disconnected

A few months back I had an interesting experience happen to me. I walked out of my office building and left my phone behind. I was halfway across the busy street before I realized what I had done. And I couldn't go back and get it! I was rushing to a doctors' appointment and I hated the idea of being late. I had to take a train, a bus, and walk a few blocks so any false moves would have put me off schedule! What to do?! I didn't suspect anyone would steal my phone. I was certain it would be safe at the office overnight. So I kept walking. And I was right, the next morning it was right by the coat rack, where I had set it as I put on my coat.

But that evening was almost torture. I felt like a fish in a puddle;  not really gasping for air but definitely tense. I was bored on the train and had only a newspaper for entertainment. Gone was my music, the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, puzzles and games, the internet. All gone!

As I exited the train station, I decided to make a phone call to my husband so he wouldn't worry if he had been trying to contact me. I had enough change, but lo and behold! The price was double what I recall it being just a few short years ago. I wasn't about to pay 50 cents to make a phone call and I ended up asking the receptionist at the doctors' office to allow me to use the phone.

The next day when I went to work and found my phone, I hadn't missed any calls, and there were no text messages.

There are people in America who live without cell phones. In fact I am acquainted with two or three of them. But it isn't something I thought I could do. I'm sure it takes some careful planning when everyone around you is accustomed to nearly constant contact. But it must also be somewhat freeing not to always be reachable.

Do it Yourself!

One of the great money-saving principles in personal finance is DIY, i.e. do it yourself. This isn’t just a way of saving money, it also expands your horizons and can lead you to an interesting hobby. Depending on what we do for ourselves, we may even improve our health, increase our net worth, make new friends, and learn marketable skills.

A forum I occasionally read lurk on asked what we do for ourselves. It was asked in the form of a sentence you could complete. I am my own. . . .

Some people completed the statement with what they were. Others found it easier to saw what they weren’t and those included tasks that one might be better off paying someone else to do such as legal representation (not much cramps your style worse than losing out in a court of law).

So I got myself thinking as to what it is that I do for myself that I could easily pay others or buy a machine to do.

1.      Stylist/hair dresser

2.      Cook (most days)

3.      Dishwasher (when hubby isn’t washing up)

4.      Pet groomer

5.      Pet food supplier (we make it from scratch with ingredients we buy)

6.      House cleaner

7.      Accountant (we do our own taxes with the help of software)

8.      Personal trainer (though not much is happening recently in this arena)

9.      Manicurist (I notice some of the wealthiest people just have neat, unpainted nails so I rarely do mine anyway).

10.  Eyebrow shaper (They don’t have to be model-thin, just neat).

That being said, Dave Ramsey Dave Ramsey’s FB team recently posted the following, “When your budget is tight, don’t spend money on things you could easily do yourself”.

Now that word “Easily” is a tricky one. Suppose I’m a wimp and I think that washing dishes myself will ruin my gel manicure that I had to pay someone to do because I don’t have the equipment at home? Or suppose I am an excuse-maker. Suppose I say that pet nutrition is too complicated and I should trust a large company that can claim that vets trust their brand for the best pet health? [Side note: National brands made my cats seriously overweight to the point one was unable to clean himself. The whole point of cat ownership is the low maintenance, right? So I feed my cats chopped meat mixed with this and they lost the weight and no longer have to ask me to wipe their butts].

I think a dose of ¡Si se puede! is necessary for some people, including myself. One of the forum participants mentioned some work she did in her bathroom after a strong pep talk and a few youtube videos. So far, success! Another blogger recently renovated her kitchen cabinets and with a little help from family reinstalled them. Neither of those tasks were easy (though I admit the mental part of the game was likely tougher than the skill part) but they weren't all that hard either.

Soooo what is there I’m not doing that I could be doing for myself to get mad skillz, save money, and have interesting stories to tell about how I got that scar? A few ideas come to mind:

·         Car repair

·         Baking

·         Investing

·         . . .

Pricey habit

At my workplace we have a couple of coffee makers. One is a fancy brand named monstrosity with a hopper on top that makes freshly ground and brewed coffee while you wait (it's only half bad). The other is a regular old coffee pot that we use for average cups of decaf. The decaf is my choice of drink, but sometimes I make the mistake of stopping at a store on my way to work for iced coffee.

First off, I've got to stop that because nobody sells decaf iced coffee so I get weird feelings and thoughts of paranoia.

Second off, iced coffee is easy enough to make.

I simply take the last bit of coffee from the pot that nobody wants to drink. Pour it into my cup, let it cool, covered on my desk. Then place it in the freezer in the break-room. Later on when it is half frozen, add milk (I keep soy in the fridge and nobody touches it), sugar, stir. It's icy, but when the ice melts, it won't water down my coffee. Sometimes this is good, and sometimes this is bad.

Now I just have to start bringing my own lidded cup with a straw to work so I can stop throwing plastic cups into the landfill (in my city they don't recycle number 5 plastic and I'm too lazy to collect them and take them to the one place that does).

I'm partway through a book that has reminded me of David Bach's "latte factor" so pardon me while I do a little math.

If I avoid buying iced or hot coffee for $2.99 at New York's more affordable donut chain a couple times a week, I'm saving myself over $300 per year, and as much as $3,000 over the next 10 years. I can already think of what I'd rather spend that money on.

1. a cruise for hubby and myself to the Caribbean with all the fixins

2. 3 trips with hubby to the local men's suit shop for 3 suits on sale. Yes, that is 9 suits over the next 10 years.

3. 2 LV handbags and 1 clutch at retail (I would never buy luxury bags brand new. . . they are just like cars with depreciation so I could probably get 6 LV bags secondhand never mind how many C0ach).

4. Stocks that could appreciate to $14,000 over an additional 20 years.
5. Or if I just start investing about $25/month I could have $52,000 after 35 years. 

Some of those alternatives for the money I could be spending on coffee are not that motivating. The ones that require even more saving are not that attractive. I guess because the tangible, the status symbols, and the just plain fun are still somewhat my focus.

Murphy got me

There's a guy we all know and don't like and his name is Murphy. He has a bunch of laws. One of the most memorable for me is that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. And boy, didn't it.

A few months ago I had an appointment for my regular check-up at the dentist. Sadly I couldn't make it in time and had to cancel. My new job is very far away from my dentist. I rescheduled for late last month and showed up a week too early. Sigh. Big misunderstanding. Anyway, I had some time off coming up and I rescheduled again.

The assistant did my x-rays, and the dentist came in and did my cleaning and exam. I was proud of myself as it seemed I was flying through this dental appointment without a hitch. Then, at the end, came the news. I had cavities! Why didn't he tell me that at the beginning? He asked if I was flossing my teeth (well, not as much as I know I should). He also asked if I had been rinsing with mouthwash. Honest answer, not at all. I hate the mouthwash my husband likes because when I use it my mouth burns so much that I see stars! But we had talked about that last time and I didn't do anything much about it. After fighting my way through a bottle of alcohol-free stuff, I gave up.

Well, I should have. It's going to cost over $200 to repair the damage that was largely preventable. It's not that I can't afford it. It's just I hadn't budgeted for that and it didn't have to be this way!

I'm kind of embarrassed and definitely mad at myself. And I'm stamping my feet and saying "it's not fair". My husband brushes for half the time I do and seems to only remember to floss when he sees me flossing and yet he never has cavities!

However, I learned from this experience. The dentist suggested some techniques:

1. use a mouthwash that claims to prevent cavities and restore enamel. Even though the enamel restoration hasn't been proven long-term, for the short term it might help.

2. don't rinse with water after brushing. Allow the toothpaste to remain on  your teeth so they can absorb the fluoride.

3. brush for upwards of 3 minutes to give the teeth more exposure to the fluoride (I'm still working on this).

And next time, hopefully I can walk out of there with my wallet and my pride intact.

Death and Taxes

One of the things I've become interested in lately is local real estate.  While perusing RE listings for areas near me I've increasingly wondered why taxes are so high outside of New York City; especially in towns where there is obvious urban blight and the schools are easily as bad as or worse than some just south of the Westchester border. Here is an excellent, if dated discussion:

Why Are Our Taxes So #%*! High? - Westchester Magazine - June 2010 - Westchester, NY

Reading List

I recently borrowed these books from the public library and read them (well, all of one and most of the other two). These notes are for my future reference.

Psych Yourself Rich

Get the Mindset and Discipline You Need to Build your Financial Life

By Farnoosh Torabi

This book was pretty good but I couldn't quite finish reading it. Honestly, the writing style wasn't quite for me. However, the anecdotes the author provided from her stint on a financial makeover-style show were quite interesting. Yet I felt like this book is for someone who is just beginning their financial life. 

The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough

How Five Young Women Got Smart, Formed A Money Club, and Took Control of Their Finances

With Jennifer Barrett

Although the cover of this book turned me off, I decided to try and read it. It was very good. Because the book was written from the perspective of five different women, there was someone most women can relate to. One person was a divorcee, another had ended a long-term relationship, while yet another was embarking upon marriage. They were all women who had made some blunders and wanted to get clean up the mess and create success. I confess I skipped over one of the chapters but I felt I got some really good stuff from this book. One good thing I took away was the idea that you should invest in yourself. One individual increased her salary by 20K just by beginning a MSW degree. I'm not in that field but it encouraged me to think about ways I can increase my value.

The Five Lessons A Millionaire Taught Me for Women

By Paul Richard Evans

Most unique idea: buying silver coins instead of bags and shoes as a way of satisfying the hunger to shop, yet still purchasing something that can be considered an investment. (caveat: As investments go, I guess this is alright provided our world economy doesn't collapse or we don't have a large-scale natural disaster. In that case, as Dave Ramsey would say, a pair of clean blue jeans, a gallon of gas, or clean drinking water will get you more in trade.)

I would read this book again. I felt the lessons were well-illustrated with examples. I also liked the author's philosophy and writing style. This book got me to pause and take stock again of what I'm doing and where I want to go. It also encouraged me to think about the types of investments I would like to have in my portfolio (not just my stock portfolio).

pop

New York City Mayor Bloomberg's so-called soda ban has made headlines over the last year or so, and came to a head this week when a judge dropped the kibosh on the new law.

In reality the legislation is not actually a ban on soda, it is a ban on the size of the beverage container. Certain stores and restaurants may not sell a sugary beverage that is 16 ounces or larger. The issue is really about how much sugar is in each ounce of the beverage. When you look at what is recommended for our diets, vs. what is in an 8 ounce soda, it is a wonder people can drink 16 ounces of soda and still live. The average soda in the average deli has 40 grams of sugar in one serving. That is already double the recommended daily amount of added sugar, per day for an adult female (20 grams or 5 teaspoons). For men it is slightly more (9 teaspoons, or 36 grams) . So if an 8 ounce can of soda puts you over your limit for two days, a 16 ounce soda is enough added sugar to last you most of the week. Drink one of these a few times a week and you're already on your way to moving the needle on the scale.

A lot of opinions have been given on whether this ban is good for New Yorkers, ineffective for controlling obesity, bad for businesses, or just plain overstepping boundaries. News outlets have looked at this issue from different perspectives. I've even seen beverage delivery trucks with signs painted on suggesting that our freedom is being encroached upon.

However, for me, this is a none-issue. As someone who is trying to be frugal, I generally make an effort not to buy beverages at all! With my lunch, if I'm thirsty I drink water. At home we do purchase bottled juice from the supermarket but try to stick with the cheapest ones. And then I water them down for myself as they are bit too sweet for me. At restaurants, mostly we stick to water. This is good for my wallet, and good for my waistline. Oh yes, and my kidneys too!