baselle's Financial Diary

Got inspired and added $9 to my tip box, and $40 to my DRP.

Solving ancient problems at work. Life seems thousands of times calmer than six weeks ago. Compared notes with the other two people who are going to Nashville on the same junket - my ticket was $100 cheaper. We'll see whether I'll be bragging about it when I take the trip.

Today for lunch I picked up a .33/can of fruit/punch/soda. Frugal adventure. Note to self: Stick to water next time, sport.

Two weird things happened on the bus commute. In the morning, a control freak with a cell phone kept up a 30 minute conversation about how her boyfriend shouldn't smoke clove cigarettes in front of her, then on how the hike last weekend was fabulous. Bet she was on her cell phone the entire way... In the afternoon, our bus passed loads of bicyclists, one of whom was riding beside us on a 10ft high bike --wheels on stilts-- as we crossed the ship canal. "How would he stop?" said my seatmate.

I'm under 200! 198 3/4. Lost another 1/2 inch on the waist, and another 3/4 inch from the hips. According to the original measurements, I'm very close to the loss of inches and loss of body fat 6-month goal that the first trainer set up for me. Except for the weight - he figured that I would be around 180.

Call me Ahnold. I guess I'm not a girlie-man girl. I turn fat to muscle instead of having it go poof.

Checked up on my 403B, the accounts where my vestments were weird. One was right; the other showed 80% vested, which was right before Feb 1. It take a little more work, but at least movement has appeared. HR didn't appreciate that I emailed my co-workers about it...so screw it. I can look at my accounts and I can report to my friends my findings. HR is not your friend, usually.

I'm going on the junket to Nashville, so I've booked the hotel and the plane ticket. I used Priceline to get the cheapest round-trip ticket I could ($435), but comes with a real Twilight Zone itinerary. Hopefully William Shatner is not flying the plane; bad enough when he has a window seat looking out at the wing.

Put 5$ in the tip box.
Gave DH $2000 to get the car fixed.
Pulled the last 740$ of gramma's gift to pay off the credit card completely, for now.

Had a nice quiet day today. Did a little walking to drop off an item to the library, then back, taking the brutal hill again. I'm getting used to that hill, or at least I figure that since I didn't die the first time, I'll make it this time too.

I just realized that I'm not a good medium goal setter. You'll notice I don't set any monthly or weekly savings goal, nor have I set any Xlbs in Yweeks.

I'm good at the short sprint eg. "I want to try 10 minutes at Z level on the elliptical machine", and I'm good at the long haul with a vague eg. "I just want to save as much as I can." If you ask me my number that I need to hit before I retire, or what weight I will eventually end up being, I won't be able to tell nor will I really care. I think the correct answer to "how much should I have saved to retire?" is: All of it. Or when can I stop exercising and watching what I eat? is: Never.

I'm pretty comfortable with vagueness. Comes from the scientific/academic training. Plenty silly saying to my advisor "next Tuesday I'm going to discover X"; not so silly saying "by Tuesday I will run this experiment twice". The medium goal just frustrates me. To keep at something, for me, I have to be even. Frustration, or any strong emotion, is my enemy.

Another thing that motivates me that comes from the scientific/academic training is the pleasure I get is learning something new from careful observation. I dig the fact that the bath towel goes all the way around, or that after I stretch the knots on the sides of my legs, my walking stride is longer and looser. I'm going to learn some economics and how to buy 28 day T-bills. I want to find out how that works and how much I can make.

I guess I'm putting the "P" in my personality type - INFP.

Weekend 5 or 6 without the car; I lost track. Luckily we are now getting into spring and summer in Seattle, when all the neighborhoods have local events. This weekend was the Greenwood Art Walk, which was a juried show of artists set in local businesses all along Greenwood Avenue, the main drag of our little neighborhood.

DH and I walked over a bit of it this afternoon. The art was fun, but the best part was going into little businesses that you pass by in the car - the guitar store, the game store, the chocolatier, the coffeeshop, the antique store. The local wine shop had a free wine tasting. We bought two bottles - $18. I also bought a small painting of a Keith Haring-like bright cartoony sun for my office, which is in the basement - $25. Its the first piece that I bought from this sort of event. I figured I would get 25$ of enjoyment out of it.

A bit spendy, but it was our way to buy locally and support a local business if we buy at all.

Sister called today. The Wisconsin DNR (WiDNR) is interested in quite a bit of it, but of course not really interested in the farm and the buildings. Sister's thought is to again split it, use a realtor, and try to sell the house, barn and 5-20 acres as a farmette, leaving the back 50 wetland acres to sell to WiDNR. The thought (maybe) would be that WIDNR would begin to restore the wetlands, making the farmette potentially appealing for a buyer interested in what a wetland would offer - a hunter, fisherman or birder. But real estate is chilly right now, so who knows?

The executors were trying to get a renter for the land this year. The month of May is not the time. It should have happened in January/February, but I suspect that they had hoped that the second piece would have sold by then and they would be done. City slickers!

Ah the weekend. Not that work is bad right now (not like the nightmare of late March), its just that on Fridays I have a low tolerance for ijits. You know the type, the ones that call or stop by to give you one of their projects that they've procrastinated on for the week, and then they have to gall to tell you to hurry up with your tasks so they can "supposedly" do theirs. Ahem, stop wasting my time then!

Gym was yesterday, lower body and abs. I'm still marveling at the fact that I can touch my toes and walk my hands to out to get into a push up position. The personal trainer tells me that the goal is to touch toes, walk my hands out to push up position, hold, do a pushup, walk back, straighten up again, then do a squat. Its nearly a full workout on a yoga mat. I'm supposed to drink even more water than I am, which I have to work on. I did change my walking route home. My normal route is to go up a moderate hill, but one block closer to home is far, far steeper hill, so I took that. I felt like a mountain climber.

More measurements next week. And I'm marveling in the fact that I can wear any piece of clothing that I own.
"New item?"
"Yes - from the house of chez baselle."

Another 4$ in the tip box, $35 in a DRP.

$5 in the tip box.

Decided to put in only $100/month into I-bonds this 6 month cycle. I like the idea of 1.4% fixed more than 1.0% or 1.2%, but I think I will see something higher than that in the near future. Just a feeling, 'cause I'm an INFP.

Did the footlong sandwich strategy for lunch. Bought a footlong, put every vegetable on it (I want a salad with my sandwich), had it cut in 4s. In other words, I bought 1st lunch and 2nd lunch for today and tomorrow. (I'm supposed to eat 2 small lunches slowly instead of huff down 1 large lunch). Washed it down with water.

Gotta love water. It does what you ask of it with no calories and probably at no cost to you. I think its even better than diet or unsweetened tea. You have to pay for it, and somehow a flavor conveys an expectation. I don't know how to explain it. If you get used to water, you have less of a craving for sugared soda or even diet soda than you would if you got used to diet soda. At least for me; YMMV.

Did gym yesterday. Balancing and upper body. I'm improving my balance each time. Now can balance myself on an air dome thingee and do bicep curls and shoulder presses. Exciting!

The junket to Nashville is getting more interesting. Apparently I can save my non-profit some money if I take a test and certify myself in special training. It smacks of taking a test for money, a situation that hasn't presented itself to me in twenty years.

I'm a ringer! Ha ha.

Nice lunch today with a couple of my friends, including lawyer friend who had helped me tremendously during probate. Talk turned to word on how probate was going for me and I let it slip the amount of my two advances.

Semi-big mistake.

"Gee you should be buying us lunch," and during the drive back in front of a car dealership and a next-door scooter shop "how many of those could you buy?"

All idle kidding but with a bit of an edge. They are all my friends (who all make more than I do - hah!) and if I get this from good friends, imagine what I get from my contacts at large.

I learned my lesson: vague is good.

Put another 2$ in the tip box. I'll have to take a picture of it for Jeffrey's collection. It's been nearly two years since I started moving money through the tip box; since that time I've "rescued" nearly $1000 from my paycheck to my savings. Most months I collect 40$ or so. I had a couple of hot months above 50$ and I usually take a break from tip boxing in December, for obvious reasons.

Tip boxing is my version of the change jar, and now I have my habits with it. I keep my tip box at work, because 1.) I know that DH would raid it if it was at home, 2.) the bank is two blocks away, 3.) its useful for the 1$, 2$ surprise office collections, and a fourth reason below.

My tip box is tiny (3 inches square inside) with a nice hefty lid so it doesn't hold much change. Besides, my bank is one of those that doesn't have a change machine or handles change well. So while I do throw change and 1$ bills in to prime it, what really makes my tip box work is making reverse change, and shorting myself.

I pull a pile of 6-7 ones and a wad of quarters from the tip box and replace it with a 10$. It frees up space in the box for the next round of ones and change. I never have to buy a stick of gum or something to break a bill at work, I just break one from my bank in my drawer! (my fourth reason)

After I do my several cycles of getting $1s and making reverse change for a month, I count what I have. Anything above 40$ I deposit during my lunch hour; anything below 40$ I make up from my wallet.

Then my tip box lays empty, until the clank of the first handful of change... The frugal cycle continues.

We got word that supposedly our 403B calculations would be fixed on the 15th. We shall see.

One of my groceries declared bankruptcy. Drat,it wasn't Safeway.

http://tinyurl.com/gtof6

Put together a crock pot split pea soup this morning.
.88 worth of frozen smoked ham hock,
1/2 onion, chopped, leftover from a week ago
2 carrots, sliced
4 cups chicken stock
Dried parsely, 3 bay leaves
about 1 lb dried split peas
water to the level of "stuff"
(option) 2 chicken boullion cubes
salt/pepper
Turned crockpot on low.

A few groceries today - $28.51 for the usual, 2 jars of mayo, 2 cans of tuna, 2 lbs of frozen corn, 2 whole fryers, 1 bunch of celery, 2 lbs of carrots, bread, 2 lbs of fresh salsa, 1 lb of butter...and a very yummy pink frosted coconut flaked doughnut. Romaine lettuce prices are positively insane due to flooding in early April, but nothing is really a deal, according to my price book.

Yesterday, I woke up early (early for me) to walk to the nearest branch of my bank. I just wanted to deposit the $15,000 in person. All weekend, it was walking our errands - bank, weekend breakfast, library, 3 grocery stores, and a yard sale. I must have walked at least 5 miles total yesterday and today, and with buying groceries - 1 mile with 20 lbs of weight. Figured that I really didn't have to slip into the gym...I'm living the gym.

Oh yes, the yard sale - $1 shoes - they are those 1/2 tennis shoes, 1/2 clogs (they dip in the back). They were the rage a couple of years ago. They are bright white and looked like they were never used. Because I bought them, I tossed out a seven year old pair of sneaks with holes that I rarely wear. Also bought a $1 Burts Bee sample kit - 2 soaps, 1 cream, and the heavy plastic bag that I can use as a travel bag for my little soaps and shampoos. So 2$ total there.

Sounds like either an oxymoron or a cause of death, doesn't it?
What happened to him?
Frugal sushi.
Oh.

That really holds true with the all-you-can-eat, fixed price buffet style sushi. There's a pretty infamous place in Seattle that a couple of friends got excited about, ate there, and swore about in the bathroom 6 hours later.

I had sushi for lunch today, so I thought about the concept as I ate. With rolls, you get a small amount of raw fish sometimes gooped up with condiments (spicy tuna is raw tuna smashed in a paste with hot pepper) rolled with rice. If you like raw fish its really not the way to go. Nigiri is the style with the little pad of sushi rice under the thinly sliced fish, what most people associate with sushi - okay, but when the fish is sliced so thin that you can see the rice under it...well, that isn't the way to go either. Sashimi is the sliced raw fish, the best stuff, and you will pay.

For lunch today I had the third way which I have been finding is the most frugal style of sushi: chirashi, strewn sushi, where slices of sashimi lay over a plate sized pad of sushi rice. And I got quite a lot sashimi for my buck. For 11$ I got 2 pc of egg, 1 shrimp, 2 lg pieces of clam, 1 pc octopus, 2 pc squid, 1 tsp of roe, 1 large hunk of salmon, 1 pc tuna, 1 pc herring, 1 pc yellowtail, 1 pc red snapper, 2 scallops. And the sashimi pieces themselves were about twice the size of what you would get if you got them as nigiri pieces. Nice.

Or maybe it was a reward from the sushi chef for not celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

Saving log - $3 in tip box.

Received the second advance of dad's estate. DH will research what it would cost to get the car fixed.

End of the third week and still no fix for the weird vest calculations on the 403B.

The office is thinking of sending me along with a couple of other people to a conference in Nashville in mid-June. Been a long time since I was sent somewhere on a junket.

Got a ton of paperwork moved today.

Another 3$ in the tip box
Moved 50$ from checking to savings.

My after lunch fortune cookie:
"You will receive something unexpected in the mail."

All I got was Carnivale, season 1, disc 3 from Netflix. We'll see whether that counts. Maybe nothing in the mail was the unexpected thing.

Put another 3$ in the tip box, and as I was stuffing the bills in, I saw that the top one was stamped with

www.wheresgeorge.com so I registered the bill for giggles and grins, just to see what would happen to it after I put it in the bank.

Got a huge stack of work in my inbox over yesterday. Waaa!

Did a frugal good deed. I went back to where I got my glasses to tell them of my many compliments and thank them. I caught the woman who helped me pick my glasses out so that was especially nice. She was thrilled to hear from me.

Today was my day off, but I did hit my appointments with the chiropractor and personal trainer.

It was a chain of money mistakes, though. For the want of writing a check the night before, I had to pull money out for my chiropractor copay, and as I got my copay my bus pulled away from my stop. Still have my timing with buses - exactly 15 seconds too late! Five minutes late for the chiropractor, so a new customer was ahead of me. I was five minutes late for the trainer and no water, so I had to buy that. A big bottle - but $2.50! It's what you get for not planning ahead.

I made up for it. I knew I had good Szechuan leftovers at home so I didn't spring for lunch, but headed straight home.

DH and I had a long conversation about the car. The insurance companies are dueling and it will take up to six months for DH to get the money there to fix the car. These three weeks have been okay but DH needs a car to pick up temp work. We struck a deal. I will give DH the bucks to fix the car; he will pay me back with the insurance money or his mom's gift money. And if you don't DH, I joked, you will be living in the car.

The CD earned me 114$ in interest in April; ING increased its APY to 4.15%, new I-bonds have a higher fixed rate of 1.4%. I'll figure out in the next couple of days how I want to play that.

You might notice that the age in my bio went up a notch.

Today was a rainy day in Seattle, which I love (I'd better!). I got paid yesterday. I've got Monday off (little quirky benefit of the workplace). I worked out today. DH treated me to my favorite Szechuan place that we can walk to.

Time to get philosophical. If you can't get philosophical on your birthday, when can you? Yeah, yeah, any other day.

I've learned in these last couple of years money-wise, and in these last couple of months health-wise, some strange little paradoxes:

You may decide to transform yourself in a flash, but to radically transform yourself you have to have to use the least radical of tools - a routine that you follow slavishly. Pay yourself first; 90% of everything is just showing up.

Any purchase can be considered frugal if you can afford it, and you use the dickens out of it. Its frightening the amount of money I spent on the trainer and the gym, but to my defense, my attitude is that "I've bought it, I'm using it to the utmost." I've only cancelled twice, and my trainer has cancelled twice. I come in ten minutes early to warmup so to use the trainer's full hour. I bought her time after all.

Contentment is like peripheral vision; its never straight on. After the workout today, I waited for the bus. I walked to the bus stop in the pouring rain - which nicely washed the sweat from my hair - and as I waited in the overhang by Macy's, feeling my muscles still warm and loose, I ate a delicious breakfast bar. All my needs were met and I was content.

Last Sunday, I made chicken goulash. At least I tried to make chicken goulash. I grabbed what I thought was sweet paprika, a lot dropped in, and I thought...oh well, its sweet, no harm done. Unfortunately for me it was hot paprika. The dish was, quite frankly, inedible. Weaponized.

G*d I hate wasting perfectly good chicken.

Bites of yogurt between bites of weaponized goulash tamed the fire a little bit so I could eat some Sunday night. Monday night I caught a break - sour cream was on special at the very grocery I pass by on my 8th Avenue walk for $1.39/pt. I got two pints, mixed one in the goulash (keeping with the ethnic theme) and put a couple of tbsps on top. That helped quite a bit, but eating it is still a challenge.

Here's where the frugal tips come in:
1.) did not waste food
2.) culinary solution was a loss leader (yippee)
3.) tasty, but there is no way I'm eating seconds or have a ton of firsts.
4.) portions I'm taking of this are appropriate for a meal of an actual adult, not an eating contest champion.

I think I'll call it the hot pepper diet.

This morning I reached high for something in front of the bathroom mirror and I caught a fleeting glimpse of...the barest definition of the top two cans of an ab six pack. Maybe I'm imagining things.

Sister asked for another $15,000 advance; sister's partner's brother (call him brother in law - BIL) is asking her to loan him a bit so he can fix up and help sell BIL's mother's house. Hmmm. Not something I'd do.

To even things up, the executors will be giving me $15,000 also. Now I have to figure out what to do with the second advance.

So many of us save and save and save to get out of debt, and as we do it we dream about what to do with [insert windfall here]. I'm sure right now you're thinking - boo hoo, I sure wish I had your $15,000 "problem". Strange, really, that it's way, way more fun to save small amounts of money and watch as those 1$s and 5$s and pocket change grow and collect interest, than it is to get a fat whopping check.

Suddenly that fat whopping check makes you second guess all your money moves. Am I that stupid to put it ... there? Not to mention that because someone died you got this. And then the fat whopping check has the nerve to make all your saving look puny.

Savings log - 3$ tip box.

Or omusubi. Rice, in a triangular ball with a filling inside wrapped by crispy nori seaweed. Don't make a face, they are great! I had several for the two lunches today - and generally at $1.29/musubi, ethnic frugal. I had a bbq ground beef musubi (a little more pricey at $2.39, but you want reasonable ground beef) for main lunch, washed down with a can of chrysanthumum tea $.59; the vitamin D I got from the sitting in the sun was free and priceless at the same time.

Then gym - crunches and balance, and squats with the medicine ball. The trainer is going on a M-F schedule, so no more Saturday gym unless I go myself. I've now settled in with the new bus route. Since the nights are now so sunny, I've been thinking about taking a different bus that will drop me off 7 blocks further.

Second lunch was a salmon musubi and a ume (salted plum) musubi for dessert. Yum - the only problem I have with them is that there is a trick to open up the package. The dried, crunchy seaweed is wrapped so that it doesn't touch the rice ball and get soggy. There is a way to open and unwrap it in one sharp, clever motion but I always tear the seaweed.

Oh well, it takes frugal skills to eat a frugal lunch.

Saving log - 1$ in the tip box. Deposited the $47 savings from last month yesterday.

Yip, yip, yah! (crack of the whip)

DH told me that our scanner works just fine and it was ready to go on the desktop. And today, I loaned him my bus pass so he could go to his gym, so it was just me at home for a few hours.

Just a few things I've scanned and put on my password-protected financial USB drive:
SSN card
health insurance card (both sides)
eyeglass prescription
original lease from 2000
lease riders we signed in 2000
2005 1 yr lease
(gotta get the signed 2006 lease)
2005 1099's (-DIVs and -Rs)
2005 W2
Dad's will
Dad's death certificate
group insurance certificate
CD certificate

All I've got to do is find my out-dated passport (scan the old one and renew to a new one) and find my birth certificate. I know sister has one - we dug it out on the second day.

That reminds me - sister is in negotiation with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WiDNR) - for the second piece of property. 25% of it is untillable wetland, and the WiDNR is interested.

I had no Saturday gym appointment with the trainer and it was the second Saturday without a car, so it was DH and I entertaining ourselves on foot. After a little grocery shopping of all light items, our plan was to walk to the library and back.

Just at the other end of our block lay the first yard sale of the day. It turns out that our general neighborhood - Greenwood, in North Seattle - was holding a gigantic garage sale extravaganza, with over 100 garage sales spread out over 30 square blocks.

I'm of two minds with a yard sale. I love a great deal as much as the next frugal woman, but if you can't put it to use immediately it doesn't matter if its $1 or $1,000,000, it feeds an underlying shopping addiction. Its a bit like commending an alcoholic on their frugality if they get drunk on MD20/20 rather than the finest wine.

Anyway, I must have had a taste for the shopping equivalent of MD20/20; we hit four sales getting to the library and we had a fine time pawing through other people's stuff. I bought 2 CDs for a 1$ apiece which I've ripped to put on my MP3 player, and a Patrick O'Brian novel for .50.

But that was it - I could have bought a jigsaw, a multitude of baskets, purses, and shoes, Thucydides' Pelopenesian War, brownies for sustenance, a woven pillow, a needlepoint pillow, about a thousand VCRs, three stools - bar or step. In other words, junk I didn't need.

The visit to the library and back again for a free mocha (my 10th drink on a card) rounded out the day.

Spending log - 33$ groceries (a month's worth of breakfast bars) + 2.50$ yard sale spending + 1.50$ bagel with the mocha.

...without any car.

DH's car withdrawl symptoms seem to be passing quickly. After all, if he had a working car, he'd be buying gas and getting medical symptoms of a different kind! I secretly miss the car - out in the car with DH doing errands really sets the weekend off from the week. Now that we have to stay close to home or close to a bus line. DH is waiting for the insurance to settle out, so who knows? It might be quite awhile until we're out on the road again.

For you Seattleites - and a know that a couple of you are on this blog - I've been having a good time with Seattle Bus Monster

http://www.busmonster.com. Its a mix of three great sites so you can see traffic cameras, color coded routes, and little icons of buses as they run along their routes, so you know where yours is at any point in time. If this gets on a cellphone, fantastic!

Worked out Tuesday by myself using the machines, and Thursday with the trainer doing calisthentics and balance moves. Been walking home from my alternate bus route every day as a habit. I noticed last night that the bath towel goes all the way around, if you know what I mean.

The chiropractor claimed that my eyesight improved because of the neck adjustments. "Stop it," I said, "if my eyes improve any more I'll waste 350$."

Ate a nice cheap lunch with lawyer friend. Lesson 1: get the special. We'll get there, we'll get there.

I have 42$ in the tip box so far this month, and will probably go to the bank with it on Monday, after adding a few more dollar bills to it. I will head into the next paycheck with about 150$.

Spending log - 1.65$ coffee + 5$ lunch (it was still 4.36$, but I tipped) + 2$ for a birthday gift collection.
Saving log - 6$ tip box.

I monitor my stocks and mutual funds daily (yes, I know, too much but I like to know where I stand). I made about $1400 in paper profits in two days. Too much of a good thing too quickly, and for no economic reason.

I'm nervous. Anybody else?

3M's annual report and proxy vote came today. All my companies had a shareholder initative about CEO compensation. I voted for all of them.

Except for a morning coffee ($1.65), a nearly no spend day.

Mail call yesterday - the totals on the retirement and the 403B accounts for Q1 2006 came. Still looked like I was only 80% vested. One of my co workers, who was fully vested two years ago, had the same ratio. The fact that he saw the same thing...well, I felt better. Not that I'm not vested, but its not like I've read the HR manual closely. Who knows? Maybe I only get my vested bucks if I did all my tasks standing on one leg.

I suggested to him sending an innocent email to HR.

He must have done it because about 30 minutes later all the staff got a yea-yea-we-know-about-it email from the VP of HR. Gee, the problem has only been happening for a couple of months. We were promised that it would get fixed by the vendor in a couple of weeks.

It could be worse, though. At least it was a mistake and not the fee.

Lunch with the lawyer friend and his partner. Ironic that yesterday was ham day and today we went to lunch fundraiser at Hillel. $15, so there was no way I was going to eat enough brisket, kugel and gelfite to make it a deal, but it was nice (the cooking reminded me of college days) and it was for a worthy cause.

So at the end of lunch, over apple crumb, lawyer friend heaves a big sigh and asks, "I spend too much money. How can I can I save some?"

"Stop spending money," I said. "Stop traveling so much." (He had just come back from visiting family on the east coast)

"No really," he said, "I'm sick of this. How can I do it?"

"Get into a routine that you can live with," I said. "You then find ways to run your routine for cheap. And TV is evil."

His partner definitely agreed about the TV, but lawyer friend made a face.

Another minute later lawyer friend mused, "I watched the line at Starbucks - addicts lining up for a socially acceptable form of crack."

I planted a seed; we'll see if it sprouts.

Tomorrow will be the one week anniversary of no DH car (I haven't owned one in 7 years). He's surviving, but he really enjoys driving so its hard on him. We are within walking distance of 3 grocery stores, so no biggie on the basics. The problem is the lugging of said basics, so we'll have to invest in one of those wheeled wire carts. Kitty litter bag + hill/2 hands = long, slow trip. But today was just materials for easter dinner and easter dinner leftovers : ham, potatoes, milk, cheese. Today is easter dinner; while tomorrow is easter dinner au gratin.

Paid the electric bill - 160$! Yikes. I must be more diligent in trailing DH and turning off lights after him. We heat by electric (NW, land of hydroelectric power) so we also suspect that some of our heating bill is caused by our fireplace. We closed the damper, and lit a couple of candles in the fireplace to warm it up a bit. Our thought is if we can warm up the fireplace cheaply, the fireplace won't draw warm air out of the room, so the thermostat won't kick on.

After looking at my obligations for this paycheck, I've shored up my immediate savings by 100$ this month. I will buy a 300$ I-bond at the end of this month to still get the six months' worth of 6.73%. The next set of rates for I-bonds is really up in the air; the inflation rate is low, so maybe, maybe the fixed rate would improve. We find out May 1.

Work is easing up. I'm swatting at big horseflies right and left, so I treated myself to lunch at the Uwajimaya Food Court and a browse in Uwajimaya proper.

Uwajimaya is a grocery/small goods store and a Seattle institution. Any Asian ingredient, and I mean any Asian ingredient, can be found there. One of the best deals in Seattle is the 3 for 10$ sale table piled high with very pretty bowls and sushi plates. Sometimes there's even a 3 for 5$ sale table - I snagged 3 small colanders a couple of years ago. What a coup! I use those all the time. Next to the sale table lay the regular priced bowls - its fun for me to keep track of when one set of bowls moves from one table to another.

I didn't buy anything. Just looking was relaxing for me - peeking at the little jars of wasabi infused fish roe, checking out the lamb patties for 4.99/lb (pricey, but 2$/lb cheaper than my usual grocery store), oohing and aahing at the fresh, real wasabi root for 56$/lb. Its nice to know that if I wanted to run a real Hawaiian luau, I've got the poi covered.

The paycheck got deposited today just like it usually did. At our workplace, the minutes of the management team are emailed to us. Today the email talked about retention and how they should recognize to retain the most productive staff. I wonder if they mean it, and whom they mean.

Put 13$ in the tip jar. Call it a do-it-yourself recognition program. With the advent of exercise, chiropractor, and trainer, I haven't put in my usual 40-50$/month for several months now. It seems so long ago, and I miss that.

Measurement day today. I lost 4 pounds, putting me at 200 and 1/4 pounds. Knew I shouldn't have had that breakfast bar...
And lost another 1/2 inch in the chest, hips, waist, arms, calves.

On the wrecked car front: insurance companies are talking. Talk about infinitely slow and infinitely fine.

Got the glasses this evening. I like them, they are very different in style. I look like I should be reviewing German existential films. I have to learn to tilt my head up slightly to read the fine print.

Sent 40$ to one DRP, 35$ to another. Managed to finish the end of the paycheck with over $200. Slowed down my lunch spending by buying a footlong, having them cut it into four 3 inch pieces, then lunched on them for a couple of days.

90% done with the last nightmare project; now its catchup booking of a lot of little projects and my "pile of shame".

Got home from work and found that DH's car was parked rear out, versus front out.

I didn't think much of it when I yelled, "you made it home alright?" I thought of the big immigration rally in Seattle this afternoon - it took me an hour and a half to get home.

DH was on the phone, intent. When he got off the phone, "did you see what happened?"

Turned out that DH's 20 yr old car's front hood now looks like Sofia Coppola's upper lip - folded up on the left into a sneer. DH got clipped 2 blocks from home, so luckily he managed to drive it back.

We'll save some gas money for a couple of weeks. And another piece of luck - I just got my Flexcar card renewed. 10$/hour, all fees, gas, insurance included.

The only uncalm family member was our 19 yr old cat who wanted to go out. We thought of all the liquids from the car dripping on the carport concrete pad that he could try and thought better of it.

It has to be a mantra: Routine is my friend, routine is my friend. Just got done reading flash's journal of her week. Honestly, I know I would have taken (and have taken) the shortcuts that flash's DH did. It's frankly exhausting to keep track of your money and to make the proper financial decision every time.

I've found what works with me is that I have to eliminate the four E's of overspending. I miss one, and I spend.

Emergency: so important that most of us have a fund named for it. Some emergencies are real (life and limb) and can't be helped, but there are many emergencies that are fake. Save your money for the real ones.

Embarrassment: It keeps grown men from buying just a box of tampons, grown women from negotiating properly for a car or even for a raise, and it keeps all of us from thinking - why should I spend money on this? - or from asking questions - or from thinking - no, I will not buy this - or thinking that everybody has more money than me, so why bother!

Emotion: If you're happy, you want to spend money to celebrate; if you're sad, you want to spend money to console yourself; if you are stressed, you want to spend money to get out of the situation. Turns out that functional psychopaths

http://tinyurl.com/h2wqv make the best financial decisions. The amazing fact for most of us is that we can save the money that we do, despite our emotions.

Easy: easy monthly payments on a house or a car or a credit card which will keep you from seeing the total of what you are spending; easy to buy rather than insult the sales person (or embarrass yourself); easy to burn gas waiting for an upfront parking space.

Boring is beautiful, baby!

Back from vacation. It was a stay at home vacation, a break from downtown Seattle, a break from blogging, a chance to catch up on sleep, and a chance to get big errands done. It was a break from frugality, too. There were a couple of things I've wanted to spend some money on and I had researched the items for five months. So without further ado, my week last week.

Friday night - sipping one glass (two fingers) of rye whiskey with DH. It made me feel like I was in the middle of a film noir.

Saturday - gym. My current XL gym pants are flopping in the breeze. My plan tomorrow is to buy a pair of "merely" L gym pants. Made rice and black beans for the week.

Sunday - bought 2 pair of L gym pants (BOGO sale), and one cute L top that I had my eye on. 96$. Also, at the risk of sounding like one of Money Talk$ geek co workers, I bought an MP3 player - 20Gb and has a detachable battery. Pricey at 300$, but I expect it to last like my PDA has - 4 years.

And at the same mall, I found and bought 2L of passover Coke. Its the stuff with real cane sugar, not the high fructose corn syrup and caramel coloring. Best 2$ I spent this week.

Began to load my CD collection onto the MP3 player. And load, and load. It turned out that it would take 3 days, and in the end, my entire CD collection filled only 5Gb.

Monday - I've been squinting at my computer desk for the past 8 months through my glasses that I've had for 5 years. Time for an eye exam and, no doubt, new glasses. Optometrist was to come in tomorrow. Picked out new frames in the meantime today.

Oh yes - we got paid Monday morning. Shoved the 500$ back into savings.

Tuesday - Optometrist. It turns out, quite surprisingly, that my eyes had gotten better from five years ago. My thought is that my middle age farsighted tendency is catching up with my myopia. No one there bought that story, however, and I'll still need progressive bifocals. Other good eye news: no glaucoma, no detached retina, no macular degeneration. Insurance covered maybe about a third of it; the whole thing was still about 350$. Comes with magnetic clip on sunglasses, so its two for one.

Oh, who am I kidding? Sigh. Five years gave me sticker shock here. I'd do a medical flex account for this but since my modus operandi is to hold out for years then spend a bundle, that wouldn't work.

Wednesday - finished burning my CD collection. Discovered a new source for exotic CDs and tunes to check out - the public library. And kiddies: it might be old school but its legal.

Thursday - gym, and its only time I was downtown. I got a lot of compliments from the trainer on my stuff. I'd better at 96$! I look a bit potty in the new size but that's planned. I figure I'm only halfway to where I should be and I need to have a little bit of stuff to follow me down. No challenge for me to look thin in XLs and slack off.

Friday - snooze and library, read and coffee and snooze. Somebody must have slipped me decaf by accident.

With the exception of writing a $1300 check to catch things up, that's it for my week.

Friday was equally nuts, but I got about 1/2 of the 31M dollar nightmare project done and booked, 2/3 of it if you count it as money.

The big news was that our paychecks didn't make it into direct deposit today, payday. Not our fault, its the data outsourcer, our pay should be in our accounts by Monday. Its rare - I've been working for this non-profit for over six years and this is the first time I've experienced it here.

We got an email from CEO of the outsourcer, and our VP of HR each telling us that if checks bounce because of this - our payroll people will reimburse us for the fees.

A quick transfer from checking to savings covered what I had out, but it got me thinking. The pay yourself first technique is not such a no brainer - you got to remember that commitment so you can either cancel it or cover it, something that you need a brain for.

I didn't have that much in straight savings that I could transfer in seconds. The interest rate on that savings account is worse than paltry at .025% APR. I had enough in there to cover my obligations, but I dipped under the 300$ minimum, so I'll probably get a little fee now for being under the minimum. So how much do you keep in a very fluid savings account at nearly no interest? My original plan was to keep only the minimum. I'm rethinking that minimum, to bump it up a bit higher.

But all these things are just a tweeking for me...a couple of my co workers are sweating bullets over this.

Vacation all next week. Ah.....!

Put $3 in the tip box.