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.

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!

Why is it that average, ordinary people around the world as they quietly and successfully save money year after year are considered hick goobers, yet...

Four twenty somethings from San Francisco form a "compact" on January 2006, blog a little bit...

http://sfcompact.blogspot.com/

...are picked up by CBS News as a hot new trend? Sigh. Now it's not enough to be frugal, apparently you have to have a press agent to be "cool" doing so.

Just thought I'd get that off my chest - thanks!

I found out last night that one of my literary heroines died last night, a casuality of that stupid ice storm on Friday.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/260959_butlerobit26ww.ht...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/obituaries/2002831388_...

Some of us are frugal because we want to see our net worth increase. Some of us are frugal because we want security. Some of us are frugal because we would rather have more time than money.

And some are frugal because they know that their talent is going to service a project, goal, or idea that is going to be un-mainstream, unloved, and unpopular. They bravely go and use their frugality to soldier on and avoid selling out.

And when a frugal writer of that stature actually gets something like a genius grant, it goes to buy a little house. Not even a car. A little house near a bus line.

R.I.P. Octavia. You're one of the last brave writers who made a poor but honest living strictly on their writing. No Harvard teaching gigs, no journalism, no upper-class parties where a writer tweets for his supper. Just you and your writing and your infamous wrestle with your writer's block.

Three new ING accounts! Thanks, Jeffrey!

Today is a vacation day, and so is tomorrow for me. Today was also a gym day for me and so will be tomorrow. Its just like high school, all the fun stuff and then there's gym. Although these days I'm feeling a lot better about going to gym, getting into the swing of it.

But to keep this an actual financial diary I've got to mention that I signed up for a fitness challenge. Fitness, thankfully, won't be determined by the number of pushups (hah hah), but by decrease in weight and inches around various places and body fat content between the dates of Feb 9 and April 1. Winner gets $1000. It would be great if I win but if I lose, I still lose, so I'd still win.

After gym, I went to a Tully's and had a green tea and half a tuna sandwich, all while watching Jim Cramer's Mad Money and the Suze Orman show. Both are a whole different experience when they're mute and closed captioned. The advice is relatively good when you can disassociate it from the chair throwing (Cramer) and strange hectoring (Orman). When you think about it, they are both saying the same thing - make the psychology of money work for you, not against you.

And with that I came to a revelation. Several commenters noticed that I had a credit card balance with a fair amount of savings. All of that credit card debt comes from the personal trainer. I could pay it off in a matter of days but I'm not because if I did, the debt is behind me and I will blow off the gym. This way, as long as my debt is at the back of my mind I will say "dammit, I'm paying for this!" and go. My psychology of money is working in tandem with my weight loss/get fit plan.

Know thyself.

DH and I used the free hotel room last night. It was a very, very pleasant room, all in an Italian theme with a marble bathroom and a great view of downtown Seattle. It was normally expensive place (over $300/night), so it seems a shame that we spent most of the time asleep. We were going to another restaurant in downtown Seattle, one where we have a gift card, but with the crazy Friday driving and the rain - 27 days straight, almost a record - downtown Seattle traffic was a complete nightmare. We would have had to walk about 10 blocks and wait an hour.

So we went downstairs to the restaurant in the hotel. It was quite the blowout; we had wine and steak and lobster and at the end we spent over 200$. The hotel got a deal back, but they gave us a wonderful experience and I didn't feel particularly slighted about it.

I guess that's the difference between frugal and cheap to me. Frugal implies a certain amount of planning, but flexible for the unexpected. We had saved some money, let's see what the future holds and enjoy ourselves. Cheap is more reflexive; no - its too much. I guess if we would have been cheap we would have hit the coffee shop across the street and complained.

Did manage to put in 5$ in the tip box over the last two days. Put in 2$ into a football pool for the Seahawks game. Sent 10 ING invites out and got already got an invite or perhaps it was an invite I sent to my friend over a week ago. I'll have to ask my friend whether she took me up on the ING offer.

Went Christmas shopping today at the Pike Market. I got sister 2 halibut steaks and a 5 lb filleted wild salmon. Nothing like food for the holidays - it gets consumed, it doesn't clutter the mantel, and doesn't need to be cleaned or dusted. The only problem is the shipping - yikes, 40$ - more than the fish itself. The fish spot I use is Jack's Fish Spot in the sanitary market, not City Fish or the stall that throws the fish for the benefit of the tourists.

To tell you the truth, I absolutely hate the fish flingers. Posers. Real fishermen take enormous risks to catch fish, including the noble salmon, who is giving its life and often its sex life so you could have a meal. And you're throwing it around for laughs. Why not pitch a dead bald eagle around for laughs? I haven't even gotten to the sanitary/ culinary aspects. Pitching salmon around bruises the flesh and if they miss? The fish lands on the fish gut smeared concrete. Well ick.

City Fish isn't so bad. They're pretty normal, so no flinging. But most of the seafood they sell is an augmented catch from other parts of the Pacific and who knows if its fresh.

Because its yikes with the shipping, I've decided that many of DH's family in Montana and Wyoming is getting dried mushrooms - chanterelles, morels, trumpets. It's light but also screams Northwest and should go fantastic with beef.

On the inheritance front:

Sister has found some insurance policies from grandpa and grandma in some of the other papers we collected. Not very much, but a little bit. Sister emailed me asking for advice, and she suspects that these were held by mom for some purpose. Grandpa died in 1999; I suspect that mom was biding her time, waiting for grandma to join him so she could collect. That's the problem with waiting; it could be you who runs out of time. The Greeks weren't kidding themselves when they thought the 3 Fates were vicious old ladies that held your life by a thread.

About all I could say is that they were still part of grandma's estate, and that sister should ask grandma's financial advisor - our cousin. It could very well be that since grandma is dispersing assets that sister should hold them and not do anything with them (more assets to disperse and take care of), but that's really grandma's decision, not sister's.

Sister also sent two boxes. The first box was the usual fun Christmas stuff: candles and jam and mustards and greenie dental treats for my cat, who loves them. The second box was a bit more thought provoking. Clothes. Mom and dad clothes. The dad clothes were a bit larger than my size but the mom clothes were my size. Dad was 67 when he died; mom was 61. Thank you, sister, but when their clothes fit me it's really time for me to lose the weight.

Spending log - $1.65 coffee + $7.00 lunch
Saving log - $2.00 tip box + $40.00 DRP

Ah...settling down for a 5 day weekend. Nice.

Put 47$ in the bank from my tip box. That felt nice, too.

I put the two big checks of last week in my ING account for the moment. It's going to earn far more and be tied up far less than it would in my regular bank.

This last Sunday I really window shopped with a very different eye. Everything I looked at I could afford, which makes things a lot more difficult. The siren sings louder when you know you have a lot more unearned money in your accounts. I can see how people blow windfalls so quickly. It is easy to say, "just what I always wanted. I'll take it!" the first time and then over and over. After the sixth over, its gone. Generic advice about budgeting 10% for your treats then stopping when you're done makes a lot of sense to me. I also have to say, "I already have that and I'm happy with it."

Got back to work yesterday. Felt like I got hammered with requests (grrr), but I managed to get a fair amount done. I just have to take it slow, mix it up (easy project, hard project), and remember my predecessors magic words, "no one dies if it doesn't get done today."

Today was a lot better after about 9 hours of sleep. I went to the gym for the first time ever. The trainer was very nice - we did mostly the weigh-in, the measurements, the setting of goals. A revelation to learn what an ab crunch actually is. It'll be quite the little project to get my weight down.

On the other hand, three years ago it was quite the little project to get my finances in line. I never balanced my checkbook; I had two little 403Bs, 1 little, 1 medium, 1 large credit card balance, and about $1500 in student loans. It was a turning point for me when DH gave me my PDA for Christmas. Three weeks later I found a free, really good checkbook program

http://www.freewarepalm.com/financial/mycheckbook.shtml and put my info in with a quavering hand. I had a positive net worth, at least, but barely. This, at 40.

I started with the basics. With the PDA, it became important for me to reconcile my checkbook and to put what I spent in. I learned how I spent my money. It became very important that my credit card balances and student loan balances went down and my 403B contributions went up. When my student loan finally got paid off, that letter stating so was almost as valuable to me as the degree that I got with it. I made small investments, put little amounts and whatever bonus I got into a savings account which grew a little.

I wanted to cultivate some savings and a little investment so I knew what to throw extra money into after my debts were paid.

I learned about the debt snowball, and hit my accounts one at a time (although I did manage to put more than the minimum in each of the others). My worst one with the worst interest, which the cc company refused to lower, I transferred to a $0 balance offer. The debt didn't quite fit--so I made payments on the leftover debt that had to stay on the icky card, while paying low amounts on the balance offer. It was a bit dangerous, the 0$ interest after six month was okay compared to the icky card, but I was lucky. I had a couple of 500$ emergencies, not several $1000 ones.

I paid off my debts and now I'm manipulating my savings, tinkering around the edges.

It leads me into gramma's gift. I feel somehow that this is a dress rehearsal for the inheritance to come. Do I shore up my savings vehicles or go in a new direction? Do I throw it all in at once, or do I dollar cost average and spread out my payments into things?

Sister emailed that Nut was at it again. He's been on the grounds of the estate, poking around, exploring...umm, stealing. Sister put her foot down and called the sheriff and asked that the property be watched every so often. Of course, if the sheriff is on a routine, Nut will soon figure it out. He's not stupid, he's just ... Nut.

Sister was also a bit miffed at the household inventory appraisal. I explained to her that he set the price a bit low because if he wanted to buy it he would resell it and he would want to make a good profit if he kept his costs down. Sister is interested in buying most of it. I'm not terribly thrilled - her house is stuffed to the gills. I suggested that she cherry pick and buy up what was appraised the highest.

But finally, sister was very miffed that Nut knew when the farm auction was before she did. She's thinking collusion, and perhaps that's the case, but she's got to realize that the men in these parts behave exactly like hens - clucking and gossiping over coffee. Auction, FYI, is scheduled for next Saturday the 12th. Frugal meisters, if you're near Oshkosh WI, its 5975 Scott Road. Have fun but watch where you step.

I got an email myself today that I'm scratching my head about. It seems that there is a move afoot at work to have a socially responsible mutual fund as a choice in our 403(b). The email suggested that I encourage my team to vote on the proposal. I don't mind that. I mind that the thought is that I will somehow encourage folks to vote yes, because somehow my co workers have got it in their head that I love socially responsible investing.

Hmmmph. They're not going to like my opinion. For a mutual fund, I like making money. My opinion is that socially responsible investing tends to constrain your choices. Its like the old saying - "good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere." To make money, money's gotta go everywhere. No company has clean hands. Heck, when the economy is going to pot - what do people buy? Yep - cigarettes, booze, and porn. Add the fact that we're in a war so the gummint is going to buy weapons, and the future looks very, very bright for vice.

Spending log - 1.65$ coffee + 4.38$ lunch (curry place has a great friday special)
Saving log - 6$ tip jar

I skipped the bubble tea for lunch and to reward myself for my frugality, I put in 5$ into my tip box. My total in the tip box came to $48, so I deposited my squeezings in my savings account. And then I turned around and took out $40 from the lobby ATM. On paper it looks like I only saved $8, but since I don't apparently like to spend my emergency funds, it feels like shielded 40$ from spending. I guess that's what saving feels like to me...protecting slices of my money from my nefarious spending purposes.

I submitted my 6 month job evaluation to the COO, who is my substitute boss. He'll be the one to evaluate me.

I have to tell you this story. 7 months ago I applied for this job (which was a promotion) as an interior applicant, was interviewed, and got the job. I set a price for myself, which was on the high end but in the salary range on the application. However during the salary negotiation (which was done in my cubicle over the phone, sheesh), the VP of HR basically low-balled me, citing that I was going up 2 pay grades, and that the only "fair" thing was the low end, which as a bone to throw, they bumped up to the lower third. Since they put their cards on the table, I put mine down and told them what I wanted. The VP of HR said, "no way you're getting that." We're talking a difference of about $1,500.

I talked with my would-be boss about this, who talked to his boss, the COO. They agreed that they had the budget for my price and both went to bat for me. HR and the CEO wouldn't budge, so I politely declined the offer. (The VP of HR said to me, "you're very calm about this.") The office atmosphere was pretty odd for awhile. Eventually a deal emerged; I would get the salary I wanted if my evaluation (this particular one) was above a certain level. I asked for it in writing and I got that, so I accepted this job.

The reason I'm telling this tale in this journal is that I had a secret weapon while I was negotiating. At the time, I had savings of about $10,000 (the kiss my a** fund, savings bonds, some stock). No wonder I was calm! And right now its over $14,000...that'll only make me calmer during my evaluation.

I mention this now because I came across an article on how you might not need an emergency fund, but that you really need "financial flexibility" in the form of credit cards and a HELOC.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Savinganddebt/Learntobud...

In the narrowest sense, "they" are right - you have a pile of money that has to be kept liquid, earning lowish interest and away from the consumer-industrial complex. And you are losing that opportunity cost! But after I got done wiping my eyes from laughing so hard from reading that article, I can personally attest that the safety of my emergency fund gave me my calmness. A HELOC would not have worked.

Opportunity cost be dammed.

Read over some of my journal articles. Without the journal, if someone would have asked me, I would have said same ole ole. I've done quite of financial manuevering without really realizing it.

But really, my life is a bit on the routine side. Weekdays are coffee, work and work with lunch in between, then a walk up 7 blocks of downtown Seattle, then a 40 minute bus ride, surfing the net, then sleep, then repeat. Weekends are a bit looser, with sleeping late, errands, groceries, cooking meals to last the week for the DH and me, and a bit of shopping.

I think a routine is my secret weapon for saving money. If you have a physical routine, you also probably have a mental routine, and with those two its got to be much easier to have a spending routine, and then with a spending routine, its a whole lot easier (and more pleasant) to figure out your budget. It also means that if I have to save even more money, I can figure out an even cheaper way to go through my routine. (Lunch, sad to say, would be the first to go).

If I'm shopping, I can keep an eye on the price of something and come back next week. Just the thought that I will be back next Saturday to get that item means that I eliminate the "I gotta get it, I won't be back again" spending. If I want the item, I can think about whether I can really use it all week. When I go back, its either still there and probably on sale. If its not there, I've dodged a spending bullet.

Spending log - $1.75 coffee + 9 lunch (I've got a punch card from this place, next one's free)
Saving log - $4.00 tip box

I read this essay/prose poem in the middle of last week, and there's a thread on it on this site. The link is here:

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003704.html

I've been thinking about it all week.

Most of the essay above was in an urban setting, but the connotation carried it; reading it brought back a flood of memories. Sister and I grew up on a farm, as a matter of fact, the farm that we now inherit. Our family had no money, just cows and crops and land. Times bounced around from being bad to being really bad.

Being poor is more than just a lack of money. Heck, being frugal means you either have no money or you have less money than you'd like. Fifteen years ago, as a grad student, I lived on $600/month. While it truly, truly sucked, and yes I was poor, and yes I despaired about it, it felt different than being straight poor like in my childhood.

Being poor is also a state of mind. Its despair, its depression, its the pessimism of the same dark grayness, and that grinds on you more than the lack of money does. Being poor means you think that the future is going to be the same as the present - gray and terrible - and that you deserve only what have and what life and fate throws at you.

The dividing line between poor and not poor, I think, is optimism. During grad school, I was working toward a goal, and was optimistic that I would succeed. Being frugal is also a sign of optimism...you're saving money for a plan, a purpose, for something better in the future. If you have a lack of funds, being optimistic means that you accept help when you need it, and allow people to help you. Most optimists are aware of choices, ask about them and go after them. You believe you have a better future.

Before you start thinking that I'll spout the take-responsiblity-freemarket republican line, I want to let you all know that I'm, if anything, a yellow dog democrat. (It used to be that a yellow dog democrat would vote for a yellow dog in the road before voting republican; truth be told, that yellow dog is looking good all by itself.)

Normally Labor Day weekend is one of my favorite holidays. The weather is usually good and the its one of the few American holidays that occur at the beginning of the month so you can celebrate when your bank account is flush.

Not this year. I donated $100 to United Way Katrina Response Fund. I glad that help is finally coming through, but if there is any sort of justice in this world, heads should roll. I'm a voter with a long memory, and some situations go beyond money. When doctors at charity hospitals in 2005 have to use the glucose in the IV bags to keep going because there is no food and no FEMA and no social order of any kind for four days, that tells me something. I am frankly so ashamed to be an American this week and that shame is turning into anger as I write.

I mused about this, slugging down a couple of martinis during a going-away party Friday night. When I got back home, I found out that sister mailed me another savings bond. Too bad I can't specify what part of the government debt I can assume with the bond. The bond is of the same denomination and issue date and comes again from grandpa. I wonder what tipped his decision - why July 1991? I'll have to ask.

I also got a couple of black and white pics from Sept 1962. Me at four months old. The first one was grandma and grandpa holding me, the second was mom and dad holding me. Out of the five of us, the oldest was grandma and the youngest was me. Whose left now? Grandma and me. Funny how fate works.

Last night the toilet broke -- landlord time! The shutoff value is busted, so when the back of the toilet recharges its water it keeps going, and water goes into the overflow valve into the bowl and keeps going and going, overflowing the bowl. So the drill is: water is now turned off to the toilet, use the toilet, flush, then lift up the cover on the back, turn on the water, watch it recharge until it gets to the level its supposed to, then turn off the water to the toilet. We don't have kids so its inconvenient but if the landlord doesn't respond in a couple of days its time to hit up the Seattle tenants union.

Of course this plumbing problem is nothing compared to anyone in New Orleans facing hurricane Katrina. I'm not a religious person, but I'm praying for the best. In 1996, we were in Raleigh, North Carolina and rode out hurricane Fran. Raleigh's inland and is actually one of the places that the Outer Banks folks evacuate to, but that time the eye of Fran passed over Raleigh. Fran was a category 3.

The hurricane actually wasn't the worse part, it was the aftermath. Thousands of trees were down, there was flooding in low lying areas, the big mall was flooded in three feet of water, no gas to be had because the pumps needed electricity to operate, little or no fresh water. It took some neighborhoods in Raleigh 3 weeks to get power because the utility cables were buried underground. When an uprooted tree snapped those cables, the power company had to dig to find the break. People didn't get back to work for weeks. If you were living from paycheck to paycheck (like I was), it was a catastrophe.

The twin habits of frugality and kindness really, really come into their own in times like that. Good luck and God bless you, New Orleans.