No-Kill Finance

Today’s post will serve two purposes:  to make a point, and to apologize ahead of time in case I don’t show up around these internets til the weekend…

See, in spite of my resolution to devote seven hours a week to school, I’ve been putting in…well, roughly zero.  I was sick pretty much all through last week, and didn’t attend a single class, discussion, or lab.  Upon my reappearance in class this morning, I found out I was two chapters behind the class.  Two chapters’ worth of complicated chemical energy transfers, enthalpy, entropy, and a bunch of other concepts that I only vaguely understand (not to mention words I can’t pronounce).  There’s homework due tomorrow night, and a quiz next week.  Obviously, I need to play catch-up.

This doesn’t intimidate me.  It should, I know, but I am sadly so very experienced with procrastination that it just occurs naturally to me at this point.  I am intimately familiar with the stress of the last-minute hustle, the crunch time, and the pre-test cram…so much that it sometimes doesn’t occur to me that these are not appropriate ways to manage tasks.  But expecting stress can’t possibly be as healthy as avoiding it.

I’ve found that the best way to overcome procrastination is just to, well, do things.  Get them over with.  It feels immensely rewarding and it’s usually not nearly as difficult as you build it up to be.  (Says the guy writing a blog instead of studying.)

BUT.  It takes a lot of motivation – and, in my case, a very good mood – to muster up that sort of proactive thinking.  It’s hard-wired in my behavior to procrastinate, and I so rarely try to change anything about my hard-wired behavior.  But that’s what this whole personal finance thing has been about, so why not give procrastination a shot, too?

For the rest of the week, I’ll try the procrastination challenge:  no, “I’ll do the dishes after this episode of Seinfeld,” no, “One more level before I start homework.”

Instead, just, “Damn it, Justin, get off your ass and do it now!”

It’s true, I’m not particularly stressed about how far I’ve fallen behind in school.  But I should be.  And I can catch up with a little effort, and a whole lot of, “Do it now.”

A few days ago, Katie had a day off while I had to work. She’s been spending most of her days off setting up the new apartment, so she was excited to have plans with a friend for a change.  When that friend suggested brunch, Katie said her initial reaction was to immediately regret not being able to afford a meal out.  But, of course, she can afford it…I’m the one who can’t.  So after she realized that I wasn’t coming along, she gladly accepted the invitation.

This lead me to wonder…at what point does my budgeting become a burden on, rather than a benefit to, my personal life?

Choosing Battles

I mentioned in a previous post that Katie and I recently had a minor disagreement over the cost of dining out.  After the disagreement had been resolved (i.e. we made sandwiches and ate them angrily), she pointed out that we probably could have compromised by splitting a meal from the restaurant and eating something small (like, say, sandwiches) beforehand.  It was a good point.

I need to be careful of falling into a damagingly severe mindset of scrimping and saving at every turn.  It could not only have a negative effect on my ability to enjoy life (because, like anyone, I need to treat myself to a nice thing or two every once in a while, budget be damned), but also on my ability to function in a relationship with someone who doesn’t have the same need for extreme thrift as I do.

And, besides my relationship, what about my own peace of mind?  My own well-being?

Thrift vs. Deprivation

Last week, I wrote about saving money by walking to work rather than taking the bus.  I feel like I made a pretty reasonable argument.  This week, though, I had a pretty serious cold along with a sinus infection (and, I suspect based on details I won’t share here, a touch of pneumonia?), and still insisted on walking to work one day.  Stupid.

Sometimes, spending $2 just makes more sense than saving it.  I was lucky in that particular circumstance, in the sense that I seem to be recovering at a decent rate and won’t need to go see a doctor as a result of my trek through the great [frozen] outdoors while ill.  Sometimes, whether to save time (that could otherwise be spent earning more money…or sleeping) or simply to save whatever small amount of sanity I might still be clinging to, spending a few bucks here and there on amenities is an okay thing.

Are you guys budget Nazis, too?  Where do you make allowances in your budgets for spoiling yourselves?

I got my yearly review at work today.

It was…not stellar.

At the same time, though, it was one of the best reviews I’ve gotten in my working life.  And one of the main reasons is that I agreed with the constructive criticism given to me rather than taking it as harsh judgment and becoming defensive.

The main complaints:

• My attendance is not that great, because there have been several occasions of my not looking closely at the posted schedule.  Yes:  I’m a disorganized kind of guy.  This is something I’m working very, very hard to improve.  Hopefully by this time next year, nothing along these lines will have happened since today.
• My attitude has not been as positive in regards to work.  This seems (in my supervisors’ opinions) to have gotten worse since I started school.  That makes good sense to me; my stress level has gone through the roof in the last seven months, and I’ve stopped being able to enjoy work as much.  If you’ll recall, this was one of the reasons I started this blog:  in the hopes that writing about motivation and determination as they related to work and wages would help me feel positive about the other aspects (i.e. ethical, emotional) of my job that I enjoy.
• My initiative is good, but I have trouble with follow-through because I’m easily side-tracked.  My mind is all over the place.  Again, they observe that this has gotten worse since school started, and I’m not surprised by that.  I’ve always been somewhat easily distractable, and…(ooh, what’s that shiny thing on the other side of the room?)
• …
• …
• Sorry, I’m back.  Anyway, moving on:  I was faulted on “good judgement” for similar reasons; specifically, my time management needs work.  This is another aspect of myself that seems to be improving as my interest in all matters grown-up increases:  along with my budgeting and saving, my time management has improved tremendously in the last month.  So, yes, it’s an issue, but I’ve already started working on it.

And then it was mostly very flattering compliments to finish off the review…making the criticisms much easier to handle.  Or at least easier to absorb.

The interesting thing that occurred to me (halfway through the review, when I wandered off mentally to think about writing this blog entry…just kidding) is that this review of my employment is a very accurate review of my life, too.  All of the above points are issues in my personal, social, and financial lives, as well as in my work life.  Disorganization, distractability, and poor foresight?  These are the reasons I ever developed financial problems to begin with.

So, I did something as in keeping with my newfound enthusiasm for accountability as I could think of:  I asked for periodic reminders from my supervisors if I was failing to improve any of the criticisms.  If I start slipping into pessimism or (god forbid) ditziness, I want to be reminded that I promised I’d work on fixing these issues.

If I’m going to devote so much writing time to asserting accountability upon myself, why not extend that into my work life, too?

Over the weekend, Katie and I went to a monthly game night with half a dozen friends.  This was our third month of actually doing it monthly (after several months of faltering), a trend I hope continues.  In attending – and, last month, hosting – game nights, I’ve learned a few lessons about frugality.

1.  Accept Ridicule With A Smile

When I told a friend at work about our evening’s plans on Saturday, he poked some fun at me.  He said, “You hipsters and your trendy get-togethers.  What’ll it be next month, Bingo?  What ever happened to going out and getting drunk?”  Granted, he was being friendly in his teasing, but it was worth a response.

I told him, “No bars; I’m trying to spend less than I earn for a change.”

“Well,” he said, “you’re working at the wrong job for that.”  A fine point…in fact, the whole point of this blog.  See my first post for the talking points of the rebuttal I could have offered.  Instead, though, I smiled along with him.

“Tell me about it.  But I may as well try, right?”

While his teasing was of a friendly nature, not all the teasing I’ve encountered has been.  People get uncomfortable and annoyed when you tell them you can’t join them for social events due to lack of money.  If a friend who makes $60,000 a year (or, worse, lives off of a high-limit credit card) wants to go out for an expensive meal or to a $30 concert, it’s very difficult to tell them no without some emotional repercussion, be it guilt, shame, or frustration on your part, and sometimes irritation on the part of the friend.

It’s important, though, not to let the emotional impact of having to say “no” weigh you down.  One single lapse in steadfastness born of guilt and peer pressure could end up costing you a $20 trip to a bar or a $30 meal.  When you’ve budgeted (as I have) $30 per paycheck for dining out, that’s nothing to take lightly.

So, learn to say “no” now, so that some day you’ll have enough money that you won’t have to say it any more.  And if you take any flak for it, fight back with a smile and acceptance.  ”Yes,” you should say, “I know I seem cheap.  But it’s better than being broke.”

2.  Accountability, While Sometimes Painful, Pays Off

The weekend prior to game night, we were invited over to a friend’s house for dinner.  I was excited for the get-together, but was dismayed to learn that we weren’t exactly being hosted for dinner, we were supposed to pick up carry-out from the [somewhat overpriced, though very good] Thai restaurant in our building and bring it over.

Now, one of my biggest complaints about our new apartment is that there’s a Thai restaurant directly below us, and our back porch constantly smells like great food that I can’t afford.  Thai is my very favorite cuisine, and I desperately wanted to give in, drop $12 on a meal, and ignore by budget for just one delicious night.  But I objected.  I asked if we couldn’t instead maybe just eat in and join them later for drinks…an idea that was not well-received by Katie.

Of course I don’t have anything bad to say about her…especially not here where she might read it (heehee), but although Katie is the inspiration for my newfound concern with money, she’s still having as much trouble adjusting as I am.  She dated the “careless me” for a whole year, and became accustomed to $12 Thai meals (which she could actually afford, where I’d always put my half on my credit card).  She understood my dilemma, but she’s just not used to not being able to do the things she wants to do.  We ended up eating at home in heavy silence and taking a cheap bottle of wine over later in the night…a nice evening, but tinged with the tension of the “discussion” we’d had earlier.

Cut to Saturday afternoon a week later, and the entire episode is long-forgotten on account of the fact that I’m giddy with excitement for the night of socializing ahead.  It served as a good reminder for both of us that, though I may be forced to deprive myself (and, unfortunately, deprive her by proxy) from time to time, it doesn’t hinder our ability to have a good time…it just hinders our ability to have an expensive good time.

3.  Fun Can Be Inexpensive Without Being Cheap

There’s really nothing more finance-friendly than a game night.  You tackle three cornerstones of good personal finance in one fell swoop:

• Frugality – at $4 each for 6 hours of entertainment, what else could you call it?
• Friendship – spending time with others who appreciate cheap fun as much as you do is excellent reinforcement for your frugal efforts.
• Fun – and what makes for better reward for your efforts than a night of socializing, giggling, and playing games?

Admittedly, when we hosted, Katie and I spent a fair amount of money (maybe $30, after the frozen pizzas, beer, chips and dip).  But we are one of six “households” that attends, so we only have to host every sixth month.  Average our $30 month with the $8-$10 we spend every other time (this weekend we provided a bottle of cheap Trader Joe’s wine, cookies, and ice cream bars…each under $3), and that’s less than $14 – $7 for each of us – per game night.  And, even if no one in our social circle owned any board games (which practically makes me laugh out loud on account of how very many each of us owns), they’re pretty cheap considering the return on investment you get out of years of use.  (This month, we played Quelf, an incredibly fun if slightly frustrating game…more fun and less frustrating with each glass of wine consumed.)  Not to mention the used Monopolys and Scrabbles and Pictionarys one so often sees at thrift and antique stores.

So that’s “frugality.”  In terms of “fun” and “friendship”, it all comes down to operant conditioning.  Unlike the first two lessons in gritting your teeth, accepting the difficult challenges, and sticking to your miserly budget, this third lesson is a direct reward for your efforts.  The principles of operant conditioning tell us that, the more our good behavior is rewarded, the more likely we are to instinctively behave that way in the future.  I know I’m already excited for next month’s game night.  Perhaps this time, the ridicule and tensions that may precede it will be a bit easier to bear, now that I have the positive reward in sight.

Inspired by a fellow blogger’s admirable sense of self-accountability, I thought I, too, could stand to do a mid-month check-up on those New Month’s Resolutions I made.  (Granted, I made them a bit late…just a little over a week ago, but it’s the middle of the month already; I need to make sure I’m getting things done!)

1.  Save 20% of my income to an ING Direct emergency fund. Success!  And then some.  Probably more like 25% thus far in the month.  I’m afraid my overzealous saving has put me into a bit of debt, though.  It’s the “interest-free” kind of debt, but that makes it all the worse, as it’s money borrowed from a loved one.  So perhaps after the next New Month’s Day (read:  February 1st), I’ll make debt repayment a bit more of a priority than emergency savings (as I’ve already almost scraped together enough to cover a month’s expenses!).

2.  Post at least 50% of my “crap” to Ebay or Amazon Marketplace. Haven’t even begun this one yet.  Perhaps I’ll get a bit of that done today…check out my ebay seller’s page if you care to check on my progress (or buy my crap…please, buy my crap).

3.  Add at least 3 entries to this blog each week. So far, I’ve pulled this off, though it’s hardly an impressive feat after only two weeks of blogging.  The real resolution is to keep this up week after week, month after month, year after year.  Check back in 2012 to see how I’m doing with it…

4.  Set aside seven hours a week (average one a day) for studying and homework. Well, I should’ve known myself better than to think I’d follow through on this.  I did maybe 3 hours last week, and I skipped a class.  Ugh.  Okay, I RE-resolve to set aside seven hours a week.  And I’ll actually make an effort this time.

5.  Keep up with my chore list. Not fully applicable, since our apartment has been buried underneath half-unpacked boxes since the move.  But I did finally print the new chore list out last night…and I’ve kept up with it ever since.

In other news, both Katie and I are coming down with colds, mine more severe than hers (as usual).  I’ll try not to let that become an excuse for not keeping up with my already-faltering goals.  For now, though:  vitamin C overload!

Katie and I had a lesson in bargain-hunting last week.  We had talked about how to furnish the new apartment, and decided we were going to get a couch.  Well, loveseat, actually, on account of space restrictions, but the shopping destinations were the same:  no thrift stores (sadly) on account of the worsening bedbug problem in Chicago.  We were stuck getting a new couch, in spite of our green sensibilities begging us not to.  And, as we have both noticed and many of our friends have agreed in recent conversations, Ikea just isn’t the bargain it used to be, given the shoddy and uncomfortable nature of their products.

Anyway, shopping day arrived, and I was busy with frantically packing boxes at the time (hadn’t completed my move yet…still haven’t, in fact), so Katie went out for the initial round of shopping solo.  She came back with a few couches in mind, but they were all from the sort of discount warehouse store that I’ve always assumed were for the direly impoverished (of course, I guess I’m not much better than direly impoverished myself at the moment)…better than buying furniture from Wal-Mart, but only by a little.

A friend, hearing where we had found our couch, suggested that we check out some of the nicer furniture stores in Chicago to see if they had any floor models for sale.  It was, after all, just days after the New Year…furniture-discount-shopping season.  (Apparently this is when new models have just shipped and old ones are being heavily discounted.)  Taking her advice, we checked out a couple of nicer stores, and got a lesson in…well, several things.

The first place we went, neither of us had ever heard of.  Pretty much the moment we walked in, we knew it was out of our price range, but we looked around for a few minutes anyway, and eventually one of the saleswomen (who I’d been trying to avoid) approached us.

“Hello, how can we help you?,” she asked in a thick Eastern European accent.

I’d practiced:  ”Hi.  We’re in the market for a new couch, and we were sort of doing some budget shopping, wondering if you had any floor model discounts or anything.”

She looked mildly disappointed.  ”Great,” she probably thought, “I got stuck with cheapskates.”  She showed us to her most steeply discounted floor model available, a gorgeous sofa (read:  future cat scratching post) marked down from $1600 to $1200.

“Okay,” I said, uncertain of how to phrase it, “Twelve hundred is a bit out of our price range.  We have another couch in mind, and we were just looking to see if we could find something better for the same price.”

“And how much is the other couch?”

I paused, took a quick look around at the quality of furniture around me, and said, probably not without a trace of shame, “A little under five hundred.”

She proceeded to lecture us about the shoddy production methods that go into furniture so cheap and showed us to a $1000 couch that was absolutely beautiful.  We let her give us her spiel about how $1000 doesn’t need to be put down immediately:  ”This is actually the last month that you can enroll in our six-month, no-money-down financing program, because the government is taking it away.”

I thought to myself, “Perhaps that’s because it’s a total rip-off to consumers who don’t know any better and the government is trying to protect them from you,” but I of course said nothing.  Instead, I let her take down some of my information and give us a business card, as though we were actually considering spending twice what we’d budgeted on a couch that would, as mentioned previously, be a glorified cat toy.

Walking into the next furniture store, I promised Katie that it wouldn’t take so long this time.  I told the first saleswoman we saw what we were looking for and she showed me her cheapest floor model.  It was too much; I told her so.

“How much were you looking to spend?” she asked.

“We have a couch in mind for five hundred.  We’d maybe be able to go slightly over that, but not by much.  Just bargain hunting.”

She gave us a similar (if less extensive/scolding) lecture to that of the woman in the previous store, and told us she could show us her custom models starting at $800.  ”But,” she assured us, “our couches come with lifetime warranties, which you probably won’t find on a $500 couch.”

She had us there.  But it was beside the point:  we didn’t have an extra $300 to blow on furniture, and I wasn’t about to put $800 on a credit card that I’d finally gotten down to a zero balance.  So I told her we didn’t want to waste her time, that we couldn’t swing the extra money, and thanked her for her time.  She thanked me, too…I think she appreciated the honesty.  Even though I think we may have been the only customers there, I think she was more excited by the prospect of looking around for another customer who might actually earn her a decent commission.  (Katie thanked me, too, as it was terribly uncomfortable and unnecessarily humbling to repeatedly be shown luxurious items that we couldn’t afford.)

We decided that there seemed to be a gap between the two types of furniture:  there was the nice type that came with lifetime warranties because it was meant to last forever; and there was the cheap kind that fell apart after a few years, the sort you might buy if, say, you were planning on attending vet school out of state, moving repeatedly in the next decade, and not settling down with nice or permanent things until your mid-thirties.  We qualified pretty perfectly for the second sort of furniture, so:

Thor believes we bought the couch for him.

$544, all told:  loveseat, tax, delivery, and stain-resistance treatment.  The last fee seemed like it was both a ripoff and a great idea at the same time…has anyone had any experience with this sort of thing?  Is the treatment worth the $60 (or however much) for a microfiber couch?  Does it really matter if one of my cats is going to tear the arms of the thing to shreds within a short amount of time?  Too late now, I suppose.  But, regardless of how the couch holds up over the course of the next few years (months?  I hope not…), trying to find the best deal was an important lesson in humility, in sacrificing our good taste, and in settling for less when necessary.  And even after visiting the furniture stores for the wealthy and sitting on the spring-cushioned lap of luxury, we’re happy with the fruits of our limited budget.

Yesterday I took Thor, my oldest cat, in to work to see the doctor.  It was bad news all around.

Thor has a condition known as hyperthyroidism, which requires medication twice daily.  The doctor thinks, on account of some suspicious bloodwork and the fact that his appetite has not been as insatiable as usual, that his thyroid may be acting up, in which case he would require more medication.  Or, she thinks, he may have troubles with his pancreas, which would require still more medication.  In the long view, I’m having to come to terms with the fact that Thor is in his declining years (hopefully years, rather than months).  This utterly breaks my heart, as he is (sorry, other three cats) my favorite animal in the universe.  In the short term, though, I’m feeling guilty for being so shallow as to dread the cost of his new health issues.

I haven’t yet done the research on exactly how much money this will all cost me…working in the industry, I get all prescribed medicine at cost value, but it still adds up.  Based on estimations (I don’t have a price book handy), my approximate monthly Thor medicine cost is presently:

The Thor In Question

• Thyroid medication:  $12.00
• Appetite stimulant:  $8.00
• Anti-emetic (anti-vomit) injections:  $25.00

…for a total of roughly $45.00 per month.  And now, we may be adding:

• 25% more thyroid medication:  $3.00
• Antacid:  $3.00
• Laxative:  $5.00
• Fluids for subcutaneous hydration:  $10.00

…for a total of roughly $66.00 per month.  And if it is his thyroid acting up, once it regulates he may start showing signs of kidney function issues (not uncommon in hyperthyroid cats…plus, he’s been drinking more water than usual lately), which would require special (read:  300% price increase) food.

Way down here in my tax bracket, it’s difficult to remember the purpose of owning pets when they’re costing so very much money.  But Thor?  Thor is amazing.  Absolutely worth it.  He has more personality than a fair number of people I’ve known, and shows more affection than literally any cat I’ve ever encountered in my four years of working with the little beasts.  Not to mention, as you can plainly see, he’s one of the more gorgeous creatures ever.

His ear is crumpled as the result of the removal of an abscess as a younger, more spry man.  His upper canines have been removed on account of periodontal disease, so his lower canines sometimes catch on his upper lip, giving him a snarled look.  His vision is poor so his pupils are always almost fully dilated, and he’s deaf so he always looks alertly around himself (usually to see if there’s a human in his vicinity that he could pester for food and/or petting).

He grew up on the streets of Chicago, and was cared for as a stray by an old man with a big dog (I think it was a Rottweiler, but I may be wrong about that).  The old man would leave food out for the stray cat (then unnamed), who gradually became friendlier and soon slept on the porch when the man was sitting outside.  Eventually, Thor became comfortable enough that he would sleep next to or on the dog, and soon became so attached that he would follow them on their walks.  Eventually, the dog passed away, and not long after, so did the man.  A friendly neighbor who was unable to care for the cat but unwilling to leave him on the streets without the comfortable support of the man, admitted him to our shelter (where he was named “Thor” by an employee wanting to give him a strong name…we found out a few days after selecting this moniker that the old man’s last name had been Thorsten…weird).

And eventually my ex-girlfriend and I adopted him.  I got custody in the break-up, and he has since followed me to three different homes.  He’s cost me enough money to teach me that pet ownership is nothing to take lightly, in terms of money.  If all four of our cats (three mine, one Katie’s…introductions forthcoming) were as sickly as Thor, I’d be in some serious trouble, and that’s something I hadn’t considered in adopting so many.  This is a good example of the poor foresight I have utilized in my life prior to my quest to fix my money situation…I focused too much on the short term, too little on the long term; too much on the emotional benefits and not enough on the financial burdens.

And it’s too late now; Thor is here to stay.  As I indicated in my first post, I’m somewhat crazy about my cats, and would not give any of them up for any financial hardship short of homelessness.  So, bring it on, little malfunctioning kitty thyroid; I can take your worst.  Because damn it, I’m in control of my money, not you.

So, I’m sort of a beginner at frugality. I’d imagine I’ll go into more depth on that issue at some point in the near future; for now, I’ll just say that I haven’t paid a lot of attention to my spending habits until recently. And it’s not been an easy transition. Some things are just difficult to wean myself off of. Buying a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee every day before work? That habit was so easy to drop that it seems ridiculous I ever had it to begin with. But there are a few adjustments I’ve made to my daily life that I can’t quite get the hang of. And one of them is particularly trying in the winter months.

Chicago, if you’re unaware, gets viciously cold. The wind slices down between buildings into concentrated, sub-freezing tunnels, requiring some heavy-duty winter protection for even brief exposures. It’s not atypical for wind-chills to dip below zero degrees several days a week this time of year. This is torture for me, because I live just within convenient walking distance (by my definition of “convenient walking distance,” anyway…about a mile and a half) from work. Now, if I lived three miles from work, I’d have no qualms paying the $2.00 to take the bus (I can’t afford to have a car yet); but with only a 25-minute walk, it pains me to spend the money even in dangerously low temperatures.

Since the trip to work is one of the first things I do in a typical day, it tends to set a mood for the rest of the day. Therefore, given my new and still-occasionally-flimsy sense of frugality, it’s important for me to start off on a thrifty note and skip the bus ride. Otherwise I may find myself losing focus of my goals and ordering $9 Thai food for my lunch break, or buying one of the $1 candy bars they keep in the kitchen at work. But damn it, it’s been difficult to talk myself into the long, cold walk at 6:30 am, and I needed a strategy to keep myself motivated. I thought of something I read in a GetRichSlowly post somewhat recently, advice for fulfilling financial goals–specifically goals unrelated to my own, but regardless, it seemed to fit my situation pretty perfectly:

“Develop a plan that is so amazing, so glowing, that you are willing to walk blurry-eyed to work every day to make the money necessary to reach the light.”

So, rather than a “plan,” I developed an idealistic and blown-up version of the old adage “a penny saved is a penny earned.” What I’ve been doing is, quite simply, thinking as grandly as possible about the money I’m saving by walking. A $2.00 bus fare, pocketed rather than spent, can’t do much, admittedly, but $2.00 saved twice a day (walking to and from work rather than busing it) for a week is $20.00. That’s about $1000 a year. And $1000, invested at 12% gain for six years, becomes about $2000. Another four years and it’s $3000, not to mention all the money I’d have saved by walking rather than busing to work in the mean time. Plus, bus fares have been increasing with such regularity that the amount of savings will likely increase on a yearly basis, while the amount of walking I do will stay exactly the same.

So, though this is a blindly optimistic analysis of saving $2 every morning, it’s worked out for me so far. If anyone has any suggestions for back-up motivational plans in case this one starts to fail me at some point (like, for instance, if I start to think too hard about the flawed logic of it), I’d appreciate suggestions. ‘Til then, I’m spending my walks to and from work daydreaming, making plans for what I’ll do with my $3000 bus fund in the winter of 2020.

—–

Note:  with school starting up again today, I’m afraid public transit will again become an unavoidable burden in my life.  I can still save money by making the walk from home to work, but school is nowhere near walking distance, and costs me $22 a week to travel to and from.  Perhaps a used car would be worth the investment?  I’ll investigate this, and maybe blog about it soon.

I’ve been reading a lot about goal-setting in order to make it a priority in my own life.  Certainly, one of this blog’s chief purposes is to serve as a tool for self-accountability.  And how convenient that I should start said blog during the time of year when the practice of goal-setting runs at its most rampant.

I’ve never been much of a New Year’s Resolution guy, though.  Like 90% of the world, I tend to give up on my resolutions after about a month.  But admitting that about myself got me thinking about a regular blog feature I’d like to start in the spirit of the well-intentioned but poorly-executed New Year’s Resolution:  a more practical, if less monumental, New Month’s Resolution.

I’ll start off small, as the largesse of past resolutions has been their ultimate downfall.  For January, 2010, I resolve to:

1.  Save 20% of my income to an ING Direct emergency fund. This will be an ongoing goal for the first several months of 2010.  I’ve lived without an emergency fund for three years since graduating college, and thank god no serious emergencies have presented themselves…not that there weren’t plenty of minor emergencies inconveniences charged to my credit card along the way.  It’s high time I get that started.  I hope to build at least $1000 up before moving on to other financial goals.  (Yes, I recently read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover.  I’d post a review, but I’m sure every blogger ever to even mention money in their writing has already done so.)

2.  Post at least 50% of my “crap” to Ebay or Amazon Marketplace. I’m very proud of the massive purge of books, CDs, and DVDs I undertook before moving in with Katie this month, but the “purged” items are still sitting in boxes, waiting to be sold or donated to someone.  There’s enough there for me to potentially make hundreds of dollars, if I’m willing to put in the time and effort.  I need to be sure I stay willing.

3.  Add at least 3 entries to this blog each week. I’ll try not to mention blogging too much within these blog entries (how meta), but this one needs to be stated explicity, particularly when I’m just starting out.  I don’t want to lose focus on this newfound excitement for writing, and I could see that happening, given the fact that I’m starting school this week.  Which brings me to:

4.  Set aside seven hours a week (average one a day) for studying and homework. No, this doesn’t sound like much, but I’m only taking one class this semester due to scheduling complications, so 7 hours a week should get me a guaranteed ‘A,’ which I’ll need when it comes time to apply to vet schools.

5.  Keep up with my chore list. Maybe I’ll go into detail about this list at some point, but basically, I have a checklist of daily and weekly chores that I occasionally stop following with the fervor I should.  I want to stay on top of these tasks, given that I’m now a live-in boyfriend who must try to keep up the appearance that he’s a responsible adult (in spite of the fact that I secretly know that’s a lie).  I know, goals are supposed to be specific, but I can’t quite figure out how to get more detailed about this without getting exceedingly detailed.  And no one wants to read in detail about all the gross cleaning I have to do around the house.

Hopefully, if I remember, I’ll check in at the beginning of February to evaluate my success in meeting these resolutions, to set new ones, and to wish you all a Happy New Month again.  In the mean time, enjoy your January, and come back soon.

I recently moved in with my girlfriend.  I’ll set a personal tone here by actually telling you her name, so I don’t have to bother with anonymity:  Katie and I (I’m Justin, by the way…nice to meet you, too) have been dating for about a year now.  She’s a vet assistant, too, but at a private practice animal hospital.  Translation:  she makes an actual vet assistant wage, whereas I earn roughly half as much.  She and I, if I may say so, are a pretty great couple, but the gap between our separate financial situations has always made each of us a bit uneasy, whether openly or not.

The question I privately posed to myself in the month leading up to the move (it was a quick decision…very short notice before we combined residences) was, of course, “How is this going to work out, financially?”  Now, Katie is the chief reason for my financial renaissance, if you could call it that.  She’s very careful (yes, conservative) with her money, and mostly kept her mouth shut about my less restrained financial behavior in the first nine months or so of our relationship.  But when I put my first $25 “investment” into Kiva.org, a charitable microlending site, she finally spoke up.

No, she’s not a heartless bitch (can I say bitch here? Is that acceptable?); she understands the value in giving to charity.  But – she was quick to remind me – didn’t I have a few thousand dollars in credit card debt?  I insisted that it was important for me to stay in touch with my caring, charitable side, and not to be bogged down by the stress of my near-poverty status.  Money, I told myself, is only the concern of the cold and joyless.

In my last serious relationship, I dated a girl who also works for my non-profit employer (that is a very long and complicated story that will not be explored at this time), so I had had my financial outlook somewhat shaped by her combination of low income and carefree attitude.  One particularly appealing idea she had turned me onto was a tradition in her family:  “Sometimes you’ve got to celebrate being poor.”  This is what she would say when she put her credit card on the table to pay for a $20 meal at a restaurant when she knew there was no money left from her paycheck to pay for it.  This became a regular occurrence.  And I thought:  “Yes.  This is the right attitude to have.  Happiness is more important than money.”

But the two are anything but mutually exclusive, which is something Katie has taught me, whether intentionally or not.  She and I have practically founded our relationship on a mutual love of “old people pastimes”–cribbage on her back porch, watching The Golden Girls and drinking tea in her living room, game nights with friends, houseplant care and gardening.  (Man, that’s a lame list.  We may as well just live in a retirement home.)  I’ve had more free fun with her than I’ve ever had expensive fun with anyone I’ve ever dated.

So when she called me out for essentially giving money I didn’t have to a total stranger in Kenya, I was forced to admit that she had a point.  That compelled me to listen to a podcast or two (I’m a podcast junky) that dealt with the lack of financial literacy in America, and ever since then, improving my own financial literacy has become one of my top priorities.  But, even as I’m entering the third month of my – what did I call it before?  ah, yes – “financial renaissance,” the idea of financial accountability to a live-in girlfriend intimidates me.

Now, let me clarify that in spite of my low income, I’ve never failed to pay a single rent check, utility bill, or credit payment on time.  This is not the accountability I’m referring to.  I’m referring to the fact that, if I feel lazy and buy a frozen dinner instead of cooking for myself, I have to either smuggle it into the apartment and eat it still-frozen in some corner where she can’t see me, or I have to confess to her that I’m wasting money out of shear laziness.

I should clarify that I know that THIS IS A GOOD THING.  That’s the value of accountability, to keep me from behaving poorly.  But I can’t buy into the idea that never getting to indulge the hedonist in me is a good thing.  Every man, responsible or not, healthy or not, sensible or not, should be allowed at least one item of gross, overpriced, artificial, processed food per month.

But, with my new accountability partner, even if we reached such an arrangement (yes, what relationship could ever make it without the “Occasional Hot Pocket Allowance Clause”?), I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my indulgence without feeling dumb about it.  Food wouldn’t be the only thing:  what about CDs?  Books?  Video games?  Any impulse buy I could imagine making would be essentially ruined by my own sense of guilt.

…and every time I end a paragraph with a sentence like that, I come closer to realizing that no, there’s really no down side to this situation.  Accountability is a good thing.  It’s just a good thing that deprives me of being an irresponsible ass (not to mention, one with poor taste…I really do love Hot Pockets).  And that intimidates me, because I have a rich history of irresponsible, assy behavior.  But this whole thing, this whole renaissance, is all about leaving that behind.  So I guess I’ll just squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself for the arrival of a new, responsible me, no relapses allowed, lest I be judged – or, God forbid, maybe even made fun of – by the lovely girl who jump-started my transformation to begin with.