I suspect I am late to the game on my three facts of today. How did I miss these? They seem like I somehow should have learned them through the osmosis of adulting but that is not the case. Not at all. The Rule of 72 [calculator] “The rule says that to find the number of years required to double your money at a given interest rate, you just divide the interest rate into 72. For example, if you want to know how long it will take to double your money at eight percent interest, divide 8 into 72 and get 9 years.” (MoneyChimp) Or the way my mind works: 7.2% interest = 10 years to double money 10% interest = 7.2 years to double money Neither of these is possible with any savings or checking account that I know of, but, even with a moderate or conservative investment strategy, these results over time are typically attainable. Money makes money strikes again. When I have money, this fact makes me happy. When I don't, it makes me mad. So, yes, I knew that higher the interest, the more money you make (or spend if it is debt interest). But I did not know about the rule of 72. Back to the drawing board to see if I have any money that might be sitting around looking to be doubled. Much better potential returns than most people get when they play the lottery. Getting a good credit score which is necessary for things like a mortgage means you need to buy on credit. [Improving Credit Score] I kind of knew this one but the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems. If I open a credit card and don’t use it much, I am building credit. But, if I never open a credit card and have the same spending habits, I am not building credit. (No favorable loan for me!) If I save enough money to buy my car with cash rather than take a loan, I am not building credit, potentially hurting my credit score (assuming I would make the loan payments on time). This does not mean you can’t spend within your limits and avoid debt while still building credit. It does mean that you probably need a credit card that you pay off monthly to make this happen. Did a man invent this system? My brain hurts. Budget the money you have in savings. What? How did I miss this? Game changing for me. Rather than have (hopefully) a chunk of money in savings, decide what you are saving for and mentally put each of those savings dollars in an appropriate envelope. Say I have $5000 in savings. Rather than seeing it as one big number, I now divide it up. Perhaps $2000 is towards my next car, $500 towards insurance, etc. Some amount will need to be an emergency fund. Here's the hard part about the emergency fund - I only should break the glass when there is a true emergency. I hate that part. This way I am less tempted to spend the money only to realize a few months later that I don’t have it for the thing I need. Until recently, I thought this is what I was doing, but I was not and every car repair, medical bill, pretty much every non-monthly bill came as a surprise. You'd think after all this time, I'd stop being surprised. This year I adulted much better on this front. In the past I would have already spent saved money 2-3 times in my head and maybe have already spent it on a perceived need to then wonder where it had gone when the inevitable non-monthly but knowable bill showed up. Surprise!?
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During the first years of married life, I lived in Panama. I made just enough money to get through a month as long as nothing went wrong. This means I did not have enough money. I'd crunch numbers, take public transportation, walk, only order a drink when I went out with friends, but more often than I would like to remember, near the end of the month, I would be scrounging for pennies to be able to pay the 25 cents needed for bus fare. I could not figure out how to spend less or make more. Life was less expensive in Panama than in the US, but I could not get ahead financially.
I moved back to the States and started making enough and still found myself paying last month's bills with this month's pay check. I am not weighed down by credit card debt, and that feels good. However, I could not figure out how to save ahead for things like car insurance, care repairs, and other you know they are going to happen but not typical monthly expenses. I certainly never really felt like I could have fun and enjoy spending money. I have spreadsheets upon spreadsheets but not much to show for my effort other than a few gray hairs. Earlier this year, a friend of mine told me about YNAB or You Need a Budget. I did not buy the app (yet). But I have been watching the videos on the website, listening to the podcast, and checking out their TikTok videos. Several of the missing pieces of my budgeting journey clicked. Their explanations finally made sense - I had glanced at the website at other moments in the past without the aha moment. I changed my spreadsheets to reflect what they call True Expenses (large less-frequent expenses) and looked at the money I had in savings and gave it a job. I listened to their videos about how to budget out of debt (no credit card debt, but I have always had student loans, car loans, and/or medical debt) and tried to be as honest as possible with myself about true expenses. What does this mean for me? My plan this year had been to close my eyes and hope for the best when my child's first college tuition bill came due. I may have been able to make it work with that method as long as I didn't eat. Now I have a budget set up that accounts for my future expenses, and I figured out how to save ahead for the first tuition bill (thank you, stimulus check) while also paying down my car loan. And, yes, I will have enough for the car insurance and car tax payments when they show up later this fall. I don't think I am cured of my budgeting woes, but for the first time in my adulting life time, I think it might be possible for a future me. In the year of covid, that is a pretty hopeful thought indeed. I love me some science facts. I follow ASAPScience after discovering their videos during the Olympics. Of course, there is also the IFLScience. And I wouldn't want to leave out ScienceDump. In fact it was an article and then video I found via ScienceDump that got me thinking. The article: The Size of our Solar System Submitted by Andreea on Wed, 06/11/2014 stated the following: The Solar System is really too big for us to imagine. To give an idea of how immense the number of miles from Sun to Pluto is, think of it this way: if you were going to start counting from 0 and count once every second it would take you 120 years to get to 3.7 billion. Or, if you would want to drive from Pluto to the Sun with a typical highway speed of 60mph it would take you 7000 years.
...if you were going to start counting from 0 and count once every second it would take you 120 years to get to 3.7 billion. Or, if you would want to drive from Pluto to the Sun with a typical highway speed of 60mph it would take you 7000 years. And then I started thinking about money and billionaires and wonder what I would do if I had so much money that it would take me over one hundred years to count it. Think about that next time we build in another tax loophole for the uber-wealthy. Just saying. Other thought that came to mind: must be nice...
When the winter started we immediately reinstated our bird feeder, lovingly patched with duct tape, to its strategic place outside of the kitchen window. Watching birds flit around in the winter has the same soothing effect of watching fish swim back and forth in a fish tank, and I don't have clean the tank. I can identify some of the birds by species but mostly I like seeing which niche each fills. Some eat the seeds that have made it to the ground, others come together, others wait until they have the feeder to themselves. The bird feeder came to its last day when the perfectly placed leap of a squirrel brought it to the ground and all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put it together again.
Not to be outdone, my husband went out and bought a "squirrel proof" bird feeder. I would like to say that I bit my tongue because we all know what happened next. Instead, I pointed out to him that squirrels will find a way into the feeder; that's what they do. Some day I will become a more sensitive spouse and find contentment with being right on the inside. As you already surmised, within twenty-four hours the squirrel was happily munching alongside the birds. This winter being what it was, a long one, we went through a lot of birdseed. About the same time that I was purchasing one of the final bags for the season, I was doing some research about food insecurity in central Virginia. On the one hand, feeding birds is a rather inexpensive way to self sooth. On the other hand, I started wondering if my priorities were somehow misaligned. Birds in my front yard are plump with food, and we were coming to peace with the fact that the squirrels were as well. Meanwhile someone or several someones who live very close to me are not sure if they are getting to eat. Or if they are going to eat, maybe they can't pay the electric bill. I know how to keep the birds well fed even if a squirrel or two gets in on the action, I can't say I have figured out how I can solve the latter issue. Periodic donations to the food bank, while a good thing, are a bandaid. That brings me to my #firstworldproblems list from this week (a misnomer since many so called #thirdworldproblems exist in my corner of this first world.) 1. my favorite shoes fell apart, and Think! no longer makes that style 2. filling the car's gas tank cost over $50 3. forgot my checkbook and didn't get the discount 4. the book I wanted to read wasn't available on Overdrive; I hate waiting in line 5. some of the dishes were still dirty after running the dishwasher. That's all I'm admitting to for now. There are certain things in life that take planning and an eye for opportunity. First and foremost, location; it can’t be too central, too shiny, too rich. In fact, the grittier, the better. Timing is important, too. Do it too often, it is a vice. Too little, you lack commitment. If you need frequency, once a week is probably OK. I prefer every couple of months myself. Often enough for it to go seamlessly, infrequently enough that it leaves room for novelty while maintaining the appearance of nonchalance.
Once I set my eyes on the appropriate venue, this time the corner 7-11 in rural Virginia, the familiar flow of events begins. (Who ever heard of this kind of thing at a Harris Teeter or somewhere like Palm Beach.) I stake out the place. If there is a long line, the timing isn’t right, and even the best of plans must be postponed. Not wanting to appear too desperate, I'll remind myself that there will be other opportunities. One or two people in line? Perfect. I march in and take my place. Last thing before my final move, check the pockets. Whew, my emergency dollar is still tucked away. All set. Purposefully, I move up to the cash register, producing the wrinkled, tired-looking bill, “One Mega Millions, please.” (Disclaimer: Memory is a funny thing and a child's memory especially so. This is what I remember or misremember as being true.)
Every year we drove thirteen hours from south Jersey to South Carolina to visit my grandparents. We then would travel to Savannah, Georgia to see all those relatives who knew me but who I didn't quite ever get straight. Some of the Savannah relatives weren't the kind of relatives who would ever show up on a family tree but that doesn't make them any less family. One of the Savannah families owned(?) a department store and we would go there to get our winter coats. This is where the memory thing gets in the way. Did we go there every year to get our winter coats? Did we go there once? I don't know. I do know that we went there at least once to get our winter coats. It was a rare occurrence to get something new, especially clothes. Even more rare was the chance to pick out that new article of clothing. That is part of the reason why this memory stuck. We all went to the store and looked over the jackets, my mom shooing us, away from the pretty ones that must have been entirely impractical. I ended up with a tan colored jacket which made perfect sense in Savannah as a winter coat. It made a little less sense in New Jersey, but I wore it anyway. The reason I think we must have gotten all of our winter jackets this way is because I don't remember noticing that this jacket was colder than any other I had had in the past. At some point the Savannah business closed or something, at any rate we stopped getting our winter jackets that way and reverted to the more tried a true business of hand-me-downs and thrift stores. Now I live in a more southern clime and generally do not need much more than a fleece on a given day. So much in denial have I grown that a few years ago when a friend of mine invited me to visit her in Boston during the month of February or March, I had to politely decline. There were a few conflicts at the time, but the one I remember most vividly was that I knew I did not own an adequate winter anything that would serve in Boston. She, on the other hand, is the type of person who has the right kind of clothing for every activity. Unable to face the misunderstanding on her face when confronted with my outerwear, I stayed in the south that year. This winter we actually had cold weather. I decided that it was time. Time to buy a winter jacket. When the coldest part of winter was pretty much over, I went online and looked for some jackets figuring I could use it next year. (Remember I am trying to get over a long denial period here, this was a big move for me to decide to buy a real jacket.) I finally settled on one from Lands' End and received it in the mail just in time for another cold snap. Excitedly, I wore my jacket for the first time. What I realized when I put the jacket on is that I have never previously owned a real winter jacket because this one does a superior job of keeping me warm. The days between Savannah jacket and now are quite a few. I have had my own spending money for some time. This has been as much about spending choices as it has been about current geography. Don't worry I have not been suffering terribly, winters are pretty mild most years around here. But, until now I have never owned a jacket that was for temperatures below 40 degrees Fahrenheit; quite a difference wearing one that is manufactured with freezing temperatures in mind. I may not be ready for Minnesota in the winter, I may not even really be ready for Boston, but I am a little closer to being properly garbed for at least a South Jersey winter, finally. Immigration or what to do about the influx of illegal immigrants. Here are my two cents. Most Americans have never had to deal with our immigration system. Which means when they rant against either side of the problem, they don't know what kind of red tape we are talking about. I promise you it is most unwelcoming even for those with fairly straight-forward cases. How do I know? I married someone and dealt with getting my own residency papers in his country and then getting his in the US.
Let's talk first about immigration overseas. When I worked and lived in Panama I met a lot of illegal immigrants -- all of them American. If you want to meet a bunch of entitled brats, go to another country and look for Americans who are working overseas. There are many who are there legally. But those who aren't are always complaining about how difficult and unfair the system is. Really, they do. Do they try to learn the culture and language of their host country? Some do, some don't. A lot of time is spent complaining about the new culture and finding fault in it. I just think it is a two way street. In addition, in the US I have met a lot of third plus generation people who talk about their ancestors who apparently all learned English when they got to the States and all came here legally. Let's set something straight here. They didn't all learn English. Some did, some didn't. Many settled in immigrant communities and maintained their culture as much as they could including language. Also, not all of them came here legally and, guess what, it was EASIER to come here legally then. It wasn't easy, it was easier once you got here to be considered legal even if life itself was very difficult. My husband entered the US legally. We had a relatively easy immigration process. However, once we went to our appointment two hours away from where we live and they told us that the quota of people allowed in that day was up. We were there on time for the appointment, on the day of our appointment, but we had to reschedule. We went the next time and they had given us an appointment on a date they weren't actually open. This meant we had to make this round trip of four hours three times. Why? His fingerprints had expired. This is the kind of unnecessary hoops you jump through when you deal with immigration. My story is the least of the indignities that I have heard heaped on people who have done everything correctly in the immigration process. They can make you do whatever they want with no repercussions because there is no incentive for efficiency and transparency. Why do people come here illegally? I can only imagine it is because the legal path is too fraught with impossibility. Sure, we don't want a free for all, but as long as there are desperate situations, people will seek to come through our borders. If there is a certain death of hope at home, people risk all for hope. In the future, we will call them heroes. I don't really have a solution. I just know that the current system obviously doesn't serve anyone who actually has to use it. Try it sometime and see. I dare you. I watched the State of the Union and Republican response. But why would I comment. Plenty of pundits out there to do that.
More importantly, I finished my taxes. Benefit of few assets, taxes are very easy to do. There are so many questions I can skip. Always a bit scary to realize that with a child or two more I would be eligible for EIC, I think that's what it is called. The country is going to move on without me, but taxes? Now, that's something that I, like or not, have to check off my to-do list. That's all I got. A little overwhelmed by my own accomplishment. Money is a hard topic so this may not be the last word. I may even say completely opposite things in the process of writing about it. Let's see what happens.
A couple of times a year I decide that I am going to make a good plan for my finances. Sometimes I even pick up an issue of Money magazine or something of that ilk. Those magazine are written for people with a lot more money than me. There is so little that can pertain to my reality. I've even gone to talk to people who are so-called experts, and they don't know what to say to me since they are accustomed to people with "real" incomes, I guess. And I am the so-called middle class. So then I look stuff up and think about the "latte" effect. What are my little money drains? Probably there are some, but what do you do when you have very lean spending habits and there is still not much or enough? None of the help columns work with the bottom 50% that really have to figure out, forget week-to-week, but day to day budgets. So really, it is just a "sucks to be you" kind of thing. Oh well. Everyone talks about money from their reality. I will talk to one person and they talk about tax incentives, for instance, for donating money until I have to finally say, "I don't make enough to donate enough to need your receipt for my donation." Now, there's a conversation stopper. Then I complain about hand washing my clothes when I was in Panama and the woman responds, "I don't mind washing clothes, I just like it when I can afford soap." Oops, first world problems rise again. That's right, need to remind myself, I have always had enough for laundry soap and even had some left over for something for dinner. But then I find myself in a conversation with someone who is about to file bankruptcy who tells me how she and her husband spend around $300/week going out to dinner. What??? I could pay off a lot of bills with $300. Then there's the spouse who does not make a lot of money who benefits from the six figure plus spouse and acts like somehow (s)he made such good decisions, implying you haven't. No, your high-worth spouse did -- assuming here that money is the goal--, and now you reap the benefits, but don't get too superior on me because you are only a divorce away from the other 90-99% of us. I am not saying that it is right about the whole divorce thing, but it is a truth. So, after going around in circles I usually come back to square one not a bit wiser and usually concluding I am doing what I can with present circumstances. In another post I will write about some things I think I do and don't do well around this somewhat taboo topic. |
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