baselle's Financial Diary

Part 1 is going to be the big picture.

So I made $49.98, tax free, by picking up any money where I found it between July 14, 2009 - July 13, 2010. I'm frankly still amazed - and found change hunting useful on a number of levels:

1. Got me excited about doing the Saturday and Sunday afternoon walks. This upcoming year, I'm going to see if I can still find change at a jog, which is the pace I'm supposed to go.

2. The nearly $50 is a haul that compares very well against the incredibly crappy interest rates on savings. To collect the same amount of yearly interest last year as I found I would have had to have $3,998.40 in ING; $4,998.60 in a 6 mo CD; $10,517.19 in 1 yr T-bill; $499,800 in a Vanguard money market fund (0.001% interest, if you can believe it). And I haven't even discussed the tax implications yet.

3. Picking up change keeps me attentive and encourages me to pick up more change. Picking up that penny primes me to look for more, both because DisneySteve's rule of looking for additional coins nearby is a good one, and because picking up that penny keeps me mindful that there's many more coins out there. For example, if I didn't pick up those 1098 pennies, and concentrated on finding only silver money, I'd only be off by about 10$. However, if I'm not likely to pick up pennies, I'm probably very unlikely to pick up those nickels, dimes and quarters either.

As I said before, the $49.98 was comprised of 1098 pennies, 44 nickels, 189 dimes, 43 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill. On a value basis, 22% of my haul was pennies, 4% nickels, 38% dimes, 22% quarters, 14% bills.

The penny haul and the quarter haul seem appropriate to me. I should find a "ton" of pennies because the value is so low, while people don't want to lose quarters so they pick them up if they accidentally catch themselves dropping them and even the most non-change picker upper will pick up a quarter.

The nickel haul seems very low. DH thinks its because one only gets 1 nickel in a wad of change so there aren't that many in circulation. Not much in a pocket means not much can be lost from the pocket. I think that's a good possiblity, but an even better possibility is that a nickel is about the same diameter as a quarter. A nickel is as visible to the casual eye as a quarter might be.

The dime haul seems shockingly high. Matter of fact, if I'm a success at finding change, its mostly dimes and pennies. Dimes are definitely worth picking up. I wonder if the dime situation is the "other side of the coin" (I'll duck now) as the nickel situation. Dimes are small and easily lost.

Anybody else see this article? Or have to deal with a toxically gross office refeer? Its the one downfall with being frugal. And the personal refrigerator? We already have it...reader, meet the cooler.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38280769/ns/business-bloomberg_b...

I'm thankful that during the summer, we only have 7 people on our floor; this year a couple of people are on vacation, one on a PTO day. I appeared to be the only person to use the floor fridge today. Thank you, jeebus! And my typical lunch/snack these days is brown rice, tofu, hot sauce, along with 2 pieces of string cheese individually wrapped.

And for laughs I posted this article on our refeer. Come October, it might not be so funny.

Whew, I didn't think it had been this long. Apologies!

I had an action packed couple of weeks. First off, through most of this time I had the mother of all colds. July 4th I felt a bit off, and decided not to bother with going to the 4th of July party. Said cold had morphed, by the 7th, into a full (sore-)throated nightmare. I couldn't talk, DH had to call in for me.

The next day was the beginning of the trip to Montana to celebrate MILs 85th. For the 8th - 13th we were out on the road...and believe you me, being sick on the road is not what its cracked up to be. We spent some money here and there - rented a car because the cushmobile still had its left light and bumper out - boarded V.I., who was not thrilled with the idea but seemed to tolerate a lot better this time than during the weekend cow trip. We also decided that driving from Seattle to Bozeman in one shot is for the birds. We've done it many times, we need not demonstrate that we are nuts yet again.

By the 13th we were back, and I had one more day to recouperate. I'm still not 100% by any means.

The 13th of July represents the 365th day of finding change. Did I make $50? It looked good for a long time - even on the 8th chasing around (I had to turn on my out of office email), I was at $49.97. I figured, heh heh, how hard would it be to find 3 pennies in 5-6 days?

Impossible, it turns out. Montanans apparently keep their change in their pockets instead of flinging it out like Seattleites do. Total strikeout for the entire trip.

So okay, I figured I was still in the game - I had the 13th to find at least three pennies. Alas, I only found one. My total for the year stands at $49.98: 1098 pennies, 44 nickels, 189 dimes, 44 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 10 cents. If you think in terms of rolled change, its 2 pennies shy of 22 rolls, a bit more than 1 roll of nickels, 3 3/4 rolls of dimes, a bit more than 1 roll of quarters.

More than a sock's worth, that's for sure. I'll do a bit of data crunching this weekend. To whew your appetite, note that I only found $12.66 indoors (25%), the rest ($37.31) outside (75%). Change finding is definitely an outdoor sport.

Not much fiscal going on...
Tomatoes are finally relatively cheap - $1.28/lb, so I made a Jamie Oliver version of tomato salad with a couple of edits of my own...

2 lbs or so of good fresh tomatoes
kosher salt
2 garlic cloves
1 jalepeno, minced
olive oil
red wine/ balsamic vinegar

Chop your tomatoes roughly, put them in a colander, salt them and let them sit to express some juice. (15-30 minutes). In the meantime, make a dressing with 3:1 olive oil to vinegar.

Combine tomatoes, garlic, jalepeno. Dress with the oil and vinegar.

$49.33: 1018 pennies, 43 nickels, 185 dimes, 43 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

Monday
Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $11 produce
Found money - $0.22 (road, curb, stairs)

Tuesday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money -$0 (had a streak of 51 days of finding change)

Was noodling around with a BMI (Body Mass Indicator) calculator when I discovered a cool thing. I'm currently 167-168 lbs. At 5' 8", all it would take for me to get down to 164 (3-4 lb) for me to get below 25 BMI. 25 BMI is the cutoff between overweight and not-overweight. I would have said average, but if 2/3 of all Americans are overweight or obese, average is overweight ). Quite an achievement - when I started in Nov 2005, my BMI was 30 (edge of obesity). A bare 30, but 30 nonetheless.

FYI - Milwaukee Film Fest cashed my check on Friday. We might not get the film in, but the application is complete.

Not much to say except: thank G&d my portfolio is flat. These last few weeks could have made things much, much worse.

You might have noticed that the Vanguard taxable is still a bit high. I've decided to wait a bit longer with the stock market before moving some gramma money out into it - I'm one of the few who wishes that the dow would go down a hair more. I plan on putting a bit of money in a dividend stock fund - still strictly defensive. I'll leave it to my 403B to go a hair wild.

$170,625 IRA/403B
$202,320 Vanguard taxable
$25,803 stock
$12,809 I-bonds
$112,409 CDs
$26,811 ING, paypal, farmette savings
$2,246 immediate cash
---
$553,023 total

By comparison:
June 2010 ($553,023 total, $369,589 in taxable accounts)
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)

Saturday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $15 breakfast + $2 ice cream + $4 muffin, iced coffee + $5 grocery produce
Found money - $0.10 (road)

Sunday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $3.88 bagel, coffee + $.67 apple
Found money - $0.38 (road, sidewalk, telephone pole)

Monday
Saving log - $5 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $10 lunch
Found money - $0.36 (sideway, road, Safeway: by checkout, next to soda display, underneath vending machine)

First off, I'm very close to the $50 target in found money. I'm at $48.76: 1071 pennies, 43 nickels, 181 dimes, 43 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents. Keep on dropping those coins, guys!

Today was a brutal day - we are at the end of the fiscal year. Sometimes it ends with a yawn, but not this year. Lots of whining this year with a couple of last minute booking projects.

The Greenwood Car Show was a ton of fun - it went between 90th and 69th, an extension of both ends from previous years. And it was free! However, there did seem to be a bit of filler in the middle - food, info, and guy buying opportunities. There were a lot of beautiful cars, but fewer really exotic ones which is what I go for. No

leather car this year. However, I did meet the guy who was developing the hot rod with the jet engine. He was mock stricken when I told him that I imagined him, "a Boeing engineer with time on his hands". Turned out he was a Westinghouse engineer with time on his hands.

Still, there was some interesting stuff...

The 1918 Cadillac, as is.


We aren't too far from the stagecoach - the chauffeur sat in the front with a windshield, no side windows and a deaf guy horn right by his left ear (guy pointing to it)


While the inside is more of what you would expect, complete with the wood horn that you would use to speak in (left).


Oh, and the most amazing thing of all, it was driveable.


Nearby was parked a 1947 jeep. Hadn't realized that the windshield flipped down, but that would make a lot of sense.


And the gear shift made me laugh out loud. First rule of frugality: use what you have.

Found money
6/21/10 - $0.01 (sidewalk)
6/22/10 - $0.02 (road, floor)
6/23/10 - $0.33 (car wash concrete pad, Safeway floor)
6/24/10 - $0.24 (road, parking meters, planting strip)
6/25/10 - $0.12 (curb, Safeway floor)

Broke $48 in found money today. I started this tracking and more seriously finding money on 7/14 last year, so I have 19 days to "find" $1.98 if I want to hit $50 for the year. Quite doable.
$48.02: 1,067 pennies, 42 nickels, 176 dimes, 42 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

This and that are happening. I planted sugar peas (var. Alderman) against the south wall under my kitchen window. The packet claimed the peas will grow 6-8 feet. They certainly did that! I see them growing above my kitchen window. It looks restful, rather than scary. Pea pods are developing and we should be eating in a day or two.

The Milwaukee Film Fest has still not cashed my check - been a couple of weeks. Wonder what's up.

Thursday, I deposited $45 from my tip box this month, giving me over $1100 in immediate savings. I probably will be using most of it next month to keep my credit card paid off. The weekend cow trip was inexpensive - $75 for 2 days of minivan and gas, $60 hotel room first night, and $40 for several meals on the road - but will expand my credit card bill a bit.

Work has slowed a bit, but the gossip is passing through. One of the VPs (whom I'm not fond off) was pushed to resign. The VP himself had "let go" his admin last year, who didn't like him either. The admin got picked up by HR as a spare worker. She worked with us for awhile, and worked in other departments. She and I shared an elevator today and I mentioned (I thought slyly) "good that you survive your enemies." She laughed and told me that many, many of my co workers expressed the same sentiment.

After this round of performance evaluations, HR told us that the plan was for a 2% pay raise, but that they are holding it off implementing them until October in case the medical premiums shoot up. Right now, I'm thinking that employment is like a game of musical chairs. The music stopped; if you are in a seat, its all good.

Was at 167.4 before cow trip. I went up to 169, and am back down a bit at 168.4. I was tempted and ate a bit more than I hoped these last weeks, so only being up a pound is a win.

Excited about the Greenwood Car Show tomorrow!

I read this

article in the New York Times magazine today and it got me thinking. That last sentence is especially chilling. "For too many people, the cycle of craving and debt that drives our treadmill existence simply can’t be broken."

Should I really pity the Joneses' because they are trapped in a merciless cycle, unable to regulate their impulses...?

Or do I fear them because bullets always trump gold. If people really have issues with impulse control, best not to flaunt. And by flaunt, not even mention that you don't have the same issues they do.

Bad times means that when the cycle of that fever breaks it will be a miserable desperate situation for too many people. I wonder how many people that is ... and are they all concentrated in New York City?

Friday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.01 (parking meter)

Saturday
Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $15 brunch + $5 coffee, brownie + $3 breakfast bars
Found money - $0.14 (road, coffeehouse floor, Safeway floor)

Such an odd shopping day. I went into Whole Foods, not expecting to buy anything, when I saw Balance bars 2 for $1. Usually they stay at about $1, $1.15 at their cheapest. I got 6 bars - the price appears to be holding until the end of June.

I read about the glut of tomatoes coming onto the market. Well, at Whole Foods organic tomatoes were in $2.99 or so, at a price to be expected at Whole Paycheck. But I went into Safeway and saw regular ol' tomatoes at: $2.99/lb.

The glut hasn't reached us yet.

Thursday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $14 produce
Found money - $0.12 (road, self serve car wash)

Wednesday
Saving log - $9 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $4 groceries
Found money - $0.27 (road, parking meter, Safeway floor)

Tuesday
Saving log - $100 to ING
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $17 lunch
Found money - $0.27 (bus stop, sidewalk, parking lot, Safeway floor)

We got a better grip of the costs of the beef, we pay on the wet hanging weight (the intermediate step between living creature and finished), and we pay for butchering. Storage - beef must be hung for about 3 weeks at close to freezing to break rigor mortis and for taste - is free, and the rancher will deliver so we won't pay for that either. The current estimate is that a 1/4 (100 pounds) will run us about $850, probably a bit more. My chiropractor is in for half of my quarter, so each of us will be saving our pennies - more than 42,500. .

I haven't talked much about found money lately. I even found a penny each of the days that I was out on the beef weekend. Lately the coin hunting has been pretty good. My total, with 29 days to go for the year anniversary, is $47.10: 1,045 pennies, 42 nickels, 169 dimes, 42 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents. I just might make $50 for the year!

We got our ORCA transit cards today - we use them on July 1. So far HR only cares if you give the card to someone else to use when you are at work. They don't care if you use it over the weekend.

Got brave and looked in on my 403B. Hadn't since stocks took that really big jog down a month ago. Its held its own, and I'm still over $110K.

Well, we visited the ranch that we got the beef from last year and from which we are buying a whole animal this year. Here's a picture of our beef cow:


We actually did name it a pretty appropriate name. I hesitate to use it because its a nice name and not "Dinner". Four comes from the ear tag, its a red Angus. The yellow of the tag means that it will finish putting on its weight in August. The rancher buys the cattle at about 12 - 14 months and they eat the pasture and native grass exclusively.

We visited outside of Yakima, in the shadow of Mount Adams.


Most of the acreage is pasture. The rancher has a lot of interest in developing a mixed grass and native plant pasture,


including some exotics called winterfat (in the picture, the bluish green strip exactly in the center background), an important plant that is rich in protein and which comes into its own in the fall and late fall.


but some is wetland that rancher is also trying to rehabilitate.


But it wasn't all biology - I tried a few artistic shots.


and got a good sunset shot.

Its been a week. Apologies! So let's see...

Film. Sister enjoyed my tale of the film and said, "hey, submit it to the Milwaukee Film Fest in the fall". So we did - at least screenwriter friend applied, slipped the DVD in, and I paid the submission fee. $50. We also applied to Chicago, which is happening a couple weeks later. Since the film was made by a student, student fee was also $50. Chicago, though, suggested an additional $2.50 as "protection". I used to live in Chicago; "protection" made me laugh. Oh well, if dead men can vote in Chicago, they probably can make movies too.

Beef. We are going to "visit" the beef that we bought. Since our little consortium put a down payment on a whole cow, we can pick the animal. I plan on pictures, although I'd rather pick the steer that looks like it might be involved in a tractor jacking, if you know what I mean.

Work. Performance evaluations are done! Now its the final push for the end of fiscal year pledges. Instead of a bus pass, we are going to get work Orca cards. A bit more pricey a month, but much more flexible - it will work with 4 different transit systems. And because it does that, the card

stores when and where it was used. And it because it does that, a co worker asked the basic question of HR - Are you going to monitor our trips? We got a confused answer.

Printer. I have been printing all the Paris photos out on the $20 HP printer I bought at the Greenwood yard sale. I got medium-end (not highest, not lowest) HP paper. Works great! But so far its $15 for 100 sheets, and I ran out of ink - $45 cartridge which should last for 500 pictures. Yikes! I have to console myself by breaking it down.

(15$/100) + (45$/500) = 15 cents for paper + 9 cents for ink. 24 cents per picture. That makes me feel better.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. I had some good luck finding money over the last week.
$45.93: 1,018 pennies, 41 nickels, 163 dimes, 41 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

In all the excitement, I haven't updated the coinage I've found on the streets of Seattle...

6/1 - $0.14 (parking meter, road, floor sidewalk)
5/31 - $0.09 (parking lot, road, coin counter, crosswalk)
5/30 - $0.16 (road, manhole cover)
5/29 - $0.05 (road, corner, front of fountain)
5/28 - $0.01 (bus stop)
5/27 - $0.17 (floor, road, planting strip, parking lot)
5/26 - $0.01 (floor)
5/25 - $0.31 (road, sidewalk)

My total stands at $44.93: 988 pennies, 41 nickels, 161 dimes, 39 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

As threatened, the picture

link. Hold your cursor to the photo (don't click) and you can see the number. Woman in the animal print in pic#3 and #5 is the presenter from Montlake Terrace. Guy in red is the programmer. #36 is a pic of screenwriter friend's son. #38 is a pic of the stuffed to the gills audience. Blessedly, no pics of me!

Wow, five days since I last wrote. Apologies!

Last night screenwriter friends' sons' movie premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). The

one that I bought two copies of the High Def rendering of, and was given an Executive Producer credit of.

We saw it in its full glory on a big screen last night. Long story short it was a great night. I was going to take pictures, but no photography allowed, and the SIFF photographers were around anyway. Turns out that those pictures from those photographers get uploaded to Flickr, so I'll keep an eye out and link to the pictures as they come up.

First off, the 400 seat place was packed. Not a single empty seat. A number of my co workers showed also, so it was a bit like large group friends night. The SIFF programmer was there to introduce the film and the son came out to receive a commendation letter from the mayor's office. No one from Montlake Terrace had ever gotten a film into SIFF. Then the son thanked everybody who had helped with the film, including me.

The movie ran and it looked and sounded great. Lots of laughs. A film that you'd say, "that was a great film" rather than "that was a great film for a 17 yr old". Lights came up, and there was a 15 minute Q and A with the son and 8 members of the cast - how they constructed their characters, how they improvised, the budget. (all the equipment and actors were there already, so it was blank tapes and pizza for the cast.) $100 in costs. (His costs - mine were considerably more.) Then a standing ovation.

DH and I was invited to and went to the after party, held a couple of blocks away. I had a quick chat with the SIFF photographer who told me about the flickr upload bit; chatted with some of the co workers; and chatted with screenwriter friend and his wife. They told me they coached him on who to thank, and especially coached him on my name. I laughed when I told her the extent of my "executive" powers was to decide to make two copies of the movie instead of one keeping karma at bay. Screenwriter friends' wife smiled, and shyly pulled out the SECOND copy of the movie from her tote. She thanked me for the decision and told me that brought it just in case. For what, she didn't know ... but if something happened during the screening, she was ready.

DH was beginning to get tired, so I quickly went up to the son, introduced myself (we hadn't met), thanked him for the shout out and for pronouncing my name correctly.

Then we left, leaving the rest to celebrate. Who knows what the future of this will bring... we'll find out.

Monday
Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $.50 apple + $1 bag of spinach salad
Found money - $0.04 (sidewalk, road)

Sunday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.98 bagel (free coffee!) + $.50 apple + $5 edamame, kimchi
Found money - $0.18 (road, crosswalk, escalator edge, grocery store floor)

Deposited 45$ into the tip box for the month. I decided to take my new (to me) purse to a shoe repair place downtown to see about the straps. It's going to cost a bit more to replace the straps than I expected but the layout of the purse makes it still reasonable. But I finally got brave and printed some pictures with the $20 photoprinter. They print pretty well if there isn't too much gray in them (grey seems smudgy and muddled), so I definitely got a deal - printing whatever I want whenever I want. And the quality is reasonable if I want to finish my memory book (after 3 yrs!). The guy that I bought from thought that the culprit was the paper, so I might try improving that next. Now I get to pick two that I really, really like, cut the white edge of the pictures, get a bit of white matte board and frame them up. Definitely feel like I've got my money's worth Saturday.

The movie I'm the Executive Producer on made by the son of screenwriter friend is going to be shown at SIFF on Friday. It has been getting a lot of

promotion around town, much to the chagrin of screenwriter friend, the proud papa. A friend of his joked both that the son looked great in the pink prom dress and that the article (which I've linked to so you can enjoy) made screenwriter friend seem cheap.

I am cheap, screenwriter friend said, and proud of it. I laughed and told screenwriter friend that he'd fit right in my family ... and the cheapness of my family got him the last bit of cash to help them both out. And that's being fiscally real can do for you - when push comes to shove, you have the money to get 'er done. Looking forward to seeing what Victory Studios has wrought.

Thursday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $5 coffee, yogurt
Found money - $0.02 (parking meters)

Friday
Saving log - $5 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $5 groceries
Found money - $0.11 (corner, road, Safeway floor)

Saturday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $22.50 yard sale finds + $1.50 cupcake
Found money - $0.62 (driveway, inside purse I bought)

In case anybody else is tracking me, , ever since mid-July I've found $43.77: 942 pennies, 38 nickels, 158 dimes, 38 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

Today was the Greenwood Neighborhood Yard Sale, 2010 edition. We started late, but we still found some good stuff. There's always two ways to handle a yard sale: get there early to be the first to pick, or get there late for the desperation.

Desperation worked very well this year. I bought: a purse, 1 tablecloth, 1 HP photoprinter (along with cables, and picture paper). Most people were willing to deal - 50% off as soon as you showed an interest. The four pm stroll from site to site picking in the "Free" boxes was just as productive: 1 shower head, 1 tablecloth, 2 frames, a little salt spoon. I still am a sucker for purses, but while the handle was shaggy (why it was 50 cents) this one really had the layout that I liked. Best of all, I got home, shook the purse and found 52 cents left for me. The purse gave me a profit!

The photoprinter was the 20$ purchase. I was attracted to it because I now have plenty of fun pictures that I would love to print out. Its been 3 years since Paris, and I still haven't printed anything out. Will see whether the 20$ will pay off.

The free tablecloth was as good as the one I bought for $2. (Actually, a $1.90, because I found a dinged up dime in their driveway.) I bought the one in a very rich dark green, pulled from a free bin one in a rich red-purple. Holiday festive!

Add up everything we shelled out money for and it came to $22.50.

Wednesday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $6 tahini & bag of salad
Found money - $0.15 (grocery floors, crosswalk, sidewalk, under table)

Tuesday
Saving log - $6 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $10 groceries
Found money - $0.04 (gym equipment, sidewalk, grocery floor)

Well it happens once per year - I lose things. Yesterday evening, after shlepping my groceries home, I searched my purse, patted my pockets, tore open my grocery bags. No wallet. Eeek!

My house key was in my wallet, so I after pulling out the hidden key I dumped everything out, took a deep breath, and said, "I've got to back track."

As I went to my first stop I took stock. I had $15 in money, some spare change (of course), house key, one filled coffee card (it took 10 coffees to get a free one, dammit), my Safeway card, and my debit card. Of that, I guess the debit card was the most hassle, having to cancel it and all. But I didn't sign up for the "convenience" of me over charging my debit. Once it went to 0$ it would be denied...and there was only about $100 in balance on it. Painful, but not a nightmare.

No wallet on the first stop, but I hadn't pulled it out there, so that was expected.

Checked the bus stop. I keep my bus pass separate from my wallet, so I had that. It had been about 30 minutes since I was there. Seattle is a freakishly honest place, but still it being out in the open and all it would have been a miracle if it was there. But miracles have happened to me in the past. I once left my sweater on a bus. 4 hours later I -amazingly - got on the same bus heading back home and saw my sweater next to the bus driver.

Checked the grocery store that I had bought something that night, so it was the last, best place. I went to the customer service desk and asked whether it was also the lost and found. Yep, she said, what did you lose? I lost my wallet and began to describe it ... cloth with a

Beetle Bailey com--. Yep, she said, we have it right here!

Nothing was removed; everything was in place. I laughed and told her that I had lost and found it about a year ago - the Beetle Bailey comic really makes it stand out. And I think it makes it totally un-cool to steal. No petty theft teenager wants to be thought of as being so desperate as to steal a Beetle Bailey wallet.

In any case, pwhew!

Saturday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $15 brunch + $3 mocha + $23 piece of art
Found money - $0.03 (floor, parking lot, newspaper box)

Sunday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.88 bagel, coffee + $10 for 10 Luna bars
Found money - $0.62 (road, planting strip & gutter, bus stop)

Monday
Saving log - $6 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $.50 apple + $8 lunch + $9 groceries
Found money - $0.03 (lotsa floors - food court, escalator, Safeway)

Thoroughly enjoyed myself at the Greenwood Art Walk, and saw many spectacles but I didn't take many pictures (matter of fact, really just one). I learned a lot about my neighbors.

Neighbor 1: A set designer for Hollywood - tv and film. Bought a bit of small commercial space and designed rooms to HIS liking...



I don't do justice, but being a renter and always looking at the tyranny of beige and white, seeing celandon green walls with yellow stencil, chinese sculpture and a wild chandelier...exciting. The basement of the place contained an art collective and I bought my $23 piece from them. It was a cute little leather monster - one-eyed and screaming. He looked like I feel in January or so.

Neighbor 2: I'm about a block north of the neighborhood park which has bought out two abutting properties. There is to be a meeting about what to do with them and how to integrate them with the park. I always like the idea of another P-patch, but it would be great to allow neighborhood restaurants to rent space also...several are only 3-4 blocks away. Another two cents I threw in was to create an entirely edible landscape, and a third is to commemorate the

orchards that were here before the neighborhood was. Great ideas, the chair of the committee said - come to the meeting!

Neighbor 3: Lawyer. His flower photos made it through a juried art show, but I was excited that he specialized in wills and estate planning and he's in the neighborhood. I nabbed his card and a gift certificate.

Neighbor 4: (bringing it back to fiscal) A coin cutter. He pulled me aside and had me look at his work. He did the cutting, sanding, and spot plating of gold, palladium and rhodium of some of the elements. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that the Secret Service and the Treasury isn't after him. Apparently cutting coins is legal if the intent is not to defraud. Here's a thought: a cut Wisconsin quarter for sister developing her organic farming at the farmette. I'll have to think about that.

Wednesday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $9 groceries
Found money - $0.53 (crosswalk, Safeway floor, planting strip)

Thursday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.41 (under bench at bus stop, road, curb)

Friday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.02 (bus floor, Safeway floor)

With 60 days left for my experiment answering the question "How much change I can find lying around?", I'm at $42.15, after finding 3 quarters in 2 days. I can't predict that much luck in the next couple of months, and it might be a stretch, but I'd love to think that I can reach $50. Yowsa! I'll do a bit of data mining when its all over and share my findings.

It has been quiet this week. It was payday today, so as I moved the paycheck around to pay off my credit card I'll have to think about possibly shifting savings into checking. The other 3 weekends in May are going to be fraught with temptation:

May 15 - the Greenwood Art Walk. Stepping into a store along Greenwood to look at art means stepping into a store and being tempted to buy

May 22 - we were supposed to take a weekend trip to view the steer we were to buy. The trip is going to be delayed until June. However, it means that I'll make it to the Greenwood Yard Sale. Hard to tell which situation will be more spendy - 1/2 a rental car and gas and possibly a motel room or going hog-wild at the yard sale?

May 28 - actually this is Friday night, but I'm going to the

movie of screenwriter friend's son at SIFF Cinema. There's the possibility of drinks and party afterward.

Sunday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.88 coffee, bagel + $.50 apple
Found money - $0.56 (spilled over sidewalk curb and road, 2 different spots on Greenwood, grocery checkout floor)

Monday
Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.23 (in the grate protecting a sidewalk tree, crosswalk, Safeway floor, by vending machine

Tuesday
Saving log - $4 tip box +$50 Drp
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $11 produce
Found money - $0.04 (planting strip, bus stop, parking meter, road)

Again, not much going on. Sunday, somebody, bless their heart dropped 3 dimes, 1 nickel and 9 pennies all in one place making up my two days of finding nothing.

I'm at $41.19: 904 pennies, 34 nickels, 153 dimes, 32 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents. All of the coinage is mind blowing, but even more so if I had to roll it up. It would come to 18 rolls of pennies, finishing 1 roll of nickels, 3 rolls of dimes, finishing 1 roll of quarters.

Nobody in our death bet had Lena Horne... or anybody else for that matter. I got word from the organizer that "nobody got anybody". Definitely all of our takers chose life.

Friday
Found money - $0!
Saturday
Found money - $0!

Yikes, I guess, that I haven't found any change for two days in a row. Holding at $40.38, so there is more to life than finding it. This weekend has been glorious so far and I'm close to getting the patio in shape for us to use it. So far, I've:

1. Painted the bottom and legs of the patio table. I have one good coat on it everywhere. Tomorrow I plan on lightly sanding the top, get the second coat on and be done with it.

2. Set up two chairs for DH and I. Turns out that Fred Meyer, Lowes, and Home Depot all had the cushion pattern that I liked. FM price was $35/per, Lowes at $29.98 (so $30)/per, HD at $29.96. HD it was. I also sprung for a stack of chairs cover at $20 ... it does rain here, after all.

V.I. immediately commandeered the chair in the sun. She looks very sultry against the cushion - like Lena Horne on a beach chair. I'll have to post a pic.

3. Planted the 3 strawberry plants we got last Sunday in the strawberry pot. 5 plants at the top is a little tight, but at least everybody has new good soil for this year.

In other financial news, I checked out the new Grocery Outlet one neighborhood west of mine, about a 5 minute walk out of my way. I joke that they put the "gross" in grocery, and I could see that in the produce, but I was surprised that I could get brand name canned tomato products (diced, stewed, sauce, paste) for a least 40 cents/can cheaper, brown rice for 60 cents/lb cheaper, toothpaste for $2 cheaper, etc. Quite useful.

The other irony is that the stock I'm interested in selling (FIS) is possibly going to be bought out by a consortium of three private equity firms. In other words, go back into private hands. Apparently, I just need to sit tight, watch the price rise, and wait for the shareholders to get paid off.

Thursday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $11 groceries
Found money - $0.05 (work carpet, sidewalk, Safeway floor)

Wednesday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.11 (grate in sidewalk, road)

Well, it looks like the flying fat finger of fate hit the stock market today. I've been looking forward for it to go down a bit - I'd like to buy some more stock but I feel like the price is too high...and most pay a dividend next month. Reinvesting them cheap means I get a bit more for my money.

It was weird though how it plunged 900 points and shot back up 600, all in the space of 30 minutes or so. People realizing the fat finger of fate, or an actual case of the rumored plunge protection team?

I had a spare moment and looked at a couple of financial sites that won a

Webby this year. So far my fave is stockmapper, which produces a heat map of the stock market. Very red today!

The last little bit of news - I bonds have dropped in interest rate, but are still holding at about 1.5%. I have to download a new version of their Savings Bond Wizard program so I can still price my inventory.

Tuesday
Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.28 (planting strip next to bus stop, curb, road, Fred Meyer parking lot)

Monday
Saving log - $5 tip box, $125 into savings
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $8 lunch + $15 groceries
Found money - $0.11 (sidewalk next to bus stop, floor underneath counter at coffee shop)

Sunday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $3.88 bagel, coffee + $2.50 paper + $5 mocha, croissant + $20 groceries
Found money - $0.01 (bus stop)

I broke $40 in found money. $40.20: 880 pennies, 33 nickels, 146 dimes, 32 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

After that, this and that. Frontier Bank went under Friday - it was the bank that I previously talked about

here.

I've been wrestling with the after effects of the birthday celebration dinner. You feast for one day, and then your body says, "party on, Garth"... and suddenly you are buying mochas. Mochas with a coupon, at least, but mochas nonetheless. But the cravings have given me an excuse to buy some more strawberry plants. I'll aim for fruit cravings versus chocolate cravings.

Bought some more stock at the end of last month, and now I'm waiting for the price to go down some so I can buy more. Lawyer friend asked me for some stock tips. I threw out some ticker symbols, but gave him my dull boring dividend choices. He kind of blew off most of them - thought they were evil, or big, or blah, but he did think about one - ironically, the very one I'm thinking of selling. We'll see. I hope he does some more research and doesn't just take my word for it. I recently looked at the DRP portfolio - it'll go down some, but at the time I looked it totaled 28K.

Saturday
Saving log - 0
Spending log - $30 two breakfasts & tip
Found money - $0.14 (road, sidewalk, grocery store floor, parking meter)

Friday
Saving log - $5 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.01 (by ATM)

Thursday
Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $14 lunch + $5 ice cream
Found money - $0.01 (sidewalk)

Still not much fiscally going on with me. I turned 48 on Thursday (thank you!) and was treated to a birthday dinner and cocktails at a wonderful neighborhood place. I treated DH this morning because I knew he dropped a bit of coin at the dinner.

BIL canceled visiting the farmette for EAA. At least we know now, rather than early July. V.I got her yearly vet visit - she passed with flying colors, and got her shots, but she did put on a bit of weight so now we'll have to be a bit cautious in feeding her.

Wednesday
Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $3 tomatoes, red onion
Found money - $0.42 (gym bench, bus stop, Safeway floor)

Tuesday
Saving log - $14.53 dividend
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0

I have got to stop mentioning days in a row of finding money. As soon as I do - nada. Yesterday was a total bust, but today dimes appeared to be raining from the heavens. $39.60: 865 pennies, 33 nickels, 144 dimes, 31 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

Deposited my tip box squeezings for the month today. $45. Normally I would have done it last week, but I was on vacation. I used the newfangled put-your-money -directly-into-ATM, which worked well, except for the fact that it went directly into my checking account rather than my savings account. It meant that using the ATM was a two step process: 1 - ATM, 2 - Online to transfer tip box deposit into savings. Kind of defeats my purpose, but strengthens the bank's purpose. These days, no one makes money on a saver, least of all the saver.

DH bought 5 lbs of strawberries a couple of days ago, and we clearly were not going to eat them fast enough. Here's my recipe to use 'em quick!

Strawberry Rhubarb Orange Compote

3 stalks rhubarb, sliced in 1/2 pieces
1 large orange, peeled, sectioned, sliced, zested
ripe strawberries
granulated sugar - maybe 1/3 c, but to taste

Put rhubarb bits and orange sections into a saucepan, add sugar. (Reserve the zest.)

Turn heat to low and simmer, allowing the rhubarb and orange to release the juice necessary. Stir occasionally - make sure the sugar does not burn.

Clean strawberries. Reserve the nice looking strawberries for later - Use the ones closest to the edge first, trimming bruises, etc. Chop and add these strawberries to the rhubarb in the saucepan. These are sacrificial - they will dissolve and form more sauce. Cook until everything is softened, but the rhubarb still keeps its shape.

Add the orange zest. Cut heat to very low - just keep the sauce warm. Taste and add more sugar if necessary.

Clean and slice any nice looking strawberries. Fold these gently into the sauce to give you strawberry pieces.

Serve over: dessert cup, short cake, angel food cake, scone, pound cake, plain yogurt ... if it turns out thick and jammy, toast. If it turns out a bit less than candy sweet, its fine as a side along with ham.

Sunday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $3.88 bagel, coffee + $10 groceries
Found money - $0.07 (road, sidewalk, Safeway floor)

Monday
Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $10 lunch
Found money - $0.02 (sidewalk, Safeway floor)

My luck is still holding out finding that "dirty money". Its now been 39 days in a row where I found some money on the ground. Lately, though, I've been finding about 50% of my found coins inside... usually I find only about 25% inside. Either way, go Seattle slobs, go!

$39.18: 863 pennies, 33 nickels, 140 dimes, 31 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

First day coming back to work, and while I had a lot to do, I got a lot done. Had lunch with lawyer friend and lawyer friend's partner. They were caught by the volcanic ash and flew home on Friday, a good 5 days after they should have. But they had fun. Their only regret was that they should have stayed in Paris for those days instead of gambling that the Nice airport would stay open.

In the midst of painting my patio table. I've painted the top with one coat last week, and yesterday I painted the underneath surface with one coat. I have yet to paint the legs, and sand the top, then paint with the second coat. I'm debating whether to even bother with a second coat on the underneath surface. The big issue is that I'm doing this painting outside, so I'm dependent on getting warm sunny weather. I also plan doing a nice circular accent around the edge - but that can wait. So far I've spent about $50 of the gift card (paint strip, paint, scrapper, brushes, sandpaper) on the project.

Thought I would make this a true vacation so I took a break from everything even though I stayed at home. The one disadvantage with vacations, even the play at-home version, is that you inevitably spend more money. I did some free stuff, but in the kicking around, I spent more money than I would normally.

I did walk nearly all of the Burke Gilman Trail... I'm not sure. On the Golden Gardens end, its easy - there's a sign: Burke-Gilman End. On the Kenmore end, the Burke-Gilman morphs into the Sammamish Park Trail and where that happens is different depending on the map. Anyway, I got past the Kenmore City Hall, saw no identifying signs and said to heck with it. Whatever I did, I did 6-7 mi/day for 3 non-consecutive days.

Did a bit of frivolous spending. $60 worth of CDs, which dates me. (Mommy, what are CDs? ). Ate lunches out, and hit a different coffee shop everyday. (Hey, its what a tourist would do.) Visited the Experience Music Project & Science Fiction Museum using a $5 off coupon that I got from Valpak. Did gym on Tuesday, but with all the walking, I knew Thursday that I wasn't going to be feeling it for Friday gym, so I canceled that. I figure that I've spent about $200 more this week than I normally do.

Managed to find found money every day. My grand total so far is $39.09: 859 pennies, 32 nickels, 140 dimes, 31 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

The only thing I didn't do over vacay was finish up painting the patio table. There's always tomorrow.

Seattle has apparently averted a garbage man's strike. In a weird way, I'm disappointed: one of the perks of being frugal is due to the not-buying and using until its used up is that you throw away a lot less. As it is, we pretty much only set out the can every other week...it takes us longer to fill it.

Two quips going around the UK, according to the New York Times:

In its last request, the Icelandic economy wished that its ashes be strewn over Europe.

Cash? I misheard. I thought you wanted ash!