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.

What I need right now are a bunch of little health, wealth, family and spiritual victories, confidence boosts to tell me I'm on the right paths.

I need to resist the urge to kick myself for following common advice to allocate my investments to indexed mutual funds, and finding the DJIA has returned a little less than a negative 2% return over the past eight years.

And to be kind to myself for underestimating, yet again, how much taxes we'll be owing. I withheld a little extra, and set a double-digit pre-tax contribution for my 401(k)s, and itemized, but I still have this knot in my stomach telling me to prepare to pay $8,000 extra.

I will make some calculations to determine at what price point it makes sense to buy a hybrid or alternative fuel vehicle over continuing to use gas-powered vehicles. It amazed me to learn that a multimillionaire didn't pay over $10,000 at any time in his life for a new car. Will the payback period for buying a hybrid next year be within five years? How long do I expect to own the car?

I feel that, bit by bit, truth is coming to me from all sides, and believe that if I make gradual changes in habits and master renunciation of ego and materialist promptings of my weak flesh, I'll get to where I want to be, where I should be.

I'd like to graph, month to month, the increase in satisfaction for dollars spent, as in Your Money or Your Life. I'd like to notice more how not refinancing my house, how not using the car so often, are saving me money. I'd like to remind myself in the evenings that I could be stretching, meditating, exercising with the tot, looking through seed catalogues, reading Gardening in Tough Times, cleaning my house, writing letters, supplementing my son's education.

to become a person whose intrinsic worth is RECOGNIZED AND APPRECIATED more than the money she is able to give to/earn for other people. I'd like to be valued for my me-ness, rather than sought out near all the time as a potential client.

"I don't want to hang out with you, but I want you to come to my Pampered Chef parties. I don't want to hang out with you but I want you to come to my party so you can give me a gift that I won't bother sending a thank-you card for, and make other people think I am really popular. I don't want to put my real age or my real interests other than my photo studio on MySpace.com, but I am Requesting you Add me as a Friend because you have a kid and live in the area. You don't mean anything more to me than a measure of my marketing success. I'll claim on public forums that despite your 25% or 28% tax bracket and that 80% of your income is outgo that you are a big drain on the American economy but I'm not going to lead you to what I think you need to learn or be so you can be 'as educated about US and world history as' the American citizen claiming all immigrants are a drain on the economy. You need to learn about and study our Constitution so that when you become a citizen your nominal vote can go to a party determined to dismantle it; otherwise you are a drain on the US economy."

Doy... dur... my only value is commoditized and as a potential customer... I feels oh-so-validated in dis reel gud consumer culture...

Four tops, two shirts for me, two pairs of pants for boy, two tops for boy, canister for grains or beans (airtight): $23.47 @ Value Village!

Some were silk, others merino or silk/cashmere... oh to get a natural fibers top at below $3.00! Sweet!

I took the car back to work this evening for some more double-time. Someone tried to give me a humility lesson when I was coming home by motorscooter: apparently working moms trying to reduce their carbon footprint by motorscootering are inferior to a car driver inattentively licking on an ice cream cone when his vehicle is swerving at 70mph speeds into my lane. Yeah, I didn't think my saving a company a million dollars a day or attempting to raise a young boy to skilfully navigate his way around global collapse or recirculating some of my disposable income to cancer charities and homeless program mattered more than somebody else's strawberry ice cream cone either. Well at least I shouldn't. That inattentive driver certainly put me in my place. Maybe I'll be lucky and encounter the same driver, who'll be going 80 mph and talking to his snugglewuggums on his cell phone or bending down to pick up a stray receipt that fell to the floor and he'll finish me like I should be.

I know now this [the gaudy CSS layout] is an April Fool's joke, and so well done you won't read this unless you're so desperate for a non-ugly page to render in your browser.

I feel very compelled to disengage from blogging. I'm overwhelmed by the "to-do" list I make to ensure my financial survival, and maybe it's all going to go to waste anyway. Let the fascists and psychos and greedheads deplete everything. I've tried for ten years to understand and assimilate to my environment, including therapy, and I've failed. Al Gore has his "inconvenient truth" and I have my "uncomfortable reality." He's getting richer from his though, and I'm wasting away. Maybe I'm having a meltdown and need an intervention. Maybe I'm tired of my questions not being answered. Maybe I'm getting more noise than signal right now. I'm feeling very defeated.

I'm hoping I've overadded the wages, and underadded the deductions: it looks like we may owe $5600 beyond what we withheld. As we probably won't be assessed a penalty (our taxes are WAY Beyond 2005, the second of two conditions required for nonassessment of penalty), it doesn't seem that bad, and it's preferable to having money returned to us by the government, but OW.

As in:
we don't have that in savings yet OW.
"but I was gonna feed my Roth with our existing money" OW.
"but what about replacing the windows this year?" OW
"I thought we saved more money last year" OW

We didn't save much money in 2006. I paid off my scoot, we paid $1600 in damages incurred on a rental scooter my spouse commandeered and crashed, $1100 in dental services for our child, $1400 in motorcycle gear for the both of us, $900 on updating the wardrobe, $1100 on a brake job and service for the car, and fed $5500 to my Roth. I also overpaid our mortgage principal by $1300. All of this: aiyee.

I feel I've been obliviously wasteful. Especially since I'd been doing things like abstaining from using the car, choosing more fuel-efficient transportation, holding off on getting cellular phones, taking on extra jobs. Being free of consumer debt is little consolation.

Because now I can see it's only a matter of how long a string of emergencies could be to bring an otherwise doing-okay family into debt: car breakdowns, accidents, medical crop-ups, sudden family deaths, disasters affecting the home. You can't schedule these for the convenience of your emergency fund!!

And before anyone gets any holier-than-thou "I always plan my exemptions" thoughts, let me explain that I was a stay-at-home mom for 20 months before returning to work for a two-month contract in November 2005 that was renewed every two months, and I was ignorant of the return of the strong job outlook in my dotbomb environment. I didn't know how long it would take for me to find my next contract.

So I don't want to do the taxes this year. Let some impassive third party go through my life, tightlipped and poker faced, and deliver the result to me.

January is the hardest month financially for my family. Water/sewer bill, electricity bill (a third of the water/sewer), highest natural gas bill, semi-annual insurance, dental appointments. I start to worry about making my full Roth IRA payment, and fret about energy. I'm reeling from some poorly timed purchases: pricey motorcycle boots, dresses for interviews, another motor scooter (80 mpg, under $2K), a nifty helmet.

For those who keep track, I am in my quarterly "I am poor and inadequate and have no self-discipline, so I'll throw myself under a hybrid bus" anxiety attack.

Especially I am fretting now that I'm reading High Noon for Natural Gas by Julian Darley, and The Party's Over by Richard Heinberg. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and ten months of the year being here is splendid. This is not one of the splendid months ($147 heating bill).

How do I calculate the projected natural gas costs? I need to estimate them so I can determine if it's worth going back into debt to make energy efficient home improvements, or if I should just use some film coatings and caulk.

There are simple living groups and gurus (Cecile Andrews, Vicki Robin, Steve Rose all live in Seattle), study groups and progressive communities here, including a Peak Oil Awareness group. They're probably all debt-free with no mortgage, or child-free. It sounds hokey to put out a personal ad, but I'm wondering if there are any other parents nearby like me who are thinking "eeps! I better adjust so I can give my kid and my senior self a better life!"
Thursday's Peak Oil Awareness group might be where I meet him or her.

When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around
I sometimes fear I'm unwilling to make necessary adjustments to adapt to the reality of diminishing oil and gas reserves -- this year so many countries (Canada and Mexico and others) are to have their peak output of these natural resources, and then trouble will start (like it didn't start in 1973, or 2003).
I have strong psychological attachments to the home, I don't have the time right now really to get gung-ho on gardening, aside from ordering seed catalogues from organic seed suppliers. But I have Steve Solomon's book Gardening When it Counts.

Something else I need to do is rely more on beans and rice to make complete proteins. A few months ago, inspired by the peak oil crisis, I opted to make as much of my diet come from agriculture within 100 miles from me. I eat more fish than chicken and beef these days, but a recent New York Times article by Michael Pollan gave me twinges of regret spending $100 on local organic beef and wild-caught fish this past weekend. Our diet should be mostly plant-based, with maybe a 4 oz. portion of meat, instead of the 5-6 oz. portions. I'd save some dollars.

And I did a bad thing -- I walk close to a mile every day, either to the post office or bus stop or library. Sunday afternoon, jonesing after taking my tot for a 1.3-mile walk with playtime around a man-made lake, I took my motorcycle to the library (0.5 miles away) to photocopy the Sunday crossword. That cost me nearly five cents in gas. I could have walked some more, but seeing other motorcyclists enjoying the sun makes me itch for my scooter key.

It is not without alarm I read online economic data points spiced like projected home valuation depreciation, current negative savings rates, with the comment "Not since the 1930s..." Everyone knows how America fared in the 1930s, right? At least I still have those bottles of sloe gin and liquors. And a fur coat.

I've got to cut down on the frivolous expenses, and I've got to get my family to help. I've got to increase our taxable assets, maybe buy some gold. And chickens. If S. J. Perelman, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, and E. B. White can transition to farmer scribes, I should be able to transition to farmer tech scribe.

I want to inoculate us against the myopia and ignorance of others, and the waste and dystopic zeitgeist around me. I want to seek local versions of the SavingAdvice.com mentors here. I'll even make tea biscuits and offer what I hope to be the last frivolous purchase in a while: specialty tea from TeaCup. Even if it means turning on the natural gas to heat the water.

Protecting the family from screen media is another hard task. I rented "Mr. Show", Seasons 1 and 2 of a hip, long past (1995-1998) sketch comedy HBO show. My kid loves DVDs and VHS, although he sees maybe two hours a week, and we're thinking even that's too much for him: "Let's play Trailer Park Boys, okay? Let's play Mr. Show and I'll be Bob Odenkirk, okay?"

I need to lighten up, but at this point I am racing around the house yelling at people for leaving lights on. I need to break free of this bulimic pattern of scrimp scrimp SPLURGE SPLURGE scrimp scrimp scrimp. I am seriously considering giving up the television, only how would I watch my Chaplin DVDs at those times the world seems especially oppressive and pugnacious?

An important truth Amy Dacyczyn revealed was that her thriftiness and creative frugality came from her and her husband's desire to have a 2200 square foot house and six children. In other words, they designed their life a certain way and recognized and made the tradeoffs required to live that way the best they could. She and her husband weren't always thrifty, and they didn't always make perfect financial decisions.

This admission gladdened my heart and inspired me.

What do I want? Not six children. I don't need a 2200 square foot house. Certainly a house is very important to me, psychologically. My parents didn't ever own homes that they BOUGHT themselves, and I moved eight times in as many years -- yeah, that totally contributes to stability.

Some people want to live their lives so they can pay for annual trips to see their parents, or travel around the world, or become a race car driver. Some want to play Scrabble all around the world. Me, I want a paid off home and to be able to pay for things I want/need in cash. In short, I want security. I need to always remember my idea of security differs from others' ideas.

For instance, I tend to assume that because I am so insecure about my finances, that I'm doing very poorly compared to the rest of the country. After all, if I'm uncomfortable about my scooter debt -- actually it's not so much that, it's that I have been very lax about paying off the scooter debt because of unforeseen expenses along the way -- and others are comfortable about their vehicular leases and car loans, and the under $2000 credit card debt most credit cardholders w/balances have (the AVERAGE is $8600+, but over 50% of folk have balances much less than that), then they either know things I don't, or they have backup plans I don't.

Seven years ago we didn't quite make the 20% downpayment required for a house, but at the time my parent was dying, so I was VERY emotionally insecure. My security went into the house.

So people are now making zero money down, interest-only, adjustable rate mortgages twice as large as what we made seven years ago. That demonstrates either financial confidence ("our wages will always rise, even though historically there was even a FIFTEEN-year era of stagnant wages") or financial hysteria ("omg I am 25 and I do not have a house or condo of my own! if I do not buy right this minute the prices will go up forever and I will be so out of luck! omg! the panic! I can't see myself being 30 and renting! yi!").

I have a retirement fund, and some illiquid assets, including the inflated home equity all the other homeowners except those in Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix currently have. That's not enough for my security. I have job skills, some wits, and health. That's not enough for my security. I have a spouse with a steady job. That's not enough for my security. The huge run ups in consumer and governmental spending do nothing for my emotional security.

What will be enough for my security? Why isn't it enough for me that I can pay my credit card balances in full at the end of the month and my net worth grows on average per month? Why do I feel I need the liquid cash to pay for six things that could go wrong all at once?

NOTE:
The paragraphs below were copied from The Motley Fool. Someone else other than I wrote it. That's as much attribution I can muster right now, so know that this is not (intentional) plagiarism.

Demographically speaking, the American middle class is responsible for the largest portion of discretionary spending and should therefore face the greatest decline in living standards. There are many poor, but their ability to decrease consumption without dying is minimal. The wealthy consume a great deal more, but their numbers are few and raising taxes isn't likely to slow their consumption much. Dividing the economic pie is a political game and there is little doubt that wealthy Republican supporters have been spared much of the pain as their people have been in control in Washington.

Meanwhile, working class and poor Americans have been taking on a disproportionate share of the pain as rising expenditures for heating, transportation, housing and debt service have cut into already tight budgets. Going forward, there is likely to be much more pain to share (especially from rising energy costs) and political change is possible if there is enough outrage over declining living standards for middle and working class families. Whether or not the political focus shifts to providing a better safety net for the poor while raising taxes on the wealthy, the continuing Middle Class Squeeze will be necessary to reduce American consumption to ecologically and financially sustainable levels.

Implications for investors
Going forward, there are certain sectors that should be avoided by prudent investors. While the broader indices have remained remarkably stable, many retail stocks have been declining since late July 2005 as retail sales have been disappointing and consumer confidence has fallen off a cliff. Service sector companies and jobs in particular are at risk because they are most dependent on discretionary spending. Housing and financial stocks have also begun breaking down and are vulnerable to bigger declines as trends accelerate, especially homebuilders and mortgage lenders who profited by taking on high levels of leverage and risk during the boom. Public utilities are vulnerable as energy costs rise if the political will shifts to shielding consumers form rising energy costs as it did in California during that state's recent energy crunch.

Lastly, most bond investments should not be considered 100% safe. Municipal bonds in particular are vulnerable as many local governments have gotten themselves deeper and deeper in debt. Even US treasuries should not be considered as the national debt has reached a point where it may be politically impossible for the government to pay it off. Not all middle class Americans have been over-consuming as badly as the average citizen, and many have saved up diligently for retirement. In recent months Asian stocks in particular have done well, and a steady shift in consumption from the US to the countries who've financed the trade gap likely means that this is an early stage of a much larger trend. It is imperative that middle class investors be aware of the evolving trends so that their retirement portfolios can provide a cushion against the ongoing Middle Class squeeze.

So is the middle class aware they've been spending too much?

Is the middle class in its entirety the 95% of Americans who think they are (incomes ranging from $20K -> $140K)?

Which will bring down the economy faster: the middle class reining (not reigning, that is synonymous with ruling) its expeditures or the current rate of government spending?

Do the middle class intentionally elect politicians and parties to give them the discretionary spending paddling and SQUEEZE ("really, I squeeze you out of love") because they secretly hate themselves?

Is 95% of the US population really the middle class? Would 95% of the US population be able to effect legislative change? What % of the middle class enjoys being squeezed?

Do people who believe in making indebtedness as excruciating as possible also believe that should also apply to the federal government when it's indebted to foreign interests?

Also, a look at July 10, 2006's G.19 Release of Consumer Credit Outstanding (billions of dollars) from the Federal Reserve indicates that total consumer credit is up to 2.1616 trillion dollars. Finance companies hold 43% more obligations than they did in 2001, commercial banks 25% and credit unions 23%.

For major types of revolving credit, all noteholders have increased the amount due to them.

For nonrevolving debt, finance companies are holding fewer securities.

Another item: whereas the overall public aren't going into debt for plasma TV screens and iPods, the Department of Homeland Security and other border protec....

Bully for him, you think. He's thinking fiscal sense.

No-o-o-o-o. We'd have to borrow for a scooter and we're already paying mine off. Or rather, I am already paying mine off. He got motorcycle gear with the idea that he'd be riding MY machine. We have a car. I have other ideas for money -- rebuilding the emergency fund, investing money so we have less to pay the utility companies.

I believe in a MAXIMUM of one vehicle per driver, preferably one per household, and we need one car because we have a child who is too young to ride on a motorcycle or scooter. I have to go to an office to work, so I take a scooter. It is cheaper than a car.

He can ride my scooter. I'm not averse to him riding one. I'm averse to his OWNING one when we need to be cutting our expenses.

I was going to stay home to clean up the house, but that would mean losing out on $160. Which I need.

I was not frugal -- I had an hourlong massage last night. It had been twenty-two months since I last had one, and my back was beginning to ache.

I'm listening to an interview with John Rubino. www.netcastdaily.com/1experts/2004/exp022804.mp3.

$34 trillion debt.
$450,000 per family of four is what we "owe." Unsustainable considering average family makes $50K a year.

Had fun inputting my birthday into the King County Records Website to see what people are taking for mortgages. I saw mostly Home Equity Lines of Credit and Home Equity Loans.

Also saw some foreclosures -- single women who bought in 2003. Not in the upscale areas, but in the poorer areas of King County.

How to manage the crash? I'm wanting to 1. pay off my scooter debt,
2. make the house more energy-efficient, 3. buy some gold,
4. invest in permaculture
5. Buy Canadian $$$.
6. Contribute to Roth IRA - mining stocks.
7. Buy foreclosed houses.

Can't do this all at once.

Patience, patience.

Also want to buy new clothes. I haven't bought much in the way of clothes because I didn't need to, I was inbetween sizes, I didn't have time to shop for quality clothes. Now my clothes are too old, not "me," don't fit, or are worn.

What I did: read through books for "must haves," learn what colours look best on me, what styles, and what image is best. I was surprised to learn I was a trendy.

Challenge: $175/month for clothes. Certainly, buying a $110 silk nightie was excessive. How do I rationalize it? Every woman needs one.

$30 for red Doc Martens -- obviously a good buy. I had no boots, and red is my fave colour.