The Weight of Money

Welcome to the Sixth Carnival of Ethics, Values and Personal Finance. This carnival highlights how your values affect your financial decisions. Whether it’s what you buy, where you invest, or where you work, we want to hear when and how your beliefs and ethics play a role in your personal finance decisions.

Thank you to everyone who submitted an article; I’ve tried to keep all the included articles in line with the goals of the carnival. I hope you enjoy the following articles and consider participating in the next carnival, hosted by Ben at Money Smart Life (submit your article here).

1. Rich presents WWYD: Cheating on Your Taxes? posted at Queercents.
2. TBH presents Working mothers: What are we teaching our children? posted at Tired but happy.
3. Living Almost Large presents Frugal Superman posted at Living Almost Large.
4. Alan presents The Worst Boss Ever – Sound familiar? posted at Made to Be Great.
5. Mr Credit Card presents Should You Pay Off Old Credit Card Debts? posted at Ask Mr Credit Card’s Blog.
6. ispf presents Going To College Vs Starting Your Own Business posted at Grad Money Matters.
7. Eric presents Practical Reasons to Eat Less Meat posted at saving simply.
8. Patricia presents Immediate Gratification posted at A Better You Blog.
9. Silicon Valley Blogger presents How To Throw A Kid’s Birthday Party Without Spending A Fortune posted at The Digerati Life.

Deciding which posts were on-topic or not was a little difficult for a couple posts and I included a couple that teetered on the edge a bit. If your post wasn’t included, you may always try again and maybe another host will be a little more inclusive.

We finally met with a new mortgage broker. The broker we were using last year dropped out of the business and we’ve been trying to find someone new. I think I like this one, she seems really on top of things, supportive on our needs, and willing to do whatever to help us into a house.

So, we now have some new numbers to go with. Last year we were looking at 150K-175K for a house. We’re now looking more in the 200K-250K range. That really helps us find something, but it is still slim pickin’s. These numbers will help us move forward and give us something real to work from instead of the numbers I was making up.

Oh yeah, those are not “what we’re approved for” numbers, those are numbers based on what we want to spend a month. Of course the bank will give us much more (much, much more) but were smarter than thinking we can afford what the bank wants to give us.

I’ll be hosting the next Carnival of Ethics, Values, and Personal Finance. Already, the posts have been rolling in and most have been on topic. You have until March 28 (I believe) to submit an on-topic post here. Please keep the posts on topic, if I need to mentally stretch to make the connection, your post probably won’t make it into the carnival. Remember that this is a bi-weekly carnival, you’ve got time to get something in.

I’ve got a thing for sushi, such wonderful,, yummy goodness. But, it comes with a price tag that puts it on the very-rare treat list. It wasn’t always that way though. I used to go our for sushi a couple times a month and threw away lots of money on getting the good stuff. But, now that I’m being a more responsible steward of our dollars, sushi is a luxury that never happens.

The I-want-sushi desire hit this weekend and it hit hard. Every time the partner would mention something about food, groceries, or dinner, I’d start pushing to go get sushi. “You want to spend $100 on dinner?” He’d want to know — no, not really. Sushi for two doesn’t really cost us $100, but getting out for less than $60 would be an achievement. Throwing the $100 amount out there helped paint the picture.

So, how to manage the hyper-drive-cravings that show up with the scaling-back-to-buy-a-house budget we’re living with? For one thing, it’ll include skipping out on sushi for dinner. But, all is not lost. I now work within walking distance to one of my favorite sushi places, so maybe, just maybe, I’ll stop in for a lunch special that will fit my budget and take care of that urging.

I’m getting swamped at work this week. I’ve got some new stuff to report, but it’ll have to wait until I’ve extinguished a few fires first. Just to avoid a two line entry, I’ve included a mini-rant that makes fire fighting frustrating.

I’ve mentioned working in a corporate office with all sorts of procedures and policies. I hate it with a passion. I can’t stand the thumb-pressing and constant micromanaging that happens in my department. It does nothing but adds more work to my limited schedule and makes me surly. Yes, surly. Since I don’t feel that I’m in a career advancement mode and am merely buying time till we move and I can leave, I don’t feel obligate to hide my frustration with this process. However, that ain’t the best way to work and I’m constantly needing to recheck my reactions, facial expressions, and outcries of disbelief (”what!? that ain’t happening.”). But today, things are just really getting under my skin because this office is full of subtle, passive aggression and constant little stabs at making others look bad. Yeah, it’s a non-profit organization, but one where getting to the top is more important than getting things done. Mini-rant concluded.

It’s just money was looking for week one updates. I missed out on week one, but did put in some trades on Saturday. Finally, this morning they updated.

Thanks to a slow internet connection at home (hopefully thats fixed now), I didn’t bother researching the stocks I was buying and made up numbers. Seems like I ended up buying:

• 10,000 shares of apple worth $898,700,
• 3 shares of Fedex worth $345.42 (versus the 100 I tried to order), and
• 222 shares for google worth $100,954 (versus the 1,000) I tried to order.

Wow, google is ridiculously expensive — sheesh.

Obviously, I had some optimistic goals for what things cost — maybe I was thinking we were playing with penny stocks or something. But, I didn’t really want to mess with it and figured picking any company for any random amount would be good enough.

So, maybe I’ll bother adding some diversification — especially since apple is eating up all my dough. I am considering netflix since I just read some good news about the new on-demand online streaming of movies they’ll be offering soon — too bad I wasn’t included in the trial run. However, I’ll prolly just let things stand because I’m not in the mood to mess with the site and it is such a joke anyways since they take forever to even process your orders.

Overall, I think the contest/game is a failure.

I’m still having trouble getting links to comment authors. Seeing as how links mean a lot in the web world, I feel that not linking up approved comments to their author’s site isn’t good practice. However, I’ve done everything I can think of to make this work.

Finally, I found a site stating that this is actually a problem only with firefox — IE users have been able to see these links all along. Great! Wait, not great! Who uses IE anyways — don’t answer that. I want my site to work with the browser of choice (my choice and should be yours too, but thats a topic for another forum).

It looks like it might be a css problem, but I haven’t been able to pin it down. But, I guess it isn’t a big deal and the links to other sites are there, firefox users just can’t click on them. Maybe someone will present a solution, or maybe I’ll just worry about more serious issues — like debt utilization and paying bills on time.

My credit scores are already looking better. Not because of a recent increase, but because I found my reports from last September. I pulled the reports and scores, planning to start this ball rolling, and was very discouraged with what I found.

In just 5 months, my credit score has leapt up a combined 168 points!! Woot!

Credit Scores:
TransUnion up 58 points: 572 (09/27/2006) to 630 (03/08/2007)
Experian up 110 points: 549 (09/27/2006) to 659 (03/08/2007)

Wow, I am at a much brighter point today. Looking at the two reports, here are the changes and possible contributions to the increased score:

TransUnion went from 7 negative accounts to 5 and from 2 inquiries to just 1.
Experian went from 2 negative accounts to 3 and from 0 inquiries to 1. (ummm…)

Since those changes don’t seem to explain much, I’m guessing the positive leap in score stems from the partner adding me to one of his credit cards that gives me a credit history of 17+ years and a perfect payment record for that card. Also, my student loans are now in repayment and every payment has been made on time.

I’m much happier about my credit score seeing the drastic improvement in just the past several months. Hopefully the tactics I’ll be using will increase it another 70+ points. I’m hoping for a minimum score of 700, though that may be a long shot.

In more credit news, I just called (make the call) to increase our credit limit on one of our cards to reduce the utilization rate. I’m trying to do everything we can to be in a very positive situation for buying a house.

I often fantasize about winning the lottery, especially with the recent high dollar jackpot. In fact, that is the only argument I have for playing: $1 for a little big-money dreaming is worth it. Of course, I usually forget to buy a ticket and so I’ve been dreaming for free lately.

Last night, I went on another fantasy binge of thinking about what I would do with all that cash. From the outset, I’ve already admitted that money would change things. For all those people who insist it won’t change anything, no, it’s going to make a difference. The first consideration I have is dealing with family and money. Even in my fantasy world, I’m already feeling too stingy.

It isn’t that I wouldn’t want to help my family out, because I’d do anything and everything I could for my mom and grandma. But, for all the other family that I never see, I wouldn’t be feeling as generous as I’d be expected to be. And then there is the partner’s family, what are the implications going to be for them too? Paying off mortgages and establishing college funds for all the kids seems like possibility, but where would the line be drawn and should the line be drawn? Here in fantasy land, I’ve not even bought anything with my new imaginary money and I’m already stressing about the situations it’ll cause.

Next come charity contributions, because I surely wouldn’t just throw a “mine, mine, mine” fit, or would I. Several years ago, I said that if I ever won the lottery, I would buy a building for the preschool/child care center that my daughter attended. They rent two locations and had to close one center when their landlord decided it was time to go. Since I feel that their operation is an amazing one, I’d love to support them in some way (maybe they won’t want their own building). Funny thing is that I fell behind on payments with this organization, was forced to stop taking my daughter there, and eventually sued for the tuition owed — yet I would still do this for them.

Not knowing how I’d really handle the charitable giving, I move on to what I’ll actually buy. First up is a house and not some McMansion towering over the neighbors. In fact, I’d opt out of having neighbors and get lots and lots of land. Older farm houses built around 1900 seem to be my style of choice and I’d certainly want to make that dream come true. But, then comes the updating needed and also outfitting the house. For any renovations, I’d have a mental challenge of maintaining historic integrity and updating with all green materials. For home furnishings, would be acceptable to get rid of everything we have (all used, hand-me downs) and replace it or should I hold on to what I have? I’d want to switch to greener items in the household, be able to buy all organic cotton sheets and furnishings that suit my values. Last night, a new idea came to mind: fully outfitting our house with solar, wind, and hydro power. The cost of solar panels wouldn’t be out of reach anymore and we could get enough to cover our needs.

Then clothing. Part of me would want a major shopping spree — but is that just contributing to mass consumerism and hurting the environment more than helping it? What about shopping in 100% independent, perhaps locally owned shops for my clothing and then donating what I own (not much)?

Going beyond material processions, how will the money change my interests and social interactions? Will I suddenly feel like it’s my responsibility to fund things I could pay for before? Will my volunteer activities take on a new light when I know, and everyone else knows, that I could solve any financial problem the organization has without a second thought? Will I still want to have all seven children, or will there be too many other things available to fill me time? If I have the kids I want, would hiring a nanny as a helping hand be contrary to the family values I have or just be an extra helping hand? Speaking of kids, how will the influx of money change the daughter’s life? She already faces some social challenges; will being the mega-rich kid amplify those problems or mask them?

Already, in fantasy world, the money is bringing up all sorts of questions I don’t feel like I can answer. Perhaps that is a sign that I shouldn’t even play the lottery if I don’t know what I do with the money. Other than the simple, pay off all bills, everything else opens up new territories that would need some serious soul searching to figure out how that spending will line up with my values. And I don’t know how possible and realistic that soul searching would be when you know you’ve got a pile of cash waiting for you to sort everything out.

All that procrastination for 30 minutes of work to get the taxes filed. We used Turbo Tax for free e-file thanks to a link from our bank — maybe it’s free anyways. We then e-filed through our state’s website, also for free.

The Maryland website was terrible and made the whole e-file process rather nerve wracking because I wasn’t sure if I was filling things out right or not. I took solace in the fact that the numbers were pretty close to the ones I wrote up on paper and figured that despite the visually complicated process that things were filed correctly.

I’m still kicking myself for not doing this sooner, but at least it is done now. Hopefully we’ll have a refund earning interest in a couple weeks.

Overall, filing taxes reminds me that I really need to track some expenses and tack itemized deductions next year. There are so many areas where we could take deductions but haven’t kept receipts and good files in the past. Plus, we’ll have business income to report and it looks like it’ll be a break-even year since I’m still spending more on business expenses than what is coming in. I need to also figure out what business taxes I will owe too and make sure that I file them regularly to avoid in late penalties.