October 07, 2008
Dear people who put the TV in our elevators, can you please change the channel?
In the mornings lately the elevator ride is frightening -- watching people get sucked into the tiny TV monitor inside the elevator is fascinating. They oooh, they ahhhh, they groan with wild abandon when they see the Dow numbers ticking downward on the screen. Sometimes I worry that they're going to hyperventilate or keel over right there in the elevator and I will have to climb over them to get to the free coffee in the galley before those Government Lending folks get in and drink all the coffee.
Hi! And how are ya'll?
So my mom and I were talking on the phone yesterday and she asked if all the financial news I get all day long is making me depressed. I do get a lot of financial news across my desk each day and I read it to keep up with what's happening in the world (and, I admit it, I want to see if the Euro is getting cheaper so I can go eat chocolate and wine some place far away.) But I'm not depressed about it -- or the election stuff for that matter -- because if I decide to fall into a deep abysmal existential fugue state about world events it still has ABSOLUTELY NO OUTCOME WHATSOEVER on those world events. My emotions about the Dow have no effect on it at all. In fact, it's much easier to check the foreign exchange numbers every day instead and realize that my wine and chocolate just got two bucks cheaper. Yay me. Victory for French wine and Swiss chocolate ensues.
Some people would think this was cavalier, my decision to not worry myself into a funk of doom, as if I am not patriotic or normal or concerned. That also doesn't change the outcome. So I go about my life calling my cats Mr. and Miss and Lord Queen Monkeypants (guess who gets which preface) and watching Dancing With The Stars (I admit it, I got sucked in. AGAIN.) and learning to make cornbread and understanding there isn't any reason at all to get really mad or frustrated or upset since that has no bearing whatsoever on the banks, the lenders, the world or the weather.
Now, if I could change the weather, maybe that would be a different story. Ya'll know I would be all over that cute Dallas Raines like white on rice. We could tan together and discuss who we want it to snow on while the Valley would be 75 and breezy and sunny every day for eternity. But I digress. (Also do you think one day Dallas Raines will do a google on his own name and wonder who on earth is this crazypants woman with all these cats who lives in the Valley and obsesses over the weather?) (Hi Dallas! Call me!)
Like most people my relationship with credit cards and slippery money started during my first week of college in the University Center where a cheerful group of strangers were handing out free backpacks and clock radios if you just filled out a credit card application. Looking back now, I think this activity should be 100% ILLEGAL. Because what college student -- especially a poor kid on scholarship who thinks Jon Bon Jovi is the second coming -- would qualify for a credit card? I MEAN REALLY NOW. Except we all did, me included, and having had zero education on credit management and budgeting and finance I looked at that credit card as an extension of my income. My relationship with credit started with me clueless, in dire need of college supplies and holding one brand new shiny Master Card. It was a very bad start.
It wasn't until much much later when I found myself alone in my thirties in the middle of a messy and expensive divorce with four cats and a gargantuan load of consumer debt that I began to mature financially. In other words, I had to grow up and fast or I was going to be living in a shed with a herd of felines and my shoes. And eating beans from a can and wondering if zappos.com missed me as much I missed it. There was no more easy credit, there was no more shopping to make myself feel better, there was no more dual income and blaming it on someone else or letting someone else handle the money. It was all my mess and mine to figure out alone.
(By the way, you can download my free Excel Budget Spreadsheet if you too are in the sordid, messy and expensive place. The spreadsheet is pink, which I think helps!)
It took me a long time to get out from under my debt and to this day it's one of the best things I have ever done for myself. It sucked sometimes (no more expanded cable, no new stuff, getting rid of my lovely and pricey manicured nails, no trip to so-and-so, writing down every red cent) but it was awesome, too, watching that number on the credit card statements go down every month, watching my savings go from nonexistent to $40 to $200, to $800 to $1200. Being able to pay my folks back (three years later) for the money they loaned me for my divorce lawyer. Being able to buy AWESOME NEW SHOES ... and then deciding not to. Not because I can't afford them but because I can and choose to put the money elsewhere. There's a difference.
There are two big things I learned during my own personal financial crisis. One: No matter how big a hole you're in, you can choose how you feel about it. And two: You are not your stuff.
That first one was a huge shift for me (in every part of my life, not just finances.) I used to be someone who spent a LOT of time arguing for my unhappiness. I heard myself one night on the phone to my parents, it was about four years ago and my ex-husband was still a then-husband and he had moved out and my mom was trying to tell me something positive, I don't even remember what it was, and I started off with a long list of why that particular positive thing wasn't good at all. Because of this, and because of that, and this other thing, and I was giving her a whole list of all the reasons I was unhappy. I was arguing for my unhappiness. I could actually hear myself there on the phone coming up with all the reasons my life was awful and empty and dire. It was sad, being that person, the one who doesn't stand up for her happiness but instead defends all her misery.
So no matter how deep and wide and vast and dark the hole is that you're in, you get to choose. You get to decide if you're going to make a list of all the things you lack, loathe, fear and worry about. Or you get to sit in that exact same hole and say, "Wow, this is a big dark hole I am in. It sure will be nice once I get out of here. While I'm here, though, think of all the nice people who have been concerned for me down here, or who want to hear my jokes. I still get to eat. I drink wine. I have really cute cats. I might go try on some of my shoes now, since I am paying them off and all. Thank God this hole is wide enough for me to walk around in! I can wear all my shoes!" And so on.
By the way -- if someone had told me this little gem when I was in the "my hole is deep and dark and it is all his fault and I will cry now" phase, I would have hit them with my cute shoes. I had to get there, and I had to decide to change my perspective for me, not for my friends or family or co-workers or the mysterious "They" who judge us silently from the sidelines. I knew if I didn't change my thinking I was going to be bitter and empty and living in fear and that was a choice I had to make. Argue for my unhappiness or find a way to see something positive and be grateful for that one thing, even if it was so small I might have overlooked it before.
The other concept I got a handle on, finally, is that I AM NOT MY STUFF. I am not a better person if I wear designer labels. I am not a kinder, smarter or even happier woman if I have the most expensive handbag. I am not sexier or more successful if I drive a nice car or own my own home or get my nails done or have an ipod. I am not my stuff. I enjoy my ipod -- believe me it is a saving grace on the bus -- but I am not lesser of a human being for buying a refurbished one or not buying one at all. I am not my stuff. My worth as a human being is not contingent on driving a fancy vehicle -- and thank God, since my Jeep qualifies for extinction, I think.
Yes I love pretty things, and I like shoes and I love to shop at the grocery store and buy the stinky yummy expensive cheese. But all of it is just stuff. It took a while for me to disassociate who I am from what I have, and sometimes it was painful. I had given all these little things -- things with no value -- so much sentimental value that I had a house full of clutter and my life was cramped and confusing and uncomfortable. Because of stuff! Stuff I'd bought to make me feel better in a lonely and sad marriage, stuff I'd bought just because it was on sale, or because I thought it made me look better, or I thought maybe this one thing is what I need to make me happy once and for all. Can you imagine when I finally started getting rid of even the smallest bits of clutter how much my emotional load lightened? Being free of objects that had all these old ideas and memories and hopes wrapped up in them was like letting go of a false self.
So anyway, I am not worth more or less because of what I wear, own, buy or charge on a credit card. There's integrity in that knowledge. There's happiness and contentment in having things you know are within your means and not pushing yourself into debt. There's happiness in appreciating something that you enjoy just because it's appealing to you, not because of its price tag alone. (And then you're not awake at night wondering how to pay for stuff, either.)
That's not to say I don't enjoy fancy things, but I think I'm more clear now on whether I like something because I just like it or because I'm supposed to think it has value (and by extension, gives me value.) Nothing gives me value. Real worth can't be purchased at a store and gift-wrapped and placed on a credit card, no matter what anyone tries to sell you. Also later you can hand me some of crackers to go with my yummy stinky cheesy text because I know this is cheesy, but it's still true. You are not your stuff.
Getting in the elevator every day is a little microcosm of humanity, I watch the folks watch the TV screen and I wonder, can we ask management to change the channel? Can they put on The Food Network instead? I think people would be much happier each morning if they got to watch a little Food TV on their way in to work. And it would have just as much effect on the Dow as if they watched the news. Or maybe we could watch The Weather Channel -- that's something we also have no control over but people don't seem to fall into a deep existential funk about it all. Unless they maybe live in the Valley.
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ALSO! Congratulations to all the folks who won a copy of The Green Beauty Guide
So far four people still haven't responded with their addresses so I'll re-send them an email of winningness. Thanks to everyone who participated and the next give-away is knitting related and won't be in the comments, I promise! With all this helpy going on you'd think I could help myself to some form-coding but I blame it all on politics, the economy and of course the weather!
Posted by laurie at 08:25 AM | Comments (126)
September 03, 2008
Word to your fiscal!
Doesn't "fiscal" sound like something you'd need antibiotics to cure?
September brings me to month four of Not Buying Stuff. Ya'll may remember my mid-year resolution to stop buying crap for the rest of the year? You may be wondering if I am through with my Bloomindale's DTs yet. Well, I still have a ways to go until January 1, 2009 but I think I am making progress in my desire to buy less stuff.
The main premise of the resolution was to have a break from consumerism and buy only essentials from June 1st to the end of 2008. I decided early on that gifts for other people were excluded, as they are essential and I love buying gifts. And then about mid-June I decided books were essential, too, because I love books! I need books. So that was my plan and I think I've done fairly well with some little blips along the way:
1) Magazines. DAMN YOU GLOSSY TEMPTRESSES. Early on in the summer I bought a couple of magazines at the grocery store without even thinking about it -- didn't even realize I'd gone off my non-essential lists until I got home. I believe this is what they call "shopping on autopilot." Since then I've only bought one magazine, bringing my addiction level to tolerable on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
2) Clothes. I underestimated the amount of work I have piled up before me at all times and simultaneously ignored my labyrinthine commute while also vastly overestimating the amount of free time in my life ... and ended up with no lovely handmade dresses to wear to any weddings (PLURAL) I had to attend this summer and had to buy something on my lunch break one day. It happens. Go judge silently to yourselves.
3) However, have solved this issue by declaring I will attend no more weddings for the next decade (!!!) unless it is a direct blood relative who I adore. Also, in unrelated news, I am SO DONE with weddings.
4) Replacement electronic devices. This one is an iffy category, because it was an unexpected (and sad-making) event in which my ipod and headphones were lost on the commuter bus never to be seen again. To many people an ipod is not an essential and I myself tried to rationalize not buying a replacement, deciding I would buy it for myself (again) as a Christmas present (AGAIN.) But after a few weeks of commuting without my beloved cocoon of headphones and ipod, I was about thisclose to killing every human who breathed on mass transit in Los Angeles county and decided that as long as I am sitting on some form of mass transportation for almost four hours a day, an electronic happy-making device is a FREAKING NECESSITY. So I bought another one. This time, though, I bought a refurb model from the Apple store and used my rewards card for the purchase so all is well that ends with me not killing anyone on the bus.
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And that's about all the off-plan spending I've done since June 1st, which is pretty damn good. I don't feel like I've been missing out on anything, to be honest I don't think I realized just how much time I used to spend each weekend driving a shopping cart up and down every single aisle of Target. Now I go to Target about once every month for just basic household supplies and I don't buy anything off my list. I haven't been to the mall in a loooong while. It's good, it's giving me the extra time I need to read all those books I decided were essential!
So far, the main upsides of my decision are time and cash. I haven't been spending like crazy so my credit cards are happy things, not crazy-making anxiety-producing things, and I don't feel pressured to go out to the mall for this or run to Target for that or go to Macy's just because I got a 25% off coupon. (By the way, is Macy's ALWAYS on sale? Half my recycle bin is Macy's fliers!)
From now until the end of the year I want to make a few adjustments, especially since I can tell with my automotive intuition that my car is about to need a repair costing one million dollars. For one thing, I'd like to manage the rest of 2008 without a library fine. I mean really now. And lately I noticed I haven't been really aggressive with budgeting my grocery shopping but I'm going to try to be more conscious of that in the time remaining here in resolutionland.
The biggest thing I decided to change is lunch -- I'm going to bring my lunch to work every day for the rest of the year. There's just not any time or energy left in me at night to make lunch so it requires a bit of planning and forethought on my weekends, and usually I do OK but lately I've been busy on the weekends (or not even in town) and when I'm not prepared for brownbagging it I can rack up $40 in no time flat just on eating junk in the middle of the day. I know that if I bring my lunch every day I save money AND I eat healthier so I just have to commit to planning ahead each weekend. I made a red bean stew over the long weekend that I can take for lunch each day this week and you know, it has kale in it, so it's not as delectable and tasty as McDonald's french fries but it's not half bad either especially with a big dose of hot sauce. Plus I averaged it out and this stew cost me about eighty cents a serving. NOT BAD.
Also, I made STEW people. That required COOKING.
So my summer of no-spend has gone along fairly well, with fall and winter still to come. When things feel crazy and out of control and unstable, it always feels good to establish a zone of control and for me it's easiest in the arena of finances. I've discovered through trial and error that the number one way to get on top of things is just to stop spending, even if it's just for one week. You can always use a budget (like my excel budget template) to track your spending and your income and see what's left over or where you need to cut back. But the quickest and easiest way I've found to get a handle on it is just to stop buying stuff, immediately. It's always nice to feel in control of the ol' fiscal health, and I didn't even need to see the doctor for it!
Posted by laurie at 08:48 AM | Comments (73)
July 29, 2008
A lot of words for a tiny house!
Reader Lynn wanted to see my shoe closet:
It's not very impressive. Have I mentioned my house is tee-tiny? It's smaller than most one-bedroom apartments, even though this is a two-bedroom house. I use the smallest of the two rooms as my bedroom, the larger room is my home office. My most-used shoes are there on the floor and my fancypants shoes (heels, ankle boots, etc.) reside in a set of plastic drawers. It keeps them free of dust and cat hair!
My bedroom is roughly 8 feet by 10 feet, just big enough for the bed, two very tiny bedside tables and a dresser. I don't believe in having electronics (TV, DVD, computer) in the bedroom. My long history with insomnia has taught me to keep the bedroom as spare and peaceful as possible, so my room is very quiet and cozy and small. The closet has those awful sliding closet doors -- you can only see half of your closet at one time, how annoying. But these doors are heavy mirrored monstrosities and the last time I tried to remove them I almost broke the doors, my toes and the mirrored panes. So they're staying put and I just keep the closet very tidy, my main wardrobe fits all on one side anyway.
The clothes hanging above my shoes make up the bulk of my wardrobe. I've pared down my clothes to just a fraction of what I used to have, but I probably still have a few things I could get rid of. (Rome - not built in a day!) My basic wardrobe is very simple -- I don't want to waste time each day worrying about what to wear for work, what's appropriate for the dress code, what matches, what is business professional enough, etc., so all my work clothes are based on one color scheme (black) and I have a limited but good quality selection of work clothes. Instead of buying 37 cheap tops and 19 pairs of inexpensive bottoms, I invested in eight really quality pairs of trousers and ten or so high-quality tops. I have two skirts (I don't wear skirts often at all) and a few jackets and that's it. Also hanging in the closet are some tops for nights out and jeans and so on. My work wardrobe is probably boring but I don't lose sleep over it. I realize this automated method of dressing for work makes the more fashion-minded folks in my circle break out in hives, but it really works awesome for me and I never have to wonder what to wear to my job. I get to expend that energy thinking about other stuff, like vacation and Al Gore and ice cream.
Accessories like hats, gloves, scarves and little things live in these bins on top of the closet:
On the other side of the closet three big pink plastic drawers hold out-of-season clothes, swimwear, hosiery and sweaters. One drawer holds the clothes I don't quite fit into but don't want to give up on just yet. I know that also makes some people break out in hives (some people are so sensitive!) but this works for me. I am nostalgic and hopeful and that can be a deadly clutter combination. Therefore, getting my entire wardrobe clutter scaled down to a single pink plastic drawer is a considerable accomplishment in my life, and I am very happy with my progress.
I don't have anything on top of the pink bins since this is Bob's Super Top Secret Hiding Place. He loves this little nook of the closet, so I keep the doors pushed to the side closing in his hiding spot to make it cozy but keeping the other side open so he can come and go as he sees fit, plus he can peer out into the bedroom to keep posted on the day's events. I learned the hard way that any clothes hanging on the rod above Bob's Hiding Spot get covered in fluffy orange cat fur!
I do have a coat closet in the hallway for scarves and coats. It is very small, a little less than two feet wide and is crammed with my winter outerwear. I have more coats than anyone in Southern California needs but coats are a weakness of mine!
Someone else asked where I keep the catbox in a small house. Here is my solution:
It's in the closet in the office. I managed to get the doors off the closet and installed a little curtain there in its place. One half of the closet holds yet even more plastic drawers, these are full of yarn and crafty stuff and paint and glue and so on. I also keep the extra cat litter in this closet. Since I am renting and I'm sensitive to the germaphobic among us, I carefully lined the walls and floor of the closet with three layers of contact paper before putting the catboxes in there. My cats are very good with the box and they don't have accidents but I still felt this was the most sanitary way to handle having the litter pan in a closet. When I move out, I can remove the barrier of contact paper, give it a thorough once-over with disinfectant and feel good about it.
The biggest problem in this room is dust! I really wish this house had a half-bathroom or a separate utility room or laundry room or mudroom where I could put the litter pans. I don't love having the cat pans so close to my office nook but hey, everyone has to poop somewhere.
I knew before I bought my desk that the room was imperfect -- cat trays, clutter, storage, books, yarn, alleged guest room. For a long time my picture of the perfect office was so at odds with the reality of my house that it kept me in a stalemate, always hoping that "one day" I would wake up and find myself in a new life. But because I didn't feel like I had the perfect home office I just kept using that room as a dumping ground and it stayed a constant source of anxiety.
I didn't have a real at-home work area for almost three years and it wasn't what I wanted but I just assumed I would keep making do until... until I had a perfect house, until conditions were just right, until I had time, until I could work from home, until I had enough in my savings account, until I was a size whatever, until I was certain, until, until, until.
You can read all the self-help on the shelves and you can ponder your navel and listen to all the inspirational and motivational stuff you have the stamina for, but until you actually know what you want and start moving in that direction you don't really change. I guess one day it finally sunk in with me that even though conditions are not yet perfect, there is only one way to get to the picture I have in my mind of the future: start walking toward it. My ideal future did not contain a room full of boxes and me hauling a laptop and file box from room to room looking for a decent scrap of workspace. So I cleaned that room and bought that desk and it isn't perfect but it's definitely one big step in the right direction. I really do love it, catboxes and all.
Sometimes I am amazed at how much my life has changed simply from getting un-hitched. I'm pretty sure everyone has formative times in their life, maybe it's a before-and-after event from which they emerge so changed they wonder who they were before it all began. My life is radically different now but strangely I'm more myself than I ever was before. If that makes any sense. It feels like I got really lost in the middle there somewhere, accumulating so much crap and trying to be somebody I wasn't, and slowly (sometimes painfully) I've had to de-clutter, de-stuff, de-box, and de-construct my house and my habits. And my life.
Secretly I hated being a slave to my stuff. I hated that I still felt empty after I bought something I thought would make me feel whole. This past three years have been about not buying, not accumulating, not spending money just to buy something intangible and finally understanding the difference between want and need. I thought all that "not" and "don't" would be a downer, that I'd feel somehow poorer and less happy. But oddly enough, getting rid of stuff -- not an easy task at first -- slowly began to lighten my life up in both the predictable (less stuff to clean) and the unexpected (less anxiety at home). And when I do buy something now I make sure it's exactly what I want, not just whatever will make do.
My best guess is that we make things real by starting to picture them in our minds. We dream them up, we fantasize over one day, one day when I have the life I really want... Then we start building the picture in our real lives. The house isn't perfect, the location is not my ideal, I still go downtown five days a week. But I have a crucial part of the vision in place, and it's a start.
And of course, there's a cat! The cat is perfect. The catbox, well. One day.....
Posted by laurie at 08:27 AM | Comments (76)
July 22, 2008
I bet AmEx is wondering if I croaked.
So, about that mid-year resolution to stop buying stuff ... I have had some blips, as I mentioned yesterday, but I think for the most part I'm doing well on the no-spend. It has been almost two full months now since my mid-year resolution to stop buying nonessentials and ya'll, I haven't died. I haven't gotten uglier! The house has not gotten bare and lonely! My feet have not gone unshod! The cats still have their catnip and I still have my wine and all is well over here in Chez Lintrolls-a-lot.
There's a big difference between stopping my consumer crazy and becoming a minimalist. I don't even know what the word "minimalist" would mean in a life like mine, where toilet paper only comes in packs of 24 and I never run out of things like soap and cat food. I do tend to run out of clean underwear but that is an issue with the maid -- she sucks.
(Also: I don't have a maid.)
I'm not sure I could sleep at night knowing I could run out of the necessities of life. "Decluttering" to some people means that you live in a spartan zen freedom from things. Picture a fine clean room with nothing but a white sofa. That works for many people and to them I say amen. But to me, decluttering means I can finally reach the yarn in my stash without having to move a pile of boxes and two shopping bags and a basket of stuff first. Tomato, tomahto.
Me and "minimal" aren't a rockin' couple, I'm in a long-term relationship with "prepared for anything." I always have a good supply of cat litter on hand and you will never come to my house and run out of something like mustard ... but is it necessary for me to have THREE containers of Gulden's spicy brown mustard in the pantry? I mean really now. There is preparation and then there is "the cupboard was too stuffed for me to see what I already had so I assumed I was out of mustard and bought yet another one because God knows the earth can't turn on its axis if I have a shortage of mustard."
Hopefully that better explains what's happening in my house.
The biggest step forward I've made in these first two months of nonconsuming is to re-evaluate my most hardwired shopping instincts. Three times this month I caught myself buying magazines on impulse! Autopilot much? And there was my epiphany about my ugly plates. My latest lightening bolt happened last week as I was contemplating the little sofa in the office. I bought it because it folds out into a single bed and I thought it was a good solution for a guest room. But after I got it, I realized I wouldn't actually make a guest stay in the guest room since that room has the catbox which doesn't seem very welcoming. Plus, they wouldn't be able to shut their door at night (catboxes and all) and so I always end up sleeping in there when I have a guest and frankly an airbed would work just fine for me. The guest always ends up in my room and I sleep in the office. And the pull-out bed is lumpy.
But the even uglier truth is that the longer I stared at my little sofa (it's cozy and fine and the cats like it, but did I really need it?) I realized I bought it based only on my long-held belief that I HAD to have a guest room. Just like I assumed you had to buy plates in sets of 12 or had to get married or had to do all kinds of stuff that as it turns out you can live long and fine and happy without doing. But it never once occurred to me that I was not required by law to have a guest room.
The even uglier truth is that I don't particularly enjoy having houseguests. My house is too small, I have to move out of my room temporarily to suit a guest, I have one bathroom the size of a very small cupboard and it's very stressful for me and the cats to have house guests. I always feel like I need therapy afterwards. Admitting this out loud has not been easy -- what kind of Southerner am I, anyway, that I don't LOVE having houseguests? Is there something wrong with me? Defective? Horribly selfish and unfit? I really don't know. I guess they'll revoke my belle card for saying it out loud, but I don't think I want to have a guest room anymore. There are some lovely hotels nearby, and they don't have catboxes in them, and then we call retire to our respective rooms at night and enjoy the visit without counting down the hours until departure.
I guess for me the lightbulb was just realizing for the very first time that you don't HAVE to make part of your house a guest room. You don't have to carve into your very limited space to accomodate people four days a year. What a realization, and what a waste of limited space. I think in my next house I'll use the space the way it best suits my life and then get an air mattress for those few times when people have to stay over. And it's good to challenge all my long-held assumptions about living right. I think there are lots of "right" ways to live your life, you just have to find the one that works for you. If other people don't like it, I have three bottles of Gulden's spicy brown mustard they can put where the sun isn't shining.
Making this decision to take a break from consumerism for six months has been good for me. This new way of thinking is a little different from the times when I was not-shopping out of fear of sheer financial ruin. I still acquired stuff back then, I just bought less expensive stuff. This is different ... challenging all those assumptions about what we "need" and what we buy without thinking (even how we live without thinking!). I'm getting creative with what I already own. Clearing the noise so that treasured things are more available -- after all, it's hard to enjoy my vintage pattern books when they're buried under a pile of magazines and crap I don't want.
It's not minimal by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a start toward clean and un-stressful. That's all I want. So the maid can take a day off ... especially since she's not getting paid anyway!
Posted by laurie at 10:18 AM | Comments (114)
August 19, 2005
Real Women bring home the bacon. And/or wine.
Signed, sealed and delivered: One divorce agreement, one check for a $1000 towards my lawyer's bill, and one very soon-to-be emancipated woman.
Coincidentally, today is exactly the one-year mark since Mr. X announced he was moving out. In that year, I have managed to stop bawling at my desk, stop smoking (so far, so good!), start writing stuff, discover the durable love of battery-operated devices and Face My Debt.
(Hi Dad! All the battery-operated flashlights are working great!)
Of all the things I have accomplished this year, I am most proud of getting my finances under control. For the first time in my entire life, I believe that I can live as a grown-up, a real woman, one who brings home the bacon and puts it in the fridge. And then has a glass of wine and feels FANtastic about bringing home that bacon.
Prior to the marital meltdown, I was a complete money moron. But now I have reformed! Mostly this is my control enthusiast side kicking in -- I know I can't control when stuff catches on fire, or when I'll bump into Mr. X, or when the spontaneous belts and hoses and radiators break on my car.
But I can control my money.
I can develop a plan, and have a goal. (In fact, my ONLY financial goal this year was... well. To develop a financial goal. Task solidly accomplished!) I tell ya'll this because maybe out there -- somewhere -- is another girl like me who wants to hide in the closet and eat Oreos every time the credit card bills arrive. Or go shopping. Because we all know the best way to tackle your finances is to SHOP THEM AWAY.
(And by "you" ... I mean "me.")
Because I AM A CAUTIONARY TALE. And if I can get a handle on my finances, what with my love of shopping and hatred of math and general ignorance of all things fiscal, then any human on the planet can do it. Really. And you know I never shut up and can't keep all this good hard-earned knowlege to myself, so here is what I have learned so far ... all summed up in five easy pieces. It has a pretty creative title, too.
1) Never ever EVER lose track of your money.
So, hi ya'll! I was married. And in my fantasy life, I had a Barbie/Ken marriage and Ken was a Man (debatable, but still) and therefore imbued with the Ability To Handle Money. For years I worked and shopped and let Ken do all the manly money managing. Well! Not only was I wrong about Ken's personal predilictions, I was also wrong about his money-managing talents.
Bottom Line: While it is tempting to have someone take care of the adding and balancing and so on, never NEVER cede your personal financial power to anyone. Think about it this way: You wouldn't let anyone, not even your one true love, take total control of your yarn stash and do with it whatever he/she wanted at any time. Would you? Then why on earth would you let anyone have control over your finances?
2) Figure out what you owe.
Can't speak for all ya'll, but I was too scared at first to even know HOW MUCH DEBT I had. Sure, I had a pretty general idea ("general" meaning "a whole lot of debt" and "maybe I will cry" and "is there any ice cream?") but I did not KNOW the actual AMOUNT. And ya'll, that is sad.
Bottom Line: Write down every bill on a piece of notebook paper. Or use my Excel budget (it's pink! makes it less scary!) Add it up. NOW YOU KNOW.
3) Figure out what you make.
This should be pretty easy. Write down what you bring home for the month. See! Not too hard! You did it!
4) Spend less than you make.
Um, again. Things I have had to learn that most people KNOW, yet me? With the hoarding habit and shoes and cats? Had to LEARN. Anyway. Moving on. Spending less than you earn will always be a smart goal, even if you make a bazillion dollars. Because when you spend more than you have, you're poor. You're endebted. You're unable to quit your job and join an alpaca herding community.
Bottom Line: Track what you spend. Ya'll know that diet trick, where you write down every potato chip and carrot stick you eat? Treat your money the same way. Track it. Understand where you can cut back. And then, ya'll know, CUT BACK. You can use Quicken, your check register, a Word doc, a sticky note, or the back of a napkin. But figure out to the penny where the hell your money is going. (After looking at past receipts, I discovered I was spending $40 a month on MAGAZINES for chrissakes. That was embarrassing.)
5) Pay off your debt.
I have massive consumer debt. MASSIVE. I'm still paying off my lawyer! But I have a plan now, one that involves calculating my balance and figuring out how much I have to pay each month to be FREE of debt in 24 months. Me! FREE! And when I say "massive" debt, I mean ... GNP of a small country. I could cry sometimes.
I have had consumer debt since I was nineteen years old (coincidentally that's when I got my very first credit card). Every day since then has been a payment. My paycheck, my life ... it's all tied to a bill right now, and being free of that is my greatest achievable goal.
Bottom Line: You have to stop taking on more debt RIGHT NOW. This minute. DO NOT CHARGE ANOTHER ITEM. Research debt reduction online. Read what the experts have to say. Google "debt repayment." Find ways to lower your interest rate. Cut down on the Starbucks or movie channels or magazines, whatever you can, for a 3-month period and use every penny to pay off your debt. Wash, rinse and repeat for another 3 months ...
In Conclusion...
There you have it, those are my five Cautionary Tale pieces of learnin' when it comes to money. I don't know a lot -- let's be honest, until a few weeks ago my savings account was an old butter tub in the vegetable crisper -- but I'm learning. I think it's a lot like knitting a sweater: you can only accomplish it one stitch at a time. So, I am slowly becoming a financial grown-up ... one dollar at a time.
Posted by laurie at 01:13 PM | Comments (79)
