FundyNutter

So…in case you were wondering my big food crime was too bowls of coco crispies with whole milk before dinner time. A huge calorie intake and not too bright for the lactose intolerant as well.  And today?  Well, does it count as a diet no no if you had a coupon? Because I had some really good burger king coupons today.

But in good news, because it is not all disappointment, I am tracking myself and learning what my habits are which is a great step towords hanging them.

I’ve actually liked a number of things about being a hand dishwasher. I liked being in the select group of four women I know without dishwashers. I liked being one of the few women I am acquainted with who “choose” to be dishwasher free.  Some women choose it more willingly than I do, but there it is. I like the hot steamy water on a cold morning, or a cold whenever. I like the feeling of accomplishment when the job is done. I like how it always seems to be done much quicker than I expected. I like the way I feel like as long as there was indoor running water, a water heater, and inexpensive soap with undiluted surfactants i could totally rough it in the third world, or at least in a neighborhood really near the third world.

I wash the dishes fast.   I could beat my husband at a hand dishwashing race any day of the week.  That, more than anything else, has been carrying me along my almost year long journey without a dishwasher.  (oh boy, a whole year! aren’t I something.)

There was such a pile of dishes to be washed on Saturday and I was very bored with the whole idea of hot tubs of soapy water.  I got out the wrachet and tore about the machine.  I dug hairy gunk out of the trap. I bleached months of grime and mildew out of the drains. I jimmied the latch so it would run with the door open.

I didn’t fix anything. But I learned that it is a dead dead machine. The spinny part doesn’t spin. The fountainy part gurgles dismally.  The gunk I pulled out? Nothing more than tantalizing evidence of the massive gobs on the other side of the non-removable screen.

I was this close to running to the appliance store and throwing in the towel. The only thing that stopped me is the mountain of buyers remorse I have piled on over this last year.  A real McInley of regret.  I took deep breaths. I dismissed the same as cash sirens calling to me.  I made a plan.

I mean, of course, I already had a plan.  But did anyone really expect me to wait until my car was paid off to buy a new dishwasher? Really?  I hoped, but I didn’t believe.  And anyway, it’s almost half paid for.  I mean, we are really kicking the car loan’s tush.  It’ll be done in no time and the price of a new dishwasher only cuts one measly month off.  What’s one month compared to my sink slavery?

So , the new plan is as follows.  My November babysitting money goes for a November dishwasher.  I will wash up the Thanksgiving dishes in a brand new bottom of the line, clean and shiny, scratch and dent, steal of a dishwasher.

Or at least, that’s the plan.

Watch out for a phone call from those lousy bums at US Telcom…( I think that was it.)  They called here telling me that they were with my local provider, that I didn’t use very many long distance minutes and that I was getting a price reduction.  I asked over and over again what was going on and who they were, out of honest confusion. Eventually the caller asked if this was the phone number listed for my husbands name and I said Yes. Whoops.  Never say yes on the phone when you don’t know who is calling!  The caller then said “I’ll just mail you the changes.” I said something like “What? I just don’t get what you are talking about?” And she said “I’ll just mail you the paperwork with the changes.” And then hung up.

I instantly remembered all my Clark Howard and John Stossel warnings.  First, regarding how I said “Yes.”   They have possibly recorded the call and can use my “yes” answer to claim that I responded affirmatively to whatever their scheme was. Second, and most important, always hang up and call the published number for the folks who claimed to have called.

I called Qwest. I explained the call. They said the caller was their competition.  They said they hadn’t revieced any similar complaints recently. Then they put a note on my file stating that I do not want to change my long distance provider.  So, if (when) US Telcom sends over an order on my behalf to cancel my service Qwest won’t do it.  And if I happen to get a bill from US Telcom at any point, I have documentation that I did not agree to have them provide any service for me.

And for anyone who doesn’t know–another great resource for the consumer is your state attorney general.  If I get any trouble from US Telcom I can send a complaint in to them and they will use their big guns on my beha

In approximately three hours our plane tickets will be all done and paid for.  We don’t travel until Christmas and I am usually adamant that the best plane ticket deals are to be had exactly four weeks before travel.  This time though, OPEC decided to limit oil production.  According to the BBC news the folks who call themselves OPEC decided this was right because world wide petrol prices (see I did get if from BBC, it says petrol) were too low and the American dollar was starting to inch its way up in value again.  That didn’t give me consumer confidence. So we got the tickets immediately in hopes to keep the world from falling down on our heads.

And, please forgive me, we put them on the credit card.  But today is payday for me and mine and with a little help from our emergency fund we will pay the whole lot off before interest has any say in it. Yes, I paid for it with a “Zero % interest card.” But as anyone born in this century could predict the bill came with the 10 % interest duly noted.  So paid off it will be.  With cash. Today.  We can pay our emergency fund back without worrying about losing money.  Yes, we lose a little in interest…but really, I hink the e-fund is getting less than one percent so the loss isn’t great.

I want to sum that up by saying “thank you Dave Ramsey.” A family of our age and size with our income in our society would not be expected to pay cash for the absurdly huge airline bill we just got ourselves.  But that guy and his homey sayings and tough stance on debt has made a difference. If anyone happens to read this but hasn’t yet converted to Dave’s way I highly recommend his book The Total Money Make-Over.  Our money wasn’t getting made over when I read it, we were just starting out. But it has made a world of difference.

And loosely related to this.  Quite a while back my friend Michael was astounded that we might live in a world where it could be moderately possible to pay more at a farm than at a store. Wanting to know if I was off my rocker, I went down to Joe’s place. It’s the nearby farm-with-produce market.  Everyone around here loves it. Swears by it.  I was pretty sure when I was there last year it was expensive.

And yes, it still was.  One example stood out.  Joe’s is an apple farm. The apples were grown on premises carried a couple of acres or less on to the market. They wanted about $2.95 a pound. I can’t swing that kind of layout. I went to Safeway.  It has expensive produce.  They wanted only $1.99 a pound for a better variety of apples. The Safeway apples have been marvelous. More than satisfactory.  In fact about a thousand times better than the ones in my back yard…so I guess I could have saved the $1.99a pound too. But these are really good apples and my back yard apples are kind of yucky.

I think it comes down to profit. Joe and his family at Joe’s Place know a trend when they see it. They have an honored and ancient reputation around here. But they know that right now Yuppies Love Farm Food.  There is a great profit to be had doing what they do so they are going to have it.

Speaking of yuppy farms, I think I will back to Joe’s some Saturday for their French Bistro Crepe and Cappucino breakfast.

I’m editing to add that I just bought a fabulous bag of Gala apples for 88 cents a pound at Winco.  I love Winco.

It needs a good tooting, and only I (or my friend Rachel) could really do it justice.

The Columbian newspaper has featured two articles in the last two weeks about living on the cheap, healthy, green and single income.

The first article was about being cheap and living on a single income. It featured a CPA who owns her own business and has a stay at home daddy.  They have two kids.  How do they manage?  Well, for starters, they sold their Californian home and moved to a very upperclass area of Vancouver where homes start around $350,000.  I give them Kudos for the big sacrifice of moving.  That is a world rocking thing to do.  However. It is people like that who created our $350,000 overpriced homes in the first place. But that is a digression.

They put 20% down because Cali homes are even more overpriced than PNW homes are. They made sacrifices like buying exercise equipment instead of keeping their gym memberships.   Woo hoo.

Enough of that family. Clearly I think that they aren’t doing anything special enough to get the front page of the Columbian.

The second article was about a mom who is my age. She has a family of four, though only her three year old daughter was mentioned.  So I am guess the other kiddo is a babe in arms.

She is a stay at home mommy.  She gardens for her summer veggie needs. She buys her groceries from local farmers. She buys grain and grinds it.  She buys milk and churns it. She bakes her own bread and spreads her own butter on it. First thought–Yumm!! I do  respect her for all of that work and how healthy it is. But remember, the article is being sold as a Cheap Living peice, with a side note of green.  The author wrote all about this mother’s great sacrifices and countercultural lifestyle choices because they were saving her so much money.

The mother in question also offered us her best piece of advice.  She said people spend too much money on groceries because they try to fix all sorts of different foods, Asian one night, Mexican the next, etc.  I too have complained about that.  Sometimes it just seems like moms are expected to know how to cook everything under the sun without the benefit of a culinary education. (Hey! No complaining!) She said the best way to counter act that kind of waste is to pick one style of food and make it over and over again.

I’ll repeat some important facts: She’s feeding two adults and one three year old.

Let’s have a drumroll for our cheap friend.

Her grand grocery total? $250 for the month.

Thassright.

This news article came on the heals of my great month of victory. I had been spending too much money on groceries. For example, one recent month saw me spend $500 on groceries.  I can’t actually afford that so Daniel and I went back to the cash system two months ago.

This month I had a great victory over my grocery bill. It made the lady in the newspaper sound like an amatuere.

For comparison, I did not grind any wheat or churn any butter–though, I do think that sounds fun and delicious.  But I did make five loaves of bread instead of buying it. And I made ten dozen cookies.  (For the Big Appreciation Event.)  I fixed chicken with Indonesian peanut sauce, burritos, spaghetti with homemade marinara, and stir fry with hoisin sauce, amongst other more American fare..  The Peanut Sauce was my favorite.

The other lady wants us to eat the same food to save lots of money. I want to get very good at making a variety of food so we won’t get bored eating at home, which would send us off to restaurants.

Important facts about us: I am feeding two adults, a girl who is turning 4 in two weeks and a two year old.

drum roll for me please.

My total grocery bill this month:

$175

The only thing is, shopping at Winco and watching the price per ounce on the tags, only buying what you need for the two weeks, keeping an empty refrigerator, not having any snack foods on hand other than carrot sticks, homemade bread, apples, and banana’s isn’t really front page news.   It ’s just living within my means.

My *spoiled cook* rep was very encouraging. She called once a week to make sure I was inviting people and feeling good about the party. She reminded me that I don’t have to feel bad calling people to come to my house to visit, laugh and eat good food. That’s a shout out to her–Hoo-rah! for Jodi! She really is good at her job.

And yet I am allergic to letting money out of my hand. Therefore calling people to come to a shopping party makes me feel like I am calling people to come to a picnic in a field of ragweed.

I’m so thankful for all of the sympathy I got on the phone call anxiety that I wanted to give an update about the party. Then something else happened that I had to share too.  They relate.

First, the party. I made my phone call invites the scardey-cat way, calling when I was fairly certain no one was home and leaving messages.  Then Jodi mailed out invitation cards. And last, the day before, I called most everyone back and left a reminder message.  Three people I was sure were coming didn’t.  Two people I didn’t expect to come did. There was a total of eight of us there. But we were eight very fun, very loud and laughing people so it felt nice and big and cozy.  For a fundraiser, it wasn’t a great turn-out. Our total donation, including two internet orders, will only be about $40.  But for a home sales party, thrown by me, we did pretty good. I can’t remember ever having one of these shows and selling almost $400 of merchandise.

That’s the facts and figures of the event.  The heart of the matter was made clear to me early in the morning. Jodi told me again and again, if you love something, if you are passionate about it, calling your friends and aquaintances is just no big deal.  My fundraising and development mentor back in the working days (me? with phone call anxiety, a F & D gal? Hah!)  Said the same thing.  Passion is the key quality of a good representative.

Yesterday afternoon Betty from the grade school I desperately want my girls to go to called.  She said, “The district has approved a second Spanish Immersion Kindergarten for Harney. Please come down and register Eleanor. We are accepting anyone who applies, no matter where they live.  We need at least 28 students to offer two kindergartens.”

“Eleanor will only be four in July.  Do really want me to register her?” I asked, thinking I am so funny.

Betty was disappointed. I’ve been hanging around Harney Elementary at Parent meetings and story times, because I want Norah to go there in 2009 so badly.

Betty said “*sigh* No.  My granddaughter is four. You’d better not try to get her in yet.”

But, we both knew that two classes this year makes two classes next year more likely. And since I am out of boundry, I need two classes to guarantee a spot.

I offered to spread the word to my friends and she was very grateful.

It’s what I did next that is so reamarkable to me. Without even a hestitation I picked up the phone, the phone book and called everyone I know that a) has a new kindergartener this fall and b) has not expressed a disdain for bi-lingulism (yes, some otherwise bright people I know have been that foolish.)

I called all of them! I promoted! I shared stats and info with passion. I am chock full of stats and info about bi-lingual education in general and Harney’s program in particular.  I am chock full of passion about making our kids smart.  Then, in one last effor to promote the program, I called the director of the pre-school Norah is enrolled in for next year. I told her, “You don’t know me, but…”

I told her how I know their school, how I got the information from Harney, and why I thought she might like to know. That she might like to tell the parents of the kids graduating out of her program. At first, she was polite and sort of stand off-ish. But after only a moment she realized my message was short and it was just free info about education that might help someone else. Then she was much more effusive and grateful.  She thanked me very much and told me she does have kids already headed to Harney whose parents would definatly want to know about the room in the Spanish classes. Just a side note, Harney will have regular kindergarten for up to two classes, if that is how many parents prefer, and up to two immersion Spanish classes (the kids in those classes will stay in immersion until fifth grade).

Well, thats about it. There is the thing that I care enough about to bother friends, aquaintences, and strangers.  Frankly, it is time that America joined the rest of the modern world got a twentieth century education system.  After all, its only a century late. (On hundred points for you if you live in a town that already has bi-lingual education–like Portland, across the river.  Ten Thousand points for you if your kids are in it!)

How to keep your children safe while they cook alone over the summer.  Because [insert corporate sponsor] knows that family matters.

Children are home cooking by themselves all summer? Where on earth are their parents? Oh yeah, at work. And generally speaking, stuck in a situation where they just can’t afford to send the kids somewhere safe, controlled, and caring for a whole summer. (You know, like that fancy camp in Parent Trap, or Grandma’s house.)

This is sticking in my craw, despite spending most of the last hour thinking about going back to work.

It was the result of my day of budgeting, of course.

I feel like, to afford some things that are exceedingly important, we need to accept a small hit on the wallet and the pride,  sell the minivan and get something cheaper. Yes, just a month after refinancing it at a lower rate with shorter term and higher payment. The thing is, we can afford the payment just fine, so long as it is more important to us than other things. Which it isn’t.

There is something in the works right now, much more important. But.  We can’t seem to afford it.  It doesn’t help that we’ve spent twice what we planned on the deck already (and it’s not half done.) But count as count can, I can’t figure out how to get our family to Kansas this Christmas and…well, we’re not really talking about the other thing yet. And we may never get to talking about it, if we can’t scrape together the first bits of our funding.

My immediate, horrified response to the “keep kids safe in the kitchen” ad was good for me.  I hold that every family needs to make their own choices, but obviously I would rupture some important part of my psyche if I tried to go back to work right now.  Good to know.

Our plans and our course for the next few months look like a puzzle, I can see the picture on the box really clearly, but some of the pieces seem to be missing. Not uncommon in my house, for puzzles. Pardon me now, while I go rummage through the seat cushions.

I was chatting personal finance with a friend recently. Like so many of us, she carries a small balance on her credit card on a regular basis. I was telling her about sitting down with my bank statement and balancing my budget. Not actually balancing my checkbook, an old fashioned and quar-turned activity I haven’t done since seventh grade math class. Balancing my budget is somewhat more fun than that checkbook thing our grandparents did, and definately less precise.

My friend was really surprised by how much work I put into our family budget. With the credit card and its low, not entirely paid off balance at her convenience, she didnt’ see the need for the work I do. Her surprise prompted me to blog. Maybe what I do is uncommon enough to be interesting to my friends who pop by here.

I do my banking online. In years past I was able to download transactions to Quicken and run all sorts of reports on my spending. Lately Quicken and my bank have stopped speaking to each other. Something about Quicken not being able to tell the bank what the name of my first pet was everytime I log in.

Nonetheless, the years of Quicken use have built spending catagories into my brain. These catagories translate to my paper budget.

I write my paper budget at the beginning of the month (every month since March 2003.) The italicized words are the catagory heads, written on their own line. Each word in that catagory gets its own line on my notebook paper, with a colon and a dollar amount next to it. I generally leave three spaces between each catagory in case something comes up that I forgot. I catagorise like this:

Priorities: Tithe, Charity, Life insurance Daniel, Life Insurance Traci, Retirement Daniel, Retirement Traci, College Fund, Christmas Fund.

Home: Mortgage (includes taxes and insurance), electric, phone, internet, water, trash

Auto: Payment, Insurance, Gas (maintanence comes out of monthly misc.)

Other: Groceries, Misc., Entertainment

Irregular monthly expenses also go under Other, these would be things like doctor bills that come in, saving up for the deck, etc.

The part that really surprised my friend, is once, or twice a month, I review my actual spending against the amounts in the written budget. I go to my credit union’s personal banking page and print out my check registry. When my banking was Quicken based (that ended last year) I would just run the report and it would show my my catagories. This new, low tech way takes a little more time. I look at each item, catagorize it, write it on another notebook page, and add things up.

As a college kid with few expenses and as an untrained newly wed, I just spent money in a bewlidered fashion and hoped for the best.

Now that I am a lean, mean SAHM machine controlling the money is my favorite brain activity. That guy I mention sometimes, Dave Ramsey, says we should tell every dollar where to go before it reaches our hot little hands. He also says we need to write our budget every month. It is really difficult to come up with a once-for-your-lifetime style budget. Needs change over time, income changes as well. To do a “budget” that tells you where to put your money for the rest of your life puts the money in control. Rewriting and reviewing each month keeps you in control.

Now, just a tid-bit more information than is necessary, I am not a very in-control person. Things easily get away from me, so retirement and college savings are paid automatically. It’s not the largest sum ever put away, but it goes there without fail each month. For me, at least, that money needs to be in control of itself before it becomes more profit fpr Target.

That’s all. Fairly simply stuff. But it keeps our family afloat. It keeps me able to stay at home and it keeps Daniel able to do the work he loves rather than hunting down a bigger paycheck.

Today I added 45 new things to my house.  Fourty-four of them are brackets to hold the support beams for our burgeoning deck.  So I’ll accept them into the clutter.  One was a brand-new queen size mattress, localy made, and purchased from the nice man who gave me free feet for the couch I bought on Craig’s List (even though they sell perfectly delightful new couches at his small, single location, locally owned furniture store.)  I welcome the mattress as well as the brackets.  We’ve been wanting one for a while.

Our previous mattress was a hand-me-down from Daniel’s old boss.  In addition to being about 15 years old when we got it, it was the mattress of a man known for his filthy talk and philandering.  We tried to block those things from our minds.  But still, for seven years we have been sleeping on a mattress of questionable morals. It also looked like the old sway backed mare.

The new mattress was cheaper than, and hopefully almost as helpful as, the chiropractic care it turned out we couldn’t afford but now maybe we can anyways…(ahh good old American private health insurance. Not only is it only for the elite it is also mindboggling to navigate.)

The mattress polished off our guvment money.  I pre-paid the kiddo’s preschool and put and extra 500 on the car loan as well.  And now, hopefully, will give Daniel a pain free back.

No matter what those 45 things are, 45 is still a large number of things to bring home in one day. So I feel the need to review what seven things I have abandoned in the last seven days.

• badly broken bear book (if you want a pet, beware! Be sure you do not choose a bear! He my look cute, he may look sweet, but all he’ll want to do is eat!)
• broken shape sorter toy
• ink-face Barbie doll
• broken coffee mug
• broken glass (after I broke it)
• broken bowl (after I broke it)
• old mattress of questionable morals (taken away by the nice mattress delivery men.)

Yes, I see a trend. I also tried to recycle a “broken” kiddy pool and electric talking toy, but they were rejected by curbside recycling and so loiter out by my mailbox.  I’d really like to send them to a shelter for homeless broken toys, but then I’d have to go engage them again. And engaging the homeless can be dangerous. You risk getting attatched and then the next thing you know they are living in your house.

The grand sum of things I have tossed so far, May 1 through the 21 (so twenty-one ish things, depending on how you count the box full of clothes for goodwill) is:

Five velvet jewelry boxes, empty lotion bottle, big box of clothes to goodwill, broken: picture frame, doll, bear book, toy sorter, mug, bowl and cup, grafittied Barbie doll, broken down old mattress…

I can’t wait to marvel at the list in 12 months. I’ll be down 365 pieces of rubbish–the kind of rubbish that sits around your home otherwise, doing no good to nobody and dragging your useful and attractive things down with them.

One of the most interesting competitions against self and sloth that I’ve come across is seven in seven. A friend mentioned it to me here and it really grabbed my imagination.  While I can’t tossing 365 things to the wind this afternoon I can picture my home at the end of the year with 365 fewer things in it.

My year is measured May to May.

The first week of the month my 7 things may have been a bit of a cheat.  I brought a box of donations to goodwill.  There were more than twenty items in it. On the other hand, those items had been in one box for so long it had become “the box” singular that needed to go.  I am considering it a sort of average.

Yesterday I looked through the last two boxes from the move (last years move.) One if a box of files and the other is from Daniel’s desk at his old job (the one he left 2 years ago.) My goal is to file the boxes in the file cabinet. Then I want to put the cabinet in the closet.

It may not be possible, there is a lot of stuff in the two boxes.  But I was able to toss five black velvet jewelry boxes.  Sadly they don’t represent my jewelry wardrobe.  They are just more random detritus from funeral home life.  Daniel was a little irked by my sorting through his treasure box, so I tossed out an empty hand lotion bottle of mine too. I can’t actually tell you why I let the bottle sit on the counter empty for more than a month. It was just here. Minding its own business. My stuff had better watch out. I’ll be watching all of it with an eagle eye.  Only the strong will survive.