A year and a half later…

…and we’re still working on stopping the bleeding. Nate’s GI Bill checks were really padding our bank account, and instead of using it to pay off more debt as originally planned, we gave in and used a little bit here and there to do what? Apparently fritter it away on things like fast food, books, and only god knows what else. Clearly, we had not learned anything about being frugal or getting out of debt.

And now the checks have stopped coming. Actually, they stopped coming a couple of months ago, but I had had the wherewithal to put some of it in savings so it took us a couple of months to realize where we really were: The Emergency Room.

Yeah, I’m not scoffing at Dave Ramsey anymore (ok, I wasn’t really scoffing to begin with, just asking some rather impertinent questions). No, we didn’t literally end up in the emergency room. We did have to cash an immature Series EE Bond, though. And Nate has almost completely maxed out that credit card I was so party-happy we had paid off. “I did say I wanted to keep it for emergencies, and this is one!” Point taken, but still.

Until now, Nate has been content to let me handle the finances. And I was fine to handle them, they gave me a sense of control and I could spend some money without him knowing that I had (ahem). I finally told him that either he had to take over or that we had to do this together. I wasn’t going to shoulder all the blame (even though I felt like it was mostly my fault; even though he was the one eating fast food every other day). Of course, it does no good to sit around playing the blame game or having a pity party. Nate decided that we were going to do this together. And so we have been. Which means while I’m not shouldering any blame, I also can’t sneak in a trip to Burgerville with Seth (which had somehow turned into a weekly thing!). He recently assured me that everything will be okay.

My brother once told me, “everything is an opportunity” and so rather than look at this and despair over our seeming lack of growth and maturity, I’m seeing this as another chance to get it right. Da Vinci, Edison, and all the other successful greats made a lot of mistakes, right? I wonder: are there any financial greats that made these kinds of mistakes? It remains to be seen.

Mental Clutter

Yikes! It’s been a while since I last posted. I was very gung-ho after returning from my parents this summer, but seem to have fallen off the wagon, so to speak.

I recently read somewhere that one’s environment is reflective of what’s going on inside our heads, and I’ve been thinking about this and how it applies to me.

We moved recently (yes, again, and hopefully not again until we move into our dome home), and so it was a time to evaluate some of the things we had and how some of the new habits we’d developed while living in a one bedroom were helping or harming us now that we’re in a two bedroom.

Living in a one bedroom apartment meant learning some new habits and keeping the clutter at bay. As I look around our new place, I can see how that year-long experience has really changed the way I look at space and how I use it. But there were and still are pockets of clutter.

Nate asked me last night what was keeping me from sorting through the last few boxes. One reason was because there simply wasn’t any place to put them. It had been my hope that we’d be able to move to a three bedroom, so that I could have a “room of my own” but that wasn’t to be. Nate then suggested that we just toss the stuff, but that’s not feasible either, most of it is valuable to me (like my easel, journals and art from my childhood).

And then there is the clutter and little messes that seem to be pervasive with my inability to throw things out right away. A wake of clutter as my distraction passes through…

I’m probing my mind, trying to think of what mental clutter I have, what it is that is being reflected back to me in my environment. I have a creative mind, constantly solving problems, generating new ideas, and tossing around new concepts that come my way via the creativity of others that I see when I visit blogs and read books. But while I generate ideas and toss others’ ideas around my mind, I’m not actually doing anything. I’m like a moth to a flame; entranced with the ideas themselves rather than the making of any creative reality.

I fear this is the source of my mental clutter. The piles of unrealized projects, unrefined creativity rattling around like dirt covered gems.

So, how do I go about realizing these projects and uncovering these gems? I probably wouldn’t even have this problem if I had a regular job; it’s only because I have the free time I do that I’m able to even pursue where my curiosities lead. But I also have responsibilities, to Nate, to Seth…to others in my community.

If the environment reflects the mind, does one only need to tidy up the mind and the environment will follow or could I clean up the environment and have my mind follow suit? If I find a place for my easel, it is very likely that I would actually bring some of my creative impulses into reality…

Out of the Grocery Store & Finding a Local Credit Union

For three weeks now we’ve been receiving produce from Spud!. Nate still refuses to do a CSA because he wants to control what exactly he gets, and I even had to strong-arm him (sort of) into doing Spud by saying that we can choose what we receive. His argument is that he likes to handle the produce and pick out the best.

To his credit, he’s done very well with our healthier diet. Growing up, for him, included a LOT of fast food and sodas. In fact, he’s much more likely to eat a salad and veggies than I am (my dad didn’t like salad, so my mom rarely made it and all veggies were boiled to death).

We were mostly going to the grocery store for produce, so it’s nice to not be going at all…it’s an hour out of my weekend, and I almost always come home with something that wasn’t on my list, and never able to stay within budget. This way, I can make sure that my order is always about $50. And, unlike Organics To You (which we had been getting last fall for a while), it comes in a reusable bin, and delivery is free for orders over $43 (in my area).

If you’ve been thinking about trying it, put my code in (CRPDX-VELMAR) to get $25 off your first 4 orders ($5 off the first three, $10 of the fourth). Spud also serves these locations: Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Recently, we were hit with a bunch of overdraft fees from our bank, which was simply because we had most of our money in an ING account and the checks being cashed were with Bank Of America. Totally our fault (although personally, I HATE overdraft protection – it makes me believe I have money when I don’t and it costs $35 for each overdraft). But it gave me the impetus to consider going with a smaller, local bank, instead of a large corporation (which both are). We also needed to use some of our Emergency Funds for rent, so we have to start over. If you know of a great local credit union, please post in the comments.

And to go completely off topic: here’s a weird thing that I can’t figure out. We’ve been overpaying our car loan while we had the extra cash, about $500 a month. Our monthly minimum payment has been reduced from $364.02 to (and I’m ballparking it) $56. We still owe roughly $3,200 on the car and our loan is supposed to end September of 2010. With that low payment, how would we ever pay off the car in 11 months? It just doesn’t make sense. At the same time, it’s nice to know that we have that extra wiggle room, should we not be able to make a larger payment (which would mostly be because of our own mismanagement). The good news about this whole thing is that we’re really close to paying it off…when I started this blog we owed three times as much on our car!

My love of books turns into an opportunity

I Love Books.  That might be a bit of an understatement really.  I’m constantly seeking to surround myself with books.  It is virtually impossible for me to walk out of a book store without at least one book.  The same is true of Nate, actually.  I max out my library card at 100 books often (although I’d say that at least half of them are kids books, since Seth can’t have his own card yet).  My father was a Lit. Major in College, and our family room also had floor to ceiling shelves packed with books.  We got at least one book for birthdays and Christmas.  So, it’s only natural that I love books.  I have a huge collection of book lists, and along with my writing things down on random scraps of paper, I’m constantly finding these lists around, too.

I read about the Barefoot Books opportunity in Mothering Magazine while waiting in my chiropractor’s office.  Now I’ve done this sort of work before – I was a Melaleuca associate for a while, which ended up in a lot of money spent, and not very much made.  Not only that, but despite my love for Solumel (it gets permanent ink off of surfaces), I realized that I could make even more eco-friendly non-toxic cleaners myself for much cheaper. It’s kind of hard to sell something you don’t believe in.

After trying to make Melaleuca work for me and it turning into a huge money drain, my vowed to Nate that I’d never do anything MLM related again.  So, of course when I wanted to sign up with Barefoot Books, I knew what he’d say.  Which he is well within his right to do so.  Fortunately for me, signing up as an Ambassador is free.  Of course, I still wanted to buy some books so that I could have something to show people.  In an amazing show of support, Nate suggested that I “earn” the money for these books by buying used books and reselling them on Amazon (we made over $1,000 a few years ago doing this with a lot of books we had that we no longer needed or wanted).  So that is what I intend to do, along with posting here and hoping that there is a reader amongst my loyal fans who’d love to give the gift of books to a small child in their life.    Just click on the button below!

(I know it must seem rather “unfrugal” of me encourage buying books, new, at retail price instead of always plugging the library. At the same time, I think that it’s important for children to have new books and to actually have them. The author of “Freakonomics” has a chapter in which he discusses books and literacy his findings were that children who had books in their home (not library books) were more successful in school and life in general by modern standards. For me, the library often serves as way to review books I am thinking about buying. And of course, I’m also wanting to get out of the cheapskate/tightwad state of mind and into more of an abundant state of mind.)

Self-Care Checklist

I have to be very intentional about self-care, because I wasn’t trained to take care of myself (as I suspect many of you weren’t either).  It was “The Woman’s Comfort Book” by Jennifer Louden that gave me a checklist to work from, which I wrote out and posted on the bulletin board in our kitchen as a reminder to look after myself.  I recently took it down because I wasn’t really looking at it any more, but I think about it once and a while.

Like right now.  Because I was up past midnight last night, and thus unable to get up this morning to work out, and then whilst sitting and knitting this afternoon I practically feel asleep, so I promptly hopped off to bed and took a nap.  Napping is rarely rejuvenating for me, and although I didn’t wake up with a headache, there was a slight off feeling.  So naturally, my first thought was that I really need to commit to getting to bed earlier.

The first thing on the Self-Care Checklist is about getting 6-8 hours of sleep every night.  I’ve been sorely neglecting this…slowly going to bed a little later each night, and so last night was the culmination of my making small allowances here and there, and running myself into sleep deficit.

So, I think it’s time to copy and post the Self-Care Checklist up where I’ll see it and be reminded.  Perhaps the bathroom mirror?

Time, time, time…

I’ve been thinking, somewhat obsessively about time management and organization (so yes, if you have looked for these books in the Washington County library system and found them all out, I would be the one who has them all).

I like things to be neat and tidy and organized. I also hate to be the one to do the tidying although I think it’s the result of the fact that I get inspired easily, and a mess builds up. Other people might use the word “distracted” where I used “inspired” but I don’t see the new ideas popping into my brain as a negative thing, rather something that needs a system of channeling that doesn’t interrupt the flow I already have. I am the kind of person who if given the chance, will start and work on the project until it’s finished without eating, and possibly without sleeping (although now that I’m older and a parent, it’s a much cherished activity, so perhaps not). I have a zone. And, this is why I haven’t painted in a long time. It’s simply not possible for me to live in that zone with child interruptus.

It feels like every second of every day, my brain is churning out ideas. Our house is littered with scraps of papers, notebooks (folded open), with lists, ideas, recipes, dates, etc. I even think of new Facebook Status updates while on the treadmill now. Ok, that’s just bizarre and I can’t believe I’m admitting that, but such is the spirit of this blog…and I digress…see, there I did it, here, while writing. (Which leads me to this thought: I’ve been asked to write for other blogs, and told I’m a good writer by writers, and I find this quite mind-blowing…I mean, really? Half of my writing is in parentheses with wanderings!).

My first attempt at time management and productivity was the Flylady. I won’t link her, because I’m sure by now that all of you have heard of her. If not, it’s called Google. Yes, I’m that lazy. Anyways, I read her book, joined her Yahoo! group, jumped on the bandwagon. Let me just say, not for me. Yes, I did learn some valuable things like purging the mail at the mailbox, and writing down the next day’s To Do’s and schedule the night before (which I only do maybe 40% of the time, otherwise I do it in the morning). In fact, I had developed a system in which I wrote in a little notebook under different headings, what needed to be done. I even included a place for appointments, events, and dinner. Nate bought me a half-size notebook with Wonder Woman on the front. It was empowering at first. Except that I rarely achieved my entire list. In an effort to encourage myself, I started listing things in minute detail, so that I could check more things off (for instance, cleaning the kitchen turned into, unload/load dishwasher, wipe counters, wipe stove, sweep floor). I still do this, and even add an element of humor; Reading, knitting, and Sudoku are all a part of my To Do list (I do these every day, so, not hard to check off!).

One might suggest I buy a planner, it would be so much simpler than writing everything out. First, I have tried multiple planners. I don’t like them (they’re too generic) and they end up being a waste of money. Second, I love the act of writing. I really like my handwriting, which, by the way, is a little different every day.

I liked Simple Mom’s post about organization and even more, her “Daily Docket,” so I copied hers, and then redesigned and made one for myself. Twice. I’m still trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It didn’t seem like a daily time schedule was working for me, but now that I don’t have it, I’m not so sure that it wasn’t working so much as I wasn’t working it.

I’m realizing that I might have much higher expectations of myself than what may be humanly possible.  Of course, I also find that I spend more time doing the fun things like reading, knitting, and sudoku, and putting of the more dreadful things like folding clothes, cleaning the bathroom, and decluttering.  Sounds like I might have to revisit the Flylady and her 27 fling boogies.  It does help that I am not the only one having to do the tidying up around here (the thing I didn’t like about Flylady was her encouragement of the woman (well, the person coming to her, which were primarily women) to do everything instead of chasing round the husband and children to do their share).  I copied Simple Mom’s Chore Chart, bought a bunch of prizes from Oriental Trading Company (I know, very un-green of me!), and Seth does things like make his bed, unload silverware from the dishwasher, help with laundry, take his dishes to the kitchen, pick up his toys.  He very joyfully helped me fold dish towels the other day and was getting quite adept at it.  Nate does his fair share (and has done more than his fair share in the past) around the house, and we split cooking duty 50/50.

Ok, so you’re probably wondering what books I’ve looked at.  Here are the titles:

Absolutely Organized: A Mom’s Guide, Debbie Lillard

Bonnie’s Household Organizer, Bonnie Runyan McCullough

Organize Now!, Jennifer Berry (I like this one, it breaks things down into manageable weekly To Do’s, and it starts with organizing your mind.)

Organizing Your Day, Sandra Felton & Marsha Sims

Ready for Anything, David Allen (of Getting Things Done fame, which I haven’t read, I looked at, and it looked boring and too academic.)

I’ve also listened to an abridged version of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” a few years ago, and may need to revisit.  I’ve also been intending to read “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families” so that Nate and I can develop a mission statement (another family meeting is in order, actually).  I will become more organized and productive.  In the meantime, I’m going to go watch a movie with Nate.

And now, feel free to share in the comments below.

When you really, really, really want something

You’ll find a way to get it or make it happen.

This could be taken as a hindsight sort of thing, but knowing this in advance can also really be motivational. For me, it goes both ways.

When I returned from visiting my parents I finally decided that enough was enough, and I was going to lose weight and start eating right once and for all. I had really let myself go while I was there, so much so that I actually lost 7 lbs within 2 days of being back and having done no exercise or eaten my vegetables. We simply do not have sweets in the house. Actually, Nate had bought some truffles for me, which I actually didn’t eat until several days later (I actually wondered if something was wrong with me). I was sugared out. I was preserved- and packaged-fooded out. I was just plain grossed out with myself.

I knew what I had to do; I had been thinking about this for quite some time, actually, and had at one point even attempted it. Getting up before dawn to workout at our complex’s 24 hour gym (it’s a really nice one as far as complex gyms go). The first day, I actually woke up before my alarm went off. Talk about desire, my psyche was totally on board!

Up until last week (labor day and Seth starting preschool really threw me off) I was getting up at 4:45 am four days a week to work my ass off. And work it off I did! I interrupt this programming to brag about my weight loss thus far: a whopping 9 lbs. Ok, I know it’s no Biggest Loser. But then again, I’m not quite as overweight as they are, nor am I being screamed at by Jillian (although, I must say, I’m probably about as bad as her in my head).

Since I began, I’ve added weight training, a new running program, yoga, and stretching to my workout. I’m still trying to figure out a way to fit swimming into our busy schedule.

So now I’m thinking about what else I want. I really, really, really want my own studio space. Nate and I are talking about moving to a larger place with an extra bedroom and a den so that I can have this. But here’s the caveat: I want the extra space to be only as much as $100/month more than what we are paying right now. Our lease isn’t up yet; we have to wait, although I am itching to move right now. I also really, really want a laptop computer. I have not figured out a way to do either on our limited budget (unless I decided to sell my soul to the proverbial job devil).

But, I found a way to exercise…so I can figure these out too!

(By the way: I also don’t eat anything after dinner.)

Menu Plan Monday

Menu planning.  Ugh.  Right?  That’s what I thought until I realized that not only would we save money by planning (no extra trips to the store to get things we forgot, thus fewer temptations at the checkout), but it would simplify our life dramatically.

Nate and I usually do our menu planning over the weekend because that’s when I do the shopping.  This way I can do it without taking Seth along, and therefore get it done faster and I don’t have to worry as much about the “I want oreos!” chorus that seems to repeat itself endlessly (both outside AND inside my head, because, heck, I want them too!).

Nate and I take turns doing the cooking.  I’m far too much of a feminist to do it all.  We may be one of the only households where the woman doesn’t still do the majority of the housework.  Majority of the child-wrangling, yes, but other than that… (just the other day, Nate said, wistfully, “I wish you would do more housework” – under normal circumstances that might deserve a shoe being thrown, or lego, in our case, but he’s got a point, a very good point).  Anyways, I have Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while Nate has Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sunday is leftover day, which means it’s a free for all at dinner time.  We don’t quite have it down; we were invited over to a friend’s house on Labor Day and by the time we got home, it was much too late to prepare spaghetti, so it was a free for all.

Since Nate has more cooking responsibilities, we’ve been eating a lot more Mexican around here.  He grew up working a Taco truck – his Dad (step-dad really, but when he’s lived with you since you were 3, well, he’s Dad) was Mexican-American, and in some ways, culturally, so is Nate.  Well, as far as cuisine goes.  I’m not a fan of salsa, but apparently, Nate makes a great salsa.

So here’s our Menu this week:

Monday: Homemade Pizza (half cheese, half pepperoni, green bell pepper, onions, mushrooms) & Salad (salad consists mainly of fresh spinach and cucumbers, sometimes carrots and tomatoes – we’re just working on actually eating salad at our meals, so nothing fancy.  I also don’t like salad dressing; Nate likes ranch)

Tuesday: Homemade Soft Tortilla Tacos & Salad & Nate’s two special salsas.

Wednesday: Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli & Salad

Thursday: Chicken Pot Pie & Salad

Friday: Salmon, Curried Brown Rice w/Peas & Salad.

Saturday: Homemade Macaroni & Cheese & Broccoli & Salad

Sunday: Leftover Free-for-all!

And now, because I’m participating in this fun MPM at I’m an Organizing Junkie thingy, go there and check out some of the menu planning stuff she has there (boy, am I eloquent today!).

(Ok, and now I have to go to the grocery store, because our weekend was busy and I was slacking, just a tad.)

Abundance Challenge

It’s been a rather busy week around here, hence the lack of posting.  I’ve also been thinking over my original goal to change the tone of this blog and focus less on being so much of a tightwad to having more of a focus on abundance and attracting/building wealth.  I seem to have fallen back into my old tightwad patterns.  So, I’ve decided to challenge myself to think of all the abundance I have in my life on a regular basis.

I read an article the other day about practicing gratitude and how this focus creates more happiness in one’s life.  So part of my “abundance challenge” will be to practice daily gratitude.

The truth is that we really have plenty.  Part of that is because of the hard work we did last year (being tightwads, ironically).  There’s still work left to be done, but there’s no way I could have even envisioned affording the wonderful preschool for Seth last year based on our financial situation.  Somehow, we’re still managing to have extra cash even with the monthly preschool payments.  I just dropped off the first and last month’s tuition check the other day, and thought to myself, “Yikes, I can’t believe how comfortable I feel writing a check for $500.”  Of course, I’ve never really had any problem spending money on Seth; I could have used that $500 for a wardrobe makeover, which I desperately need (yes, it’s pretty bad; sometimes I have to wear the same thing two days in a row…or more).  Or used that to make another large car payment.  Or used it to buy a decent couch (although I must say that the $10 chair I picked up at Goodwill, despite it’s dust-mitey-ness, is quite comfortable, even if it’s orange).  Obviously, there’s a dozen other things we could have spent the money on.  I don’t regret our choice in the least. I’m hoping Seth’s absence for 12 hours a week will spur me onto productivity and getting closer to my business plan (it’s a secret, it will be revealed in due course).

Ok, I’m getting tangential.   By reminding myself of all that I do have, I can see that it’s possible to have what I need to live well, with what I already have.  And that I can figure out how to get what I need if I don’t already have it.

Feel free to share your abundant lives in the comments.

Dave Ramsey’s “Total Money Makeover”

[I had started writing this post when I hit a wrong button and it was deleted.  So here I am, attempting it again.]

A few people have asked me on separate occasions whether I’d heard of Dave Ramsey.  I hadn’t, and now that I have, I can see how that’s a natural question to ask.

When we returned from our lengthy vacation, I finally checked out “Total Money Makeover” and skim-read it (there were a lot of stories, and I wanted the meat, not the potatoes, if you know what I mean).  For those of you who might be put off by the religious references, consider yourselves warned.

The Baby Steps are good, and I’ve adopted and changed them to make them my own.  The original Baby Steps are:

1.  Put $1,000 in an Emergency fund (check!  Thank you GI bill!).

2. Pay off all debt using the debt snowball (working on it).

3. Have 3-6 months of expenses into savings (working on it).

4. Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement (we have IRAs but haven’t contributed to them in a few years).

5. College funding for children (the reason I’m NOT doing this is an entire post in and of itself, but in summary: I want to empower my child, rather than create a sense of entitlement; I don’t necessarily think college degrees give you more advantages, you can learn a lot of the same things and more efficiently by apprenticeships and through books, although I do understand that some professions require college, like those science related, in which case, just like many who’ve gone before, he’ll have to work himself through college too).

6. Pay of home early (don’t own a home yet, so not a factor).

7. Built wealth and give; Invest in mutual funds and real estate (obviously, not even close to this one yet).

[you can see these and more here]

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is a phrase he repeats over and over: “Live like no one else and you’ll live like no one else.”  It’s catchy, sounds good, makes sense initially.  There will definitely be sacrifices to be made while one gets out of debt.  But after reading a few of the testimonials (and skimming over a few more), I got the sense that most of these people didn’t push the limits of what that statement really means.  I didn’t read any in which the families crammed themselves into tiny apartments or lived in a less savory part of town because it was cheaper.  The stay-at-home moms didn’t suddenly get a night job to avoid daycare.  Now that would be living like no one else (at least in comparison to your socio-economic class, since there are people of lower economic status who do actually do that, just to pay rent and have food to eat).  And, if one is living like no one else, why are so many of them living exactly like someone else?  (And as a side criticism, the majority of his testimonials fell into a particular socio-economic class, religious group, and were white).  At the very least, all of them are now living like each other, because they’re out of debt, homes are paid off (or will be, soon enough) and are building wealth.

Ok, so maybe I’m just being a little nit-picky.  Nate complains about my doing this all the time.  But what’s the point of having a brain if I’m not going to use it critically?

I do like the Baby Steps, though; they give you a place to start when you’re staring down the barrel of collectors.  And it challenges those who’ve attempted to live that dreamy upper-middle-class life on credit to think outside the box and see how they can have that life without credit cards.  And the phrase does help those who are working the steps to remember why they are making the sacrifices they are when the going gets rough.

My application of the Baby Steps is this:

1. $1,000 in Emergency fund.

2. Pay debt using my own version of the debt snowball (the amount with the lowest total, not necessarily the lowest interest).

3. 3-6 months of living expenses in savings (that’s our $58 each week).

4. Build wealth.  (This has a whole page-full of steps that are as yet unexplored or fully planned out)

I’m all about taking what works and leaving the rest.  Eventually, I’ll probably have developed my own system, and who knows?  I could write a book too!