The Weight of Money

I’m one of those people that spend money when stressed. The past two weeks at work, this has certainly been the case as I’m struggling with one malfunction after another and will only make tomorrows deadline with less sleep and more hours on task. Of course, the daughter would have a choir performance this week, of course I’ll be going, but it is making the situation all the more challenging.

When stressed I spend and eat and typically both at the same time — eating out. When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I want to escape obligations — I don’t want to labor in the kitchen, I don’t want to think of what to make, I don’t want to clean up after myself. So, I’ll justify eating out when our budget is already stretched thin, and will even support the experience when the daughter calls, from the backseat, “I thought we’ve been eating out too much.”

This response isn’t feeling as comforting as it used to, though. We went out to eat on Sunday and the guilt started piling up before we were seated. The rationalization of having leftovers to take to work eased the tensions, but the meal just wasn’t as nice of an experience as it should have been. Eating out and spending money, in general, is finally becoming unattractive. Instead of longing for meals made by someone else, I’m now wishing for my own wonderful cooking and a kitchen continually stocked and ready for culinary perfection. I long for the wholesome meals that you want to savor and eat again every night of the week. I don’t get those feelings when eating out. Eating out is a convenience, an escape, an experience I’m growing weary of.

I’ve always been partial to eating out, more likely to peak in my wallet than to peak in the pantry. Now, I just want to go home this evening, enjoy a nice concert, and go home and make something filling and simple. I’m tired of spending money, I’m tired of eating out, and I think that exhaustion will finally overpower the tiredness that typically prompts eating out. In further reflection, all I can really say is that it is about time.

I have my car back and it only set us back $400 (only, ha!). The partner tossed it on the credit card, per my request, as I figured out where we could pull the money from. At home, I fiddled with the budget and started taking a little here and there. I reduced:

· groceries

· eating out

· transportation

· medical

· household

The grocery and transportation budget seemed the easiest place to cut. We’ve been over budgeting for transportation lately anyways, so I figured we wouldn’t notice a reduction there. The grocery and eating out budget would probably be noticeable, but we have a well stocked pantry and can certainly eat well with what we have. The medical reduction is just delaying a prescription refill until January, something that shouldn’t be a problem.

I told the partner of the plan and reductions and he insisted that we use his December personal money. While this will more than cover the shortfall that my reductions couldn’t meet, I feel guilty about using his personal funds to pay for my car repairs – especially since I’ve already allocated away the majority of my personal funds for December and cannot do the same.

I know I’ll have to use those funds; he’ll refuse to accept any other arrangement, but I will simply find a way to make up the difference in January. This is a good reminder that we could use an emergency fund and we’ll start one next year. In the mean time, we’ll take this in stride without dipping into our house savings and without reducing our debt reduction payments.

I’ve been lamenting the fact that I don’t have a proper winter coat. My first attempt to solve this was a trip to the thrift store without success. Saturday, I won a $50 department store gift card at the partner’s holiday party. The partner, noting my lack of winning enthusiasm, reminded me of the winter coat I’ve been wanting and I perked up.

Sunday morning we headed over to the mall so he could complete some holiday shopping (which came home in an oh-so-obvious pink bag) and I could find a coat. I wasn’t impressed with the coats and was overwhelmed by the prices.  The only coat I thought I could tolerate had a price tag of $500. $500 for a coat! The other coats of possibility were closer to the $200 range. $50 off $200 is not a good deal to me.

I browsed some other stores, found similar price tags on the wool coats I liked and decided that the new coat was more of a want than a need. Upon leaving the mall coat-less, my partner began his insistence that if I needed a coat I should get a coat regardless of my price concerns. He said he would be happy to give me a coat for Christmas and we should go pick one out.

However, I held firm that a purchase of that scale just didn’t fit in our financial goals at the moment and he eventually gave up. I said I’d try the thrift store again because even a tolerable coat for $20 is a better choice than an acceptable coat for $2000-500. Of course, I didn’t tell them that I’d also decide that the wool coat I’ve owned for 10 years is going to have to be good enough for another year, despite all its shortcoming.

I sent my mother a gift of savings along with an invite to join ING. No, this wasn’t just to get the $10 bonus, but it was to encourage her to at least start saving something. We often have talks about money and she’ll agree with many of my suggestions but say that she just can’t save. I figured that if I sent her some cash, a pretty good amount of cash, that it might encourage her to save. I was extra surprised to find out that she came up with the $250 needed to earn the $25 bounus — great. For me, it is a gift knowing that she has started the process and that maybe there’ll be something there when she needs it some day.

And the car saga begins — or is it simply a continuation? My car has been recently spotlighted here too many times and it looks like all my reluctance and concerns were valid.

Friday morning, running late for work, I found an ominous puddle spreading out from under my car. The water pump appears to have given up overnight admist the below freezing temperatures. The partner called for a tow to the shop that treated my so well last time and I’m expecting the estimate call today.

Thankfully I can use mass transit to get to work and, other than the disconcerting feeling of being car-less, it doesn’t cause any hardships to have it in the shop for a few days.

Yet, this unexpected situation comes just a week or so after getting it tagged and titled in state (the content of my previous debates). I feel like I’m at the top of the slippery slope where everything is downhill from here. I remind myself that my car is the best vehicle we own. Our two other vehicles seem to teeter on the edge of operable and failure. We’ve already agreed that vehicle #2 (the “family car”) will be disposed of the next time it breaks because we’re not putting any more money into it. Vehicle #3 goes to emission testing this week and there is an air of unstated concern as to whether or not it’ll actually pass. I’ll have faith that we’ll still have at least two working vehicles when 2007 starts.

These are all new year resolution-type goals. I want them in place before the year begins because I’m all about fresh beginnings and starting over at crucial moments. So, I’ll leave skip the dollarbill hoop jumping out this month and focus on preparing for the new year.

Goal: Reorganize budget categories to reflect current spending.
I’m frustrated with the available budget categories. In August, I developed the current list of categories but have found them inadequate over the past three months. Also, I need to customize YNAB to suit our needs instead of customizing our needs to suit YNAB.

Now, customizing this budget is taking more work than expected. There are several crucial elements in the spreadsheet that I cannot find. This places me at a standstill and I’m adamant that I will figure it out before the new year.

Goal: Develop a written plan for debt reduction.
We’re reducing our credit card debt at, what feels to be, a haphazard approach. When there is extra money, it gets thrown at the debt. Arbitrarily, I decide to round up minimum payments by $50 increments. What I want is a detailed plan that shows where we are at and where we’ll be at with our current methods and spending (argh).

Goal: Develop a written plan for savings.
This applies to the debt reduction plan. Since the house purchase adventure will resume in a few months, we need to build our savings up to be even more prepared for round two.

The partner has become an ebaying machine. All his free time is spent gathering items, taking pictures, doing research, and posting auctions. I feel inspired. I feel excited. Stuff is leaving our lives and that money is comingit. Good.

I want to join him, but I can’t find things to sell. So, I started browsing through listings to hopefully spark some ideas on things that I could sell. I continued searching for items and found something – a sticker/laminate/magnet maker, and I bought it. Wait!!! That wasn’t the plan. I wasn’t supposed to be buying things off ebay. Bad.

In an attempt to make up for the $50 purchase, I decided to kick up my research and committed to list something right away. Later that week, I stopped at the thrift store to find a winter coat – it is starting to get cold. Instead of a coat for myself, I found a beautiful fur coat for $25. “Oh look, something for ebay – maybe.”

While chatting with the partner about getting it listed, I continued browsing the auctions and found some more auctions that looked interesting. I bid and lost. I bid again and lost. Rinse, repeat. This should have stopped there, but no, I bid on a couple other stamps in order to combine shipping and “increase my ebay feedback.” Sigh.

So now, I’m in the hole about $90 to ebay and still haven’t listed anything. I’ve got some serious work to do in order to make that amount back. But, I’m sure I can do it, I think. I’m hoping the coat will sell for at least $40 and I’m gonna clean out some old clothes for a few dollars here and there and, just maybe, I can get my money back by the end of the month.

In the meantime, the partner keeps pulling in money. Now, as long I spend less than he brings in, we’re doing good.  Hopefully we’ll be tracking ebay income/expenses next month.

Last month, I set myself up to succeed in reaching our financial goals and I did just that.

Goal: Reduce Credit Card debt by 30%
Accomplished: Well, sort of. We put $5,500+ toward the credit cards as planned. However, there were a couple card purchases that may offset this 30% decrease somewhat. Most notably are the plant tickets for my grandma’s birthday party in January. So, once the bills come in, we’ll see what impact that will have and whether or not we’ll have the cash to just cover the additional purchases.

Goal: Begin funding the daughter’s saving account.
Accomplished: I did just that.

Goal: Transfer all personal bill pay accounts to joint account.
Accomplished: Done.

Goal: Set up dentist appointments for all family members.
Accomplished: The partner and I went to the dentist and used up the remaining FSA funds. We didn’t need to take the daughter and she isn’t due to an appointment anyway — it will be better to take her next year on the next FSA allocation.

I’m very proud of meeting these goals and it makes me feel like I can stretch to reach some more challenging goals next month. Now, just to figure out what they are going to be and the holiday brainwashing may mean that staying within budget is a major goal.

Overall I’m pleased with the budget this month.

Dining out is still too high, but we’re working on that. Basically, until my job situation improves, this is probably just the reality of our life.

Groceries were exceptionally high because of a trip to costco. Also, I don’t take the time to pick out household purchases from the food purchases, so it all looks like a big food budget when we go to costco.

Gasoline is one of the better categories since we spent less than $150 on gas (we originally budgeted about $300 for gas). My commuting to work and general exhaustion in the evenings has reduced my fill ups to once a month. For some reason, the partner’s gas usage is also down, along with a significant decrease in gasoline prices. Last month, we spend $281.79 on gas.

Medical was high because of a dentist appointment — just what we needed to use up the rest of the FSA.

Cell phone has been ridiculously high because I’ve been going over my plan for several months in a row. I finally got a clue, realized I wasn’t decreasing my talk time, and upgraded my plan. Argh. I also eliminated my text messaging plan because I never use it anymore.

Savings did not get deposited in November and the $300 will be added to the December deposit.

Next month I’ll try to look at the ebay progress that the partner is making. I think we’re finally agreeing on what to do with the money which is only coming in at about $500 month right now. It’ll probably end up in savings until we get the house under way and then go toward paying off debt once that is in order.
There may be some changes based on credit card purchases once the bills arrive. I’m actually looking forward to seeing one of the bill this month.