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Archive for June, 2011

heroic for $22

July 1st, 2011 at 05:21 am

This morning, because I knew I was paid, I surprised my co workers today by buying 2 different large yogurts, 2 packs of granola, and a box of blueberries and a bag of fresh cherries. I set it up as a mini fruit, yogurt, granola station.

Heroic for $22 and change.

Today was the very last day of fiscal year, and it was still mostly crazy. At least everybody had a good breakfast this morning.

Net worth, June 2011

July 1st, 2011 at 05:14 am

Don't have too much time to comment - about all I can say is that I am so close to 600K that I can taste it. Hit it once several months ago, then stocks dropped again.

Oh, and yes, I got paid, so I now have a bit more than $3.

$220,432 IRA/403B
$202,421 Vanguard taxable
$34,299 stock
$13,238 I-bonds
$25,000 CDs
$100,094 ING
$1,307 immediate cash
---
$596,791 total

By comparison:
June 2011 ($596,791 total, $376,359 in taxable accounts)
December 2010 ($575,346 total, $356,542)
June 2010 ($553,023 total, $369,589)
December 2009 ($551,300 total, $385,771)
June 2009 ($512,054 total, $379,475)
Dec 2008 ($498,148 total, $386,021)
June 2008 ($524,261 total, $387,481)
Dec 2007 ($328,688 total, $192,747)
June 2007 ($176,422 total, $48,205)
Dec 2006 ($132,062 total, $40,329)
June 2006 ($120,261 total, $65,148)
Dec 2005 ($67,778 total, $23,740)
June 2005 ($46,115 total, $11,293)
Dec 2004 ($38,338 total, $7,558)
June 2004 ($29,050 total, $4,533)

made it

June 30th, 2011 at 04:19 am

I have $3 in my wallet and payday is 7 am tomorrow.

end of year tired

June 29th, 2011 at 05:16 am

And yes, I know we are in June.

Our fiscal year ends on June 30. This fiscal year is shaping up to be like a number of others, a series of accounting fires to be put out. Some of our fundraising managers are stitched up tight; and some its, well ... time to slap them silly.

The garden mosaic class was a whole lot of fun. I'm working on a very simple project - a mosaic tray 10 inches by 14 inches. But in 5 hours I only got a 1/3 of it done, so I've gotten some supplies to finish. I plan getting the rest after the paycheck comes in. I got a tip on how to get glass in Seattle - Bedrock Industries. Its a recycled glass tiny piece candy land, underneath the gritty Garfield Bridge. A candy land of sharp edges though. They pay 20 cents/lb for glass.

The second movie rough cut was a lot of fun - a good crowd of 300 out of 800 seats. Not a full house, but a respectable crowd for a rough cut with scenes missing. I formally introduced dj friend to screenwriter friend (they actually knew each other), but both parties fully understand that if they teamed up good deals can happen. Screenwriter friend can possibly get movie music that he wouldn't have to pay royalties on, dj friend can get his crop of artists a new venue - movies that hundreds of people see. I was told that I'm a genuine "producer" here. Smile

Still holding out on the frugal burn. I have $5 and one more day. I think I can do it.

busy weekend (for once)

June 25th, 2011 at 05:36 am

Down to my last $35 for this month; we'll see if I can hold out until the 30th.

Other than that, reinvesting the 2Q dividend checks. Most are enough so that I buy at least half a share.

Weekend looks unusually busy - Saturday I take the garden mosaic class that got canceled in the beginning of the month. It happens to be at the same time as the Greenwood Car Show. Unfortunately I'm willing to bet that somehow that little scheduling feature escaped the teacher so it wouldn't surprise me that it will get canceled again. If that's the case, time to ask for a refund. We'll see.

Sunday we see a "rough cut" of a second movie from screenwriter friend and his son. Trailer is funny and it got a bit of

Text is press and Link is http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20110624/ENT/706249995/1019
press in the neighborhood paper.

Oh, and if you think I should be committed for looking for change on the ground, I'm a piker compared to this
Text is guy and Link is http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/prospector_scours_sidewalks_for_ReKRNWajHnjJhKSoW5Il6L
guy.

quiet weekend

June 21st, 2011 at 06:29 am

No savings, but spent only for a $1.72 coffee. I brought 4 lunches for the week, so no outside lunch today. Right now I'm at a low point in both my checking and savings, so its feel the frugal burn for a couple of weeks.

Last weekend was quiet, but I had an opportunity to visit a space that I've wanted to for a long time. You might remember that my neighborhood hosts a genuine Tibetan Buddhist

Text is monastery and Link is http://baselle.savingadvice.com/2008/01/27/monastery_34784/
monastery. The Sakya Monastery had a book and media sale inside on Saturday so I saw the meeting room and the kitchen. Several lay people also told me that the Shrine Room was open with a guided tour on Sunday noon. The paintings on the walls, the mandalas on the ceiling and the golden Buddha was amazing. I didn't take a picture - it didn't seem right. I learned on the tour several fun facts:

1. The Shrine Room was personally consecrated by the Dalai Lama in 1993.

2. It was in the film, Little Buddha. (Although our neighborhood is decidedly NOT as snotty as Queen Anne!)

3. The Lama in charge had a dream of the interior of the space in the 1970s, and sketched it. When the building came up for sale, his sketches helped the make the decision, but what really clinched it was:

4. The street number is 108, which is the most symbolic number in Buddhism - the number of beads in a mala, number of defilements to overcome to attain enlightenment.

Capital One won

June 17th, 2011 at 06:50 am

ING is being sold to Capital One. We'll see what that means in the next few weeks.

somewhat extreme

June 17th, 2011 at 04:46 am

I put in $46.42 into savings from my tip box this month (I added the paper dividend check.). I paid $1.99/lb for broccoli this afternoon - it had better be cancer-fighting. The container garden is doing well - we have teeny tiny tomatoes; with any luck, a full ripe one by the end of July.

Pay day was yesterday - dispiriting though that its been spent already, mostly on paying off the credit card. Lucky I've moved most of my intimate savings - not the ING - to checking.

I very much enjoyed the CNN

Text is gallery and Link is http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/pf/1106/gallery.penny_pinchers/?source=cnn_bin&hpt=hp_bn3
gallery of extreme savers. Some of these tips aren't all that extreme, and I am doing WAY better than Adam at no 10. I'm at $84.73 in finding change, with about 4 weeks left to go.

just when I got my money in the spots I like ...

June 13th, 2011 at 02:57 am

Turns out that the US branch of ING (ING is a Dutch bank) is

Text is on the verge of being bought and Link is http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=AP&date=20110610&id=13757039
on the verge of being bought, supposedly by either GE or Capital One.

I don't know what that means for me, but I'm fairly sure that 1% interest rate on a highly liquid "checking" (I put that in quotes because you need a very high balance) account is not in the cards.

Sucks, and I'll hold on until the timetable is published (SEC supposedly won't let you secretly sell) but its time to relook.

not nuts

June 11th, 2011 at 07:05 am

Saving log - $6 tip box + $1.42 dividend check
Spending log - $1.73 coffee (forgot my mug) + $9 groceries

At last, I found an

Text is article and Link is http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2011/06/09/6822871-good-graph-friday-want-to-be-a-pocketbook-patriot-stop-driving
article about not driving/not buying gas being a patriotic act. I've been mentioning it for years even in supposedly green Seattle and people have looked at me as if I was nuts. Finally, not nuts!

I can understand it if you were out in the boonies. Lugging groceries for miles up a hill is absolutely no fun, but in the city a car is a tool. You don't want to shoot a squirrel with a machine gun; why use a car for every batch of light errands?

tedious until I looked in my pocket

June 8th, 2011 at 05:13 am

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.62 coffee + $1.05 apple + $9 worth of odwalla bars

Been pretty quiet, work is at last quiet. A couple of days ago screenwriter friend told me that he made $100 in 5 hours by proctoring a SAT exam. I'll have to check into that; I used to do proctoring when I was a grad student and a teaching assistant. What you are basically doing is watching the test takers to detect the cheaters. Easy work as long as you remembered how devious everybody was. Eyes on the paper! We used to shoot rubber bands at the college students whose eyes we suspected were wandering.

The stock market, down for a good week, is depressing. Good time not to look at my portfolio too much.

So really things have been on the tedious side. Except when I looked in my right front pocket. When I pick up coins, I often don't have lots of time poring over what I got, I just shove it in my right front pocket for later. Well, I looked and I found I picked up an old wheat penny ... 1921 old. Its worn, and the wheat side got scuffed a bit from traffic, I think, but its the oldest coin that I've touched in a long time.

good deed/bad deed

June 5th, 2011 at 03:39 am

Well, I walked a little bit further than I had wanted to - although I haven't suffered any. I walked my route with an older man who was looking for his car. I was a bit worried about him, he described himself as having troubles with short term memory. I didn't really want to take responsibility for finding his car that who knows where it was; I split off with him to turn back to walk back home, but I did look for the car and license plate on my way home. I figured that's all I'd need was watching him as a missing person on the evening news.

Within two blocks I found that car, I was certain of it. By then he was a good four blocks away....moving away slowly, but fast enough that I had to jog to catch up to him. I told him the full license plate and I was right - it was his car. So pwhew ... a good deed but who knows whether other drivers on the road would agree.

Now for the bad deed. This in front of my former bank, the Chase on 85th. In case you have troubles reading it, it says, "Jobs Before Bonuses. Move Your Money." The part that got cut off said, "No job, No home, No fear."


And in front of the ATM. "Tax Dodger."


Can't say that I've monitored the chalk graffiti over the past several years, but I think this is the first I've seen of this stuff.

state of the household for June

June 3rd, 2011 at 06:19 am

Savings: $8 tip box
Spending: $1.91 coffee + $1 apple + $17 groceries

The next weeks are going to be semi spendy. I won a pair of Sounders tickets, so while that will be free, well there's the beer and food. (And lately food is especially pricey.) DH is asking for us to go for a beer at a new pub in the neighborhood. We all reconnected with the rancher that we bought the beef from - we'll be buying another one this year - but we probably will be putting down a little deposit.

I did manage to get that $300 to buy more SYY stock, so that was something, and June is a dividend extravaganza month, so there's at least a $150 getting reinvested automagically this month. Even with the over 300 point drop over the last couple of days, my drp portfolio is holding at about $33K.

Work is back to being nice and quiet ... for once. Finished up one of my direct reports performance evaluation, one down, one to go, and I have to do mine. Apparently we will get a pay raise out of this. Will it be enough to counterbalance no fresh produce under $1/lb. Stay tuned.

Sister called. She now has 12 people who have bought into her CSA ... been gardening up a storm. This Sunday I paid for a class to learn to do garden mosaics, which I psyched about. Either I'll make a little something for my collection of pots, or I'll do a little something for the farmette. Depends on my interest, inspiration and whether I have a knack.