiddie are reduced when my tax bracket is low in my child-raising years, am I a sucka for contributing as much as I do to a 401(k) plan? Should I just back off enough to get the employer match and grab the energy tax credit instead?

Which is better: living in a currently low-tax country for forty years where I'll have to eventually pay twice as high a marginal rate, or moving to a wealthy, industrialized, resource-rich country ten years from now where I can expect to pay 38%?

How horribly unfair would it be to have a Roth IRA with no annual caps on what one could contribute to it, for a worker who earned under $50,000 a year?

Should I ease off the retirement contributions, currently 10% 401(k) and $4000 Roth IRA, to build the emergency fund and enough resources to adequately start a taxable investment (with margin) account?

Oh yes, the source of my anxieties: "Who Gets Paid to Save?"

It's rough to challenge the popular belief that you'll be okay if only you'd make a 10+% contribution for your retirement, yet we have faithfully done that, and our liquidity is constrained. And don't tell me my liquidity is constrained because of my mortgage, because renting a house where I am is $150/month extra beyond my utilities, principal, tax, interest and insurance, and I'm paying $27 less than what I was prior to refinancing.

Another tough question: how does an Economics Ph.D., no sorry, make that SENIOR ECONOMIC ADVISOR TO THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CLEVELAND, or perhaps TENURED PROFESSOR AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY make it through twenty-three years of English-language schooling without knowing the difference between the verbs 'lose' and 'loose'? My mother and father never made it through high school and they knew better.

1. I hadn't yet been out in the sun to pull up weeds. I chose to pull up weeds as a tiny action indicating that yes, I do want to improve my environment and yes, I am deficient in Vitamin D and want that sunlight!

2. I went through a purge -- shredding financial statements we don't need, and found a budget book. I tallied first our income, feeling pretty proud of myself for earning the wage that I do, and then tallied our expenditures:
* a friend's morning wedding in Vancouver, so an overnight stay is in the cards;
* the IRS payment of $860.72 -- bah on me for getting it in two weeks earlier;
* the non-refundable deposit for putting the munchkin in kindergarten: $170/month full-time, and this is a BARGAIN compared to $50,000 of past childcare expenditures;
* my birthday, and I will be one very spoiled princess/goddess with my bitchen waterproof warm imported motorcycle jacket;
* the last hiccup of $750 for my 2006 Roth IRA contribution;
* my kid's social communication playgroup: $40/session, and I haven't kept up payments since the facilitator/therapist moved operations to where there's no billing receptionist;
* thought I might try paying the mortgage every four weeks, so inked in a double payment.

3. I'd been getting to sleep well enough without melatonin and 5-HTP the last few days, but my serotonin reserves got depleted.

This, along with other expenditures like insurance, heat, utilities, food, came to $7800 for the month. This is well above what we bring in. Sure, I put in $450 as a savings category for the vacation, and yes, we have savings, and the tax/mortgage/childcare payments can go through our chequing account without overdraft, but what about the 2007 Roth IRA or the windows or the gardening/landscaping I wanted done for my survival/victory garden? Poof. So no double payment of the mortgage, obviously.

Thanks, Lux Living Frugalis, for the Daniel Quinn recommendations and verbal bouquet. I do have a lot of fallow time at work, so I'll get the Ishmael books after I finish Road to Serfdom.

And thanks for the "there theres" and understanding that I really just want to participate in a spectrum of advice and experiences, and present some bulletins that people may find useful for re-engineering their spending. Like Club Orlov's 'Closing the Collapse Gap' slideshow. Some may think this may never happen; some may be unsettled; others may be thinking 'oh good, I'm not the only one out there thinking this way, maybe I can cut down on the Wellbutrin or Fluoxetine.' The important thing is that we're putting our brains to use taking in and analyzing data and choosing between action and inaction.

And this is mostly for me, but if you find use in it, then it's for you too:
"May today there be peace within.

May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith EXCEPT BANKS -- DO NOT TRUST THEM OVER YOUR SPOUSE. THE BANKS SHOULD NOT BE YOUR OVERLORDS!.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you."