Spondulicks Forever!

Everything now is about getting the house up for sale. Not sure if I should immediately pay off the HELOC or let it go as I spend $ on curb appeal projects. I have another 21 years left on the HELOC, and $37K before I hit my max.

So I abandon the car plan and YNAB for now.

I must call about landscaping the front and back, bridge loans, and maybe even a Bellingham real estate agent. I need to call its School District Admin office and see how they accept/treat children with graphomotor difficulties. I went to a meeting yesterday at my son's school: I still don't understand his teacher other than that he has two dozen kids, an overloaded schedule, and a high priority to make sure his students can write competently and that he himself meets the metrics and expectations the district gives him. He doesn't entertain the possibility that my kid is bored/frustrated with his class, because I guess teachers think if you have special needs or some sensory problem going on, your brain is supposed to be stuck on that and not at all racing so fast and finding the pace of the class slow. I want a cognitive test without 130-level ceilings to see if my kid's . brain is doing much else. There are programs for the highly capable but if you're hindered by a disorder that makes writing or fine motor actions grievously poor you don't get accepted.

It doesn't make sense to move to a city with 1/10 the population and expect more understanding and experience, I guess.

Weirdness: all the other properties are going up except my and my friend's. She's got just under $120K left on her mortgages and I have just under $130K on mine.

Animal Control came. The Great Dane in its small pen barked for close to 60 minutes, maybe 75 minutes on Friday at dinner time, when it's inconvenient to have pink noise or the mp3 player on for dinner prep twice... I no longer record when it barks during the day, because I can slip headphones on and ignore it, but I can't ignore it at dinner: I have to hear timers beep, phone ring. I've discovered pink, white, and brown noises on binaural beats are as beautiful to hear as a newborn's first cry.

Dismayed by low Zillow estimate. Don't know how 38% growth in market value over 12 years happens to just us and only us, but others have higher ones. New roof, new heating system, new insulation, new windows, new kitchen, new bathroom. Just because everything except the roof haven't been added in the last two years doesn't mean that Zillow's priced it in.

I am doing an employment novena for my friend and he is doing one for me. All I know is that after the "holy water", purple candle burning, Blood Sugar Blues tincture and magnesium, the nasty cortisol-fueled thought racket at night doesn't happen.

We missed out on the car buying days event sponsored by the credit union. Oh well. September or August, we should have a newer car. Unless we've moved, in which case we will definitely have a better car.

Robin Gibb woke up from his coma. I'm positive Barry Gibb's singing to him did the trick: Barry can hit the notes that can recharge certain parts of the brain. Oddly "You Should Be Dancin'" hit the mp3 shuffle play as I typed this. I am sorry I did not think to play the Bee Gees when my mother had her cancer. Maybe Paul McCartney couldn't sing high enough to put Linda McCartney's cancer into remission. Two deaths in a week is just greedy anyway.

My spending focus is on the house.

my birthday rolled around. Parents dead for over a decade so they're no fun. Nifty presents are all colourful: Raoul Dufy print mug, flowers, rainbow Swatch watch, a mystery book. And now a double-scoop of custard: Kit Kat plus vanilla! Five-star Yelp review comin' up!

Deaths: Dead Pool 2013 is already slated, thanks to recent announcements, plus a NY Times online feature about obituaries, including dead pools, so now I have rich sources of names. I'm envious of the people who made their dead pool lists as global and varied as possible: mine was mostly US-based. My friend who gave me the Dufy mug is ranked ten on a big deadpool, I am languishing at position thirty-seven, eighth from last. No money is involved there though. Happy with my current position on a money dead pool.

I'd been secretly hoping I'd get a 38-point bump by today on my for-money list. I am sure I am not the only one.

Dead Pool UPDATE: Dick Clark passed. He's on my list. I better let the fair administrix know.

Thanks for the birthday greetings and wishes! I only wish I had the stamina and focus to keep cheer every day and pass it around as well!

Finished the second of Kyril Bonfiglioli's Charlie Mortdecai crime novels: this one is not so much fun, less violent and more domestic than the first, Don't Point That Thing at Me.

Close to broke again (but not poor) after a trip to IKEA. Hoped to pay with credit card, balance well into the three digits after birthday dinner, gifts, and auto repair and maintenance charges, but didn't have a PIN. I did get a coupon for $1.08 off my next IKEA purchase, and the kid had a fun time at the cafeteria: all the Swedishness reminded him of Team Alfredsson in the NHL All-Star event, where at least six Swedes from Ottawa and Vancouver were on Alfie's team. And what Canadian teams made it to 1st round in the playoffs? That's right, Ottawa and Vancouver. Fortunately IKEA is cheap and I didn't buy more than what I could carry. IKEA's having a "living room event" next week: maybe I'll finally get that Ektorp sofa bed and matching chair.

Scrabble players, according to a

University of Calgary study, really are smarter than most. I feel this is another handicap preventing me from employment. Maybe the real handicap is not knowing what jobs are available where puzzle-solving and pattern recognition are valued and earn ample compensation. Too many people I see at school and at shopping who are hired ignore, disdain and yawn or foolishly argue and lie. I used to think it was me, but I've had great experiences at other places and think I must have crossed the divide into "those kids are rude and have no sense of privacy" codgerdom. I'm happy with that.

Went to La Fontana Siciliana downtown for birthday dinner. Pricy, but worth it for the hidden splendour of a fountain, and to be spoken to in genuine Italian, and in English with heavy Sicilian accents, and to have an hour or two of low-level noise. We were kidless that evening and did not order wine, so kept bill down to under $100.

We started our kidless adventure with an Income Tax cocktail and beer at Cafe Racer. A small barking dog and the tinniness of Van Morrison's "Cyprus Avenue" blaring hurt our ears so we escaped upstairs until the music changed or the volume was turned down. Italian sex comedy music followed so we returned to the bar to be friendly at the request of a regular.

What else? Bought grasses for the front, herbs for the side. Looked at a house for sale near an exquisite bakery on the west side of Seattle. Supposedly an open house but the agent was nowhere to be found, so we snuck into the garage and went to the backyard for a look-see.

Rented "Uzumaki" which seemed vaguely familiar in spots, and "Miranda" which is a comedy written by and starring a woman with my head on my friend's 6'3" body.

After the tax payment, I'm a little better than where I was financially six weeks ago. I can let up on the scrounging and fasting and denial.

Filling up tank for $3.995/gallon: win!
Going to Costco and finding Cheerios and apple juice cheaper than the last visit: win!
Fresh factory-produced bread for under $2: win!

Erik Satie plus un chat avec ennui:

réussite! - warning, French language, but there are subtitles.

The tax payment came out of our account today. I feel as if I'm a post-surgery patient with a malignant growth just removed: weak but hopeful and glad the ordeal is over! I have under $300 in chequing, and that's before the $100 HELOC payment and the $25 automatically added to the certificate of deposit, the $67 for aikido lessons and the $25 monthly payment for our phone. I better transfer some dough from Money Market Account. What I would really like is a good ol' cocktail.

or is it investing pit?
Getting numbers of painters and landscapers.

Spent $330+ on car service: Oxygen sensor was starting to go, that would explain getting below 22 mpg, which I didn't think was possible with our car. Spent $50 on a Nine West watch at Macy's. I wanted a watch, longed for the Betsey Johnson watches available at Nordstrom but we're poor, so we paid for a watch we are to pick up on the 25th or later, at 25% discount.

naturally if we do move, we will be buying a new car with some proceeds. Not that there's any difference between doing that and buying a car with the HELOC...

Dirtnap for Dollars update: Pneumonia brings family around for emergency visits.

This is safe and lovely, especially on a sunny morning. If it weren't cold and I weren't limping I'd go trippin' through daffodils and tulips. Older people can enjoy Blossom Dearie's "A Fine Spring Morning" or Donovan's "Lullaby of Spring", young'uns "Spring" by Saint Etienne or "Magical Spring" by Ride.

The spring has lifted the housing market and thawed the values. I'm feeling bold enough to mail my tax payment, and to plan my post-tax spending: car maintenance, hair colouring (I get a 'consideration' discount for a book I unloaded on my hairdresser), dental exam, needed pants, shirts and sleepwear. I also attempted sit-ups last night. My appetite is back and I'm sleeping through most of the night now. Although my hockey team has clinched its division it cannot do what the NY Rangers did and clinch its conference.

Tonight is silent film and vaudeville night, with dinner at a Cajun/Creole restaurant. Yeah!

It's National Poetry Month: I am trying to get into the spirit of it, by reading beyond Wendy Cope and the Modernists. Break the Glass by Jean Valentine won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry but I am not moved by its contents. The Dickinson and Baudelaire collections are all out on loan at my library. I'll probably go retro and take out the Coleridge collection, read Elizabeth Bishop as well, and borrow Pokemon Dad's 2009 published book of poems for the kid to read and bring to school: he can point to the photo on the back and say "I know this man!"
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Finance: this is a tight week. I'll probably have under $50 in chequing by the time the paycheque comes. Feh. VISA to pay, more Lenten donations... did I mention that I based my Lenten offerings on the performance of my hockey team, that has now won seven games in a row? Watch them slack off after Easter and give St. Louis the conference winner title.
I paid $45.19 for gas this week, our tank down to a never-before-witnessed .6 gallon of fuel. Why so low? Tax payment and budgeting for March. I overspent that month's budget by $850 as I shunted $1170 of the income to the 1040-V payment.
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My Struggles: my attempts to help my kid with his writing are ineffective, inefficient and feeble. His teacher called us into a conference to discuss my kid's handwriting difficulties. It only took oh, three workbooks of writing, a call and interview with a psychologist, a call to the school district's Speech Language Pathologist and a subsequent call from the SLP assigned to our school to bring on this conference. I do not like my school district. I do not like the school PTSA: "We're going to entreat you to contribute and then not respond to you when you offer to volunteer, okay? Because that's what makes us great, okay? I don't feel you're a team player with community spirit if you demand a response from us for niggly details like when and where to show up, okay?" I don't have to like my son's teacher but I feel I must trust his experience and approach to helping my son succeed, though my son's grades aren't any evidence that his teacher and I are doing any good. At least DS's teacher acknowledged I was aware of the problem and trying to help, and at least I was able to walk away from the meeting knowing that his teacher did not rule out the possibility of a disorder or a disability.

I left at intermission, after

this. Children saw this live, but I can't say it is safe for any animal lovers. It's from Buster Brown Shoes-sponsored "Andy's Gang" television show for children, hosted by westerns character actor Andy Devine. Andy introduces Midnight the cat and Squeaky the rodent as they perform "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know." I wonder how many children grew up to be animal activists and atheists. The only bright spot was Vito Scotti.

You've been warned. It's from a 4hr 40min compilation video collection "Movie Orgy" from famed director Joe Dante. It had to be screened for free because the production and distribution were free, but I wanted my money back.

1. I started juicing, now that I am reading a book by Dr. Sandra Cabot. This week I used spinach in the drinks, for protein and to offset the acid from lemon, grapefruit and orange. The drinks aren't horrible. The great thing about juicing is that a lot of carrots get used, and therefore I buy in bulk, and that brings the cost per pound of carrots down to 70 to 80 cents.

2. Gas is now officially over $4.019/gallon where I live.

3. I believe my neighbour's dog is senile, as she is old and was whining outside at 2:35 am. We suggested to the neighbor that he bring his dog to a vet for a checkup, as she was outside and whining when it was cold and wet, and older animals are likely to be uncomfortable in those weather conditions, as they have thin skin, sensitive bones, and possible cognition decline. But why take care of your elderly best friend when you can irritate your neighbours to the point where they have to move if they want to claim their property rights of a quiet night?

4. This one is for baselle:

Robin Gibb undergoes surgery - my friend and I were at Gainsbourg last night when she pointed to my price book cover and said, "I predict he will be the next to go." "I'm goin' nowhere, somebody help me." Stayin' Alive

5. Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who is charged with murdering 16 Afghans, had mortgage finance problems. His house was briefly on the market days before the murder of the Afghan civilians. This is why I am afraid to confront my underwater-mortgage neighbours about their suffering animals. It's said that Staff Sergeant Bales had Post-Trauma Stress Disorder, and I believe that, as my cousin was a staff sergeant from the same company, and was diagnosed with PTSD before he was shipped to Afghanistan. I am told that my cousin killed civilians as well, but I cannot verify that. “I don’t see how you can do this,” he said, “and not be damaged.”

6. My Jeopardy! tryout sucked. I got maybe 44 out of 50 questions.

Then I'll go buy a car.

Windows painting, steps and rail painting, moss cleanup, garden cleanup, tree cleanup, new plants put in, interior painting. Hoping it'll be under $5K.

Naturally, after looking at our first house--an informal inspection down the road, told the empty house's neighbour what we were doing and asked her questions about the block--we came across a neighbor on our house who listened to us vent about our troubles: lots of people in adjacent properties buying dogs and not bothering to train them so they all bark whenever, making it impossible for us to enjoy peace and quiet in our home.

I don't want to live where ignorance, recalcitrance, hostility and malice trump consideration and goodwill. I'm willing to sell and buy my way out of that. I can then buy a car with cash, and pay off the HELOC.

Treasury Direct is no longer selling paper I Bonds, except with income tax refunds, which we will probably never see as I much prefer owing.

I use lots of Excel for my Schadenfreude list, but the problem with autodidact learning is lack of structured curriculum. I have been using Excel Formulas and Functions for Dummies, working on my first, second and third mortgages -- not concurrent! do not fret! -- and found:
if I kept my first mortgage, I would be paying $388.50 in principal a week from now, with 16.78 years left.
if I kept my second mortgage I would be paying $653.37 in principal a week from now, with 11.44 years left.
I'm paying only $24.23 more than $653.37 in principal, but $141.19 less in interest. With the first mortgage $792.87 would have been paid in interest. I would still be using the Itemized Deductions Schedule on my 1040.

I have overspent for this payperiod, and yet oversaved as well. On the Payday it all works out: surplus is allocated to money market account, and VISA card.

Now that My HELOC Balance is $300 away from what it was in June 2011 before I borrowed for the roof, I am slowing my contributions to $163+/month, and putting 5% of our income toward noise-cancelling ear buds and home improvement/maintenance.

Who's Weak This Week: Zsa Zsa is trending but not for reasons the Dirtnap for Dollars crew would salivate at; Robin Gibb will likely live to see the centennial of the Titanic's sinking (he composed a requiem and is making public appearances). I have been spoiled this year by a score each month: numerically that rate is impossible to sustain. I passed up Andy Williams for Larry Hagman, strictly based on age, and here's Andy in a wheelchair, and Larry doing television. I like Andy Williams too, I had such a crush on him when up until I was five. He voice-dubbed Lauren Bacall! How cool is that? You know what would be cool? If he sang a recording of his own eulogy, and Lauren Bacall addressed the mourners, lipsynching the eulogy. Or vice versa, only I hope Ms. Bacall stays with us a long time.

A tip for those who want to play in 2013: Morley Safer, Steven Adler, William "Refrigerator" Perry, and Tony Iommi.

1. California
2. Hawaii
3. Maryland
4. New Jersey
5. Washington
6. Massachusetts
7. Virginia
8. Connecticut
9. Colorado
10. Nevada

To Nevada's credit, the average credit card balance outstanding is among the lowest in the nation.

My state sucks, of course as it has the 16th highest unemployment rate in the country and a high poverty rate of 12.5%. Credit card debt per person in Washngton: $6,825 (17th highest).

Link

We visited an India-Pakistan store nearby, for the first time. Scarily old products (best before 2008) on shelves, but netted what I was looking for: amla hair oil. Strengthens the hair, gives it shine, and purportedly hides grey. Good source of Vitamin C as it is from gooseberry. Strangely they had no ground cumin in bulk.

This week neither my spouse nor I went out for coffee. Including drip. This is a first. I attribute it to his day off yesterday and my bout of cystitis.

Our interest from CDs and accounts was calculated and added. Not much, but more than what we would have budgeted for coffee this week.

Some Comcast guy offered my spouse some upgrade, but was wretched and rude about it. He claimed that for $9 extra a month the speed would double before verifying what speed we had, and we'd have access to 80 television channels (no interest to us). Comcast doesn't offer any individualized plan of optimal benefit for the consumer. I put my hand on spouse's shoulder and said "Comcast is a small company. There's only so much it can do." The sales guy riposted, "Everything should be free, huh?" Which makes no sense. I wasn't asking for free stuff and didn't complain about our current bill.

It's rare that anyone comes to us with "hey we have a way to save you money" that actually results in a lower monthly cost and better quality. BECU gets five star reviews from me because they did not balk at switching our mortgage plan from 15-year plus application fee to 12-year with no application fee once the latter mortgage product had rolled out. They didn't say "Everything should be free, huh?"

I am equally happy living in both urban and suburban environments, hubby is mostly urban except without the patois and bling. I compared a desirable city north of us to where we live now:
North City
+ better public school test results
+ can be in Vancouver within 90 minutes
+ cost of living a little lower: housing and utilities are less
+ closer to my friends
+ better bookstores
+ lower violent crime rates
+ marginally lower property tax rate
+ higher comfort index
+ less-expensive houses
+ culture
+ sunnier

- mass transit barely used
- walkscores are lower, unless I want to be within ten blocks of the interstate (cancer risk). Definitely getting a Leaf, Volt or Prius if we move up.
- higher property crime rates
- cul-de-sacs galore: accident potential
- groceries costs are higher
- smaller library system
- snows more
- more politically diverse: most every local election goes the way we want it to in our current city
- rains more

I don't want so much land as I want a house that's within walking/bicycling distance to some good schools and I don't have to take the car freaking everywhere. We could move to a condo or townhouse in our current city but the schools would still suck. It would help also to have little noise from barking dogs, so maybe no suburban stuff.

Maybe I'll investigate the school district and see how its curriculum is different from "if we just corporatize everything or let the Gates and Broad Foundations run our schools everything will be great!!" Seattle.

10.719 gallons refuel @ $3.909/gallon, cheapest within three miles of my home. I even beat the closest gas station to my house, one of the cheapest in Seattle (which means I went outside Seattle for fuel). $41.84

$39.64 - organic milk (brought wrong coupons), tea tree oil (for cleaning mildewy/smelly fabrics and other), MarketSpice tea (it's wet wet cold wet today), Spike seasoning in bulk, Ginger Peach tea in bulk, chicken breasts @ price-book level, red wine vinegar, five other items I can't think of, sirloin tip roast @ close to price-book level, organic carrots @ price-book level, eggs @ below price-book level, walnuts @ price-book level.

$8.79 -- favourite expenditure: PIE slices at $3.14/slice! with San Pellegrino water: I have cystitis, UTI or a kidney stone, so I bought the water to lower the internal pressure I was feeling. Left a tip 'coz I ain't no drip.

I did a second, clean pass through our taxes and saw that we owed $14.40 more than originally estimated. Crossing my fingers we don't get a tax penalty.

Because so little, aside from a nice coffee out this morning, and a nice bath after a few hours of intensive bathroom and kitchen cleaning, is going well in my life right now, please enjoy

Doin' The Banana Split - Safe for kids, practically encouraged.

Must remember to treat myself for these $10K milestones. Not a "treat" for myself, but I am licensing and microchipping my bad brown boy kitty. I may start colouring my hair again, now that grey hair is coming in. My first one was plucked by my hairstylist. I gave her a book of dirty comics as a thank you gift. Next $10K milestone scheduled for March 1 2013.

The balances seem abstract to me, except the tax bill, that's as concrete as a two-ton weight. When the proprietor of our espresso hangout says he's noticed our absences, staring at the tip jar, we can see how the $$ we contributed to his fund made a difference.

I'm not bothered so much now by the tax bill: I earned that much over the year in interest, dividends, and other investing. Although I am requesting DH change his tax withholding, it seems to me I am a more responsible steward of monies eventually turned over to the government than the government is of monies returned to me. The initial shock of surprise and unplanned expenses ebbs when I understand I have the $ to pay for them. Maybe the refinance changed our tax deductions for us: we pay under $4300 in mortgage interest, pay under $3400 in real estate taxes, the $600 tax for the roof just don't add up to itemized expenses. Last year we paid $5100+ in mortgage interest, and probably $6100+ the year before that. Amazing how fast the $100 savings is redirected to school donations, higher food and gas prices. We shopped and got $68 worth of groceries, but I've forgotten most of what we bought. I remember the produce, and dairy products and Nanaimo bar, we got some bagged cereal as well. Oh yeah, the wines. The wines cost at least a third of the bill. Meanwhile if I use up four vegetables our crispers are halfway to empty.

I wasn't happy with last month's food bill, but I did shop at Costco and buy a bulk order of meat, that's $300.

What's great when the insides are not so great: organic udon in chicken broth flavoured with salt, sugar, soy sauce, and sprinkled with five spice powder and kelp. Ohhhh.

In Dirtnap for Dollars news two of my picks are selling their houses; one has defaulted on her house loan. Try to imagine being in the tabloid news 50 years ago for wearing furs, getting jewels from randy royals, and big divorce settlements, and then defaulting on a house loan when you're five years away from pushing 100.

My Office Professional 2010 arrived today. I hope my 2008-era Dell laptop can handle it.
Extending my spring cleaning to include my PC and my insides. Starting with yogurt smoothies and indoor exercises.

Watching gold and silver slide like cliffside Malibu houses during an Act of God. If I see it below $1690 USD I'll buy a half ounce or one ounce.

Overspent by $309.60. Despite that it was a good month. I blame almsgiving, Costco, and my prescriptions.

Net Worth (Liquid Assets) rose by $2669 from January.
As of today, March 1, it dropped $1356.04, but that's just the negative income and expenses. I have to figure out how to input for March the paycheques for the 9th and 23rd.
Liabilities decreased by $286.59.

Mortgage cheque came through today. Chequing balance at $462.00.

Bought a $500 CD with a monthly Add-To feature.
Asked spouse to put a pitiful amount of $ toward a 401(k) so we can get a little more $ to spend, and oddly another $25 per pay period for tax withholding.

Now I will cut down on my debt repayment scheme, from $400 a month to $175 a month.
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Use-It-Up attempts:

10-grain muffins from Bob's Red Mill with some milk past its sell-by date. My family will not eat Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain cereal hot, but they'll happily munch on muffins made with them. Maybe men are more complicated than I thought.

Very old frozen cod, single serving: chopped into four pieces, put in foil with sliced potatoes, diced tomato, olive oil, white wine and thyme.

Oatsie Doatsie drop no-bake cookies, made with quick oats, cocoa, sugar, salt, vanilla.
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I spent $40 to refill the automobile yesterday, but I did not fill it up. I weep. The bright spot is that we lasted thirteen days on $37.48, including the 76 miles DH made on BBB. As my schadenfreude list does not have me visiting any faraway libraries this month, I can save at least $5.00.

I have checked books out of the library on bicycling safely in traffic and looked through the Chinook Book for Bike Store coupons.
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In stock hilarity news, I learned that if one goes to Standard and Poor's NetAdvantage website, and attempts to input "PEP" for Company Ticker and "Pepsico" for Company Name, one gets "Polish Energy Partners" traded on the Warsaw Exchange. Google, Value Line, FinViz and Yahoo! show financials for PepsiCo when PEP is entered as a search term.

Oh well. I didn't read much mention of it here.

$20 Challenge: Saved $230 (yes!) on Microsoft Office 2010 Professional. I am acquiring this program through legal means and will have an official license, if you must know. I get it on Tuesday. I sent my payment on Monday.

$20 Challenge 2: Saved $6 at the cinema yesterday. If a friend went with me she would have saved eight dollars. I got a free popcorn and with presentation of my membership card I got $3 off my admission. The film: Alfred Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes."

My mortgage cheque still has not been processed. I mailed it eight days ago and it is processed in six most times. I'll wait until March 2, and if it hasn't been processed I will put in an electronic payment.

Debt stats: Average credit card debt per household with credit card debt: $15,956, up slightly from two years ago. The majority of US households do not have credit card debt.

Total U.S. revolving debt (98 percent of which is made up of credit card debt): $801 billion, as of December 2011. This is down significantly from $866 billion, two years ago.

Eighty percent of lower income assets is in home equity. The easiest way for low income people to build assets is to pay off their mortgages. If they live where I do, they can expect a further decline of 6.9% in house value this year. I find the times where no investment yields a positive return frustrating.

Gold dove: might pick up a half-ounce today.
Bought $55 of General Electric. Considering Du Pont and Du Nemours, PepsiCo, more GoldCorp, General Electric and Procter & Gamble. What I do is triangulate among my present holdings, Jubak's Picks, and Value Line for Appreciation Potential.

According to data from the Federal Reserve Board, the ratio of homeowners’ equity to value at the end of the first quarter of 2011 was just 38.0 percent, the lowest on record. If this includes the 100% equity of paid off houses, I request permission to gulp audibly.

Slept through Ash Wednesday morning Mass. I did get replacement tabs and registration for the car -- well timed, as today they expire, so there is my penance. I also renewed our Scarecrow Video 10-punch account, taking out a Pokemon DVD for tot, and a Guy Maddin film for me (it was two-for-one Wednesday today, so one film would be for free).

No giving up disordered attachments of the flesh, other than the resistance to exercise. I do have some abundance--flesh, books and clutter, but scarcity in other areas. Disordered attachments of the mind and wallet will be surrendered, once I figure out what the disordered attachments of the wallet are. Library fines? Wasted food? Five-minute hot showers in February? Acrylamide-laden potato chips? Extra payments toward principal of extremely cheap loan? Sending heavy pricy coffee table hardcover books to eastern Canada while people starve on the streets? Disordered attachment of the mind is thinking how lowly and lonely I am. Certainly there are others who feel more lowly and lonely but I need to know how to find them to care for them. Thinking I need all the books and back magazines I have is disordered attachment.

Chequing account is now under $100 from now until payday.

Lenten practice possibilities:
sell books on shelves. divide proceeds between donating and debt.
empty a junk drawer.
Push-ups and sit-ups. If a starving, freezing Jew can do them in The Book Thief, I could do them.
clean one floor of pieces of paper.
Fast. Sleep on the floor.
Donations for every Vancouver Canucks win (22 games played between now and Easter).
Donation for every Dead Pool win I get between now and Easter (this should be easy -- I may have hit my limit).

My little one griped through his cart commander duty, having to veer and make sharp turns past the pod people on their phones. I tried to find clear aisles whenever possible. Coffee went back down under $6/lb! Manufacturer's rebate on diced tomatoes! Chicken thighs @ 99 cents a pound!

Costco Damage: $184.18 for thirteen items, most of them pantry things - peanut butter, cereal, canned tomato sauce, above-paragraph items, pens, quinoa, apple juice, sugar, pasta x 2. And Q-Tips.

Don't believe we yet made the $55/membership fee back in savings. I do imagine we saved at least $26. I don't feel we save heaps at Costco, because we spend heaps, but thanks to the price book and our fortitude in waiting until we have at least one dozen items to buy, we do save.

Then I misgauged the size of our Dr. Bronner Baby Mild empty bottle, went to refill it at $5.29/lb. $11.44 for over-filling the 32-ounce bottle. As Holden Caulfield would say, "Hee, I'm a madman."
Treated boy and myself to "Galaxy Blackout" chocolate cake thingies. $1.43 left in my purse.

After this we'll have $150 to get us through four days. Yesterday was a no-spend day for me and boy, but DH had a haircut "The Spaulding Special" (think tennis ball) for $15 + tip. I want to buy a book for a long-distance friend who's losing her geriatric cat to kidney disease (I lost a 19.5 year-old Burmese to kidney failure so my heart is aching for her and for me still) -- she lives, well, she really lives closer to London, England than she does to me, and we're on the same continent. How's that for remote? She can't afford treatment for her cat because she's on a credit/debt repayment plan and can't use her cards. Despite the looming tax bill I can show her a little love -- a coffee table picture book of Jean Harlow's Hollywood days, perfect for the woman I first met at Highland & Hollywood, where the "Intolerance" ancient Babylonia set re-creation is.

Poverty Chow Week:
bean casserole plus leftover chicken curry, roast beef, chicken w/capers.
Tuesday: pancakes.
Wednesday: fish (oysters? mussels?)
Thursday: chicken paprikash

Walked to and from Target today, in the rain. I made a list of six items I could carry home in a six block walk. I didn't save much money other than the 5% discount from RedCard and some sales on non-list items like AAA batteries and Starbucks ground coffee (total $4.23), but I did get some aerobic activity. When we empty the bag we can bring it to a Starbucks store for a free 12 oz drip for even more savings. I was going to go to Costco but was stopped by a back-of-the-envelope estimate of the cost of my desired purchases, the sum of which I mentally added to our heating bill ($118). I probably saved $1.50 by not going to Costco (gas).
Lentils ($1.49/lb), organic sugar ($3.00/lb) and quinoa ($7.99/30 oz) are not good deals at Target but they are at Costco.

Oh! And do we want to discuss deals? I shopped at Trader Joe's for produce, and came home with two humdinger deals, said the man who checked out my groceries. One was in the produce department -- I will let the regular TJ shoppers guess--answers in the comments please, and the other is the wine. I picked up a barbaresco nebbiolo for under $15 and saw a Barolo for under $20. I and the woman behind me at checkout were treated to a mini-seminar on how Trader Joe's manages to sell wine that cheap: it pays in cash and on time (at the time of sale/pickup, I guess). I silently edged toward the end of the checkout aisle, conscious of the woman behind me with her shopping cart, but she was as appreciative as I was to learn more about how Trader Joe's gives us its budget-price value wonders.

My rules now:
any home brewed cup of coffee that is less than 30 cents for 6 ounces is okay. I am also using up green tea and will work on the yerba mate when Lent starts (February 22).

Make at least one meal a week that includes any of the lingering red lentils, polenta, kasha, barley, quinoa in our pantry.

I posted a chart of our tax liability on the fridge. I am recruiting the boy to do weekly inventories of our pantries, fridge and freezer. Our reward for getting at least halfway to our tax liability in savings will be a 2-day stay in Vancouver (the uppercase one, in case the NW peeps were wondering) right after the tax payment is in the mail.

Gary Carter was on my list in the dead pool baselle is administrating. RIP Mr. Carter - Montreal was lucky to have you.

hate long posts getting timed out. Why do I not habitually write in a barebones editor then paste in here?

1. Doing taxes today! Two months to come up with the surprise the IRS demands from me is reasonable.

2. Learned I was overly aggressive thinking I could pay back $7400 to my accounts in one year! That's $20/day, practically. I'm $4600 of the way there with 113 days to go. Jean Chatzky's $10/day paydown seems doable and reasonable.

3. HELOC interest greater this month than last, because I repaid $440 from Dec to Jan, and $280 from Jan to Feb.

4. Valentine Feast kinda frugal: in-house veal in lemon, with steamed carrots and asparagus, and to drink grenadine sodas. Truffles for treats.

5. The Boy, who last week was hot-to-trot to earn a whopping 0.1% on his account, mislaid his money this week and didn't open an account after all. Oh the special developmental challenges of tweens.

6. I calculated I am earning 25% the amount of the interest I am paying on the mortgage and home equity line of credit, on my accounts outside of stocks, bonds and precious metals. Long-term loans of 3%-3.75% doesn't look bad, except it's 7.5-9.2x what I'm earning.

Update: Looks like I owe about $1787 this year. I am displeased. I know, I know: "at least you have the money to pay it!"

Two months until tax payments are due. I had best be starting my tax calculation.

This morning was not fabulous. Constant readers who remember my post about my kid hot-to-trot to put his money toward an account earning 0.1% have this update: the boy forgot his account application and furthermore mislaid the $ his grandparents and I gave him. I asked three pointed questions about the account setup this morning: he lied for the first question and ignored the other two. Tweenility?

HELOC payment went through. Paid more in interest than last month, although I did not take any money out. I just paid 33% less over the past 30 days than I did the prior 30-day period.

I earn 25% of the interest amount I pay out in mortgage and home equity line of credit. I had an epiphany that I have been too aggressive setting a one-year payoff for the roof. 113 days to go, $2260 more to pay. I like Jean Chatzky's "$10/day" idea in Pay it Down. 3 - 3.75% doesn't seem like much, but it's still 7.5 - 9.2 times more than what I'm earning outside stocks, bonds and precious metals.

Our Valentine Day meal was made inhouse: veal in lemon sauce, with steamed asparagus and carrots, and grenadine sodas, and I brought from the fridge some truffles I bought on Thursday. The boy's class will feast on Nanaimo Bars today for MORE SUGAR! WHEE!

We went to Budapest Bistro up in way north Lynnwood, as I had been craving Hungarian food since Zsa Zsa's birthday. The menu was very small: all on a whiteboard. We picked the one dish I had not made at home: a rice dish with peppers and paprika called lecho (Recipe to follow!). I had hot spiced red wine, and a cream puff for dessert. We were the only customers in. I sat next to a map of Hungary, and saw my ancestors' village just at the northern border of Hungary, touching Slovenia. Then everything about my grandmother's cooking washed over my memory cells: the spaetzle, cabbage rolls, sauerkraut, perogies.

I made Valentines for my son to hand out in class. This style went over well with the male fourth-graders:

with a nice bitter epithet from H L Mencken!

The one for his music teacher was even better. It had Twelfth Night's Duke of Orsino's "if music be the food of love, play on" quote, and "'Enough; no more: 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before." seeming to come from a dowager.


My lunch date thought it was nice. I thought it was wonderful: romance for me is not necessarily hearts, flowers and chocolates -- a few hours' burp-ups of peppered rice and cinnamon-infused Cabernet is as good as a rubdown as far as this girl is concerned.

Lecho
1 pkg. Hungarian (or Polish) sausage
4 sweet peppers (yellow, green and red in mine)
5-6 potatoes
1 c. uncooked rice
1 lg. onion
Salt & pepper
Paprika
Water
Saute onions and green peppers. Slice sausage and saute with peppers and onions. Salt and pepper to taste. Add enough water to cover meat. Add diced potatoes. Sprinkle with paprika. Let cook about 15 minutes on medium-high. Add rice. Cook until potatoes and rice are done (about 35-40 minutes).

from

endoftheamericandream.com
#1 Today, 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month.

#2 Overall, Americans are carrying a grand total of $798 billion in credit card debt.

#3 If you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent $798 billion by now.

#4 Right now, there are more than 600 million active credit cards in the United States.

#5 Exclusively among households that have credit card debt, the average amount of credit card debt is an astounding $15,799. That means households without debt were not included in this demographic sample.]

#6 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards. I can't. I have three credit cards, and one charge card. I use one 99% of the time, another only when I travel, and I keep the unused one because I am afraid of the hit to my credit score if I close it.

#7 The average interest rate on a credit card that is carrying a balance is now up to 13.10 percent.

#8 According to the credit card calculator on the Federal Reserve website, if you have a $10,000 credit card balance and you are being charged a rate of 13.10 percent and you only make the minimum payment each time, it will take you 27 years to pay it off and you will end up paying back a total of $21,271.

#9 The length of auto loans in America just keeps getting longer and longer. If you can believe it, 45 percent of all new car loans being made today are for 6 years or more. I cannot believe this. Eight years ago, a typical car loan was for four years. My first and only car loan was paid off in two years.

#10 Approximately 70 percent of all car purchases in the United States involve an auto loan. Only 70%?

#11 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago

#12 Mortgage debt as a percentage of GDP has more than tripled since 1955.

#13 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, approximately 8 million Americans are at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.

#14 Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5 percent. Today, it is up around 4.5 percent.

#15 Overall, nearly 29 percent of all homes with a mortgage in the United States are underwater. ACK!

#16 If you can believe it, the mortgage lenders now have more equity in U.S. homes than the American people do. I can believe it. I've cashed out no more than $2200 each of my two refinances, and I'm struggling to keep my equity above 55%. I have more mortgage yesterdays than I have mortgage tomorrows, too.

#17 Medical debt is a major problem for a growing number of Americans. One study discovered that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#18 Sadly, the number of Americans that are protected by health insurance continues to decline. An all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all right now, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.

Had a shock when I went to renew my prescription: $319 price tag. I did not have the money in my account, as it was the day before payday, had not activated the Flexible Savings Account debit card. It was a RENEWAL, and it was $175 more than what I paid in October. What petroleum or gold dust is in the prescription? Does a Health Savings Account mean the health insurer doesn't subsidize ANY of the prescription?

The prescription would be for 15 weeks. But still, when I've cut clothing, food, gas, entertainment, charity, telecommunications what do I do? Mortgage down $120 from last year, $42 now gone from the phone bill.

Thinking of selling what I can on Craigslist and eBay,
asking the spouse to take out only once a week money he'll need for the week, or half the money for lunch that he takes out each week.

Also considering going back to school to take bookkeeping and minor-level accounting or data processing analysis so I can take my skills north or to a rare small company employer that can offer health benefits.
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I am FreeCycling at any rate. This week is different from most: I awarded first dibs to people with transportation and mobility issues. Not intentionally, but just how the first responses looked. If you can't afford a car, or get outside your housebox, you have a greater need for the kindness of strangers.

Each payday I feel like Peanuts' Lucy shaking her Psychiatric Help stand can with a nickel inside.


Spent $$$ today: oldest friend came by with his family. He, she and I had a great time: his daughters were somewhat bored/restless, understandable: all were under 12, the cats fled immediately, and soon my son did as well, as he too is under 12. He didn't emerge until his father came home. We went to an izakaya (Japanese pub). I love my friend because we can be immediately real and honest with each other in ways that might be awkward with other people. My phone service provider told me I needed to add money if I was going to do crazy things like call Canada phone numbers: I paid the extortion fee they call "Top Up." It was worth it though. I also ran to the corner store to get multigrain and cheddar crackers, Pepperidge Farm cookies and juice. I also cut up vegetables and pears and made a vegetable dip.

What did I learn from this? Chance favours the prepared mind. And I am not an awful person.

I think I lost already the 2012 dead pool: Robin Gibb is recovering from his liver cancer, so the news reads.

Finally filed paperwork for: official complaint against a neighbour's noise abuse; e*Trade account transfer to TD Ameritrade. Bought a Valentine's Day present for hubby and two Valentine Cards. Also a prescription.
Mailed a birthday card: am still two days behind on my mail challenge. Paid young boy's dues -- took them out of his account.

I am freaked out about the price the pharmacy gave for the one prescription I didn't take home: $319. America must hate me: if that's so, then at least I am not alone. Maybe I'll just fly to Lourdes and have my ailment cured, or douse my eyeballs in holy water. Or I could try the new Flexible Savings Card and run our new prescription cards. I did pay for the $53 prescription.

We received books from the mother-in-law: Jasper Fforde (a welcome surprise!!), Kurt Vonnegut (ditto), lots of Harlan Ellison, a John Connelly book (who he?) and five Ha Jin.

Son is still keen on the Umpqua Bank "Learn to Earn" account registration. He came into my bedroom when I was not yet awake asking for an account application signature: he SELDOM enters my bedroom while I am still in the Twilight Zone between dream and reality. He was in the School Savings program with Washington Mutual in kindergarten: he would dress like a banker on Casual Friday and make jokes about bankers drinking. I volunteered then. That's probably what's getting him fired up about this low-interest plan. I do think it funny that he went to me instead of his father, as his father signed the Guardian part of the application.

Reread my HELOC documentation in the Records Office: apparently my HELOC is for twenty-five years, not ten.
This changes my savings and debt payoff strategy.

I'm putting a glorybe tag on this for what I read yesterday that has changed my life: my "eschatological purpose is to make/perceive every moment one full of love and pregnant with possibility and then act on it." I thought of this a few times a day and I think it slightly hued my interactions and thought processes.