Grocery auctions? I don't know whether to laugh or cry... or eat up or throw up. Anybody here go to these things?

...it'll be even cheaper for you and your health if don't bid on the cheese curls in the first place.

Thursday
Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $2 coffee

Friday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $20 haircut

Yesterday I received my stock proxy vote for KO. Every year some shareholder puts in a motion to control executive compensation. With the furor over AIG, I wonder how many more shareholders will vote for it? I know I voted for it, with more than a bit of glee.

Yesterday at our all staff, the CEO noted that our health insurance had to be maintained as a top priority, while our 403B was competitive, and therefore strengthening it was not a priority. Fair enough. I wonder how that bodes for the match.

Today I got my haircut (once every three months), and noticed that credit unions aren't safe either - a couple of those got

taken over also.

Tomorrow morning I'll go in and file/pay my taxes (ugh - 2008, revised 2007, and probably the first quarter of 2009). But tomorrow night, I'll be ghost hunting at the job. Tee hee.

Monday
Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $20 chiropractor + $2 conditioner

Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $.75 paper

The Seattle Post Intelligencer published its last edition today. I picked up a commemorative copy at the Safeway today. The top section had a series of lovely pieces of Seattle and PI history, so ...

would the bastard who stole it from the lunchroom bring it back or ELSE I will have to curse their Final Four picks. And trust me, I can and will make sure that you not only will not win, but that you will be the laughingstock of the basketball pool.

I mean it, man.

On a serious note, I'm saddened and a tad scared about the PI closing. Its supposed to live on as an online outlet w/blogs, twitters, commentary, but somebody has to physically go out, do the legwork, take names, write the story and do all of those things that afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Blogs reflect the news. If there is no reported news, we reflect nothing.

But we'll see.

Saving log - $7 tip box
Spending log - $0

Depression, Recession, Great Recession, GD 2.0, Great Unpleasantness, Banana, Liverwurst?

That's the thing about euphemisms. The only control things for a little while, then everyone gets wise and you can't use the word anymore.

Its a bit like the George Carlin routine using the words shell shock, battle fatigue, post-traumatic stress.

We used to call what we are going through a panic - like the Panic of 1873. Then we stopped calling them panics because the powers that be figured we would panic if we called them a panic. So we called them Depressions ... if everyone was going to do what we called it, heck being depressed during a Depression made crowd control ever so much easier.

Then after the Great Depression, calling anything a depression meant it would be instantly compared to GD. So we called them recessions, and we came up with such hokey rules for them (2 consecutive quarters of negative growth) that we often got out of them by the time we called them. Well, if you are going to fudge - might just as well call it a banana, wink wink, or liverwurst.

Let's just call it a Panic - we live in interesting times, and despite the high-tech hot water we got into, the trouble is really old-fashioned. Too much of the economy was built on deception and fraud, now exposed, and that stuff has been around since time immemorial.

Tuesday
Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $11 groceries

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

Noticed that I haven't been boring the snot out of you with current pictures. This weekend, while it was sunny, with the semi-downer depression zeitgeist of 2009 I felt in a black and white mood.

Saturday afternoon at the Pike Market - for a tourist trap this was a fairly light traffic day.


Chinese freighter? The name of the prow called out to me for obvious reasons.


This lived-in camper has been parked in front of the zoo for months now.


Somebody ran out of babies to knit for.

Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $6 box of salad

Took my tip box squeezings for the month over to WaMu to put into savings. $44 this month, and I put it in a week earlier than my normal schedule. I had a bit of time, and I thought I would do it while I could.

Today in the bank lobby a sign caught my eye - I wanted to take a picture but it seemed unseemely in the bank lobby.

Changing jobs?, it read, then...
Move your 401K into a WaMu whatever...

The sign was enough to make me snicker. Sly writing, because you know darn well that there isn't too much regular "changing" going on. More like, got laid off from your job, well then, move it out of the company account and put it into WaMu. I wonder how it works if you were "changed" out of a WaMu job.

I do have to hand it to them ... its a classic case of lemonade production.

Thursday
Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $0

Friday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $10 groceries (whole wheat bagette, olives, parmesan/pesto dip spread)

For the last couple of days I've stared at several towers of Ziploc boxes in the home refrigerator, so I've expanded out my lunch experiences and have grazed out of a couple of boxes for dinner. I discovered that: in a pinch a tablespoon of parmesan/pesto dip over microwaved pasta doubles as an alfredo sauce; a cup of fresh salsa is great without chips; pot roast and mango pickle is a wickedly good combination in a lunch box; and that using chopped onions in a salt brine as a quick condiment isn't bad.

Gained 1/2 pound this week. Considering that I had no time to do the mega weekend walk/jog last weekend, I ate and drank liquor without care (?) during Super Bowl afternoon, and I worked out only Monday this week ... I felt I dodged a bullet.

Two more recession observations - the grocery store clerks seem to be so much nicer than they have been for months. Disguising their Valentine's Day hard sell perhaps, but its better than being surly. Tonight I noticed more cars driving on the road with one headlight.

I've heard about a weird project at work. In the 1850's our little non-profit was either next to or was the Little White Church Cemetery. The cemetery was moved at the turn of the century, but apparently not everyone left - tens of people (staff, volunteers, children of volunteers) have reported a tall man in a black coat walking around. So a group of non-profit ghost busters is going to come in at night and roam around.

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $0

Still enjoying the mostly clean house. I'm just a tad disappointed to miss the 10 seconds of porn during the Super Bowl. Just my luck that I wasn't watching cable in Tuscon.

There were still a couple of Healthy Choice lunches that I snagged for our work refrigerator. I ate one Friday and ate one today, leaving one more just in case. Our floor is so quiet that no one steals anything (knock on wood!).

Really hadn't gone out exploring today, but the one thing that is hard not to notice on the walks nowadays is just the number of sales going on. *Every* non-food retail store in downtown Seattle is running a sale, anything between 20% and 75%. Here's one of the more creative window treatments - its hard to be both creative and explicit.


But food in the restaurant rarely seems to go on sale. Maybe the special become a bit less special, but that's it. It makes walking along a bit like Duck-Duck-Goose. Duck (Sale), Duck (Sale), Goose (food & coffee). Well see - I suspect the Geese will turn into Ducks somehow.

And its hard to watch it all if you are susceptible to the sway of media, arguing that one should "spend, spend" because if you don't, you help make the recession just a little deeper. In case you are wavering and thinking of buying something you can't really afford, remember that if you, the individual, spent without a care to your own personal finances, its a bit like thinking that you can stop a plane crash if you just flapped your arms sitting in business class. No my dears, its time to read the safety card, assume the crash position, take the mask when it is offered, and know your exits.

Saturday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $12 breakfast + $8 produce

Sunday, Super
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $12 liquor and sweets

Ate way too much at our Super Bowl soiree, but we saved a bit - we provided the chips, the homemade salsa, a bit of liquor, and a tiramisu cake. Our guests brought several cheeses and crackers, sweet potato chips, dried fruit. We were going to order pizza, but we already had enough food.

Nothing particularly fiscal happened this weekend, only that the game and the ads didn't particularly make us "forget" our troubled times. And that cash4gold ad? Hmmm. Sign of the times.

The threat of guests this weekend did what it normally does - forces us to clean the house. Ah, blessed clean house.

Morgan behaved herself this afternoon - first time she's seen our friends. Didn't run away, but didn't really relax in front of our guests.

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $0

Even though it was cold. 3 Seattle banks

got robbed today within four hours of each other. None of the three robbers looked a tenth as good as Warren Beatty did playing Clyde Barrow, but then again, the real Clyde Barrow didn't either.

DJ friend told me about his cost cutting measures and thanked me for telling him about Lenny's. Some of the cheapest produce in town, but you have to pick and look. Icky stuff can be in the bin with the good stuff.

Hit the gym today again. 181.8!

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $12 lunch

Aka the work refrigerator.

We have refrigerators on each floor - its not everybody piled into one. This morning I spent two minutes of my work life reading email complaints of various people on the second floor who "broke" the work refrigerator lunch rules. The COO laid down the law, but in reality, the punishment is pretty minor: your lunch container gets moved out of the refeer and onto the lunchroom table.

Lucky our floor has, maybe, ten people all quietly bringing their lunch. Lots of free space. Easy for me to chuckle about the goobs on the second floor.

Then it hit me. - Apparently the second floor refeer was packed with lunches, all brought by the sales staff, folks who, only a couple of years ago (when I was up there), wouldn't even think of bringing their lunch. Especially on a Friday.

Anybody else seeing work refrigerators full of brown bags where none existed?

Today, I was contrarian. I woke up this morning and decided, as I was in bed, to go out for lunch and eat whitefish and mustard green soup with ginger. The very restorative thought of it got me out of bed.

Put the month's savings in the tip box. A bit higher than usual: $52.

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $45 Big Lots + $75 groceries

Was treated to breakfast today, and since there was so much of it, I was also treated for dinner as well.

I've done a good job of brown bagging lunches that the refrigerator is pretty dry. It was quite a little grocery shopping run, something that we would have easily done every month or so, now it feels like a few times per year event. We tied the grocery run to a Big Lots run for paper towels, toilet paper, toiletries, and a lot of cheap replacements for items we've busted in the last year or so.

I feel terrible for thinking this, but as this recession deepens, while I'm still saving and earning, my thoughts are darker - the triage, who I will lend money to and who I won't. I joke to DH that I will lie if necessary and make up a job loss, but its unseemly. DH, of course, some of DH's family, sure, limited amounts. My family is small, just sister and I. But friends are tough. If they are your friends that's worth something, but too many requests & when money is pissed away, you are tapped out and you're pissed.

Sorry I seem so dark today. It was a blue sky, sunny, 40 degree day - a rare Seattle January day. And here's to the possibility of two more.

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $0

Funded my 2009 Roth today. Got several more pieces of tax paper, including the 1099R because I've converted my 2005 & 2006 traditional IRA to Roth. Got a collection of tax papers and put them in my green folder. I'm debating whether to do my taxes myself this year or use a preparer. Hmmm. Will I be tapped to head the Department of Treasury, or not?

Most of the day at work it felt as if we were waiting for the 3 day weekend. Most of the temporary audit staff's (including the lead) last day was today. Our pledge season this year was cut short by at least a month. Not two years ago I and lead auditor that year would have bought into the Super Bowl pool in mid-Feb.

This morning, I read a blog specific for non-profits. In the post, the writer talked about corporate matches. She didn't see any changes in corporate match giving. She's nuts, in my opinion. I calculate them for our non-profit as part of my job and I'm seeing big declines in two ways: 1. mechanics of the matches are changing - ratios dropping, match gifts "capped" on the donor gift or a total of what the company will pay; 2. if you base a match gift on employee giving, when employee giving drops - even if the ratio is the same - the match dollars will drop.

But to keep this post from being a total downer, this afternoon I was weighed and measured. I'm still at 182, but I have lost 3 inches in my waist since I was measured two months ago. Yeah! If you lose inches, you can always lie.

OMG - I saw a TV ad for Hamburger Helper. Fresh one, not retro. And during prime time, not during the insomnia/informercial times. The 70s are back with noodles and cheese.

I made the Saturday "Dine In" crock pot recipe in the Seattle PI. At least I thought I did. I was going to go in and search for it online, but the web staff hadn't updated it. Of course the PI staff had more important things to do - like updating their resumes.

Anyway, I had to wing it. It was can central, but the results were very tasty.

Beef barley soup

2 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 large carrot, sliced
1 tbsp chopped garlic
2 bay leaves
olive oil
1 14 oz can diced tomato
1 14 oz can chicken stock
1 14 oz can beef stock
3/4 c barley
2 lb beef stew meat (rump roast works here also)
1/4 c soy sauce

Night before
Saute onion, garlic, bay leaf in olive oil to soften. Save and refrigerate.
Slice carrot. Refrigerate.
Cut stew meat or pot roast into 1 inch cubes. Refrigerate.

Morning of
Put all ingredients into crock pot. Cook on low for 10 hours, or if you are rushed for time, cook on high for 5-7 hours.

Saturday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $13 breakfast

Friday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $9 groceries

Sent off 5K to sister for taxes and upkeep on the farmette. Friday was a this and that day. Did a session with the trainer - I've bounced up to 183, then bounced back down to 182. Showed off my kitten scars.

Noticed now that with Boeing laying off, the PI going under (okay its being put up for sale within 60 days before going under. Not going to happen), and an actual crockpot recipe appearing in the recipe of the day it feels a bit like the 70s - can disco be far behind? If you compare the economic climate to the weather, it feels like a hurricane is bearing down. Seattle is getting the first bands of rain and wind with worse on the way.

Today lawyer friend had an open house/wake for his dad. One of the side benefits of working in the basement is that our department - all 7 of us - feel like a tight unit. We are actually a bit too busy to do too much political backstabbing.

Not so in the previous department that I was in. A co worker who still works in that department and came to the wake confided in me that she thought she would be laid off. Supposedly no one will be laid off, but to believe that these days is complete idiocy. My suspicion is that each department will have to come up with a "just in case" budget about 15-20% under what we do, meaning cuts everywhere. It was helpful to us to take up the offer of and use the services of several internal staff. It kept us under budget, perhaps we'll escape it. I haven't heard anything, its all feelings, but you pick up a thing or two if you were alert during the 70s and early 80s.

Then we did the mundane after we got home. I trimmed kitten's nails; she behaved herself and it was easy. Didn't give the nails a severe chop, but the scimitar points are gone. Morgan will go to the vet Monday to get a blood draw to test how well she will handle anesthesia, and get the second round of shots. She's been outside a little bit for a few minutes and under our eyes. She's not excited to go out, which solves a lot of issues, but we do want her get a little familiar with what our house and plants look and smell like if she accidentally gets outside.

Saving log - $20 tip box
Spending log - $7 bread and chocolate

Went whole hog and paid myself $20 to put in the tip box.

Chalk up one more sign of the recession - our non-profit was crazy busy today with donors getting in their gifts by the end of the year. The last two years were quiet, not so this year. We're not sure whether its because the need is now so visible, or more, cynically, donors especially need the tax break. We even had a couple of walk-ins in the lobby. I just thank them for their gift and hand them a pledge form to fill out. The donor takes the bottom two carbons and we take and book from the original.

Again, nice to be loved, and the money is better than a poke in the eye.

The thing that really knocks the auditor and I for a loop is that everyone was very insistent that we book the gift to Dec 31, even though as long as the pledge form / receipt / check is filled out on Dec 31, is enough. Everyone is much jumpier than in usual years.

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

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

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

I do have two long term goals:

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

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

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

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

2. Buy a house in a couple of years.

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

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

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

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $0

The gym and brown bag/leftover lunch strategy worked very well. Not planning on going to the gym tomorrow, but I am planning on bringing my lunch again and finishing off several containers of leftovers. I do still have plenty of white turkey breast for turkey salad and turkey soup.

2 funds of my 403B are going to be swapped out for two other funds. There's my tinkering and then there are other people's tinkering. I am still considering moving some of my taxable cash in Vanguard to a Vanguard index fund - however I don't want to do it now because the distributions are on Dec 15 or so. I would be taxed on the distribution if I own it, even if I own it for a day.

Strangely enough, I am getting used to the freakish gyrations of the stock market. 680 points? Yawn. Now it feels if the market only goes up or down by twenty or thirty points one thinks, "why bother running the darn thing?"

All this backdating prognostication is getting to me. Yes, the recession started December 2007. Yes, I remember December 2007...everyone was saying, "no its not a recession, don't even think its a recession, and to say so means you'll trigger a recession." Decided to declare the bad news late, so maybe we'll be out of it by the time we call it? Well, I've got news for you ... this is going to be a nice long recession, we won't get out of it until 2010 at the very earliest. Ha! What do you think about that?

Sister is helping the local economy of Wisconsin out, though. She's going to get the flooring done at the farmette. Yay! The floors are the one thing that badly need repair. I suggested we hold off a bit for some of the contracting jobs until the recession really bit. If the contractor is a bit hungry, they should give you a better deal. At least if you are the only meal in town, they won't blow your project off.

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.38 coffee, bagel + $5 apple, clif bars + $10 sushi

Another 5 mi walk, however it was up Queen Anne Hill. Walking up it felt like Everest, but at least I could still do it. As a reward for going up the hill, I got a few snacks at the kaiten sushi place, more pieces, fewer rice rolls. Next week, I go to the gym.

Queen Anne is a fairly swank neighborhood of Seattle. Even here, I noticed a lot of For Rent / Vacancy signs for November. The university is on a quarterly schedule - in a normal year the signs go up in late August or September.

The seasonal clif bars came in. At a $1.38/bar, it was a seasonal splurge for work.

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $4 coffee (2 drip coffees bought within 2 hrs of each other) + $10 lunch

The busy season for pledges hit and hit hard this week. Lots of work! That part is similar to previous years; the truly tiring part is that our boss is on family leave so all the deflections and meetings she went to so we didn't have to ... now we have to and suddenly its tiring. Not to mention that sometimes more than one of us is going and then some of us get our undies in a bunch because there was more than one of us. Sigh. Its not the meeting that gets me tired; its expending energy easing the snit of other people in our department. I have to save a little bit of energy and time to smooth feathers.

But back to the meeting issue. I'm shaking my head here. Have a meeting and you don't want to go, look at Outlook calendars. Maybe you're lucky and there's a dup. No sense in emailing blah, blah.

Also the low level tension due to the rain, the mood of Seattle during recession, daylight saving going away, no chance to workout this week. Sigh. I have a saying on my white board: No one dies if it doesn't get done today. I wrote on the side in response: It only feels like it.

Another recession sign is that the campaign questions I'm getting are far more pointed. Not a surprise really. The off the wall flaky ones we get from possible donors during a boom year aren't bothering to give anything this year, so no questions from them.

Saving log - $0 tip box + $40 DRP1 + $100 DRP2
Spending log - $17 brunch (for 2)

We finished a brunch card, so we got a free entree this morning. Top of the month we paid the rent, and I figured out how much to put into DRPs. Funny how when I send a bit of money to the transfer agents I get bummed if their stock prices go up.

Seattle is wearing its November soggy togs, but the leaves are much better this year than usual. Hard to find small change through the leaves.


But along my walk, I've been noticing the signs of the times. Exhibit 1: a bit of paranoia. He's had this sign for years, but the sign itself is a fresh version.


There's that word "layaway" again, this time out in front of a hip Seattle boutique.


Not a funny or a repent sign in front of this church, more of a "we've all lost money together" vibe.


This condo was for sale for the longest time with no bites. Now its time for a different tack.

A different sign had "only 3 left". There were 6 "townhomes" (why can't anyone say house anymore?). A 50% closing rate is decent, but belies the urgency of the "only". It always pays to do the math.

The lack of a sign is the sign here, yet the sign post remains. A bit of schaudenfruede here - the sign had a price of the princely sum of "$750,000". If I'm asking for 3/4 of mil, the least I could get is a perfect picture window (note the plastic). Back to the picture. No sign, so did the house get sold? Unlikely - why keep the sign post? Rented out - perhaps, because there were fresh items in the window. Owners give up for the selling season? Probably. See ya next spring.


Our final exhibit. It made me laugh. I'm fairly sure, based on the placement and expression of the various characters, the bar is advertising to Democrats. Alcohol is the universal solvent - equally useful in both celebration and condolence. Can get them coming and going, as grandpa used to say.

Lay-away. Wow. I actually heard this on a TV ad this evening. In Seattle. Or maybe I'm just more attuned to 70s thinking.

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $3 coffee, muffin + $7 lunch + $8 groceries

Had a meeting before work, so I bought a coffee and muffin. Had lunch at Uwajimaya, where everything was 10% off, in honor of their 80th anniversary. Bought yogurt at the grocery store on the way home, talked with the woman who was selling Real Change out front, bought the Real Change, then also bought a chicken salad sandwich for her on the way out. We'll be buying sandwiches for each other before this recession is through.

Speaking of that, with all that is going on and with the new and returning folks reading the blogs, I want to reprise a post from March. I don't know whether it bothers folks or comforts folks to know that all the things they are seeing with the slowdown and the stock crash are really well-worn paths. Its basic, sure, because we've trod on this road before.

What a recession can teach you about money

Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $9 lunch

I opened up my Ameriprise quarterly report this evening. This was the account that grandma's inheritance was put into. In April I moved the money into Vanguard. More precisely, I cleaned out all but $1.96. Hence the quarterly report.

It turns out that the Ameriprise cash sweep account was administered by The Reserve, one of whose funds "broke the buck" by 3 cents in mid-September. (In other words, a 3% loss, unheard of in an MMA). The Ameriprise newsletter says they will be using 33M of their own money (?! - I suspect its OPM) to "mitigate losses".

Well, I'm pretty sure that my 6 cents will be mitigated, but I don't think my sister moved her money anywhere, so I suspect that her mitigation will be less of a no-brainer.

I feel a little like the combat soldier who, when taking off his helmet, finds that little circle of daylight near the top.

In other news, my electric bill is only $47 (for two months). We've used less juice than the August - October before.

KO is now less than $42/share, so I will write a check out for that DRP. Will also be disciplined and add $40 to MMM. $50 already went to IP.

And I'm not kidding when I say that I am freakishly lucky also with ... fortune cookies. Everyone else gets the weird one or the klinker that you need the "in bed" for, not me. Today's fortune: "Prosperity is in your future."

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $13 lunch

I looked at the totals of all of my accounts and compared them to the numbers that I ran on my net worth on 6/30/2008.

I've lost $25.7K since late June.

Today, my dividend stock portfolio, about 4% of my total net worth, is down about 16%. KO is still showing a profit - my average share cost of KO is $42, so it has to drop a bit more before I lose money. WEC is also showing the barest of profit (8$). In other words, both have "the margin of safety".

If KO gets down to $42, I think that's when I will buy more. The rest of the DRPs I will maintain the discipline and dollar cost average. Dip implies a drop and then a rise. Well, while I believe in the rise, it looks far, far away.

In May last year, I re-allocated my 403B holdings to (for me) a very conservative mix - 30% bond, 20% cash, 10% gov bonds, 40% stock. (I was 90% stock, 10% bond). I

blogged about it quickly, but didn't discuss it much in real life. I figured I would get teased for trying to "time the market". I'm glad I did, and would do it again - I'm down about 10% on the 403B holdings.

The rest is cash and cash equivalents (T-bills, I-bonds). Most of grandma's inheritance is still in a cash money market in Vanguard. Vanguard is participating in the Treasury Guarantee program, so if it "breaks the buck", we'll all be standing around burn barrels to keep warm.

So far I've kept my nose above water and have done much, much better than many. I do want to explore getting out of the very conservative mix of my 403B (stocks are about to get cheap enough for buying on that margin of safety), but I want to do so in a thoughtful, calculated way. I plan on blogging my thoughts, calculations, and analysis. I've been giving advice to others about looking into what they have in mutual funds and making reasonable decisions based on that. Time to practice what I preach.

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $3.26 bagel, coffee + $1.75 decaf coffee

Stopped by the office yesterday to pick up my dirty gym clothes, after the night ride I washed and dried them. Today I delivered them back to the office, then I walked the 7 miles home.

Odd ball observation on the way home: I had a woman ask me for a dollar as I crossed a street downtown. That wasn't so odd. It was odd because she was well dressed, relatively stylish combo of pants and heels and not in jeans. She appeared to be walking with another woman, also stylish. I was dressed in my running tights and track jacket. Why did she ask me for a dollar? Why did she need a dollar from me? If she got caught short she looked like she had plastic...or did. And just a dollar. Was she breaking the ice - or practicing depression-era skills just for me?

I got asked for change a couple of more times, each from expected sources. In that aspect, the world was righted again.

On the way home I found a dime on the ground and got a free coffee card.

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $15 chirashi-sushi lunch + $11 groceries

Things I noticed today:

1. The digestion of WaMu is happening with all possible speed. My linked ING account already recognizes my old WaMu account as a JPMorgan Chase account. That happened in the last couple of days.

2.

Overstock.com Real Estate? Right? Wrong? The making of a foreclosure market and a symptom of things to come? The big question: Free Shipping? The little question: why so many questions? Oh yes, I clicked in it for my zip code. Shacks or egregiously over-priced items with no 50% off. We have a long way to go.

3. Discovered that my congressman switched his vote on the "rescue" from yes to no. Time to write him a thank you note.

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $6 lunch

Only went for the 6 inch sub today. It came with chips and a soda and for $4.99. With tax it came to $5.35, and I tossed in the change for karmic tip.

The COO gave a 10 minute lunchtime talk about the financial crisis, then threw it open for questions and comments for the hour. There wasn't any mind-blowing analysis or pearls of wisdom, or even any good advice. The really unusual thing was that we had a special meeting about it. The last time we had a special meeting like this was after 9/11.

After the meeting I realized that I didn't do what I normally do - provide some sort of lightness. Heard any good jokes about this crisis? I've heard only one:

Q: What's the difference between a Lehman trader and a pigeon?
A: The pigeon can still make a deposit on a Ferrari.

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

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


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

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

I do think we are now in a first phase of very steep patch of

deflation - money is disappearing, stocks are dropping, assets are consolidated, the credit bubble is popping, margin and debt is left to default, consumption contracts. This unwinding is a process with more pain to come - even during the GD, its not as if stockbrokers jumped on Oct 30.

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

Sister mailed me another box of vegetables of various sorts. Mostly root vegetables, but a few ears of corn, husk still on. I'll have to mention that while the corn looked fine, a day or two in dark in the mail turned lovely sweet corn into bits of starch.

Made a ratatouille out of what I got. I only got a little Japanese eggplant, so its less rat and more vegetable stew. I only had to buy a large yellow onion to start things off, which I got for $1/lb.

DH sometimes reads my blog so I really shouldn't write that there was kohlrabi, turnip, beet, that little eggplant ... all the veg that he hates, but what the hey it cleared out my countertops wonderfully.

I also sacrificed our large chard for the stew. I was sad to see it go, so here's a picture in memoriam.


And yes, I got my new camera 2 days ago. I wanted to post a topical picture yesterday - 2 honesty boxes each with the WaMu dead headline - but the picture was too large for the blog. I dropped the megapixel setting. We'll see how well that works.

A couple of economic items at work, overshadowed by the WaMu collapse:

1. A

largish law firm is going under; we won't get pledge payments from them from now on. I worked with their payroll officer and sent my condolences.
2. Our non-profit moved in 2003. We use a bond to pay for the commercial mortgage. Apparently the interest rate our non-profit pays has gone from a pittance (0.1%) to not a pittance (+6%). A case where we see the strains.