Monday
Saving log - $0 tip box + $35 drp
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.11 (parking meter, sidewalk)

Sunday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.88 coffee, bagel + $9 tea, apple, oatmeal bar, magazine
Found money - $0.18 (sidewalk, coffeeshop floor)

Found a 5 cent euro on Sunday. I figured I'd count it - after all, the exchange rate of the euro: dollar was 1.47:1. In other words, the 5 cent euro is worth a hair over 7 cents.

I-bond rates also came out today. The fixed rate is 0.3%. Better than 0.1%, but not enough to think about buying more. The variable rate, though, is much better on this 6 month go around - a bit over 3%.

Took a walk at noon and discovered an ING Direct/Shareholder branch on King Street. For laughs I went in and chatted with the receptionist, who told me that there were plans for it to turn into an ING cafe.

Final Jackie Handey thought: We are now back on "Standard" time, coming from "Daylight Saving" time. Count the number of months of each. Standard = November, December, January, February, 1-2wks March. Daylight = 2-3wks March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October. Since we are in Daylight Saving time for longer than Standard time, isn't Daylight Saving really Standard?

All in all, this picture sums up the conflicting signs on the economy. Its a real picture, fyi.

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $12 breakfast, coffee + $17 mailing dutch oven to sister
Found money - $0.04 (by parking meter, door jamb, counter)

Mailed off our spare, heirloom cast iron dutch oven to sister. I bought it for $10 about 15 years ago in Tucson, and it has behaved like a champ. In June, when we visited sister at the farmette, DH made the no-knead bread recipe, but we had to use a casserole dish, which is a bit scary to heat up to 500F. It worked out but we mentioned that the dutch oven is the tool for the task. Since June, I have been looking for yard sale/estate sale/thrift store dutch ovens. Either nothing or minimum of $60. So sister gets ours and a clearly typed recipe.

After that it was breakfast and a good long walk. I've found that I'm positively the girl version of Jack Handey, thinking deep thoughts:

1. Visited the brand new Whole Foods down in Interbay. They have something called a "chill room". Its a nice little lounge just off the cafe and the wine/party foods/prepared foods are.

My thought: this grocery store needs a DJ. I mean, you have the space, and you would cater to two populations of people who pay for premiums ($5 cover charge and extra for watered down drinks, extra $1/lb for produce). Synergy!

2. Why isn't there a mailbox in/outside the bus? Right now you have buses driving and using gas, and you have post office guys driving around and using gas. Buses take a published route, and end up at a rest stop, transit center or a base, where the post office guy can open the bus mail box and grab it. This would be a substitute for the blue boxes.

3. Halloween is now second to X-mas, as measured by retail sales. I've seen a couple of mash-up decorations this year (a Halloween snow globe decoration, a ghoul being crucified). Why bother with 3 discrete fall/winter holidays? Next year: Santa with fangs pulling a turkey out of the oven.

you Great Depression, you. You hardly look a day over 79. But never fear, your grandchild parts his hair near the same way.

(In all seriousness, today is the 80th anniversary of the then-Black Monday stock market crash. Wheee!)

Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $2 decaf coffee + $20 pizza
Found money - $0.03 (road, bus floor) and yesterday - $0.02 (coffee shop floor, road)

Today DH is off visiting his mom, so evil me, I cleaned the kitchen and ordered a large pizza - olive, mushroom, onion, and anchovy. All my favorites and even better cold for lunch, and it takes a rare lunch thief to go after the anchovy pizza.

Then Mad Men, then a bath, and off to bed. So far kitty is behaving herself also and hitting the box. Nighty night.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $0 (free coffee)
Found money - $0.01 (elevator of Group Health) + $0.03 (gutter along 1st Ave)

In the window of the now defunct Murphy's Mix...


Got my first mammogram today - yes at 47 I'm a bit late , and found a penny on the elevator floor. (So rare as a consumer that I left the medical complex with more money than when I entered) The rest of the money I found next to the parked cars along 1st.

I'm working on getting the cost basis for a stock I'm planning of selling to improve my tax position. That's the real hitch of getting everything online and with the extra hurdles in security it means that you have to go into your accounts often or else you miss a trick and getting in when you really need to is a PITA. Anyhow, I'm in the process of getting a security code so I can go back and re-set up my accounts. Blegh.

The meat delivery is now firmly on Sept 19, with a meat grill fest afterward. Somebody asked about dessert - I'm pretty sure that I can find a caramel chocolate cheesecake and call it a "cow pie".

Monday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.88 coffee, bagel + $20 groceries, lunch + $6 2 movie tickets
Found money - $0

Sunday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.88 coffee, bagel + $7.50 lunch, Financial Times
Found money - $0.01 (sidewalk on Greenwood Ave) + $0.10 (bus stop) + $0.35 (Fred Meyer parking lot)

Yesterday was quite a good change finding day, if I do say do myself. Since mid-July, I've found and picked up $2.10 worth of change and a substantial amount of change came from the Fred Meyer parking lot - I know I'm a zombie when I leave there.

Labor Day (today), DH and I kicked it and took it easy - nothing too adventurous. Seattle decided to go for the off and on rain anyway.

We finally hit the movie theater in ... how long, to see Star Trek at the Crest for $3/ticket. I remembered that it had been reviewed well in May, and I thoroughly enjoyed months and months later. Yeah, I know, a little late.

It got me to thinking, though. In my youth, sigh, I would have seen that movie within a week or two of it coming out ...even nerds had their standards. Worse, I probably would have teased you if you hadn't. Now? I just smile and wait for the next week of summer and another movie that you had better see if you want to be with it. Just becomes part of a treadmill of stuff you had better buy (and store!), along with things you need to buy a ticket for.

Saving and being with-it don't play well. It doesn't seem to matter the circle you run in. Nerds like me - the gadgets, the computer, the sci-fi movie. Fashionistas - well, everything in the mall, which has seasons and for the with-it, has to replaced every year. Foodies? Heirlooms, organics, and local food seem to be the craze right now, which sucks - when they become less of a fad, their price will drop. Pick a sport, any sport, and there's serious with-it spending involved. Being green and sustainable? Surprise - there a ton of green stuff you apparently need to buy, despite the fact that the greenest purchase is no purchase at all but use up what you already have. I have to admire the ad-man here - being able to deflect the conversation to buy from not-buy.

It seems like I spend more of my time hiding out from not buying. "Great movie," I say when the topic comes up. A little white lie, I know. "Someday I'll buy the house," I say warily. Could be 2010, 2011, 20 never. I think sometimes that learning how to hide out from/ignore peer spending (not as obvious as keeping up with the Joneses) is the biggest skill I learned in my 30s. If only I hadn't teased others about being so cheap in my 20s! There was no with-it spending that I did in the 80s that I even remember, not to mention change my life.

Friday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.10 (sidewalk, 1st Ave)

Thursday
Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.01 (sidewalk, Greenwood Ave)

I can't say that I've had a St. Paul on the road to Damascus moment in being frugal. I was always a good saver, and had a reasonable amount of discipline even in college in the early 80's when I held myself to $10/week (this when a Saturday Harold's Chicken white half came to $2.75).

I graduated from college, worked for a year, applied to grad school, got into grad school, got my grad degree, moved and became a journeyman scientist, well for each leap I saved up about $2K for the move. It was always paycheck to paycheck but with 2K savings.

Where I really fell in my youth was in the money management arena. During my bad old days, my money management skill consisted entirely of: Look at ATM balance, I have $x in my checking account, therefore no spending. I hated it when the bank's monthly statement came in - I never looked at it. Too depressing. My spending was hit and miss - paycheck week I could be social, the next I had to be super frugal and was a pain to be around. Even up until my early 40s I felt like my money was managing me. Worse, when money manages you, you feel on edge in your job ... you have to keep that job no matter what because you have to keep the money coming in, no matter what.

My first big break was getting a PDA for Christmas. I found a free checkbook program and began putting in my checks, ATM trips, paycheck. Then I put in my savings. I put in my credit card balances, then I put in my 403B balances. I found, to my surprise, that even though I owed 15K in credit card and student loan debt, my net worth was positive.

My second big break came when I finally paid off my student loan. I was lucky (not skillful, particularly) that I took out loans only during my undergrad years; I grit my teeth and lived on the meager stipend during my grad years. Still, I realized that in 1984 I had $15K in student loan debt, 0K in credit card debt. In 2002, the tables were reversed. I had $0K in student loan debt, $15K credit card debt. I used the satisfaction that I got out of paying the student loans to inspire me to pay off the credit card debt, which I did in May 2005, a few months before I started this blog.

My third big break came a bit before the other two, strangely enough. DH gave me a share of Coke (KO) and started my first Dividend Reinvestment Program (Drp). My granddad used to invest in penny stocks in the 70s and had a lot of fun ... this before index funds, 401Ks, IRAs, or even Drps. All there seemed to be after passbook savings accounts were stocks, bought in 100-share round lots. Anyway, as I got a grip on the credit cards, I began to put in $50 every month or so into KO stock. I treated it a bit like a letter to a long distance friend. You get the mail, open it, and respond. I used to mail the check back within a week of getting the receipt of the last payment.

So really I had a lot of little money management revelations. For the longest time, it was paying off credit card $300-400/ month, putting in some $266 in the 403B every month, putting in $50 into KO, adding savings at the top of the month, tip box in the middle of the month, living within my means the rest of the month, and noting the transactions into the PDA. I didn't care about being splashy - I went for relentless. I decided to learn by doing with investing, never paying more than $100/ pop, but doing it over and over again.

Working small, gradual, and relentless meant I learned enough to handle two inheritances - as I describe in my blog. I really shudder to think about how I would have handled the inheritances when the money was managing me.

I've said it several times, and will probably say it several more - don't wait for the "big money" to learn how to handle money, the "small money" has a lot to teach you.

I rarely post more than once per day, but I was quite taken by this post. Warning, it is a bit involved, and holds special meaning to those 40 and above. I know I sound like an old codger when I say "the way it used to be." Please, you young'uns, don't roll your eyes!

The Addiction to Fake Wealth

Even frugality was simpler then.

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $9 lunch + $9 groceries
Found money - $0.01 (sidewalk 1st/Cherry) + $0.01 (next to tree along sidewalk on Greenwood)

My current change drought has ended with a couple of pennies. I think its because I primed the pump - a quarter fell out of my purse at the chiropractor, so someone else will get my luck.

As I walked Saturday, I missed a fascinating picture. I was downtown about a block south of Macy's - a patch of dive-y area. I idly watched a little cutely dressed up chihuahua step lively, tugging on a leash. I noticed that the doggie had on what I first thought was a faded greenish ruffle. Nope. Said chihuahua was sporting a ruffle made from one and five dollar bills.

It made me laugh.

Now the question: Why? Was doggie a walking wallet? Found art? Was someone commenting about the American economy? NAFTA? (Hey, look - its cheaper to make a dog collar ruff out of dollar bills than it is to buy one.)

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.88 coffee, bagel + $.69 apple + $11.50 conveyor belt sushi

Today I found .12 on the ground. I generally find a coin here and there (pennies mostly) every couple of days. Often, like Disneysteve, if I find one, I find another - so that is a good little rule.

As a public service, and to the determent of my own coin hunting, I thought of coming up with a checklist of reasonable places where I find stray coins. I've been hard at work thinking about it, but the places that I've found coins are so varied - sidewalks, parking lots, bus stops, on the floor of the bus, in front of my driveway, on the road along the curb, pedestrian intersections, behind the paper honesty boxes, in front of ATMs ... in other words I can give you an inelegant, exhaustive list that isn't very easy to remember.

Later, it hit me the thread that most of these places share: they are high foot traffic places where people wait for a few minutes, stick their hands in and out of their pockets and then leave. Fine, but as you are walking along a sidewalk, hard to tell those high traffic hotspots from ordinary sidewalk.

Or is it? I suspect not. One of the things that some people do as they wait and jam their collective hands in their collective pockets is smoke. And when the bus comes, friend comes, cigarette is finished, what happens? Some of the butts go into the can (thank you), some land on the sidewalk or whereever.

I submit to you a very simple rule: the more cigarette butts on the ground, the more likely you will find change on the ground.

Let's be clear here. I'm not saying smokers are more likely to drop change. I'm saying that cigarette butts are a reasonable marker to identify those good coin hunting places where a lot of people wait with hands in pockets, yet have to leave in a hurry.

I'm probably also saying that street sweepers and those business folk who keep their front sidewalks clean are my competitors - if you sweep a butt, you probably are sweeping coins too.

The rule isn't perfect - I've found coins in our front driveway (neither of us smoke), close to gas station pumps (not supposed to smoke there), on bare sidewalks. Still, today, there were a lot of butts (even a joint where I found that dime) where I found my change today.

If you are a coin hunter, let me know if this rule helps you find more change!

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $16 groceries

I've been thinking about the marshmallow test (a test for self control) and how it relates to saving money and investing. And money temperament in general.

Just to summarize, 4 yr old children were left alone in a room in full view of a marshmallow (or favorite food). The child was told beforehand that he could have two marshmallows if he could successfully refrain from eating the one he saw until a researcher came back. The child who could wait did better in school, etc, than the child who couldn't.

I wonder if the correlation holds for investors also - maybe its part of the 'investor's temperament' that Warren Buffett talks about. Or maybe not.

Of course to save money, you have to practice a form of the marshmallow test every other minute. Essentially instead of grabbing and eating the marshmallow, you delay buying or going into hock by buying, grabbing, and eating the marshmallow. Every so often, though, one should have and enjoy a marshmallow or two.

But investing is slightly different than saving. A lot of the tricks you can use 'saving' aka keeping yourself from eating the marshmallow - looking away, pretending its a sculpture of a marshmallow rather than a real one - are tricky when you are trying to invest. With investing you are trying to use money to buy cheaper money. Its more like trying to figure out by yourself when the marshmallow is at its whitest and tastiest, and eat it then. So you have to keep your eye on it to make a decision, but not keep an eye on it so you don't make a badly timed decision.

Half digested thoughts...

Are dollar bills paper or cloth?

Discuss.

We call our money paper, but not many pieces of paper survive the washer or can be folded 4,000 times before the paper disintegrates. Not too many pieces of paper have 25% linen fibers in them. There now are synthetic blue and red fibers in currency "paper"; some old formulations contained silk.

But somehow thinking of dollar bills as cloth is weird. So I'm torn.

Paper or cloth?

For my 1000th entry, I got a little philosophical.

Why the Kondratieff hate? Why the hate about economic cycles in general?

To get you caught up a bit - Kondratieff was a Soviet economist, who came up with the idea that large economies 'cycle' over the space of several generations, generally on the order of 50, 60, 70 years. First you have a spring-like boom, then a summery plateau, then a fall-like stagflation, finally a wintery credit contraction and deflation.

The Kondratieff hate seems to be throughout the political and economic spectrum. Of course we all in the West would hate him because who wants to hear (and have to prepare) about recurring depressions? Bummer, so stick my fingers in my ears and say, 'la la la la'. But then Stalin had him killed, not because of the depression part (that fit well with what he hoped would happen to the West), but because of the spring renewal that came after. Kondratieff couldn't catch a break.

The rebuttal that I've been picking up is that Kondratieff was wrong because his timing was off - Great Depression +60 years fell in the mid-90s, so ha ha, schmuck, you're wrong. As a woman, an argument like that makes me laugh. Just because my period's late doesn't mean that periods don't exist.

And in general, it seems to me that social sciences in general have this personal attack component to them that the natural 'hard' sciences had lost centuries ago. Its one thing if you believe and can prove Freud's theories to be wrong, but then add to it the rumor that he molested his patients? Seems a bit over the top. Einstein proved that Newton's physics didn't explain many special situations in the universe, but that last I heard there were no hard personal feelings about the whole thing.

If we take Kondratieff's work as an hard-science-esque observation, I think the more interesting questions are: What is the underlying cause? Economies are created by people, after all, so is it a mechanical aspect like an underlying credit expansion and contraction? Or is it a more personal thing like subtle changes in the perception of risk, thereby causing more risky behavior? Does the cycle lengthen as the human lifespan lengthens? It seems like a leading coincidence that we are undergoing an eerie replay of the 30s, just as the first hand experience of the 30s is in the process of dying off.

Yesterday I was at the grocery store watching the green cookies that two weeks ago were pink and it got me to thinking ... you can tell time by grocery store cookies.

Valentine's Day = heart shaped cookies with pink or white icing, with red, pink, or white sprinkles

St. Patrick's Day = shamrocks with kelly green icing

Easter = purple and yellow egg cookies or yellow chick cookies

Mother's Day = generic flower or rose cookie with red icing

Father's Day... nothing, unless those cookies were made of bacon

4th of July - stars or circle shapes in red, white and blue icing.

Cookie drought over the summer and fall, until...

Halloween - pumpkin or cat with orange or chocolate icing

Thanksgiving - "harvest-y" gold and orange circles

Christmas - big daddy of cookie holidays. Red, white and green circles, wreathes, bells.

New Year's - Christmas cookies 20% off.

Making me hungry!

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $0

You have to wonder whether astrology actually worked on Feb 12, 1809 - both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born today 200 years ago within a couple of hours of each other. Most of us in the United States think that Lincoln's birthday was the bigger deal, Darwin's less so. Not me - as a former scientist, Darwin is definitely the bigger deal.

Not to mention that I could celebrate Darwin's birthday in a unique Seattle way: The Discovery Institute (creationist think tank) is across the street from our offices.

Figure 1. Matter of fact it shares a wall with the back of my gym at left. So to the left, inside people pursue fitness to prevent natural selection, enhance female choice, perhaps allow for a little forced DNA repair in the tanning bed; to the right, none of that.


Figure 2. The prank itself. Not terribly elaborate or destructive, and perfectly legal. It felt very good, despite being part of their video surveillence tape. Happy 200th, Chuck!


A special citation to the fellow conspirator, eg the picture taker (clearly not me). We've gotta keep an eye on these guys.

Saving log - $5 tip box
Spending log - $15 groceries

Did a little chore with the change of year - I changed all of my financial passwords. It means that I mostly try to change them only once per year, but its better than not changing them at all. And I have to change all of them. If I have to ask the question, "old one, or new?" its a failure.

Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $0

Don't get too excited about the no spend day - yesterday I bought a couple of bottles of prosecco for New Year's Eve. ($30)

I've seen other bloggers post up their goals for 2009. A beginning of the year goal/resolution then see at the end of the year whether I achieved it doesn't particularly work well for me. And its a rare person who is inspired or motivated in January...

I do have two long term goals:

1. Be wiser in general with my money, which means adjust appropriately to the situation.

This year I realized in April that to pay less in tax, I should put more in the 403B and see if I can take the drop in the paycheck. My expectation was that interest would be high(er) and my stocks would go up. Didn't happen, but since stocks went down, the Roth conversion made sense.

I was pleased at how my original 60% bond and cash/40% stock held up. New 403B money is now allocated at 90% stock/ 10% bond. The new stuff added to the old stuff is working well, I've nearly caught up to my August high.

I do have to make money decisions a bit faster. I shouldn't have waited for t-bills to go to 0% before I finally moved them out. Oh well, better to make a good decision a bit slow than to compound rash decisions.

2. Buy a house in a couple of years.

I rent, but I am interested in buying on my terms. My general plan is to use 80K as a downpayment and get a 120K mortgage, which is about 2.5x my salary.

Yes, I know that there is no way (yet) that I will get a 200K house in North Seattle. I plan, unfortunately, on a severe recession in 2009 - 2010 to depress prices. I have the basic plan, the credit score, the location ... now its patience. In the meantime, I plan to be an observer at open houses, collect internet resources and become a total expert of the neighborhood. Watch and learn.

Buying a house might not ever happen, at $925/month rent for us is pretty sweet and a lot hinges on my success - keeping a job, the misery of others. Light years away, maybe, but its a star to sail to.

Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $19 groceries

Found an interesting article about procrastination, or more precisely, why we procrastinate on some issues but not others. The key is concrete-ness. Make an issue concrete and you do it, keep it abstract and you procrastinate.

Could it be that while I read and am entertained by the fiscal exploits of all of my blog friends, the act of blogging itself makes my thoughts concrete and keeps me from procrastinating? Write about it and you should do it or at least you have to write about it the next day why you didn't.

If only it really weren't a brilliant satire:

For a little more info about this parody - here

Thursday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $12 lunch

Friday
Saving log - $6 tip box
Spending log - $9 groceries

We put the finishing touches on our "Vault of Eternity", did a little work, set up for the potluck, toured and took snaps of the other floors (the fear floor was very good - each cubicle had a fear), ate at the potluck, did a little work, voted for the favorites (of course it was us), cleaned up and broke down the decorations, did what I really wanted to get done that day.

Not a bad day until I found out that Studs Terkel died. RIP, Studs. Even twenty five years ago in Chicago, when I saw him perform in the red-checked shirt, he seemed old to my then teenage eyes. I learned from him that if you really embrace what you are, the name can't hurt you. One of the young college Republicans at the time called him a socialist. "Of course I'm a pinko socialist," he roared. "What's your point?"

Substitute "frugal" "cheap" or "thrifty" for socialist. Of course I am...what's your point?

Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $12 lunch

SWOTs are a kind of old school brainstorming technique. I'm going to brainstorm here a bit and apply the answers to my investing and financial plan.

S - Strengths - strong cash position; patience; somewhat diversified (403B, IRA, Roth, taxable, cash equivalents, individual stock); no outstanding credit; still have a job w/benefits including health insurance and a bus pass; ability to save; can live cheap; good health; stable relationships; optimism & gratitude; ability to think and learn; a taste for being contrarian.

W - Weaknesses - emotion (unless you're Vulcan, you have that problem); my investments already have a lot of moving parts; need to experience things to learn them; a taste for risk; tendency to cheerlead and weigh positive info more strongly than negative info; incomplete analysis; too much/incoherent data; being contrary by itself is not a good enough reason to do things.

O - Opportunities - stocks are dropping to levels that I can afford; real estate is beginning to drop to levels that I can afford.

T - Threats - macro economic uncertainty (deflation, inflation, stagflation, hyper-inflation - do I have all the -flations?); political uncertainty; will I have a job?; mis-timing how low asset prices can go (they can keep dropping); as I buy, I tie up money that I'll need for other things.

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $25 lunch (chipped in for a birthday lunch)

I don't know Julie Tuesday, but she was quite the philosopher today.


I was in a training session, so I didn't see the 778 pt stock market drop until I clicked into the news this afternoon.

That the bailout failed really didn't surprise me - the extreme left and the extreme right didn't like it, the partisanship on both sides is (and was) so poisonous that no one voting for it would get any cover. A Rep voting for it would be accused of raising taxes like a Dem, a Dem voting for it would be accused of caving in to Reps and everyone voting for it would be accused of believing a lie. Its what GWBush over-estimating the case of getting into war w/ Iraq did. If you lie once, you could lie again. Everything is now a possible over-estimate ... are we now into an economic apocalyse - or not?

I do think we are now in a first phase of very steep patch of deflation - money is disappearing, stocks are dropping, assets are consolidated, the credit bubble is popping, margin and debt is left to default, consumption contracts. This unwinding is a process with more pain to come - even during the GD, its not as if stockbrokers jumped on Oct 30.

Fear is rampant. Still, when one of the IT guys is telling me its time to buy ... its not time to buy anything yet. But it is time to window shop. And wait.

So part of the grand plan is to temporarily stop the short selling of 799 stocks. And actually its not just the US that is regulating it; several other European exchanges have also temporarily stopped it, while China doesn't allow it in the first place.

Probably that alone caused my financial stock to nearly double from its low last month (11.10$ low/ 29.50$ yesterday).

Shorting a stock is reversing the order buying, owning and selling a stock. When you are long, you try to buy shares for a low price, hold it for a bit, then sell for a higher price. When you are short, you borrow the shares from a broker at a higher price, then arrange a time for when you will actually buy and deliver the stock. You hope that the stock will be lower by the time you have to buy it.

Shorting is useful - the main use is to add liquidity. Short sellers, like long sellers, actually have to buy the stock (at the end, not at the beginning), which means more buyers. Liquidity is a fancy way of describing that with those extra buyers stocks get traded more often and at more price points.

Another use is that short sellers are good markers for risk. Short selling is much more risky. A stock can only go down to zero, but can theoretically go up to any price. And if the stock goes up (to any price), the short seller has to buy it, losing much, much moolah. Stocks that attract short sellers should tip everybody off that something risky is happening.

Without the short sellers and only the long sellers, stocks of course can rise higher - only the optimists are allowed to trade. But what if the risks aren't quite as well defined and there are no optimists to be had? Stocks then drop in a much more sickening fashion - you can find an optimist if the price is low enough. Without liquidity, sometimes it has to be very, very low.

We'll see over the next few weeks what happens. Offhand it sounds like the "cure" is worse than the disease.

Tomorrow will make fiscal history on Wall Street. Lehman Brothers will declare bankruptcy; Merrill Lynch will be bought out by Bank of America.

How this credit crisis is unraveling is unprecedented by the non-tin hats among us.

The asteroid has fallen, the dinosaurs are fighting or gasping their last. Its up to the mice to find their safe, deep holes and wait things out.

At work today.


The first few anniversaries we had a couple of minutes of silence - the minutes turned shorter and shorter. Today no minutes at all.

Its our nature to forget just a little bit. Its really not forgetting, but easing our memories into something more workable. You can't be white hot furious at that historical moment forever - emotion has to turn into determination. And we can't be too hard on the 7 year olds who can't share our memories. I remember my elders being furious at me for not remembering the Kennedy assassination; and they themselves upset their elders for not remembering Pearl Harbor.

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $9 lunch + $1 apple + $6 for me and a co worker

I was walking to my bus when I stopped to look at a purse, and thought how great that purse was, how I would look with it slung over my shoulder, how I wanted it.

And I had my Paris handbag already slung over my shoulder! Nothing wrong with my handbag, its still clean, I got a lot of compliments on it, at black and white it goes with anything, it cost me just 30 euros (when the euro dollar exchange was only outlandish and not frighteningly outlandish). Best of all, I still have my memories of buying it, and happy memories of using it.

What is it about the mind that it wants and wants even though you already have and that having is more than adequate?

I'm still thinking about the fact that our cushmobile, MILs 17 yr old white buick, still gets 29 mpg, has working power windows, power seat adjustment, crush velour comfortable seats, carpeting looks great... only the cassette tape player is busted. MIL bought a new burgundy-red Caddy, same size, heads up display (which confuses her so she doesn't use), leather seats, does the math on how long you can last on a tank of gas. Sure, new, equally large, some features not so useful ... but only 15 mpg. And the car is at least 50K.

Tyranny of the new, maybe? Did the math and figured that folks would whisper if she drove around in a (then) 15 yr old car?

I don't see the progress here. Progress if you have nothing and get something; progress if you buy 30K of improvements and technology. Not progress buying into the brand - Buick vs. Caddy; not progress if the new costs more to operate than the old.

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $.50 coffee + free lunch/coffee + $1.50 (3 bananas)

The day is done. Tomorrow is the first day of vacation, which will be taken up entirely by laundry, cleaning the house, and packing.

But wait. I sat in the back of the bus on my route home, zoning out, listening to tunes, avoiding eye contact and ignoring children misbehavior, all while scanning the bus placards.

Now bus placards are a class specific medium - you see the usual, devoted to the stereotypes of bus riders - the cheap and the poor. Tonight there was the Jobdango placard for the un- and underemployed, the change the world placard for the idealistic underemployed just out of college, the don't-be-an-ass-on-the-bus placards in matching English and Spanish, the alternate forms of transportation placards (on the not-in-your-car bus? Try the not-in-your-car train/amtrak, or even try the not-in-your-car car - the Zipcar). All well and good. The Moneytree payday loan placard fit right in.

But what do I spy? I blinked again.

A condo ad. Interesting. But it gets better. Said condo advertises studios and alcoves(?) for 200K, 1BD/1BA for 300K, 2BD/2BA for 400K, and work lofts for 500K. Notice the irony here? When the buyer shows up and signs and initials, signs and initials, and finally is asked "how did you find out about this condo" is anybody going to really say ... bus placard?

Sure.

I do love the fact that they are brazen about the prices. None of this old "prices start at xxxK" to lure you in before you are horribly trapped at the realtor. Brownie points for that. Just a glam upper class placard proudly slumming with the lower and middle.

The piece de la resistance was: the glam condo was a 1/2 placard. Pulling the punch a bit. I can't imagine that even a full size placard costs all that much. If you are selling a series of 1/2 million dollar anything, along with a larger series of slightly cheaper apartments aren't we talking about 30-40 M worth of construction? Spring for the full size bus placard. You're good for it ... if you sell one.

Its almost as if the glam placard is destined to do exactly the opposite of what advertising supposed to: no one swayed by it could do anything about it or would admit to having seen it, and there is the strong possibility that the developers are sending signals that they will have to drop the price.

Saturday
Saving log - $0 tip box + $35 drp
Spending log - $15 brunch/coffee + $12 produce

Sunday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.25 coffee & bagel + $4 latte & cookie

This morning we stopped into our local Sunday coffeehouse, expecting a fairly quiet coffee and Sunday newspaper reading. People were swinging from the rafters! We asked what was up ...

Owner: We got refugees from the Tully's Coffee across the street (87th/Greenwood). They closed.

Us: Huh? That was quick.

And it was quick - Wednesday nothing was amiss. The notice went up on Thursday. By Saturday they were closed. By Sunday, you can see the newspaper shroud along all the windows. About as fast as the Alaska Deli downtown...although at Tully's least there was a note.

There seems to be a spectra of closure styles.

You have the never-ending closure style of the Oriental rug stores in Pioneer Square. It wouldn't surprise me if those stores have only two signs - an Everything Must Go Sign and a Grand Opening sign - and the owner flips a coin to determine which one they put up for the month.

You have the political statement closure: a news-worthy proprietor who is retiring or the rent's going up. I call it a political closure because it usually takes several months with some local ain't-it-a-shame or shed-a-light-on-other-issues press. I lump the Starbucks closures in that category. Anybody go to that Starbucks on Dexter and Aurora? Its on the list.

You have the clear must get out by the end of the month sale and closure. My CD place was one of those. Burn off as much inventory in that last month as you can, with the goal of leaving only dirty carpet on the first.

To me, the oddballs are the really quick closures. Last year, the Denny's in Ballard closed with incredible speed and no particular warning. One Saturday we ate there, the next Saturday that Denny's sign was down, and the place was boarded up. Now this Tully's. Perhaps it makes a little bit of sense when a multi-branch company does it - they move the inventory out within a few hours, leaving cricket chirps behind.

But the Alaska Deli? Still a mystery - it was in the midst of construction, but it had been in the midst for a month or two, it was clearly marked Open with clear sidewalks. Frankly, with all the construction guys swarming around it should have been doing the business of its life. May 30, it was selling coffee; June 2 the door was locked. The extra mystery is that the Alaska Deli's stock is still mostly there even now. (this pic was taken in early July)


I'm probably reading too much into these quick closures. But a business has some sort of relationship with its neighborhood, and its customers. Do these quick closures tell us that we don't care or that we might care too much?

Yowsa! Over 500,000 visits!

Seriously, folks, you all need a hobby!

Every so often the question comes up. Do you pick up change from the street?

And the pros and cons come up which boil down to this. Pro: the money's risk free; con: my time is precious, and by G*d, I'm not the type of person who picks up pennies from the street. In case you couldn't tell by the subject line, I'm a pro change picker upper. I know I won't convert a con change picker upper people but I do want to provide a little food for thought.

First of all, you have to be in the right position to even pick up change from the street. If you are already in the right position, you're already un-American. You can't be in a car. You have to be on a sidewalk or in a lobby, walking. You can't be on a cellphone. You shouldn't be pacing and staring off into middle distance, listening. You have to be on a sidewalk, & basically unproductive - not doing deals, not selling something, not ordering someone around. If you're just walking, so much for your time being precious; might just as well train your eye searching for little metal circles.

Second of all, do you pick up change in other aspects of your life? Change that collects in the bottom of the washer/dryer when it fell out of your pants? You pick that up. Change on the carpet of your car that you tossed in your hurry pulling out of the drive thru? You'll pick that up, sure, especially if there's a toll involved. Change that you sucked up in the vacuum bag? Nasty, but you'd rescue it. Change between the couch cushions? You'd pick that up. Matter of fact, isn't that the first place you look for pizza and laundry money?

Here's a news flash. Picking up change from any of those sources, some even nastier than the sidewalk, doesn't change your net worth one iota. Its money you already have that you've moved into your pants pocket from an alternate pocket. Sidewalk change is new money.

Lastly, there's the I-make x-dollars-per-second-its-not-worth-it argument. That only works if your pay is docked when you pick up change. Otherwise, if you find change at night or on the weekend, your pay that hour is $0. Picking up the coin means your pay is $0 plus coin. If you find the coin during lunch and you are making a salary, you pay that hour is $salary plus coin. Think of it as a tip for being alert.

I don't have any reason to convert a non-change picker upper into a change picker upper. Why make competition? Change that you pick up means change I won't. All I ask of you is this: if you see sidewalk money, point it out to me. I'll pick it up.

Saving log - $7 tip box
Spending log - $1.19 coffee + $9 lunch

And rant week continues. Coffee in the bathroom, wide loads on the bus, finding out offically from the IRS that I'll get my fiscal package stimulated. I'd better check the calendar ... yeah, "its" a bit late, so I'm the throes. Actually its not a bad rant, its karmically kinda funny when you think about it.

It all started after lunch at my hideout in the Pike Place Market. I bought a large apple in one of the high market produce stalls, a strategy to keep me from hitting the candy bars during afternoon snack time. The apple came to .95. I gave the seller a buck and told him to keep the change. "Sure wish it was 5 bucks," he said, a little wistfully.

So 5 cents down

I walked along back to work and in the middle of a block found 2 pennies on the sidewalk. I walked to the corner and saw a homeless guy with a cardboard sign. Hey, the only change I had was the 2 pennies, so I gave them to him. At least I tried. He gave them back and started to rant at me! Yeah, I know, 2 "crummy" pennies and I while I do joke about coin rescue..I mean really, I thought you needed money, bud! You didn't even have to pick them up.

So 2 cents up

Tonight I managed to pull out my cloth bag in the Safeway in time to replace a plastic one for a bag credit.

3 cents up, and karmically even.